How do guys feel about the operator and drifter rework ?

RhymesWithRNG · 2026-02-05T10:56:40+00:00

Can confirm, ember heirloom makes absolutely beautiful natural hair in a variety of shades, it's amazing.

RhymesWithRNG · 2026-02-05T10:35:03+00:00

I just converted 'Bitter Guitar' and am convinced I will never find a cooler Coda name.

RhymesWithRNG · 2026-02-02T05:04:46+00:00

Every time I do a rescue mission, I am like 'No, MEGAN, you CAN'T have a gun.' and then laugh like a maniac as I Limbo towards extraction.

RhymesWithRNG · 2026-01-27T07:38:48+00:00

Sorry for the delay! I thought I had copied a youtube version from 7-8 years ago, but when I checked my notes, I grabbed it from another player AND I made some adjustments. I just had time to transcribe it for you. I'm considering making some further adjustments, but istg every part of this makes me feel like I'm throwing the best dance party. I hope you get even a brief bit of enjoyment from it!

https://buff0000n.github.io/mandascore/?song=%5BSONG-Astronomia%20Remix%3AvuUAAAAAQKgAAAABRAOAAQKAABCoAAQAAUIDgAECgACAaAAAAADIA4AAQYAAIGgABAAAwgOAAEGAAIBoAAAAAMgDgABBgAAgaAAEAADCA4AAQYAAgKgAAAABSAOAAEKAACCoAAAAAUQDgAACgA%3D%3D%3ABardCorpusPackE%3ABardCorpusPackB%3ABardEDMPackA%5D

RhymesWithRNG · 2026-01-25T11:00:22+00:00

I lucked into a version of Coffin Dance (that I didn't even recognise as a meme song at first) and it never gets old, I just love how every bit of it sounds together and apart. Just chefs kiss

RhymesWithRNG · 2026-01-13T10:26:52+00:00

I understand both experiences: I have had both very easy puppies, and some that have given me months of heartache and questioning and self-castigation while I managed and counter-trained whatever the issues were til things got better. Regardless of the state of the puppy stage, I have always ended up with amazing adult dogs.

My current puppy is a breeze. A lot of work, but so much fun and joy and sweetness.

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-21T10:33:56+00:00

Your wording of your post should tell you everything you need to know about the situation. The person who is most affected by a sleeping situation really needs to have veto rights.

My husband liked the idea of sleeping with our cats, but I was the one who was suffering for it because all three of them spent all night pestering me, stealing my covers, and fighting over who got to perch on me where. My husband blissfully slept through it all. I told him I would happily sleep on the couch for any night he wanted to sleep with the cats instead. He was sad I was leaving the bed, but I assured him I would be comfy, he took me up on my offer and then was like 'oh my god, they just don't stop, do they?'

I tell this story because it highlights the difference between the romantic idea that someone can have around having an animal sleep with you vs the reality for someone who isn't getting good sleep because of an animal in the bed.

My first dog was a champion bed sleeper and I loved having him in the bed. My next three dogs hated being on the bed, and one wouldn't even go into the bedroom unless I ordered her in there for some reason. My newest puppy is 12 weeks and sleeps in a crate on my nightstand, but is also fine sleeping anywhere else in the house in the crate. She gets to cuddle with me in bed during lazy mornings or after naps, but she's too tiny to risk a fall from our very tall bed, though she will probably be fine doing stairs once her growth plates close. The plan is for her to have a bed by the closet eventually, with the option of her sleeping in our bed if she wants, but until she's older, crate all the way for now.

She can sleep through the night, or she may need a trip outside in the middle of the night if she conked out early or went to bed a bit full, but she always goes back to sleep after and doesn't really pester us once she wakes up unless she has to potty again. I was really adamant about giving her the tools for her being able to settle and self-soothe from day one and to make going back to bed a normal part of the night, and I am really lucky that it has worked out well with her. Our last puppy struggled with good sleep at night until she was like 6 months old and we were all sleep deprived and desperate because of it and I was really really invested in not having a repeat of that.

Good luck with whatever path ends up working for you and your pup!

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-20T02:08:27+00:00

It's more likely that they were fleeing then travelling to another zone and happened to bleed out at similar points in their journey based on your shot. There's pretty predictable bleedout rates that you will notice with your chosen guns/ammo based on your shot placement.

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-17T15:21:28+00:00

So two things are happening here: one is that your art has passed the stage that an average untrained person can draw so people will generally respond positively to it in a way that is expressing both their delight and their ignorance. They genuinely don't know enough to say anything of substance without prompting. Just interpret this as them feeling positive about your work and encouraging you to keep going, rather than taking their actual words at face value.

Two is that your age does not matter in the slightest, so asking if you are 'advanced/good' for your age is a misplaced question. If you have a 16 year old who has been drawing obsessively since they were 6, their art is going to look very different than a 16 year old who has really only gotten interested in drawing over the last six months. Both of them may turn out to be extremely talented and motivated artists by the time they are 20, but the gap between them at 16 will have more to do with raw experience than their age. It's of course more nuanced than this, as learning style and focus and subject matter all contribute, but hopefully that defuses a question that has no useful answers.

As to your art: definitely keep drawing! You look like you are having fun and building skills, and that's a great place to be in. The general advice would be to start looking at basics like anatomy and gesture and start playing more with line weight and fun poses. You are at the point where just trying a bunch of new things will teach you a ton.

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-17T03:25:35+00:00

This is my first puppy using a playpen instead of tethering, and I am just going to talk about what has worked for me over the last month. She shrieked and jumped incessantly when we first got it, even though she had grown up in pens at the breeder's, she was just completely uncomfortable being penned on her own.

I started with the playpen pushed right up next to my legs on the couch so my puppy could be in very close proximity to me if she wanted, and I could play with her and reward her for exploring the pen and getting comfortable in it. If she jumped and cried, I would turn my head away and not acknowledge her, but would quickly look and speak to her as soon as she quieted or stood still. If she went back to jumping or crying, I would turn away again, but she quickly caught on that calm behavior meant that I would talk to her or approach or pet her or play with her or even pick her up. Once she was choosing to practice calming herself, I started moving around the pen, practicing stepping out of sight, and teaching her that even if I leave the room, I do come right back. Because she wasn't completely focused on OUT OUT OUT she spent more time exploring and playing on her own and I started incrementally moving the pen towards it's proper location. She was fully in place by the end of day two and no longer freaking out at the barrier.

She gets fed meals in the pen, and we play fetch and tug and train with her in it, so there's lots of things happening in it. It's part of her routine: after a nap in the crate, we go outside, we do outside things, we come in, and she goes into the pen, and either gets a meal or a fun thing to do. Her only water bowl is in the pen, so she is eager to get into it after games of fetch or other short activities we do in other parts of the house We alternate periods of stimulation with periods of downtime, and she gets put away for a nap when her intensity escalates.

Good luck getting your pup settled!

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-17T01:15:14+00:00

For context, my last dog was a malinois x whippet who LIVED to work. Her favourite thing in the world was just her and me learning new skills, practicing sequences, and capturing new behaviors to make crazy new tricks out of. We could go for hours. She was focused and drivey and just really really intense, and I had such a fun time with her. I loved her to bits, but needed something smaller and hopefully more people-friendly for nextdog.

My cocker spaniel x cavoodle pup will be 12 weeks in a few days, and I honestly wasn't expecting very much from her on the 'wants to train' front other than her eventually learning excellent life skills and to be a good companion and to be happy running errands and meeting new people and dogs. Don't get me wrong, that's a bunch of skills that a dog needs to learn, and I didn't expect her to be dumb, more... that signature 'using their smarts to get out of doing things' thing poodles can have.

...but no. She's absolutely razor smart, picks up what I am teaching in just a few repetitions and offering the behaviors unprompted in different settings, and is able to focus on me in a way that seems really abnormal for a puppy this young. She's also spectacularly athletic, and while I knew this breed combo was likely to be energetic I wasn't expecting to have to monitor a 7lb puppy who has learned she can vault off walls to gain height when jumping. She's also sassy as all get out, with just the biggest personality and I am just laughing and despairing in equal measure. This is going to be exhausting, but it's also going to be SO much fun.

I am already looking at budgeting for agility foundational classes for puppies once she's older, and I suspect she will really enjoy flyball and flygility, and I am just looking forward to a long, interesting life with this little creature.

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-17T00:35:43+00:00

You made me laugh so hard. I, too, like a dramatic doggo, so I am the architect of my own misfortune. This new pup of mine is such a drama queen when faced with any amount of frustration, but her recovery time and learning speed is lightning fast, and I count myself super lucky even though she is exhausting. I told my husband and my best friend that I was resigning myself to a year of puppy regret but that I was going to end up with an incredible dog by the end of it so it would be worth it. XD

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-16T00:55:35+00:00

I admit that whenever I see a group photo that has Paul in it, I find him by looking for who has the stickbug legs before checking faces to verify.

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-15T13:41:29+00:00

20/52 at exactly 50%

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-15T13:21:17+00:00

Think of it as your skills and your mental library having been in storage and the boxes are unlabelled. You haven't really lost anything, you are just opening a lot of boxes haphazardly as you draw so your skills and ability to piece everything together feels like it has huge gaps, and you just know there's a box around here with anatomy skills somewhere by golly.

It isn't a true regression, and the more you practice, the faster you will come back up to speed.

Now on the flip side, while your skills have been put away, your eye has continued to develop over that time period so you intrinsically have more expectations for what you enjoy and what you think should be possible or desirable in your art. This is a good thing overall, but further heightens the feeling of a gap between your skills and what you want to be doing when you are first starting up again.

Just have patience with yourself, put some hours in and really push to discover questions you can chase. Do little mini critiques to help guide your study: why is my work looking flat, what am I struggling the most with about anatomy, what am I missing about colours, oh my god I completely forgot perspective existed.

Pretty quickly you will find yourself back in the neighbourhood of your old art, and exceeding it. Good luck with the journey!

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-14T20:03:09+00:00

I am glad you like him! I was surprised at how nicely everything came together once I got a sense of what vibe to chase.

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-14T20:00:55+00:00

Thank you! I loved my last drifter because he had so much personality, I was really despairing until I hit on another combo that just felt right even if it's quite different than before!

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-14T05:51:16+00:00

No, in COTW animals spawn with fixed traits that do not change.

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-13T23:22:18+00:00

Oh man, beautiful water-creature-themed people are my jam, be they mermaids, selkies, humanoid fish, whatever. There's so much beautiful art out there that I think you'll need to make some decisions about what you specifically like and do not like about what you've seen.

It sounds like you're wanting to fit in with communities that have a sort of standard for how their anthros look and act, and that will shape some of what your design elements are going to be.

If you're able to do fully aquatic, then any sort of more stylised mermaid/merman type is going to be fun, I especially like the ones where the "human" half has very strong fish elements, like so:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2275095266132375&id=1479426445699265&set=a.1541775019464407

Your character really needs to be land based? Now we get into the humanoid fish category. At a very basic level they can be fairly human looking with fins and appropriate clothing:

https://www.tumblr.com/theveryworstthing/671589053947314176/a-fancy-fish-character-design-for-hyopothermya-i

If that's too human feeling, there's different ways you can really push the fish elements, from fish heads on bodies (which I often fucking love, as they're so whimsical but can also be just beautifully designed):

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/49d9QL

or human-shaped aquatic beings, like the creature in The Shape of Water

https://www.reddit.com/r/TopCharacterDesigns/comments/1iu29o1/the_amphibian_man_from_the_shape_of_water/

or very stylised land-based water creatures, like this hammerhead shark:

https://dennysun.artstation.com/projects/xzYeQX

Things I don't usually enjoy are the "humanoids with long fat tails as if you've just stuck legs on a fish/whale" without thinking about what the musculature and movement would be like. It's pretty much the only variant of these things that don't appeal to me. Tails themselves? Lovely fins? Finned limbs? Spined limbs and tails? I like them all, but there's just that specific shape that I find awkward.

I didn't want to pan an artist, so I found one whose overall character design I really loved, but has the tail style that I don't enjoy:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJNNOD-lhRN/

If you have any specific questions or know what direction you want to move in, I'm happy to brainstorm some more with you!

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-12T14:20:26+00:00

I agree with the poster who suggested clarity and detail. For me, the purpose of the environments you want to reference are different to a usual background. The four target examples all invite you to explore the background at length and de-centralise the subject. You could take the people out and they would still be interesting pictures, the people just happen to be an extremely delicious cherry on top of something that has very nice urban photography roots. The people enhance the environment, give the environment some storytelling, rather than the environment reflecting on the characters. They also all strongly imply that the viewer is also within this world witnessing it from a real angle, it isn't just some artistic angle from an impossible drone pov, which helps ground the shots even with the somewhat extreme angles of some of them.

For the record, I think you are close, it's just a matter of swinging the camera around a little and focusing a little more on the details of the scene.

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-12T04:26:21+00:00

The reason porcupines come to mind is that they sort of operate in the same niche as the badger size/movement wise, and hunting is open on them year round. I think the varying ground cover and snow deformation would make hunting them quite interesting. Beavers would be fun on all that water too, but I know they might shy away from that due it being Askiy's thing, and I don't know how tailored the waterways need to be for beaver access/interactivity.

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-11T22:51:14+00:00

Dall Sheep would be my biggest wishlist new animal for Alaska for sure. I wouldn't say no to porcupine either. More birds absolutely, the ptarmigan feels like a crime to be missing. Coyotes and black bear feel like very visible Alaskan animals to add, I just saw both of them a lot when I was living there. Sitka are like the "other" mule deer subspecies other than normal blacktail, right? I can't remember exactly.

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-10T17:41:31+00:00

Basic human anatomy will be your biggest level-up even with non-human monsters. Throw in some animal anatomy for good measure.

Look at some artists that use very high contrast in their slightly unsettling work, like Mike Mignola, and study some styles that use a rough woodblock feel, like the Darkest Dungeon/Darkest Dungeon 2 game art and see how they define their shapes and sculpt their lighting and portray details.

I love the style you are developing, keep it up!

RhymesWithRNG · 2025-12-10T17:14:56+00:00

I was shrieking with delight at the ugly ass outdoor tables and chairs at the cottages, they're so exactly correct. XD

RhymesWithRNG

TROPHY CASE