#WHY DID I DECIDE TO MAKE LINELESS ART NOW

[kozachenko]

[Click for better quality]

Ok yay I'm back from my vacation yipeeeeeee. I started this drawing of Keiki before I left and I was half considering just giving up on it.... until I did a short study of facial planes and then got motivated to work on this again! I'm glad I didn't give up on it though, as I'm actually really happy with this one!

Artist's Notes;

So as I mentioned in my last post about Touhou 17, I wanted to finish this by the game's five year anniversary but with how progress was going I didn't want to rush this so I decided to take a long break from it. Mainly because of the face. For a while now I was kind of feeling like I was stagnating with my drawings, not really in the clothing but in the bodies. There was something about the way I was rendering them that I just wasn't happy with, and after talking with someone else about this issue, I realized that the reason I felt this way was because the faces were too flat and didn't match the rest of the drawing and that I needed to find a way to make the rendering of the face feel consistent with everything else. So after doing a short study of the plains of the face (I used this 3D head model from art station as a reference for my short study, please go give this person some love as they are a lifesaver) I went back into this drawing and applied what I learned here. It was only after that that I finally became motivated to finish the piece, and while it started off as just a simple character sketch like Saki and Yachie's were, the moment I added in Keiki's little fire dragon I knew I had gotten in too deep and now here we are with a full on background. OK it's not super crazy or anything, but it gets the job done and it's better than there just being an empty void behind her. It's rare moments like this when I use brushes other than the Clip Studio Default Charcoal Brush and use the Clip Studio Default Paint Brushes as well (god bless the oil paint and dry gouache clip studio brushes, they were amazing). I don't know why but painting fire has always been really fun for me, there's something oddly satisfying about it y'know? I do think that another reason for this problem was because I was drawing faces like I would in my more sketchy style that didn't mesh well with my lineless style, so I'm glad I've started remedying that.

After adding in the fire dragon I had an idea to kinda make it feel like splash art in the way the composition works... probably because I have been playing Reverse 1999 again and it has taken over my brain. I do feel like Keiki's tools get a little lost in the composition, and I didn't fully render the metal parts of them mainly because I didn't feel like they needed it, but that's just something for me to improve on later down the line.

If you guys are wondering where I went for my vacation, I went to New York and got to go to the MET and the Museum of Natural History. In both places I found Kofun period stuff and I was so happy to see it you have no idea. I remember one of the Haniwa I saw had some neat face paint under the eyes that I tried to replicate with the makeup under Keiki's eyes in my drawing, though I think I'll gave to figure out how to draw makeup on characters because this reads more like blush to me than anything. While drawing this I also looked up some references of Kofun period jewelry and really liked the stuff I found, which also meant that now she has proper Kofun earrings instead of earrings shaped like Kofun tombs. I put some of the things I referenced with a closeup of Keiki's face as well down below. I made her outfit more reminiscent of the outfit I gave her at the beginning of the year with the buttons and all, though I do want to try and draw her in some more period accurate clothing like the Haniwa I took a picture of at the Museum of Natural History. I wish I could find a way to make her handercheif look better though as I wish I made it a little bit bigger, though I think I'm saying this because I've looked at this drawing for too long lmao. Once again something to work on for when I next draw her. Also want to get better at rendering hair, as some details (like the little strands in front of her ears) kinda got unreadable due to the similarities in colour lol.

Now you may have also noticed the little cracks I added onto Keiki's face, and that's because I have fallen in love with the idea of Keiki's body being made from ceramic and that she crafted her body herself. While they aren't very visible I also tried to add some doll joints to her body, which is an idea I played around with in the past but never went to far with. I also want to get better at rendering cracks in ceramic, porcelain, etc, as I'm not sure how those read in the drawing. I also have a headcanon where the cracks in Keiki's face show up because of heightened emotions, and while Keiki is aware of this and does her best to make sure her face doesn't break off.... she will still end up with at least a few cracks during any given day, and she can often forget to repair her own body quite frequently so Mayumi has to remind her quite a lot. Mayumi even taught herself some basic sculpting techniques to help repair parts of her body that are so badly damaged to the point where Keiki can't repair them herself, i.e. if both her arms broke off, Mayumi would put them back together for her so Keiki can at least have something to repair herself with rather than nothing. I also like to imagine that if Keiki created her own body, if you took a look at Keiki from the beginning of her life she would look completely different compared to now.

BTW If you guys are wondering what a very very angry Keiki looks like....ok in order for this to make sense have any of you read volume 11 of Land of The Lustrous? Am I bringing back some memories for those of you that have? Ok good, glad we all got that mental image brewing in our minds, I'll probably draw a version of Keiki that is somewhat inspired by that one day as it's an idea I've had for a little while now. And to those who haven't gotten to that volume yet and are confused.... don't worry about it, just keep reading :)

[yeloenk]

Not a traditional request, but I'm curious to see how your art is formed and what your process is. It's so cool that your art is similar to comyet's!! I always wondered what other people in their newer artstyle would look like but they only ever drew Ink. I guess now I have a chance :D

Drink water and i hope you have a good day!!!

this is a really interesting request!! thank you for asking, actually! i like questions like these :-D

i'll start by explaining my personal art process—how i, 12-year-old me started out, and then explain how i got where i am with my art today! buckle up, because this will probably be a lengthy post :-)

The Progression of my Art

my first ever art posted online was at the beginning of 2020, when quarantine first hit. i had always had a knack for art; doodling in class, making OCs, etcetc. however, when i heard about undertale through a friend, that's when i really started to take things serious.

i did all the things kids do when they first find out about undertale—i watched countless comic dubs, animation memes, looked up fanart, etc. i first started my real art journey when i began making fanart for undertale and the AUs. this is why undertale is so special to me, and why i have loved it for so long! it has fueled my creativity for almost five years now.

this is the first fanart i ever had done. i posted it on amino sometime in may.

i was SO so proud of this piece. i showed it to my friends & family, and then decided to show people online! this was my first big milestone as an artist.

as time went on, i improved more and more, creating countless UT AU artworks in my spare time. and it was all because of the people who were kind and supportive of my art! the UTAU amino will always hold a special place in my heart, because of the positive experience i had. the positive feedback i got is what drove me to really want to start improving my skills and become a better artist like the ones i looked up to 💛 this is why it's so important to be kind to beginners. even if their art isn't the best at first, you bet your asses it'll be in the next few years!!

SO! i drew and improved, really just trying to find my own style that i liked. i had always loved ink sans, and that prompted me to look into his creator's artwork around late 2022-early 2023. i followed her instagram, and at first, just admired her work from afar.

then, i tried out replicating her style! this is the first piece i ever drew inspired by mye! i made this last fall, in 2023.

after that, i tried to find my own style some more, leaving the lineless style behind. but, in may of this year—2024—myebi decided to hold a DTIYs, and that's when i decided to replicate her style!

i know, i know, kinda defeats the whole "draw this in your own style" thing... but i had been wanting to try and replicate their style for quite some time, and i saw this as a perfect opportunity to try it out!

this is myebi's OC, aheran, that i drew for the contest !! it isn't exactly like her style, obviously, since i didn't want it to be too similar and weird mye out. however, i did replicate the lineless style, the grain textures, and the shading style as best i could. i also played around with shape language.

this piece was SO fun to do, and i did end up earning an honorable mention!

this was also my first post on instagram. after this, i started to draw all my art in a style inspired off mye's!

How do I draw in Comyet/Myebi's style?

here is where i'll be answering your question: what does my process look like when I'm replicating myebi's style?

i'll try my best to break it down into seperate steps that i usually take!

1. References!

References, references, references! References are the most important thing you need when trying to replicate something specific. I am currently at a point in my style where I do not usually need references, but you bet I used them big time when I first began to replicate mye's style!

Personally, I believe her instagram (@mye_bi) is the best place to get recent refs of her style! It's the social they post most often on. For Undertale specific references, I gathered them from her Tumblr (@/comyet) because her insta doesn't have Undertale related art. You may have to scroll a bit, but you'll find it on her blog!

I also have some niche references from other online sources, but I had to dig quite a bit for them. You don't need to be that thorough lmao

all art by myebi/comyet!

2. Sketching

After I gather references, I start with a sketch! Really, it's just taking a bunch of references and finding things you like/need to replicate in your piece. If there isn't a reference for something you are trying to draw, then the best you can do is guess! I have to make guesses on how Myebi would draw something all the time, because I draw a wide range of different characters. It's all about experimenting and doing your best!

sketch by me, ink reference by @/comyet, error reference by @/loverofpiggies

3. Coloring over the sketch

After I finish the sketch, I go straight over it with all my base colors! I typically do everything on seperate layers, which procreate... hates. I use a lot of layers.

And, to finish off, I really just add details! Lines, textures, shading, etc. I can't quite explain how I do it—I just go off Myebi's style!

Finding the right brushes

I have spent a long time trying to find brushes that best replicate Myebi's style, and the one I linked below is the best I've been able to find! It's the pack I use right now.

I use Weak Pencil 3 for any lineart I do, I use Fine Pencil 2 for color blocking, and Weak Pencil 4 for the grainy textures/shading :-)

The pack does cost a bit of money, but unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a free brush pack that gets the job done quite the same!

and that's all there is to it! i hope this answers your question and gives you some insight on how i make my art :-D

DISCLAIMER: i am not attempting to be a "myebi 2.0" or anything like that. i simply really enjoy how their style looks, and i enjoy drawing in a similar style! i mean absolutely NO ill intent towards mye—she is my biggest inspiration, and i will always have the most amount of respect and admiration for them and her work. 💛

[genericpuff]

Do you have any recommendations for comics on tapas? I'm rather new to the app so I wondered if you had any. Sorry if someone already asked!

Oh, so many! Tapas was one of my OG homes waaay back in the day, when I was still getting into drawing comics (back then it was gag-a-days). I spent a lot of time reading comics on there and it was one of my first introductions to comic platforms in general (next to SmackJeeves, RIP).

Rock and Riot - 1950's LGBTQ+ gangster teenagers getting into shenanigans and turf wars. Very cute and fun and adorable <3

Monster Pop! - Monster girls who are besties! This one has some real gorgeous art especially if you like the original vibes of S1 LO, lots of bright beautiful colors and lineless shapes. The creator of this comic, mayakern, now develops comfortable and eco-friendly skirts with her wife and pals for plus-sized folks! (they have pockets!)

A BETTER PLACE - Young girl Hannah and her little brother Theo find something cool in the woods. Children becoming gods. This was one of those comics that had some REALLY cool "you had to be there" time travel elements that aren't quite as immersive in hindsight (I was one of those people who were there and DAMN it was awesome), but it's still absolutely worth the read and it operates as a sort of prequel to another one of Harry Bogosian's comics on the platform.

Fail by Error - This comic is long since done with, its creator having moved on to bigger things, but at one point in time, this was the titan series on Tapas, before the platform became predominantly BL's and isekais. Fail by Error was truly one of the best of the best of Tapas-hosted comics from its golden era of comedy comics. Also the creator made art for me once and I still have it! <3

(my babieees <3)

RandoWis - funny gag strip is funny ! He also draws an MMO-themed comic that - coincidentally - when I double checked, looks like it stopped updating in 2021 until two days ago. So yeah, good time to check that one out too!

Undying Happiness - Naomi takes a chance on love and decides to meet up with a guy she met online. He turns out to not look like the guy in the photos in the most hilariously absurd way.

Deep Fried Pudge - Okay, this is a really weird inclusion because like... this comic isn't good. This comic is painfully bad. Like, "roll your eyes into the back of your skull at your dad's stupid jokes" bad. This comic has not stopped updating daily since 2012. It literally just had its 11 year anniversary. Every update is just a single panel either making some pun or just stating very innocent, inoffensive opinions. There are four thousand of these things. And every single one is done with the same art style and joke structure as before, the comics from today look and feel like a 7 year old made them the exact same way they did 10 years ago, as if trapped in a hellish time capsule of its own design, and I love it, I freaking love it. Its existence quite literally defies human nature. Reading it and attempting to comprehend why it exists is like staring into the eyes of some Eldritch god that chose peace over chaos. Pudge will outlive all of us. Pudge will outlive the universe. All hail Pudge.

[jasminedragonart]

hi! I had a question about your art! I was wondering how you developed your art style over the years! This can be anything like how long you've been drawing and such. I really love your style and am trying to develop my own too!

I started drawing digitally around 2014 with a wacom tablet. Tiny thing. My main issue with my art is that I don't like lineart. I've tried over the years to make it work for my art but the lineweight and such is just not working for my art.

Once I decided I didn't like it I started looking at art where the lineart is minimal. Arealtrashact as well as other artists like nathsketch do a lot of lineless expressive art. I studied how they made it look so good and tried to apply it to my own work. If you go back to my early work on this blog it isn't good. My style was too much trying to copy the reference image than stylize it. I found my niche with atla though.

I studied how Disney drew brother bear and Mulan which helped me with eyes and face proportions. Expressions I did that 100 heads challenge but I put an animated film on and paused it to do that which really helped with faces.

A lot of my work is trial and error really. I still try with lineart but colour is my struggle right now too. Limiting the palette is very helpful for that.

My advice would be to find artists you like and ask why you like it. Atalienart does a lot of cool watercolour looking art and I liked how they put blush on the cheeks nose and fingers so I tried that with my own and that's stuck for a few years now. Experiment with different styles Frankenstein art together and find what you find interesting and easy. But don't be afraid to do hard art either.

I hope this helps.

[nexit-xemd]

The First Chapter

Greetings to all you, silent observers, vocal watchers, and other type of folk.

I assume that 99% of you will know not who I am, so lets start the introductions, yes? I am Nexit'Xemd, Multi-universal Chronicler, a Traveler of Realms, Someone else you may see is another person known as 'Maxx'. they help me manage this and relay the questions and other such information to me. When I'm accepting them, that is. We will mainly be sharing our drawn depictions of various individuals, creatures, objects, or etcetera. I will now hand it over to you, Maxx.

Howdy. Maxx 'ere. I dunno why I decided to start with a southern accident, but I did. Sooo, to get past introductions. Howdy 2. I'm gonna be the one behind all this account stuff n such, nexit is kind of my oc but also a self insert at the same time, so is this other interpretation of me thats rather abstract. So uhh.. yea. idk how to end this, between you and me, I kind of suck at this whole "socializing" thing. I'm not too good at like, actual human interaction, lol. SO yea this is pretty much just where I'll post art from time to time. Sometimes I'll open asks for Me and Nexit, and my answers will be far more meta and just straight up "me to you", and nexits' will be more in character for him. Sorry for this text wall, btw... Yea you'll get a lot of that type of stuff from me. 90% of the time, its just gonna be my art tho. Criticism n stuff is fine, just know I work with a lot of lineless, a lot of weird shading, and my art-style is far more different than others, and I like it that way. SO yeah. TL;DR: Nexit and me are running this blog, nexit is technically an oc of mine, its mainly gonna be us posting art and occasional ask sections. Also ik this whole thing is kinda redundant bc of the blog description but uh... SHUT UP!! For my last part of this massive message.. Cheese.

Edit: OH ONE LAST THING please do not hesitate to comment on my art it genuinely makes or breaks my day to see it commented on/not commented on

[sushiisiu]

Hello~ 🙋🏽‍♀️ Your art is really, really cool and beautiful, tysm for sharing it with us! 💕💕💕 I saw you mention that you would like more asks so I wanted to ask you, what's your favorite phase and why?

Hi! thank you so much for liking my art T__T and as for your question it's hard to decide since i like most of the phases a lot...

I'd say style-wise my favorite would be phase 2? I love that it's way more grungy and nasty looking, esp with the new greyer palettes and soft shading. it's in that perfect sweet spot of being more realistic but still having the stylized shapes and anatomy of phase 1, which is great because i get to see jamie's lineart. also big fan of the way he drew everyone's hair kinda choppy here it's soooo cute. most of my favorite gorillaz art all come from this phase

Story-wise tho then obviously phase 3. like plastic beach might've been a hot mess while it was releasing and a lot of things just never got followed through but fuck if it doesn't feel cinematic as hell and the most fleshed out out of all the phases. like the web game ??? and obviously the emotional weight of the story, murdoc alone ruling over a literal pile of garbage and the only people he has with him is a soulless copy of his daughter that HE killed and someone he's holding captive, his only outlet being songwriting and broadcasting a radio show that he knows no one will hear all while being chased down by all those he's crossed both demonic and mortal. like i could really go on it makes me so emo I dont even care if the lost chord doesn't make that much sense. it fucks me up either ways to see it wrapped up like that.

although music wise (and just general marketing and promotions) i LOVEEE phase 1 so much. EVERY song on that album is so memorable and i love the amount of weird noises and falsettos 2d did. love the hologram concerts and the ones with their vas up, 4 whole music videos and an animatic (AND THE GBITEZ!!!!) and a whole interactable website of their studio... INSANE like the dedication to making them seem real is insane i wish we still had that instead of them being glorified mascots. . .

that's honestly not to say i don't like the others as hell tho like humanz had a great art direction too with the photobashing and lineless style and personally i love realistic proportions soooo and the mocap interviews were funny as hell even if i hate kevin bishop. the now now was soooo crazy too im a big fan of spiral imagery and just.. the pink/blue thing is great Fav album art love the emotional complexity it gives 2d (never recovered from souk eye) and honestly song machine is amazing too i adore the "episodic" formula of the music videos and like personally i don't even mind keyframe 2d that bad since i barely noticed it within the videos themselves its the endless marketing that reuses that same pic that drives me insane (billboard near my college STILL has keyframe fred perry 2d on rotation and it ambushes me every time)

ANYWAYS i kind of rambled on but!!!! basically phase 1-3 i love those the most. Thank you for enabling me

[wormhole2anywhere]

It's unexpected but I accidentally somehow managed to unintentionally catch this when it published ajfbsnf

My things for this session are a long list so bear with it as we navigate through it all-

Certainly an unexpected passenger has come on board! Team Galactic's leader Cyrus has somehow boarded the battle subway?! It seems that this strangely colored Giratina with ... Is that subway boss Emmet? is keeping a close eye on some passengers inside of this train...

Oh no! VD!Emmet/Special Costume (Klinklang) Emmet's plush has fallen down! He doesn't seem too happy about it either, or maybe he's just very engrossed about the floor... Wonder what could have caused it to fall

Joining the Zoroark party is a definitely not foreign Zoroark by the name of Ray, pondering if he should really chime into the party itself or if he should just stay watching, as he tends to do...

And happy birthday Chemmet! VD!chemmet and Chatan have come to the party as guests (bringing the color teal randomly to this vastly pink expanse) and brought a cupcake to celebrate the fact that their little peer is now one year old! A birthday full of cuteness (and nondescript flavor cupcake)

"Oh? Hm? Why am I here you ask? Why wouldn't I be in this gathering, mortal? Did you perhaps want my blessing?"

It would seem that the starling of creativity has decided to drop by for no particular reason other than having otherworldly fun! Sporting perhaps a strange growth of hair compared to the last time he crossed into this realm (though that is a debatable topic), Ray welcomes any and all that try to strike a conversation with him for the sake of entertainment, after all, they have knowledge to share with the world

This time, he seems particularly to appreciate the presence of small chemmet to the side (thank you BK for the precious chemmets) for the time being

And of course, he also has an appreciation for the masculine beauty of... Ingöörija, the most cha cha cha man of the Pokémon world, since why shouldn't a starling appreciate a good work of art (yes Ray is speaking to thee Junya-sama, you know who you are and what you have done~)

Speaking of manly beauty here comes the lord of hell himself packing the sheer beauty of few others even among his kin, the monthly Satans, this time modeled after a specific quote that sone may understand the origin of, some may not, but to me it's funny all the same

This one goes specifically to the fellow Satan appreciator who is responsible for this quote (you know who you are) though any Satan enjoyers are free to bask in his glory, he's definitely one of my prettiest... Nay, the prettiest of them all for now

Upon seeing the pastel table and minty owner's (credits to the creators of whatever the hells the combo is supposed to be) I decided to make a little small present for the minty subway boss enjoying the presence of the table, hence my first crack at sketchless and lineless art and rendering with magma's convenient brush update, featuring cupcake that even chemmet seems excited to try out!

Yes, yes, I promise we're almost done...

Initial D featuring butlermas, Emmet is about to drift harder than the Origin Palkia/Dialga theme ever has (is this how Ingo got sent to Hisui?) And it doesn't seem like Ingo is fond of the lack of safe driving his brother seems to be doing... What kind of thrill must Emmet expect from racing with that car?

"Please stop with the embarrassing names!"|"Please stop calling me a lamb!"

"My name is Crick, and you would do well remembering it!"

So spoke a brave sanctum knight with a pure heart that had the misfortune (?) of meeting a particularly teasing Inquisitor, Crick Wellsley makes a(n) (re?) appearance in free doodle magma as some mild expression and position practice as well as for the sake of riding a creative high I had this session (what was I on)

"The truth... lies in the Flame."

Accidental fire effect practice (?) with the Inquisitor Temenos Mistral, also dragged along to the expression practice, completing the two piece enactment of two of my favourite Octopath Traveler II quotes

Lastly, but not leastly! Wilhelm Von Clausewitz Halcyon HISUIMARU in person, staring up at the stars above with what seems to be the knowledge that good things await them in the future... Right?

That's all I had to showcase for the magma! Uh... Yes I drew a lot, thank you for sticking around, if you did!

November Magma "1st Anniversary" results!!

Main event: Anniversary Party!

It's already been a year since I started running these monthly events, would you believe that!! For this special occassion we invited Pokémon characters for a big party in the Battle Subway, and it turned out fantastic!! Check it out!!

There are many cool references to our previous Magma events in these scenes! Can you spot them all? Two of the amazing backgrounds (the train entrance) contributed by @beastkonohaworld and the plushie showcase is by @fishmanfishman3 (on Twitter)! The other half of the event is under the cut!

Mini-event: Zoroark Party!

This lovely forest party venue was made by @wafflecat2!

Mini-event: Chemmet's 1st Birthday Party!

This cute little guy @beastkonohaworld created has appeared in every single doodle session since the very beginning and has been bringing cheer and love for numerous artists and their works!! Likes and comments are always very much appreciated, but it's really something else when someone actually interacts with your art! Chemmet has given so much for us, so now it's his turn to receive all the love!

And finally: November free doodle session results!

So much wonderful art here!! Some folks did something really cool and redrew their earliest Magma pieces here!! To see the improvement so concretely is very exciting and rewarding to see, you've all worked really hard on your art throughout the year!!

I am proud of these results, I'm proud of your hard work, and I'm proud to have been your monthly event host for 13 months straight! It has been quite the personal challenge but it has also been a great pleasure: seeing you all draw, connect, have fun and create amazing things together has very much been worth the effort!! Once again:

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR JOINING MY MAGMA EVENTS!!! I hope to see you all in our next event on December 25-30th!

[virfujiwara]

"Lestrade glanced at a book. It was one of the many he had sent down to the country for Mycroft's eyes only, and Mycroft, whose eyes were everywhere, had been kind enough to read it."

[shadowsandstarlight]

So, tonight’s “reblog art” post is less full of rage than usual. I thought I’d explain exactly why I get so mad. See, art takes time. The numbers I usually put on my pieces in terms of time are the numbers I get from my art program, which keeps track of how much time I spend in there working. That doesn’t account for the rest of the process. Here are the steps that go into my more major pieces:

Decide what to do. This can take a bit of time, or none at all. Sometimes I spend months coming up with nothing, other times I come up with something new before I’ve even finished the last project.

Planning. This is one of the most time consuming steps a lot of the time. I have to choose a pose (or multiple), which means scouring the internet for references, often I have to do character design from almost scratch, I have to design an outfit, pick a colour palette, decide whether I want it to be lineless or not, all that fun stuff.

With big pieces, I’ll often do a version on paper first, so I can work things out and get practice. After the initial paper version, I’ll typically do a second one that’s a bit cleaner.

Once I’ve got the good version on paper done, I’ll take a picture of it and upload it into the art program. This acts as a base for the digital version. I have to figure out the positioning, adjust the canvas size, and make extra sure I like how it’s looking so far.

Lineart. This is optional, obviously, in lineless pieces I’ll just go straight to colour. Lineart comes in second only to the pose sketch as my least favourite part. I’m very meticulous about making sure my lineart is clean and tidy, and often I’ll do the lineart twice to make sure I get it right.

Colours. I lied earlier, this is the most time consuming part. I need to get the colours, adjust them to make sure I like them, make sure they look nice, and keep them from clashing or blending in with each other. That’s before I even start adding them to the drawing. Then I have to place them all, clean up edges, shade, highlight, clean up edges again, adjust colours again, oh wait I didn’t shade that properly oh no I just messed up the highlight do it all again and again until it looks right. Ah fuck my brightness was too low I turned it up now all the colours look fucked up, time to readjust all of them! Now the shading’s weird again, and the highlight, wait what fucking layer is that random splotch on, what do you mean I hit undo and did something else so now I can’t redo, yeah you get the idea. This can get very repetitive.

Grab it as a photo file so I can post it. Notice something is off. Go in and fix it. Repeat at least three times.

Post it and have basically nobody reblog it. Exactly two people say something nice in the tags. One makes it worth the 8+ hours of work you just did, the second gives you enough fuel to start the next piece. Repeat this process again. And again. Forever.

[dusksmote]

2020 in perspective...

i originally got into south park in 2010, left the fandom in 2011, then nearly a decade later in december, 2019 i came back again. 

January: butters sketch

i hadn’t been in a serious fandom for years, hadn’t drawn or written anything seriously in years. i went on a trip to denver, colorado, and came back ready to get fucking into it. i started writing the longest single work i’ve done to date, Ecstasy (130k, not yet posted). this piece was the first drawing i did this year, while riding the train home from my internship. a shitty little sketch of butters from the fanfic, with mohawk and glasses.

February: latex tweek

still traditional art only. started getting serious about shading, and drew LATEX TWEEK (also from Ecstasy). Finished the 1st draft of the fanfic this month and went into the editing phase.

March: juggalo stan and kyle

why? did i forget to mention everyone in Ecstasy is a juggalo? long story. finished the current (final?) draft of Ecstasy. 

April: stan and mpreg kyle

STILL doing traditional art. started working on my next fanfic project, a prequel to Ecstasy--BUT FIRST i read @blesspastacraig​‘s fanfic Best Laid Plans and it inspired me to write my oneshot Our Fish Alien (2k, complete). Got my Ao3 account this month and decided to post it with some art. hence, style mpreg art. started incorporating prop elements (hospital bed), but still too spooked to try backgrounds. 

my friend @cola-fiend​ convinced me to make a tumblr and post some sketches, ergo here we are. this eventually lead requesters to ask for more mpreg, which snowballed until i made a fucking discord server for it, but i’m getting ahead of myself.

May: fat kyle

the last time i did digital art was 2015 when my tablet broke, then in may i found out there’s free phone apps for drawing. so my first digital drawing in half a decade was fat kyle and his skinny boytoy 😂 by now i’d scrapped my plans for an Ecstasy prequel and had started writing Eat That Lunch (27k, complete), and wanted the art to look better. i started by drawing the lines traditionally then coloring the picture digitally 😬 yikes

June: crimson dawn

now we’re cooking with gas. i watched a few art tutorials and tried drawing something serious with digital line art. i was working on my tiny fucking iphone 5 screen and this piece took over 35 hours 🤘😔 no backgrounds yet

July: tweek and baby

my first commission! @blesspastacraig​ and i are now collaborators and friends and i got to illustrate some of her fanfictions. this one’s from Algorithm! (which i totally helped inspire >_>) blurry ‘baby’s first’ background in there too. i also started writing the sequel to ETL this month, What They Say About Us (50~k, incomplete), but didn’t publish it until september.

August: boxer tweek

first attempt at a lineless, painting style. did this one for tweek’s birthday. not a great first piece for a new art style, but a very important design shift that’s changed how i color completely. also switched to an ipad instead of my small-ass phone screen phew

September: boys eat at shakey’s

posted WTSAU! i wanted to make this fic look super fucking good and probably put more effort than i should have into all the art. BUT, forcing myself to illustrate it is what’s really helped me gain more artistic skills. this is my first scenic piece with full color background. i also started writing my next big fic, Wayward Son (50~k, not yet posted), based in the same universe as @blesspastacraig​‘s fanfic Hungry. it was supposed to be a oneshot and now it’s 95 pages long dammit!! 😭

October: broflovski passover

resumed online classes and creative progress suffered for it 😔 i still managed to put out a lot of work i’m proud of, like this seder scene from WTSAU chapter 3. full background and 8 characters? pssh, can’t scare me. i showed this drawing to my boss, who named it ‘the confused gentile’. oh stan.

November: gunslinger kyle and stan of many moons

honestly? not sure how i survived this month. but i knew the start of december was gonna be worse so i jumped on style week as soon as they put the prompts out (this was the second one i drew). at this point i enjoy painting backgrounds more than the figures in them.

December: style clubhouse

i drew so much stuff this month it’s hard to pick one thing to represent it all, but--the seventh day of style week has a bit of everything i’ve learned. background. colors. lighting. concept. crazy when you compare it to january.

now i’m back to work on putting out WTSAU chapter 5. after that’s done i’ll pick which fanfic to post next and get cracking on art for that. Wayward Son’s in it’s final pages, so i’ll be picking up a new fanfic project in the coming weeks too. 

overall? 2020, you were a wild south park year, just like 2010. i honestly can’t believe how far i’ve come as an artist considering i spent the first 1/3rd of this year sketching on napkins and shit, and here we are. looking forward to all the improvement in 2021 💚💙

[calronhunt]

OKAY yeah I'm doing this so <3 old bbd stuff and i guess discussion of stuff that's not canon anymore under the cut. I haven't made a new video about the story since the big revamp so bare with me (i promise i got video ideas about it! just trying to stick to one video at a time so that stuff ACTUALLY gets done lol)

FIRST VIDEO I EVER MADE OF THESE GUYSSSSS i still associate this song super heavily with them and it kinda. shaped how their whole relationship developed early on in 2019 and such. However this one and the next one makes me realize that Lionel and Raphael don't have the like???? Enemies to lovers thing they got going on anymore. The story is more about both of their repressions of self and finding freedom in the other than like, guys who are opposed. Raphael still teaches Lionel but Lionel isn't as like. outwardly hostile to teasing as he seems to be in this video.

also looking at the designs is weird. Lionel why are you so spiky. Also contains Jo's design from before i decided to trans her gender so ignore that.

This one kinda has the same feelings as my previous one where it's like. These guys don't have this antagonism towards each other anymore (at least not at the start). Also has a character named Lola who got cut during the big revamp (rip to her). Also I completely forgot. that there used to be a plot point where GABRIEL FUCKED LIONEL FJDKSLJFKDS. OLD BBD WAS A TIME OKAY. IT WAS JUST ME DOING PLOT POINTS I THOUGHT WHERE SILLY AND FUN!!

other than that I think the art in this video is still pretty nice. I think the transition from warm lineless art to stark lined art with rim lighting fucks severely.

I REMEMBER BEING SOOOO PROUD OF THIS VIDEO WHEN I FINISHED IT INITIALLYYYY AND NOW I CAN'T WATCH IT ANYMORE. i get too embarrassed. Raphael doing Raphael-isms as he is wont to do. Also I think this is the first showing of old Jett? so that's neat. He was just a shitty one note villain and I always found him kinda boring so I'm glad I finally changed him. I think that's the only thing not canon in this video? Yeah it's just the jett stuff, everything else is still canon.

Maybe I should remake this video or something. I still think the shot composition/ideas/colors are fine. It's just. 19 y/o Alek it's okay. Your artstyle isn't horny enough yet.

can you believe I made a video about Gabriel. I mean I can and I still like this video but like can you believe that. The Events of the video are still canon, I would just frame them much differently. The reason Gabriel fucks up Raphael's face isn't tied to the Raphael maybe getting the throne at all anymore lol. The color palette in this is nice, and I like what I did with the editing and ideas and shots and such. Don't got much else to say about this one. I still pretty much like it lol

my fucking. my fucking baby boy Cassiel Hellborn. I still love this video so much I don't even care. I'm still incredibly proud of how it all came out even if the colors are a bit icky and bad. A LOT of it is uncanon or got changed one way or another. Cassiel is way more sympathetic and much less of a snake in the current version than he is portrayed here. He's still got a lot of deep seated anger that he's gotta let out though!!!! Wonder how he'll do that.

the last video i made about bbd before a big long break because of -static noises- ANYWAY, it's about my girl Ericka! Funnily enough even though it's the most recent video a lot of this. also isn't canon anymore lol. FUNNY HOW THAT WORKS. i'm honestly not even proud of the video itself. I'm not proud of a lot of the art or the colors or the animation bleghhhhhhhhhhhh. Trying to be kind to myself cause I was in a bad place but UGHHHH it's not very good. This is another one I should remake maybe :pensive: my girl ericka deserves better.

Kinda wanna reminisce and go through all my old blood brings dawn videos and just. talk about them I guess? I'll probably put it all into one post under a cut cause i don't wanna like. clog up people's timelines with my old videos lol

[erekiosuncreativeideas]

I. I decided to compare my first and latest lineless drawings and. HOLY PECK. Like, I knew I had improved quite a lot in less than a year of intense drawing (because I started to draw A LOT MORE after the New Year celebration) BUT WOAH.

So yeah, here’s a comparison between my first 3 lineless drawings and the latest 3 I recently did (January/February VS September/October)

I’m. Really, really surprised on how much I improved thorough the year.

I’m going to talk about my art and fanfics a bit, so lemme post all of that under a read more, so I don’t flood your dash. And it’s a lot so don’t feel forced to read it if you don’t want to.

So yeah. Here we go. Careful : toxic thoughts below

I had been frustrated so much with how slow I was at improving my stuff these past few years. I was very uncreative during those times, very unmotivated and I was also very mean and strict to myself. Any little mistake was enough to make a drawing completely worthless to my eyes (and I’m not exaggerating), and the same happened with my writing. EVERTHING had to be perfect or it just didn’t deserve to exist. It wasn’t worth the effort.

I used to have those fanfic ideas and I got really excited over them, until my brain killed every motivation I was having by telling me how it wasn’t original, how I wouldn’t have enough content to write about, how it was just a phase and that I would quickly change interests before the fanfic would be finished... And, when I DID manage to find the motivation to write, I had to write those OVERLY COMPLICATED sheets of “what was going to happen” in said chapter. And when I say “OVERLY COMPLICATED”, let me tell you, I am NOT joking, some were almost as long as the chapter was going to be in the end. I would write the entire chapter’s events with a LOT of details, even the most insignificant ones, so much that it killed every desire to write the true chapter.

Why would I want to write something that is already SO detailed ? Why would I want to write something just following intructions ? What if what I write isn’t as good as my sheet ? Those were the thoughts I had at that time, and yet, I couldn’t let go of that system until very, very recently.

I think I was lacking confidence at the time. I didn’t trust myself to write well without a sheet telling me everything I had to think of. Every little detail had to be put on the paper otherwise I was afraid of not thinking about writing it, thus making my chapter worthless. Without it, I couldn’t even bring myself to write a blank document and start writing from scratch. I just couldn’t.

Of course, all those terrible feelings were joined by a HUGE feeling of guilt, telling me I had to be productive, and yet I wasn’t. That if I didn’t write or draw, I wouldn’t be special, that a lot of people were waiting for the next chapter of the fanfic I was writing at the time, that they had been waiting for two years without a new chapter... I felt terribly guilty at the time.

Now, I gave up on all my old fanfics and deleted them from the Internet (though if you look hard enough, you could still find them on certain obscure websites), I also changed my username because the old one only reminded me of the terrible author I used to be. For real, I’m still a bit salty about who I used to be, what I used to write, even if I do feel much, much better now. I was diagnosed with social anxiety a few months ago (and I’m going to be tested on my possible ADHD soon). Taking meds really makes me less anxious and definitely happier. Because, gosh, I felt so miserable.

“Reliving An Old Nightmare” helped me to get rid of those complicated worksheet I had, until I was able to write without them completely. Now, I just. Write. And let me tell you, this is one of the biggest imrovements I made on my writing.

The fandom of “A Hat In Time” really saved me, saved my motivation, saved my wish to create and show my creations to others. I want to thank all of you for your support, because without it, I wouldn’t have been able to do everything I do now. I was so insecure that I just couldn’t bring myself to open a blank word document, I couldn’t draw anything without feeling a weigh on my shoulders. You guys are the reason I’m still creating to this day, and the reason I like what I’m creating too. Thank you so much, I know I repeat this a lot, but really, I mean it.

I’m so, so glad I got the chance to be in this fandom. Thank you so much.

[electrozeistyking]

MOON ETERNAL

Dib tried his best not to laugh at the look on his alternate's face, but it was so hard not to when the awestruck expression was painfully obvious. "What, you've never seen the night sky before?" Dib joked, his amusement spilling into his voice. "No, it's just..." Zib's voice was uncharacteristically quiet, as though he was afraid he would disrupt something if he spoke too loudly. "It's been so long... I... I guess I forgot what nighttime was like." He tilted his head up to the moon, deeply sighing. "I didn't realize how much I missed this." On Dib's end, he didn't exactly get what there was to miss. It was a cloudless night, sure, and the full moon casted a pale light that made the grass look almost silvery in a way. The night life was active all around them, which he knew Zib would occasionally stop to listen to. Even if he didn't know or understand what Zib missed about nighttime, Dib found himself taking mental notes about how his other was responding to it all. Out of nowhere, it was almost like Zib was an entirely different person; he was weirdly calm and relaxed, softspoken. It was only weird because he hadn't realize Zib could reach that point — he'd always seemed like a feral and almost always busy kind of person who had never heard of "toning it down". But if Dib hadn't known any better, he'd say Zib had always been like this. Zib looked surprisingly at peace. Content. "...mean, when you destroy a reality, you can't exactly expect a day-night cycle," Zib was saying. "No sun for that, y'know? All you get is just... purple sky. All the time. It really screwed with my sleep cycle for the first couple of months. But then again, it was an already terrible sleep cycle, so I guess all it did was make it worse." He suddenly laughed. "Oh! I just remembered... it, heh, it won't make any sense without context, but you remember that Zim suit I had? 'Course you do, it's not exactly that hard to forget. Being cooped up in that thing almost all the time meant no one would notice if you fell asleep! I do mean that. I can't even begin to count how many times I passed out in there! "Long story short, you should have seen!" He broke into a fit of laughter. "The look! On Number 2's face! When he realized I was...! I was asleep!" He wrapped his arms around his stomach, laughing so hard that he even may have cried a little. When he eventually recovered, he sighed, his eyelids drooping. "Ohhh... man. 'Course, then you and your Zim came along and ruined everything, but! You can't always get what you want, life isn't fair, other inspirational quotes." Dib couldn't tell if Zib was (still) mad about that or not. If he was, he was doing a surprisingly good job of hiding it. They stayed out there on the hills for a while, Dib deciding it was his turn to run his mouth off. Dib proposed his idea of partnering up to solve paranomral mysteries and such together. At first, Zib made little "Mhmm!" noises of agreement, which steadily became more far and few between, becoming more and more subdued. Eventually, they stopped all together. When Dib finally finished speaking, Zib didn't offer a response. Turning his head, he realized exactly why his alternate hadn't replied. In Dib's time of rambling, Zib had laid down on his stomach in the grass, resting his chin on his arms with his eyes closed. Dib would have thought he was just relaxing, if it weren't for the soft snoring emitting from him. "You didn't seriously just fall asleep," Dib said, stunned. He reached over to poke the other Dib in the side. "Zib. Ziiiib, this is not a good place to sleep. Ziiiib, wake up." Zib furrowed his brows and grumbled, rolling onto his side so his back was facing Dib. "You have to get up at some point, y'know," Dib told him. Amidst the incoherent mumbling, all Dib got was "no". "I'm not carrying you," Dib told him. "Carry me, peasant," Zib mumbled, but Dib couldn't tell if he was joking or not. "I just told you, I'm not—" Dib started, then cut himself off, standing up and brushing himself off. "You know what? Fine. You want to sleep here? Go ahead. I'm going home without you." Zib looked over his shoulder, a half-awake expression and a frown on his face. "You're a terrible person, you know that, right?" Dib tried his best not to laugh at the look on his alternate's face, but it was so hard not to when the awestruck expression was painfully obvious. "What, you've never seen the night sky before?" Dib joked, his amusement spilling into his voice. "No, it's just..." Zib's voice was uncharacteristically quiet, as though he was afraid he would disrupt something if he spoke too loudly. "It's been so long... I... I guess I forgot what nighttime was like." He tilted his head up to the moon, deeply sighing. "I didn't realize how much I missed this." On Dib's end, he didn't exactly get what there was to miss. It was a cloudless night, sure, and the full moon casted a pale light that made the grass look almost silvery in a way. The night life was active all around them, which he knew Zib would occasionally stop to listen to. Even if he didn't know or understand what Zib missed about nighttime, Dib found himself taking mental notes about how his other was responding to it all. Out of nowhere, it was almost like Zib was an entirely different person; he was weirdly calm and relaxed, softspoken. It was only weird because he hadn't realize Zib could reach that point — he'd always seemed like a feral and almost always busy kind of person who had never heard of "toning it down". But if Dib hadn't known any better, he'd say Zib had always been like this. Zib looked surprisingly at peace. Content. "...mean, when you destroy a reality, you can't exactly expect a day-night cycle," Zib was saying. "No sun for that, y'know? All you get is just... purple sky. All the time. It really screwed with my sleep cycle for the first couple of months. But then again, it was an already terrible sleep cycle, so I guess all it did was make it worse." He suddenly laughed. "Oh! I just remembered... it, heh, it won't make any sense without context, but you remember that Zim suit I had? 'Course you do, it's not exactly that hard to forget. Being cooped up in that thing almost all the time meant no one would notice if you fell asleep! I do mean that. I can't even begin to count how many times I passed out in there! "Long story short, you should have seen!" He broke into a fit of laughter. "The look! On Number 2's face! When he realized I was...! I was asleep!" He wrapped his arms around his stomach, laughing so hard that he even may have cried a little. When he eventually recovered, he sighed, his eyelids drooping. "Ohhh... man. 'Course, then you and your Zim came along and ruined everything, but! You can't always get what you want, life isn't fair, other inspirational quotes." Dib couldn't tell if Zib was (still) mad about that or not. If he was, he was doing a surprisingly good job of hiding it. They stayed out there on the hills for a while, Dib deciding it was his turn to run his mouth off. Dib proposed his idea of partnering up to solve paranomral mysteries and such together. At first, Zib made little "Mhmm!" noises of agreement, which steadily became more far and few between, becoming more and more subdued. Eventually, they stopped all together. When Dib finally finished speaking, Zib didn't offer a response. Turning his head, he realized exactly why his alternate hadn't replied. In Dib's time of rambling, Zib had laid down on his stomach in the grass, resting his chin on his arms with his eyes closed. Dib would have thought he was just relaxing, if it weren't for the soft snoring emitting from him. "You didn't seriously just fall asleep," Dib said, stunned. He reached over to poke the other Dib in the side. "Zib. Ziiiib, this is not a good place to sleep. Ziiiib, wake up." Zib furrowed his brows and grumbled, rolling onto his side so his back was facing Dib. "You have to get up at some point, y'know," Dib told him. Amidst the incoherent mumbling, all Dib got was "no". "I'm not carrying you," Dib told him. "Carry me, peasant," Zib mumbled, but Dib couldn't tell if he was joking or not. "I just told you, I'm not—" Dib started, then cut himself off, standing up and brushing himself off. "You know what? Fine. You want to sleep here? Go ahead. I'm going home without you." Zib looked over his shoulder, a half-awake expression and a frown on his face. "You're a terrible person, you know that, right?" Dib bowed with a flourish. "I try to be," he said with a wide, smug grin on his face, batting his eyelids. "You dingus," Zib cursed at him. "Help me up." After a minute where Dib didn't move to help him, he said, "No seriously, I can't find it in me to want to get up." -  -  -  -  - Dude, I often have to draw something traditionally then digitize it if I want to draw anything with even one character in it, but this time I didn't do that. So this is a feat on my end that I, for one, am super proud of. And it's LINELESS art, which I am normally TERRIBLE with. It's just... I fuckin' love this. So, uh, yeah! I was hit by a sudden bout of inspiration, and so this drawing (along with this story) exists now. While I'll never know why my best writing and art comes when the sun goes down, I hope you enjoyed this as much as I loved creating this!

[mysticsparklewings]

The Dream Crosser

Surprise! NaPoWriMo didn't kill me (and I'm not abandoning dA because of the incoming Eclipse update either, more on that situation here), I just needed a week off to recuperate...and obsessively play Animal Crossing: New Horizons... Admittedly, I actually drew this well over a month ago (and wrote up the majority of the description!), not just before NaPoWriMo but before I actually had New Horizons in my grasp. The plan was to post it the day I got the game. Which was supposed to be much closer to the game's launch (March 20th). That ended up not happening and the day I got the game was the first day of NaPoWriMo, but 1. I messed up with the non-uniform prompts and spent all of the day trying to catch up so I couldn't even play the game yet, and 2. As a side effect, I ended up having two posts that day and a lot of work to do to catch up the second, and I hardly had time to think about posting this. And even if I had posted it, it would've been drowned in the incoming NaPoWriMo posts. And so, here we are. Really, really, I do have to mention that I truly feel for anyone else still waiting on the game for whatever reason. You have my deepest sympathy and I'm so sorry I can't just give you the game right now and make it better.  I know the wait was hard enough for me, being this is the one game I highly anticipated in over a year and I essentially had the rug yanked out from under me. But I'll save that story for after I talk about the art itself since I'm sure that's what most people are here for and not my pre-order frustrations. So in case you don't know or couldn't tell, this is the lovely Luna from AC: New Leaf's Dream Suite. From what we've seen of New Horizons since it's release, the Dream Suite's functions and purpose have been mostly absolved into the Airport and Dodo Codes, and so I'm very doubtful Luna will actually be in the game in any capacity, which makes me sad. A typical player (including me) wouldn't even necessarily interact with Luna that much in New Leaf unless you really enjoy visiting other towns using Dream Codes, so I'm not sure what it is, but for some reason I just really like her. That's why I picked her to draw to celebrate. I very nearly drew her a long time ago when I was on an Animal Crossing kick in 2018, but at the time I didn't like the idea of pressuring myself into drawing all and/or multiple AC characters just because I wanted to be "fair" to them all (much the same reason I don't draw Pokemon very often), so I ended up drawing One Little Spark, a crossover of the Disney character Figment drawn in the New Leaf style, instead. So in a way, she's had this coming for quite a while. At the time I started working on her, (way back in early March, because I was hoping beyond hope my pre-order would arrive to me actually on launch day, but ha ha ha look who's got egg on her face for that ) I was running a bit dry on artistic motivation, and so while I tried to draw her in my usual manner: Making a sketch, transferring the sketch onto different paper with finalized lines, then picking whichever coloring method I was most into at the time), I was struggling with the sketch. I've had days where I have to work on a sketch for a really long time before I can get something I'm happy with, but this day I was just so not into the whole sketching process. I wanted to create, but I wanted it to be quick and easy and simple. I didn't want to have to poke at it for hours and hours and then still maybe not be happy when I was done. So when I got discouraged enough, I broke away from trying to draw Luna and just drew mandalas instead. (As had become my art-block crutch for a little while.) Somewhere in me, as I worked on other things, I kept going back and forth on what to do about Luna, though. I did still want to draw her, but my usual formula just wasn't working for me. Not for her. I even tried briefly to draw her linelessly, digitally, as what was supposed to be a quick and simple experiment, but that went downhill even faster than sketching did. Although, for some reason, the lineless idea wouldn't leave me alone after that. Finally, I decided to try something completely different. I was going to try and free-handedly draw her, without lines, traditionally. With, primarily, alcohol markers. Honestly, the thought minorly horrifies me now just as much as it did before I started. And yet, here we are and I actually like how it turned out. Allow me to explain how this came together: So, since I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out once I decided to try it, I opted to use my not-so-great mixed media paper so I wouldn't feel guilty about wasting better paper if I ended up hating it. Naturally, this did lead to some notable limitations, but not enough to discourage me from trying. I dove right in with the dark brown for her head and body, focusing on getting the general shapes down. I'd noticed some glaring mistakes in my mostly unproductive sketching when it came to Luna's body proportions, so I tried to keep those things in mind and adjust accordingly as I went. It was scary because there is no erasing this way short of using white paint and because this paper feathers pretty noticeably with markers. Then once I got to a certain point, I had to switch and bring in some pink and off-white markers to draw in parts of her dress so I knew where to put her other arm and her legs. And here is where I technically cheated; I did use my "clear" Stardust Gelly Roll pen to do most of the outlines for her dress. I needed some kind of guideline, but pencil tends to get yucky when you put markers on top and at the time I couldn't really think of a better option. (The joke was kind of on me because somehow I still got a nasty gray line that looked like pencil under her bust that I had to gently edit out later in Photoshop, but I digress.) As I went with the markers, I was also doing some light shading. Not too much, because this paper is really fussy with layers and blending, but enough that I felt like it didn't look completely flat and I could tell where one shape ended and another started. Though, for her nose (trunk? I believe Luna is supposed to be a Tapir) and her raised arm, I had to get a little creative and I used a white brush pen meant for glass/ceramics to put in the lines so you could actually see them. And later I would use the same pen in 3-4 layers to add the white back in for her eyes. With the base for her body, dress, and the bun part of her hair done though, then I had the task of figuring out what to do for her shoes and the details of her face. (Without having to mix and use specific paint for those tiny details.) In the end, I opted to mostly use my classic red Gelly Roll pen for her shoes, and a little bit of a dark red alcohol marker for shading. And then I got to experiment with mixing the classic red and one of the Moonlight Gelly Rolls for her lips so that the color would be visible and not just a dark lip-shaped "what is this." This was because the classic Gelly Rolls don't show up super well on dark surfaces and the Moonlight ones do, but I didn't have the right color straight out of a Moonlight pen. It did take 2-3 careful layers, but I think I managed well enough in the end. I used just one black pen, a Prismacolor brush-tip fine liner, for her eyes, though in-person the white base underneath makes her pupils look about a shade or two lighter from certain angles, which was a very unintentional nice touch. My answer to everything else ended up being gouache, although I did try to come up with pen colors for her eye shadow and the blue dots on her cheeks before admitting defeat that I just didn't have the colors I needed. Originally, I had actually been thinking of trying a lineless art piece with gouache, as I think it would work particularly well for that look, but I wasn't ready to fully commit to the idea, mostly because I seem to be even worse at mixing a non-excessive amount of a specific color with gouache than I am with acrylics, and that sounds like a fantastic way to waste a bunch of palette space because I mixed too much but it's gouache so it can be re-wet and re-use it and I don't want to just throw it away...  (Although I suppose this could be half-way solved by getting a bigger palette specifically for mixing gouache, but I also don't want to have to buy yet another palette when I have some perfectly good ones...If I could just use up all the paint in them already...) Anyway. Point: This is kind of a step between a full lineless gouache piece and not doing one at all. Baby steps, yes? I knew from fairly early on that I was probably going to have to use gouache for the front part of her hair/bangs, since I did not thoroughly plan ahead enough and didn't leave a gap there to do it with markers. Fortunately, I didn't have to do much mixing since my gouache already has a nice yellow ochre color included, and I could use a bit of the other two browns and one I had some leftover mixed already from Roses in Your Eyes for shading. (White for the flowers, too, thank goodness.) And I actually ended up going over most of her bun with gouache too since, by comparison, the marker didn't look like it had much shading and it was bothering me. I did have to mix my own blue and pinky-purple for her makeup, and I ended up with a lot of leftover pinky-purple. But it's kind of okay because by itself it's such a pretty color I'm sure I'll find an excuse to use that one. After that, I just had to do some minor tweaks where the gouache had gotten a bit away from me and then I went ham on the shading for the dress based on my reference photo. Then I realized I wanted some kind of background because this seemed awfully boring without one. And, naturally, I hadn't really planned ahead for that, me being me and being in habit of doing the background last... At first, I wanted to do something hot pink, since her official Amiibo card has a hot pink background, but then I thought that might be a little too loud and I wasn't really sure the best way to apply one without potentially messing her up. And also, this isn't watercolor or paper thicker than 140 lb, which immediately threw watercolor out the window unless I wanted a very uneven paper when I was finished. I'd already pushed my luck with the gouache and been very careful about not using much water with it; I decided it was best not to push my luck any farther. Also, I couldn't use my pink PanPastel, despite that being maybe my best option, because it is still perpetually screwed onto the little Pan Pastel stack with no hope of getting unstuck anytime soon. (One of these days I swear, I will order either another set like the one I have or an individual Pink one to solve this problem, but until then, I am going to bring it up every single time as a caution to others to please be very careful when screwing and unscrewing your own Pan Pastels if you store them screwed together.) And I didn't feel like dragging out some of my drawing pastels and/or makeup that's too expired to use on my face and very slowly building up color and hoping it'll do what the Pan Pastels do. With no better ideas coming to me, I decided I'd leave the drawing for the night and come back to it the next day. After yet more brainstorming the next day, I finally settled on doing a glittery rounded rectangle and filling it with washi tape stripes. This plan did change a little as I figured out which tapes I wanted to use (a purple-y, champagne gold, and light pink ones, the latter two of which look more different in-person than they do on the scan) and as I actually started applying the lines. Partially because this tape is a bit thin and partially because I'm not used to cutting tape around very specific shapes, it took a very long time to both place strips of the tape and then get them cut to fit right up to Luna without looking strange. Once I got to a certain point going in one direction, I realized my next couple of cuts were just going to be too hard for me to stand. I had a choice: Ditch the tape, or figure something else out. Taking a risk, I decided to try and salvage it by doing an almost-plaid/checkerboard with the tape, specifically leaving out certain areas where I knew it would be too tricky to cut the tape. This also turned out to be a good way to use up some of the pieces of tape I'd already cut off that were too small to be used the other way. It's still not the greatest background solution I've ever come up with, but it does the job of making it look less empty, and that's really all I wanted anyway. And you know, compared to official images her proportions look wonky, but by herself (meaning, without comparing the two) I think Luna looks pretty good, actually. (Though, I admit I did have to tweak her right ear in Photoshop because it came out entirely too long and there wasn't really a good way for me to fix it by hand.) To think, this piece started out as such a mess. Or rather, I was such a mess when I started. And yet, here we are, and it looks kinda okay. Okay enough that I finished it and am posting it, at least.   I have no idea if I'll be returning to this style/method for art-making in the future, but even if I don't it was a nice experiment to try, and that's what art is really all about isn't it? Experimenting, trying new things? Speaking of experimenting though, about those pre-order frustrations I mentioned now that I've covered everything about the art itself...(in small text for those that don't care to easily skip over) Back in February I tried twice to pre-order New Horizons from Target, since they were running an ad where if you pre-ordered the game you'd also get an AC themed journal with it, and that combined with my family member's employee discount made it the cheapest/best value way for us to buy the game. As I said, I tried to order it twice. Both times, it was sold out. My family member had even tried to go to the store and have them order it before then, to no avail. After the second time, which was the day after Target sent out the sale paper with the new ad in it, while I was still frustratedly wondering how on earth do you sell out of a pre-order?? I kept refreshing the page every so often just to see if by some fluke it would miraculously not be sold out. I got very lucky around 3 in the afternoon and we managed to get the order in before it sold out again. Now, we're a relatively cheap family, so we didn't pay for the "express shipping" or whatever. Although, this was a $60 game and we were ordering it three whole weeks (on March 2nd) before release. If you ask me, the least they could do is have it shipped out either on launch day (March 20th) or the day after. Especially if I can pre-order a book on Amazon with three days' notice and they can still get it to me on release day. But, okay, I could live with waiting an extra day or up to maybe three if I had to. (And, to be fair, this was all before a certain virus exploded into chaos here in the US.) Much to my dismay, a week before NH release day, I checked the order status with Target only to be told I wouldn't get it until the 26th. A week later. That was pretty disappointing at the time, but it didn't really bother me until the day before and the day of launch when some people were getting their pre-orders early from places like Amazon and Best Buy (and some of them didn't even pay for the express shipping option from their selected source). If those two companies could plan around virus constraints to do that, why in the heck couldn't Target? But, okay, fine. Maybe the virus had something to do with it and they were really doing the best they could. Whatever. A week. Fine. I'll wait a week. A few days later though, we got an email saying: Surprise! Don't expect your dumb video game until April 3rd because we couldn't get our act together! (Okay, that's not what it really said, but that's what it felt like.) And I know, I promise I so know there are much more serious issues going on in the world right now and a video game about talking animals isn't exactly a priority shipment. I know. But it was still massively upsetting after I'd already waited so long. And, honestly, I feel like they had plenty of time and notice to take care of the game before everything else exploded and messed it all up. Again, especially if other companies already had time to even ship orders early and/or get the games to people on launch day. Or the day after. TWO WEEKS after launch, and you don't tell me about the secondary delay until the week I started expecting the game to already be in the mail on it's way to me? The only tiny silver lining is that as I was checking the order to make sure it didn't miraculously get pushed back to sometime in 2021 (because I really had no faith in Target's time estimates at this point) is that it did get bumped back up to April 1st. Although, I did think that it would be the absolute least funny April Fools' Day Joke ever if the day came and it was late because screw me.  But it did arrive to me on April 1st as promised; I just had a million other things to do before I could play it. ) And I will say, I know I could've just canceled the pre-order and bought the game digitally, but it was enough of a hassle to order it in the first place, and if I did that I'd also lose my pre-order bonus. And all that aside, I specifically wanted a physical copy to begin with. I always prefer that when it's possible. So people on the internet that want to eat me alive for not canceling when the shipping got screwed up, there are my reasons. Take 'em or leave 'em. (Seriously, I've seen some people be really rude about this just because they didn't like hearing people upset that they didn't have the game yet...when they already had it themselves or didn't care about AC in the first place...) Moral of the story: Don't pre-order from Target. Or, at least, don't expect the item to actually get to you right around release day. Account for at least two additional weeks of not having the thing. ...Seriously though, how do you sell out of a pre-order?? At least, when it's a highly anticipated game and you're a big company and not some small indie company with limited resources! Sheesh! Anyway. I have the game now, I've been playing it as much as possible and enjoying it. I still have a ways to go before my island is "complete" per se, but it's coming along nicely and I feel more comfortable now taking some more time away from it to get back into the swing of making art and things like that. So hopefully I'll be getting back into a regular posting schedule and you'll have that to look forward to. 

____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[kurojishiyo]

deadaccount-197 replied to your post “Decided that I missed Voltron now that Dairugger is getting love so...”

The cg always made me laugh but yeah I actually enjoy the kid characters n idk just think it’s not that bad of a show? Most people have only heard of VLD tho, this girl I knew who was a big fan hadn’t the slightest clue that the show was originally from the 80’s

Tbh I think the show’s art style is the easiest reason why a lot of people dismiss it. And to be fair, that is understandable since it’s art style did look weird with how they juxtapose the characters on lineless/empty backgrounds and that the show was clearly on a budget at the end of the series.

IDK, I think I only started to mellow out on my own hesitation to watch VF was when I read that a lot of shit happened with multiple partnerships with the Voltron brand either backed out or straight up got defunct and that explains a lot about the low budget towards the end of the series. And bc of that it only made me see that there was clearly a lot of passion behind the scenes to at least finish the only season.

Then again, I’m used to kids anime that use CG mixed with 2D, which also makes me tolerate kid characters more.

[minglermail]

OH HAY for the toonblr positivity event i got @onelinerminers !!

STRATO!!!!!!!! youre one of those ppl i really need to try to talk to more cause i think youre REALLY epic but from the conversations we have had, ive noticed youre super chill and fun and nice!

your sense of humor is really good OIDSJGIOSDJGSLJK i love it when i see you pop in streams and stuff cause im like "YEAH ITS PARTY TIME" !! your presence just over all is really good, you just radiate a really good energy if that makes any sense? like when youre around its like, ultra fun & at the same time im not stressed out at all? like sometimes my brain fries itself when too many people are talking but i dont get that problem when youre around :^0

also god from all of this i realized i wasnt following you for some reason? like i had been wondering why i havent seen you around so much but then WOW im just boo boo the fool

ANYWAYS!

your art?????? Your Art?????? is AMAZING hello?? i could go on about this one all day AAAAAAAAAAAAA i LOVE how cute and smooth your art is ;o; you do a fantastic combination of rubberhose + your own unique thing! i really like how you draw fluff and ears in particular... plus your expressions are really energetic and fantastic!! the way you are able to convey so much emotion in the eyes alone is really inspiring 

and youre ultra skilled at both lined and lineless so [rubs my eyes all over the screen] id almost be jealous if i wasnt so happy and proud of how talented u are :^0!!!

your character designs & concepts are AMAZING too, so youre really out here creating OCs that your epic art style does INCREDIBLE justice & vice versa <3 __ <3 

i really appreciate that you branch out and do different species and variations too! like, i think about the fossa & lykoi cat you did SO much... theyre so precious plus the fact that your sona is a pine marten is SO good HALE YES <3 __ <3 pine marten are really unappreciated animals + one of my friends who i like a lot also has a pine marten as one of their sonas so whenever i see one i think about him and im like "hell yes..."

i really want to learn more about your art and ocs (caradog is literally precious ;; and jillian is SUPER interesting, if you like OC interactions i also have a nasty jerk magician + another magician who isn’t a nasty jerk i could throw her way [eyes emoji]), but from what ive seen from them so far im already super in love & interested!! youre doing amazing ;o;;

im really glad i got you for this event cause it made me realize that i hadnt been following u before, so now i can actually see more of your art/ocs if you decide to post stuff!! which is epic >:D plus youre just a cool person in general ik we don't talk much but i love seeing you around!!

have a nice day !! ^^