Howard Blast (Libido Kamen)

Ota Clinic 95 | Understanding Prose and Style

Ota Clinic 94 | How to Design Setting Per Genre feat. Index

Ota Clinic 93 | Coldies FAQ

Ota Clinic Episode 92 | Literary Quality of Styles

Ota Clinic Episode 91 | A Heuristic System For (Self) Critique

Ota Clinic Episode 90 | How to Rough #2 - Eyes

Ota Clinic Episode 89 | How to Rough #1 - Cheek and Chin

Ota Clinic Episode 88 | Shape Quality - What to Actually Think About When Copying

A really common confusion is that copying is just a lot of memorizing distances. Here, I clarify the deeper idea behind copies so that you don't waste brain power straining to become a photo copier.

ORKASTLE BATTLE DEMO 01

Ota Clinic Episode 87 | Literary Fundamentals #8 | Motif vs Theme feat. Index and Little Busters

Addressing a common confusion between motifs and actual functional theme. Basically everything you need to know about motifs from an overview.

Absolutely massive 1 hour 15 min vid dropping in 7 days (editing 5 minutes daily).

First battle demo before then and daily clinics for the next week.

Ota Clinic Episode 86 | (Gamedev Gemmies) When Effort Backfires...

(Gamedev Gemmies are tips particularly applicable for gamedev, but still apply to skill-building in general). Discussing the concept of "effort threshold" and how to understand when the level of effort you put into something will actually make it worse.

Sorry for the slow month btw, I'm back in full swing and expecting to get a lot of content out shortly (;´∀｀)

Ota Regimen Vol. 1

Here is the beginner guide I promised (=ﾟωﾟ)ﾉ

Quite a bit more went in than I originally expected, both in terms of effort and content.
While it's a beginner guide, it ended up being universally useful enough that I'm actually going to be regularly doing the drills in it myself for a while.

So, the system I'll be using for guide books like this will work as follows:

$5 ti...

Ota Clinic Episode 85 | Everything About Line Thickness

A systematic rundown of everything to think about when it comes to knowing what thickness of lines affects in a drawing/painting. We can dive more into subtopics in the future.

New technical blog going up tomorrow.

Ota Clinic Episode 84 | Perspective Understanding for Otaku

More redpills you absolutely won't find elsewhere.

(I didn't give much Orkastle update here, but streams will resume soon, and demo is imminent! Just needed to take a minute to focus on growing the channel a bit because I don't want the demo not have enough of an audience)

Ota Clinic Episode 83 | Anatomy Understanding for Otaku

Dropping the redpills you won't find elsewhere.
(Video editing on new Poke/Devlog almost done!)

Ota Clinic Episode 82 | Genre Colorwheel (Plot Archetypes)

Dicussing the fundamental forms plots can take and the consequence they have on handling of tension and the main elements that make them work. This will lead into being able to discuss specific plot techniques in more detail.

Mini-update at beginning, proper update post in a few days.

Ota Clinic Episode 81 | A Systematic Approach to Posing

Explaining the storytelling component of posing from a systematic standpoint and how to direct your practice for more artistic efficiency using this.

Orkastle Update 04 - Poster (+ extra)

Happy New Year! (・ω・)ノ

So, yes this is an update (almost) just about the poster. The main reason being it took a lot more work than I expected ( ˘•ω•˘ )

I literally didn't take it into account with my timeframe expectations at all because for some reason I was thinking it'd get done with just a few hours here and there, forgetting that this type of thing can take even seasoned pros a few dozen hours.

It's not 100% done yet, there's all sorts of little things li...

Ota Clinic Episode 80 | The Secret Gains of Illustration

Explaining in depth the mentality and process involved in gains through going all out on a detailed illustration, including a lot of overlooked factors.

Ota Clinic Episode 79 | Literary Fundamentals #7 | Designing Characters

Establishing basic laws about characterization and some tricks to help guide decisions when creating characters and setting.
Merry Christmas (*‘ω‘ *)

Ota Clinic Episode 78 | Painting | Symbolic Quality of Hue and Preservation of Value

The single most important piece of painting and color wisdom.
Writing clinic tomorrow.

Ota Clinic Episode 77 | Painting | Lower Layer and Upper Layer

Explaining the critical element that makes Japanese painting styles work and the workflow for producing them.

Ota Clinic Episode 76 | (Literary Fundamentals #6 | Developing Theme feat. Index)

Discussing the mechanics by which having an overarching theme to literature works and how it differentiates itself from moral and philosophical info. I placed my mic badly with this one so there's a lot of peaking, my b. Still getting used to this new mic.

Orkastle Update 03 - Tachie, Animations, Chapter 1 Plans, etc.

So what I said last update about dropping updates more frequently, imagine I'm saying that for the first time now (*´ω｀)

There's a poke/devlog in the works right now, it's not my sole focus since I'm jumping to little bits of art that still need to be done and writing daily now, so this update will just mostly talk about what I won't talk about/show in that video.

The goal is to get out Chapter 1 before the end of the year. At our current rate, it's definitely possible, so it'...

Ota Clinic Episode 75 | Bodies #8 Knees Part 2

10 most crucial knee poses and explaining what to look for and how to think about them.

Update post tomorrow, next video 'log in editing (*´ω｀)

Ota Clinic Episode 74 | Understanding Roughing

Explaining exactly what goes into roughing and how to make sure your roughing is actually helping you.

Ota Clinic Episode 73 | Bodies #7 Knees

Explaining the principles of what makes good knees. Part 2 on knees will explain different categories of knees whereas this one is more general principles, so it might be easier to follow this one after Parrt 2.

'Kastle update coming soon after 2 more tachie are done.

Ota Clinic Episode 72 | How to See - Why Directional Changes Might Be Everything

Explaining exactly how to perceive lines properly, how to copy properly, and how to ink.

bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/howardblast.bsky.social

Ota Clinic Episode 71 | Compositional Gesture, Weight, and Pushing Your Limits

Showing an easy to do, crucial exercise for composition and gestural understanding, which a bit on exactly what the purpose of pushing your limits is.
PS. My brother complained about the face so the thumbnail of the vid reflects an updated version lol

Ota Clinic Episode 70 | Process for Originals

A breakdown of all the elements you have to worry about when coming up with an original composition and what to not do, as well as the steps to perform when stuck.