Human anatomy taking too long so here’s another pony Roxanne.
I’m trying to figure out her colour scheme. Something peachy or pink is an obvious choice, but it’s also pretty boring, and purple looking fresh, but also stabbing my eyes a bit.
And I’m not sure about if I’m gonna add any cutiemark whatsoever. I don’t think it should be a microphone, or any other reporter’s equipment. Her talent should be represented in something more.. abstract. But I have no idea, honestly.
a star on fire? a star for brilliance, and the fire that indicates she’s passionate about things.
a heart on fire? she cares very deeply about things, and she’s got a talent for making people care about things, too– ‘setting hearts on fire’.
(obviously the original artwork here is by @novuerau; I just drew the possible cutie marks)
hooo boi it’s been some time but since it came up i kinda feel a bit nostalgic so here is a redraw with quickly improvised cutiemark based on your first suggestion a little pointed star with something like flames (she is a star reporter and it’s also a nod to her extraterrestrial boyfriend)
OOOHHH IT’S SO PRETTY!
I love the way you drew it, with the star being more complex and sharply pointed, and the blue and red flames! The position of the flames makes the mark look a little bit like a torch, which makes me think of victory and ‘lighting the way’. It suits her so well!
Iiiiiiii got inspired and all of a sudden there’s four of them.
Definitely! Megamind mispronounces words and his best friend struggles with spelling; that particular kind of smug ‘intellectual’ classism isn’t going to go down with him at all.
It’s interesting to me that, even though Megamind prides himself on his intellect, he never really uses it to make other people feel stupid.
He calls the people of Metrocity ‘mindless drones’, yes, but that seems to be based on them being so obsessed with Metro Man–he calls them ‘softheaded groupies’ first; his real complaint is with their blind worship of Metro Man.
When he thinks Minion doesn’t understand the definition of ‘melancholy’, he doesn’t mock Minion, but just phrases it different for him: “unhappy”.
He does the same thing for Hal, with the word ‘unfathomable’; when he says “you’ve been blessed with unfathomable powers!” and Hal says “what kind of powers?”, he starts to repeat the word ‘unfathomable’, then quickly and seamlessly changes to rephrasing it for Hal instead: “it’s without fathom”. And he does it without acting superior at all.
This would be consistent with his Michigan upbringing. The intellectuals I knew in and around the University of Michigan were not pretentious or snooty (although some young aspiring intellectuals were). When I moved to Massachusetts, that’s when I started meeting and hearing about intellectual snobs who were actually working in academia.
I went as a guest to a Mensa meeting once and found it to be full of social misfits. Megamind would fit right in. Anybody nerdy, he would get along great with. His sneering at the “boring normal lives” of the citizenry during his City Hall speech was motivated by sour grapes and maybe even some envy. In dealing with individuals, he’d be thoughtful and considerate and judge them by their actions. (He and Roxanne had that in common before they ever met.)
Some of it is probably being raises in the Prison for the Criminally Gifted. I mean, definitely a base nature there, but I think the prison uncles would be surprisingly nurturing of this trait.
Because it sounds like the prison is eclectic, not specializing in any one crime. You get a bunch of experts, but most would be in different fields or at least specializations (fraud, bank robbery, fencing…). Having to explain specific details someone else might not be familiar with, but also expecting people to have a base level of ability to comprehend (criminal GENIUSES, here) would just be the everyday.
It’s like when Megamind makes what would be an insulting comment about “Yes, that’s what happens when water gets cold” to Roxanne without it being actually intended as an insult. She’s made an observation about a physical phenomenon, and Megamind misinterprets it as “Oh, she doesn’t understand the principles of freezing, I’ll provide that knowledge.” Not because he doesn’t think she’s smart, but because he’s been so isolated from normal society he doesn’t know what “common” knowledge is in the “real” world.*
Megamind has learned that everyone has specializations, and it’s not a drawback to be less proficient outside your specialization because that’s just reality. As a super genius he can have MANY more specializations than almost anyone else, and delve amazingly deep into them, but that does not discount other people’s expertise in their own fields of interest.
The magazine was passionate but also respectful about wanting to cover Megamind’s entire career in their photo spread.
“There will only be a few ‘villain’ pics,” the photographer promised. “You get complete and final say. The emphasis is where you are NOW, but to tell that we need to understand where you and Roxanne WERE.”
Minion at least found it flattering. A lot of people thought Megamind’s Defender outfits were identical to his old ones unless there was SOME white in them; by insisting on some pictures in some “old school” costumes the photographer showed a good enough eye to see the differences.
Roxanne had encouraged him that he didn’t need to do it. He was still sensitive about people seeing him as a “bad guy.” Just putting on a full “evil” display costume in public, even a relatively streamlined one – he worried.
So they distracted him. Minion, of course, was designing Roxanne’s outfits for the photoshoot as well, and they both REFUSED to let him see ANY of them ahead of time. He would also be unveiling a new “all black” (and blue lightning) Defender suit, still with spikes and cape, but with just the right amount of cut and differences to contrast delightfully for his new heroic persona.
Of course, there was some miscommunication – Minion had CLEARLY told them that makeup artists and dressers would NOT be needed for Megamind, but they weren’t convinced at first. Until the brainbots descended on their Daddy with a curtain, an old outfit, and appropriate cosmetics already loaded in. A whorl of a minute, and the curtain parted to reveal a classic grinning Megamind to his stunned audience.
(Roxanne had convinced Minion not to fight having the makeup artists. It hadn’t been a plan, at first, but she recognized another moment of being able to distract her boyfriend at the critical point and she was NOT going to give it up.)
He laughed at their expressions, then posed for their applauce. He stopped long enough to straighten the collar on his mantle…
And then he saw her.
Roxanne could have been dressed by brainbots, of course, but she had to admit she was still slightly uncomfortable with the prospect. Given the choice, she preferred human hands applying her makeup.
So she was walking out from behind some mirrors, which under normal circumstances would not have been the most dramatic of entrances.
But to Megamind, she was Venus rising from the waters.
Moon flowers, yes? My grandmother loved these, we have them planted in our garden 🙂
wow
By the way, is probably not a time-lapse. The flower opens that quickly in person!!!
Yes we had these when I was a kid and one day I just happened to be standing outside looking at them when they started opening and I almost fell down, I’d seen flowers opening in time lapse on TV and had no idea any actually opened that fast.
And it still LOOKS FAKE in person, like it opens in such quick, staggered jerks that you would swear it’s stop motion animation.
Is there a black cultivar of this flower? Because the first time I saw the collars on Megamind’s villain costumes I thought of a painting of a flower that was shaped like this but black. I went looking for the painting but was not able to find it.
@joanhello2 it doesn’t look like there’s a black version of moonflowers, but it looks like they are related to morning glories, which do come in black, and which resemble moonflowers in shape. And they also look kind of similar to petunias and hollyhock flowers? I found a few Georgia O’Keefe paintings; are any of them the one you’re thinking of?
(Black Hollyhock, Blue Larkspur)
Black Petunia and White Morning Glory)
(Petunia)
OR there’s a black and white photograph of Georgia O’Keefe standing in front of a painting of moonflowers–the moonflowers are white, but maybe the black and white tricked your mind into remembering the flowers as black?
Interestingly, the wild/weed version of moonflowers are sometimes called bindweed, because of the way wraps around other plants and chokes them. It spreads and spreads and is amazingly difficult to get rid of.
You can’t get rid of it by pulling it up or tilling because the tiny pieces of plant that are broken up into the earth only end up propagating MORE bindweed. The only way to get rid of it is to repeatedly cut it down to the soil level until it runs out of photosynthesis energy and stops re-growing.
And EVEN THEN it can lie in stasis in the soil for UP TO FIFTY YEARS.
setepenre-set 