9/12/25 Friday
15 tips for distinctive character art (with samples). These are good pointers and it's for character art, not just art in general:
1. Strike the perfect pose: A character’s pose communicates personality and emotion without words; consider interaction with the environment and subtle facial/hand angles to convey story.
2. Use anatomy as a foundation: Focus on bone and muscle structure to create believable, natural poses, even in a stylized style.
3. Remember that less is more: Simplify backgrounds and use selective color or minimal detail to emphasize pose, anatomy, and expression.
4. Colour as an emotional tool: Use warm colors for energy/passion and cool colors for calm/mystery to reinforce the character’s emotion and mood.
5. Highlight the personality of your character: Use minimal backgrounds and strategic elements to keep the character’s personality front and center.up
6. Guide the composition with patterns: Employ simple patterns or repeating shapes to direct attention and create visual flow, not just literal backgrounds.
7. Master composition: Consider character interaction, posture, gaze, and placement to tell the story without words; elements like a sword cut or moonlight can imply narrative importance.
8. Perfect lighting and contrast: Use light and shadow to define form, create emotion, and add depth; adjust lighting to make the subject stand out against a minimalist backdrop.
9. Remember that movement brings characters to life: Convey motion through pose, gaze direction, and element arrangement, even in static images.
10. Use body language: Posture, gaze, and hand positioning convey emotion and intention; a single pose change can communicate a lot.
11. Give your characters charisma:
A) Sketch the energy
B) Clean up and shadows
C) Add color, depth, and attitude
This workflow helps establish a strong attitude from the initial sketch through lighting and color.
12. Focus the viewer's gaze: Direct attention with contrast, lines, and gesture direction; minimize distractions to emphasize a key expression.
13. Balance the visual rhythm: Alternate busy areas with simple ones to avoid crowding and help the character stand out.
14. Create details that tell stories: Each accessory, scar, or torn garment should communicate something about the character; fewer, intentional elements carry more weight.
15. If the silhouette reads, it works: Start from strong silhouettes; vary proportions, angles, and poses to create distinct designs that read well even in shadow.
9/10/25 Wednesday
Just when I'm starting to like and follow him for about a year or so, Charlie Kirk (1993-2025), he had to get himself assassinated in Utah campus. The shooter's still at large (update 9/12/25 Suspect identified as Tyler Robinson who confessed the crime to his family which reported him to authority). Allegedly shooting from 130 meters away with a single professional shot. I first found out about this the night of the day he was killed in VR BigScreen where there's so many channels titled "RIP Charlie Kirk" and I thought it was a joke or something until the next day morning I realized from some Facebook posts that it was real. I managed to find some close to uncensored videos (it's not easy finding uncensored videos of such as they get removed by Western pampered ideology media as soon as they were posted, but I found them - both Kirk and Zarutska's killing and now stored into my drive, had to use Russian's Yandex search engine to find these), which I'll save to my Journal drive in case they take it down. These videos tend to get blurred or cut at the gory part.
Mr. You believed the song that's most apt for Kirk's funeral is Bob Dylan's The Times They are a Changin':
The media is crazy around the world for this because it's like Trump's assassination but only this time Kirk's killed. Allie Stuckey also commented on working with Charlie:
He's done the debate rounds in major campuses and rings:
I've followed Kirk long enough to know, that he's certainly smart. Leaning towards fundamentalist Evangelical Christian, probably a Sabbatarian, but also Old Earth Creationist, not willing stand on matters for or against human evolution, etc. He's certainly tried to play fair with the left, giving them plenty of speaking space, although there are places where he's only caring about winning when he has met his matches (i.e. when a Catholic student challenged him on Christian Nationalism, a Liberal Socialist tried to engage a mature debate with him on a topic that he was less inclined to respond and more on attacking the label Liberal Socialist" as oxymoronic, etc.).
My only problem with Kirk, like Trump, is Christian Nationalism (Or a Christian who is also a Nationalist, as he preferred to put it in one of the debates with students): That America is the greatest and best country in the world, which is obviously proven otherwise by school shootings. This is by any common sense of any political party, a proud bias. The general rhetoric is: If you don't like America, then leave. This kind of ideology is never going to build any bridges with outsiders. You only make your own supporters more hard headed and lower IQ. People don't come here only because they think America is great. Some came here for $$$, some for family, and thus, they would not like other aspects of America. I do wonder what do all the Christian Nationalists say about this news. I only looked up Stephen Wolfe's tweets and found nothing much other than his reposts of someone else's tweets around Sept. 10. There's a TYT video circling around since 6 years ago where Kirk lost it with Cenk (liberal) of TYT and it resurfaced now and the Kirkians are in denial of it, calling it made up by A.I. because they worship Kirk:
I wonder if the wife (Erika) could see the perpetrator. I wonder if she would forgive him (which would make her no smaller person than her husband). The law would probably still execute him regardless. Nationalism is not the way, discerning good and bad persons are not the ultimate goal. Only the Gospel, only the difference between a dead or a living soul that matters.
How Kirk honored or served God (he did say he wanted to be remembered for the courage for his faith), I'm sure many can debate about this. It would seem to me that Charlie Kirk's martyrdom is more nationalistic/political than evangelical. However, Kirk had done more work for the Kingdom above than many Christians and preachers today. Those mislabeling of fascists/anti-fascists on either parties, the pretended speech against violence yet inspiring hateful provocation happened both on Kirk's side as well and not just his opponents'. The talk on the left or right of standing up against the terror against free speech with fear, are old data recycled. But one lesson is clear from this, that we are in a race against time, serve God to our fullest as long as we are still breathing on Earth. And Christians should have no fear of any terror against the ministry of God, as horrible as it may kindled our natural hearts. And the solution to Charlie Kirk martyrdom would be to open more opportunity for oppositions to debate in a peaceful way, rather than turning away from this opportunity which I think lots of Christians are good at (play safe) as well as bad at (having intellectual discussions). When Nadia told me to be careful doing evangelism on campuses, I would tell her that if martyrdom were to happen to me in evangelism, please forgive them.
Update 9/18/25: I like David Bahnsen's responses to the Kirk incident: That the federal government has no right in monitoring free speech:
No one would agree with me more than Charlie Kirk. Employers should have, and do have, every right to go after people who say utterly inexcusable "hateful" things. And the DOJ has NO JURISDICTION in any of this, whatsoever. None. And Pam Bondi knows this.
Now, the left and the right are finding ways to attack each other over Charlie Kirk's death. The far right wants to shut the left up. The left also tries to do the same, only that the left is smaller now that Trump is the president. While we now see a lot of firing of jobs of those who despised Charlie Kirk in their jobs as teachers, etc. the left (or the neutral enabler of the left) has suspended ABC News reporter in Illinois, Beni Rae Harmony, who resigned from her job, for remembering Charlie Kirk as her mentor, giving tribute to Kirk on air in her Marketplace program:
This shocking killing of Kirk happened the same week Trump was bringing to light around 9/9 the killing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska by a black criminal (DeCarlos Brown) of 14 crimes set loose on streets by Judge Teresa Stokes without bail. I'll store the two youtube videos below in my Journal Media folder with file name dated 9/9/25. I think many took notice of this case because it's a white young girl of modern model beauty. If it's some ugly dude, I doubt Trump would care to bring it up. Nevertheless, this catch and release leftist ideology really needs to stop.
9/9/25 Tuesday The Math needed for LLM. Just a quick overview on what's crucial in LLM design.