#finally colored the sketch from last year LOL

[kuuchuuburanko]

pov you interrupt aryu mid-game

[mayordea]

Happy birthday to the number one princess in the world!! 💖

~from her biggest fans :)

ramble of my scattered thoughts on the piece under cut as usual cuz i love talking 😋

This has been an idea I've been cookin for a while, and it was so cluttered and unlike any other ensemble piece I've made... and I decided I oughta do it anyway. I love Miku, I love Vocaloid, and I wanted to do something really ambitious and crazy for her anniversary. Crazy that she's turning her "canon" age this year TwT

I had the idea floating around since like, May...? And then finally started acting on it around June 18. I'm terrible with deadlines, obvious with how I can never make a silly birthday post in time, so I started wayyyy ahead to make sure I have some room to be lazy lol, especially with an idea as ambitious as this.

This was finished on July 12! So I had to sit on this for an annoying amount of time. Very difficult for someone like me who just wants to talk about everything I'm working on to the masses. But at the very least, that gave me the time to work on the draft for this post.

~~~

Here's some ~behind the scenes~ scribbles leading up to the finished piece!

Left is the chicken scratch plan i made in my handy dandy notebook (whenever things are getting real and ambitious, i always made a rough ROUGH plan in there. Usually I'd do a rough pass of the full thing, but this was too complicated for me to do traditionally. I majorly benefited from digital tools to make this possible). CyberDiva and CyberSongman were considered, but I ended up cutting them cuz I just didn't feel like drawing them sorry-- (just pretend they're off to the side. They gave Ruby and Clara the pizza lol). Right is the "final" completed sketch (before I decided to include Chika mid-way through coloring and VY1 and VY2 near the finish line). I started by drawing the main "groups" separated on a different canvas so I can plop them into the main canvas for easy rearranging and transforming. However I got lazy and ended up drawing everyone in the bottom right corner directly on the canvas since I liked seeing the big picture of everyone's positions. Y'know.

Almost excluded Chika! But I like her design so much that I just felt like including her last-minute. You win this time, Chika fans. VY1 and VY2 were very close to being cut! I added them when I began doing the banner and thought "eh why not". I figured their non-human designs would be pretty easy to include pushed back in the bg. Ik VY1 is more commonly associated with the fan design, but I referenced the hairpin cuz it was simpler and the fan looked very annoying to draw 😭

Sorry to the fans of many Vocaloids I had to cut because this composition was insane enough as is. I promise I wanted to include fellas like CUL, LUMi and Sachiko 😭 I will admit I was a little biased on who I wanted to include over others. Like, I don't normally care for Bruno and Clara, but I wanted to get some more international 'loids in the mix. Also wanted to stick in the realm of official designs and not fan-designs since, as much as I can appreciate those, are just a whole "wait who is that guy supposed to be" situation I didn't wanna deal with. I also did wanna include even more character references through the balloons, but they ended up being kind of ugly and overcomplicated the BG :,) (Oh, and while this was originally planned to be a Vocaloid-only piece, I did end up including Teto, Neru, and Haku 'cuz those are Miku's besties dude!!! They may not be Officially in the club but they're her girls and it would be criminal to not invite them to her birthday).

Anyway, this project marks the first time I've drawn a lot of Vocaloids. Lily, Piko, Rana, Yuki, Yukari, Miki, Maika, and many more lol. All of 'em I've heard or seen in passing, but now I actually drew them, and some have really cool and fun designs!! I got into a habit of drawing Merli after this since I just love her design for example. And I'll probably be drawing more lol!!

Oh and the last thing I'll add for now!! The cake is indeed made up of various song references!! I wanted to reference the "big four" producers, just absolute icons in Vocaloid history. The pink/black checkerboard is "World is Mine" (Ryo), the crescents on the side is "Rolling Girl" (Wowaka), the smiley faces is "Matryoshka" (Hachi), and the three hearts on the side is "The Vampire" (DECO*27, which is sort of a symbol of his whole Mannequin album tbh). I know "The Vampire" is a bit modern but I couldn't think of anything else off the top of my head. I'm a fake DECO fan I know 😔 "Matryoshka" was originally going to be referenced in the colors of the candles but believe me it looked like shit so I just went for something else last minute 😭

That's all I have to say!!! Hope you didn't mind the text wall if you made it here. I hope you like it as much as I do!!!! Happy freakin' birthday Miku!!!!

I have to deal with tagging all these characters now for my page,,, in the drafts my tags got cut off after a certain point so I think I'm massively breaching the tag limit 😭 um... I'll figure that out later...

not losing sleep that i can't tag everyone, even for page organization purposes because some characters have pretty generic names and some are a little hard to see in full yknow. If you're one of those people who tag every character in the art piece you reblog... I am very sorry.

[dododrawsstuff]

Ikepri comic

Pages: 8

Colored

Cw: Insecurity, Imposter Syndrome (?), some fluff and a lot of self indulgence

Okay, so I finally finished this comic, I started it last year, but only made the sketch and then forgot about it. I picked it up again this month. When I made the sketch I was feeling really down about my art in general, how it wasn't good enough, how I wasn't improving, etc.

So I thought, what would be a good way to cope? Talking to friends? Nah, going to therapy? Nah, I'll make a comic and spend unholy amount of time on it lol

These feelings have gotten a bit better now, but they resurface from time to time in varying degrees.

I know a lot of creatives also struggle with these feelings, and often fail to see their own work as something beautiful and that other people genuinely enjoy. So I hope this silly self indulgent comic I made to cope with my own insecurities can help you in some way!

I wish I had started playing Ikevil when I first made the sketch, bc I wanted to include some of the boys from it too

Commissions | Kofi

[blazetbw-art]

Hello, attempted a modern Sonic Bunnie Rabbot redesign!

@thepinkgalaxy55 did a post on twitter and it reminded me to finish this design from last year lol.

Check under the cut for the journey down the rabbit hole.

Started out with a sketch of her previous designs to get a better idea of what makes 'em tick.

From Left to Right: SatAM, Archie, Archie Reboot-all bunny, and Reboot Robo-bunny After that, figuring out the head. Stayed round, but wanted to avoid the same copy-past-face. Took out the bun-toof in the final since it really wasn't needed and she never had it anyway.

Next, let body & mech parts.

Initially started Forces Avatar like, but switch it over to a different direction. I wanted chonky lower legs and the Big O hydraulic fist. Started toying around with the joints found in the more modern renders of Metal Sonic and other bots.

Final lines and Color tests! Or at least with the original colors to see how I could make them fit, and where to take her design from there.

Went a more EggPawn style because they're very practical in their form and function in terms of design. I also like to think that if the modern Eggman were to turn to robotizicing, he'd probably keep the bots more simplified for what he could mass produce over something more complex that would require more fixing and tweaking.

She also got a pony-tail like MLP's Applejack because I felt it would help her shape a bit more.

And finally, figuring out colors for myself.

I ended up going towards the dusty-rusty-rose on the end to help her stand out from the bots as well as the other pink and purple gals already in the cast.

Yennyway, thank and be well~

[pleucas]

i got a few asks about my process :0 so yea i took some screenshots mid-process of my recent cliff-skk thing just for that

m gonna preface everything by saying that i did have a ref for the environment!! i avoid color dropping from the image and tracing cuz i do want to hone some digital skills. also saying i'm doing an "environment study" when i'm really just drawing skk makes me feel better abt myself

when i don't have a reference, i tend to do some thumbnail sketches in my sketchbook. here's some random stuff of past work, where i rawdogged everything:

but whatever, back to the cliff-skk. i'll also post a timelapse of it for easy ref, but detailed stuff is under the cut :)

first i did some rough sketches on an orangeish background (underpainting etiquette, i find it helps things feel brighter and keep a stable tone when choosing colors to lay on top), and I quickly lined skk :)

then I laid down some flats for the background, again really eyeballing the reference for hues. afterwards i thought it was a bit bright, and i wanted a more sepia/nostalgia feel to it, so i hue adjusted everything to something more uniform

then i lay down flats for skk + the ocean, which i both had to color adjust a lot (you might see that in the timelapse), and then i jump straight into rendering the background. when i render, i always prefer to do it over something lineless, so i turn the sketch layer off. i rarely do lineart for backgrounds.

i also used to render the characters first, but i've found that it's just not a great approach—especially for art where characters and background are interacting, knowing the hues and shades of the environment is crucial to effective rendering on the character that doesn't make them look out of place.

when i'm rendering, i really try to keep in mind tenants of contrast, perspective, form, and light/shadow. ex, stuff "closer" to us has more detail; the hill in the back is minimalist (in comparison); the shadows lean cool-green while the light leans gray-yellow. rake brushes really carried me here idk... my fav brushstyle forever

eventually i reach a point where i'm satisfied (or bored) with the background. for the last stages i usually have the subjects hidden so i can really perfect the details—but then for super duper final details, like the little leaf specks and grass strands, i unhid skk so the poppy details could work around skk. then i get to rendering the characters :)

i forgot to take ss of all the stages when i rendered skk, but here's something from... about the middle of the process? i tend to render characters with the lineart hidden as well, sometimes bringing it back just to clarify things, but ultimately i prefer to define things by form than by line. that's just me tho idk, idt it makes or breaks anything, just a preference

again rlly just thinking about cool/warm, reflective tones (the greenish shadow on chuuya's left inner leg, sky-gray blue on dazai's vest), really just slotting the subject into the environment. after i finish rendering the characters, i usually return to the background and add some stuff—in this one i defined the waves a bit and put some grass around skk

and yeah then we're done idk LOL. sometimes i run the file through camera raw (photoshop) to do some color adjustments—i find that my iPad displays colors super differently, usually making things a lot lighter than they are (u can see how dark the timelapse is...), so i find myself lightening my work a lot. i also sharpen and add noise as needed :)

i think my process has changed a lotttt even in this past year. it's kinda crazy!! it's always fun to do these and just reflect a bit on how i work. mostly just mindless insanity until it kinda works.

thanks for sending in an ask. and if u read all that, thanks to u too lolol

[meruz]

i hope this hasn't been asked before. what size do you make your canvas? and do you crop it to fit other socials (like Instagram for example)? i hear that 300 dpi is standard. i never know if it's good to make my canvas big or not.

hi i think this ask is like at least 4 months old but i was scanning my sketchbooks from last year and i abruptly remembered i had gotten this ask because i had made a little chart in my sketchbook trying to figure out how to answer it

anyways theres pros and cons. and the size of your canvas is really going to depend on personal needs + preference. how good ur computer is, how complicated ur art style, how comfortable drawing feels, how much disk space you have to spare, what youre gonna end up using the art for in the end...300dpi is standard for PRINTING specifically, if you only plan to ever post things online then 72dpi works great and will save you space (fun fact a lot of professional animation files i deal with are 72dpi. and those eventually go on your tv screen). but personally i make everything i draw 300dpi because i am always printing stuff for cons, zines, etc and its nice to have the option even if i dont end up printing.

when I was a teen I used to draw on a rly shitty laptop and i made everything 800x800px 300dpi because big canvases would cause a lot of lag and also the resolution on this laptop was pretty small so 800px was a lot of the screen already. now i have a slightly better laptop with a bigger resolution and i sketch on giant 10000px-40000px canvases with the hard round brush and no shape dynamics or transfer whatsoever to minimize lag. when it comes to making a final illustration when i know ill be using a bunch of layer effects/blending modes/colors/mixing brushes etc etc ill generally crop the canvas down to the 6000px range. most illustrations i try to make sure are comfortably printable on tabloid size paper so thats pretty much anything hovering around or above 3000x5000px w 300dpi (so 11x17in). HOPE THIS HELPS?

EDIT: OH ALSO re: socials. i always ALWAYS size down my art to post on the internet. i think its crazy when other artists dont. because why would i ever let the internet have my hi-res file for free. also in general i think it looks better if you do the resizing yourself because if you don't then many social media sites will compress your file for you! a lot of people will post a hi-res file to twitter and then go "Wow twitter killed the quality of this img!!!" UH YEAH because they have an automatic image compressor. because they need to save space too lol and they dont want your image to take 248263895 years to load. same with instagram and to a lesser extent tumblr. when i post anything on social media i resize it down to 1200px-1600px on the longest side... its a little arbitrary but im kind of basing it on the smallest resolution of widely available screens. mostly because i think it looks stupid when u open up an image file fullsize and u have to scroll to see the whole thing... also iirc instagram only takes images up to 1080px before it resizes them? granted if you upload something smaller than that itll also resize it up which will look worse so I think bumping the numbers just over 1080px is pretty safe.

I should really be bringing the dpi down to 72 too when i post online but often im too lazy to do that. but it will technically help ur image load faster and stuff. and make it less likely for people to yoink it off the web and print it themselves.

[wilderhyperfoxations]

Merlin Starhawk's character design (an analysis)

Back when I started playing AFKJ some three months ago, my Merlin looked very different. Some things have stayed consistent with him; his pointy but short ears, black lipstick, glasses, his bitchface, his transgender identity, and his fashion sense being on the sophisticated side.

His initial design is rather different (no horns, no hat, shorter hair), the art style skews more realistic and less anime.

The second version is where you can see the recognizable aspects of his design take shape. The style is also more anime now. His hat is present, although it's missing a tassel, and his hat is far smaller. He used to have a cape and dressed in a more boring way. His glasses are also missing in these sketches, but I just forgot them lol. Another sketch has him with horns and a tail- I did keep the horns.

And finally, the third and last version of Merlin. His design and theme have solidified. Stars, a motif of lightbearer designs as well as a nod to the pentacle, and plants, a motif of wilders and his connection to the earth. (Fun fact- his horns are muntjac antler-inspired.)

My main inspirations for his design were classic depictions of the Merlin from from various legends ( and Starhawk's story also parallels Merlin; being half-demon/non-human, prophecies, shapeshifting) and stereotypical depictions of wizards in the modern day.

What comes to my mind when I hear "wizard" is an old man with a long grey beard and hair wearing a hat and cloak covered in stars. (Also, to let you in on a secret, one piece of inspo were wizards from Adventure Time from that season 1 episode. The tassels are probably subliminal influence from Orville Peck. The coins are based on Ukrainian jewelry from hundreds of years ago, replaced with Esperian coins. And the bell? My cats wear bells. I think it's cute.)

I took that in a different direction to subvert expectations you'd have of a great wizard- the great Merlin isn't some old human, he's a 20-30 year old stuck in time, bumbling his way through life, queer and plagued with joint pain and fainting episodes. He is wise but never takes his own advice. He is dedicated, kind, and all too forgiving, but is often lazy and petulant. He's antisocial and blunt but dresses finer than people do in the royal capital.

Besides inspo from some elves and small bits of inspo I took from all over the place, I also used Mirael and Celestials as reference, to draw a connection between them. I kept his colors bright and cool to make him stand out from all designs in game, which are muted, to show that he's built different.

He's a creep, he's a weirdo, and that's about it.

[drawloverlala]

July/2024 - Commissions and Shop- Status update-

July is here and we are now halfway the year!

About Commissions:

🍩 sketch pages:

from April are almost all finished, I just have one more to finish as of today, I'll probably be announcing when I'll open some slots next week.

In any case I'll be also opening a few other slots on August!

🍩 Illustration commissions:

5 out of 12 finished

one is almost finished so it would be 6 finished soon

there's around 6 more to finish after that one and I already started working on 2, hopefully next week I'm able to start the other 4

🍩 Comic page commissions:

the one with 5 pages is now with 3 out of 5 pages inked and with base colors, needs inking of 1, needs pencils on another

I'm thinking on working on this one for one entire week so I can finally finish it lol

☕Ko-fi Shop:

I haven't had any purchases after I sent last batch of orders yet, but I've been working on some concepts for new items in the meantime! hopefully I have these ready on August!

Here's a peek at what I've been working on at the moment

Here's some sketches for stickers with some Sonic girls, I may also make an illustration with all of them together.

This one I want to make it a magnet

I've also thought on some Sonic Skyline stickers and illustration

and some other sticker ideas plus some bookmark concepts

Besides that, I want to remake a few old drawings so I can make them prints, besides of new illustrations

So yeah, I'll be working on these! I'm really looking forward to have these live on the shop! 😄

That's all for now! have a wonderful month!

[partyhorn]

Have u ever posted your comic or animation workflow anywhere? Im super curious on how you tackle the process, especially not using a drawing tablet. I know you have a very simple (and adorable) style so that probably helps in terms of workflow -- Im just curious about the steps you take.

Thank you! With both comics and animation my key thing is to not spend too much time on any particular thing, just draw loose and fast. Honestly the only downside to drawing with a mouse is that I can tell my arm has extremely specific muscle memory regarding it- if my mouse breaks and I get a new one I have to spend a good month or so just letting my hand get used to it again lol. Same with if my setup gets readjusted too much- right now my setup is my mouse on one of those padded mousepads, on top of 2 books, with my elbow resting on my 3DS case (I'll get an actual pillow or something for it eventually lol). But luckily thanks to this I suffer very minimal wrist pain 👍

(...Okay I started to go really in depth in my process here, so sorry if this is way more than what you were asking. Putting it under a readmore just to save space lol)

With MFM in particular, I start by writing out the entire script for the next story arc, which really is just all of the dialogue and vague notes about any important actions. Then I do the paneling with very loose stick-figure like sketches of where the characters are and what they're doing. I prefer having very little planning when it comes to character poses and panel shapes, coming up with those on the fly makes things much more exciting and faster to make. But it's the opposite with dialogue... it needs to be 100% FINAL before I draw a single line lol.

That's part of my script for my most recent chapter, as well as what my extremely loose goofy thumbnail sketching is like. I write the script as one big thing and don't separate it into pages until I actually start drawing- then I go and color change it just to keep track of what dialogue goes on each page

After that, I go back and do the ACTUAL sketch, as well as the lettering (I don't believe this is how it's done professionally. I used to do lettering as the very last step in the process... but then found it hard to cram speech bubbles in the right places lmao.) After that is lineart, coloring, background flat colors, then shading/rendering for all of it. I do each step in batches, as in I sketch out ALL pages of a chapter before moving to lineart, I line ALL pages before starting coloring, etc. I find it way easier to be productive when it's broken up like that, though when I first started the comic I used to draw each page to completion before starting the next (but also, the comic's style was DRASTICALLY simpler back then haha)

(Unfortunately I merged some of the shading to the background flat colors so it's not entirely accurate... oops) FireAlpaca has a sand texture feature that I only found out about last year- adding that to the backgrounds makes them look 10x better with WAY less effort.

With animation, it depends on the project. For simple 5-10 second animation I make for fun, there's very little planning lol. I skip some steps in the process- I'll sketch out the keyframes (and maybe any difficult inbetweens if necessary), line those, then go straight into making linework inbetweens. I'm not a cleanup artist and have no experience in that, so I always find trying to line my rough animation makes everything jittery and wobbly. If I do it with a clean line from the start then I can avoid that and save a lot of time 👍

For my bigger projects (such as the Parvey cartoon and the MFM Kickstarter trailer), I do the whole animatic with final audio first and foremost, with the animatic being almost like the keyframes. I split them up into individual shots, .mp4 files anywhere between 1-30 seconds usually, and animate those one at a time. I'm a huge fan of free to use programs and try to use them as much as I possibly can, here's a list of the ones I use:

FireAlpaca- for the actual drawing part itself (storyboarding/animating/etc). FireAlpaca has a feature that lets you export every frame as it's own drawing, as well as an onion skin mode

Windows Movie Maker- for compiling all of those frames into video format, creating individual shots. If you upload all of your frames and set them to around 0.08 seconds, it equals about 12fps (I usually animate at 0.10 seconds/10fps, its a bit slower but looks nice)

Onlinesequencer.net- for making music. It's the place I've made all of my songs on, like the timeloop song, hyperworkaholic, and the background music for the MFM Kickstarter trailer.

Audacity- for editing audio/music. Also great for recording things directly from your desktop

DaVinci Resolve- for editing and putting together all of the shots into one big video. Can get kind of intensive on the computer during rendering, so watch out.

YouCut (app)- also for editing and compiling shots, I used this one a lot a couple years back but I'm not sure how well it holds up. Doesn't need much phone storage to download but needs a lot to render videos.

MS Paint (yes really)- for typing up text. FireAlpaca has a text option but I don't like it as much as Paint's.

...The only thing I genuinely can't do alone is voice acting. Luckily there's a big voice acting community on Twitter and they're all amazing to work with!

This got... way more in depth than I planned for it to be, so sorry if this is way more than what you were asking lol. But that's my general process when it comes to my art 👍

[nonspeakingkiku]

Finally making the post about birthday stuff. ☺️ We had to leave earlier than intended because the science center we were going to closed at 3 😂 oops. We didn't know this before hand. Lol

The science center was really cool. It had a climbing tower with interactive stuff, an area about body systems, an area about the science of music (that was so cool) a giant light bright, an area where you can make things (it had a 3D printer but we didn't use it. But Kiku did get a 3D printed rainbow Charizard. 🥺)

Kiku got kind of scared at the top of the climbing thing because Kiku doesn't like heights but it was still really cool. Hubby got Kiku a bat plush. His name is Chicken Nugget.

ID: a large brown bat plush. End ID

After the science center Kiku got money and got to buy stuff for Kiku 😮

We went to starbucks and Kiku got a colorful drink and a new tumbler ☺️

ID: Four pictures in a square. First picture is an orange mam bottle with a turtle, a cat, a bird and hearts on it.

Second image is a blue, yellow, and green first years cocomelon straw cup with JJ and YoYo visible.

The third is image is folded up colorful cocomelon blanket with letters and the melon from cocomelon on it.

The last image is a metal tumbler from starbucks with art of a person with blue hair on it. Behind the person is a background of green leaves.

End ID

Things that Kiku hasn't taken pictures of but got for Kiku are a new sketch book, a pack of paper, a bunch of the pencils Kiku prefers, erasers, a set of four tangles, a muzzle (for petre and therian/otherkin reasons) and some calm strips ☺️ Kiku is still waiting on the calm strips and the muzzle to get here because Kiku ordered those online.

Oh! Kiku almost forgot!

This was Kiku's birthday cake!

ID: A construction themed cake with candles and construction trucks on it that says Happy Birthday, Kiku. End ID

[kradeelav]

so one of the technical bits i challenged myself with this gunter/corrin doujin was to:

(a) figure out an efficient process for professional multi-page artistic works in linux/true OSS programs - from ideation all the way to printer hand-off.

and

(b) a process that fit well with my brain and kept me from spinning my wheels endlessly redoing pages. it's a common problem with longer projects (aka why you see reboots of webcomics all the time, and also why i haven't been able to get "what greater sin" out for three years cuz i sucked at this lol).

why the focus on process though?

after mastering a certian degree of technical proficiency. it's what separates the hobbyist artists from the pros. not to toot my horn, but i'm quite good at project management process at work, and about two years ago it dawned on me to take some of that learned knowledge and actually apply it here if only to save eyestrain/wrist-strain time.

work lazier smarter, not harder etc.

before i get into the process outline, there's two programs that are doing the heavy lifting since i gave them a trial run with the last anthology and they worked great in tandem. (both cost no money and are available on all major OS's btw)

krita, my main drawing program. sketching/inking/speech bubbles/coloring/vector stuff can all be done here.

libreoffice writer - basically microsoft word for linux. i use it for arranging multiple pages, reordering, and exporting as .pdf to give to the printer (while amazing at rendering, krita can't export as pdf or show multi-pages)

so!

process wise, it occurred to me not too long ago that i needed to consolidate my multi-page creative projects into 3 major gates.

thumbnail sketches

proof of concept layout

"last 10" final

thumbnail sketches

thumbnails are a common concept in comics, but they're great for print front/back matter too. thumbnails ain't here to look pretty, their sole purpose to get the idea from your noggin to on the page.

here's a completely unaltered spread from my journal with a ton of thumbs and notes for this doujin.

so what's the kind of stuff i think about with thumbs?

how panels in a comic fit together with the major emotional beats + line of action. does the eye follow the pages naturally? do you "feel" the emotional impact?

does the compositions work with each other? negative/positive space, weight on top or bottom or diagonally, etc. do the pages feel claustrophobic or too empty? do they breathe?

decorative framing elements that reflect the tone you want + how they generally lead the eye across the page

random notes about overall tone or potential future pages

etcetc

at this point i import that digitally, and start drawing a proper sketch off of it.

fast forward from that sketch to:

"proof of concept" layout

i'm calling this proof of concept instead of a draft as they serve different purposes. a draft is a half-finished work you can just screenshot and show to anyone for feedback (like comms). proof of concept here is showing a certian level of completeness across draft pages to measure consistency.

lack of consistency is the mind killer killer of comics.

proof of concept is specifically meant to nip the 'fizzled out halfway' issues in the bud. it's to show you how cool it looks altogether already, but also shed a light on problem areas that are potentially popping up on the earlier side, so there's less time wasted.

this is a little premature in the process for a proof of concept screenshot, but you get the idea here in a later strip, shown here as screenshots imported into libreoffice writer:

another reason that made libreoffice writer essential is the accurate 2-page spread view. between that, being able to resize the page to whatever you need, and the very easy pdf exporter (with customizable compression), i don't know if i could do this kind of project here.

now, backing up - what kinds of consistency are we checking for here?

does the inking/coloring style change noticeably in a jarring way?

is there one comic strip that the pacing/paneling sucks in comparison to the others? or feels awkwardly added in tone and perhaps better saved for a different project?

is there one panel within a sequential series that's torturing you? what's the best way to throw it out and redo it even faster?

do the front/back matter support the meat of the inside in a clever, on-tone way?

did you accidentally change the font halfway through after you liked your new shiny toy? which one works better?

etc

keep in mind we're not just checking the consistency in one strip, it's for the book as a whole.

and then lastly,

"the last ten" final

"the last ten" is a mental concept i've used for the last ten years for single comic pages. it's especially tempting to noodle over endlessly making one comic page perfect, when you could have done ten reasonably good ones in the same time, and so i made this my last step making IC pages.

once when you approach a level of reasonably done, but kinda hate the page and are procrastinating on getting it out, stop, rest your eyes overnight, and list the last ten minor things you'd change.

once when you've changed those? out the door it goes.

i'm gonna switch to a different project but here's a good example of a "last ten" stage applied to illustrations when i did fallen!gunter's FEH mockups.

looks pretty complete, right? WRONG :D

i can't remember the exact last ten i used, but it was something like:

too much of one specific glowy purple on both, i wanted more contrast with the red glow + "water" texture

needed more effects on the first image to better match FEH's aesthetic

change Leigh's credits after they got a chance to see it and give the thumbs up

knee/shin on left looks unfinished painting wise, clean up

missing chest plate silver decorations on left, clean up

etc

this is the last hail mary check to hack your brain into being satisfied with the page. you've had your say, onwards to the next one.

now, you can also have an additional 'last ten' for the project as a whole. but it's especially critical for comic pages to help keep the momentum/tempo/pace going.

anyway!

we'll see how all of this actually works in practice depending on how fast i can get this doujin out. :)

[mask-of-prime]

TLG: As You Move Forward

So I went a few months thinking about how I'd forgotten to include Makini to my past depictions of Kion's Guard as adults (1, 2), so I decided to celebrate the 4th anniversary (albeit 2 days late :p) of the Journey of Memories episode by finally showing off the adult design I have for her!

Because I'm still salty about TLG's last-minute decision in making Makini the Mjuzi of the Night Pride instead of Kiara's bestie like Season 2 hyped her up to be, I made a compromise by headcanoning that she frequently journeys back-and-forth between the Pridelands and the Tree of Life, especially when she's called over by each land for a ceremony of some kind.

Design Process:

To avoid making her look too much like a clone of her mother Fikiri, I figured that Makini would develop her dad Kitendo's features as she grew older (I think she's about 20-something in this image). It's kind of a thing for TLG to erroneously depict animals without their distinct sexual dimorphism (see: Mbuni the ostrich), but this time, I felt like embracing Makini's unusual bright colors for a female mandrill and make her look a little androgynous. I feel like it would fit her role as a Mjuzi for some reason lol

I figured the Bakora Staff she received at the Tree of Life would be her last new one as she's since learned to keep better track of it. I like to think that it symbolizes not only growth and learning, but it coming from the Tree of Life symbolizing that her true place is there.

In all that time she's owned it, being the crafty artist she is, she's put years of customization and souvenirs from her back-and-forth Pridelands/Tree of Life adventures into her decorating her staff, selecting just about every pretty flower and naturally-occurring bead she saw. I mainly sought out the idea of people bedazzling their canes for reference, she seems like the type to do that, making just about anything she owns pretty lol

Drawing Process:

ngl I got to work on this very much like that episode where Makini procrastinated on getting started on her portrait of Simba's family. I just, like... really struggled with the composition until I was hit with sudden inspiration to just go wherever my hand took me.

I grabbed a thumbnail sketch of my adult Makini design that I was the most happy with and rendered it digitally and was happy that it got me somewhere... then I ran into the background that I didn't put any thought into.

Because of the cropping and composition I already had going on with Makini's standalone model, it was very hard to come up with something she could be surrounded by, until I decided to insert some headcanons about a certain new TLG-related short Disney released. Basically: I headcanon Makini made those Circle of Life paintings that Kion shows to those younger cubs as I think the style they used in those paintings looks WAY different from Rafiki's (I mean the whole video looks different from the whole TLK art style). You can't tell me those purple pigments and cutesy flowers aren't something Makini would draw everywhere lol

Sources of Inspiration:

Sadly not pictured due to the angle and cropping is the headcanon that she paints her nails all the time, and she's always trying different color combos basically every week lol. I adopted that headcanon from iceflowerglow, who depicts Makini with painted nails in their comic "Shining Above Your Head". Other artists I drew inspiration from were Vtoony's "TLG: Kion's Guard" and tango_fizz.le's "Where'd all the time go?" when it came to designing her fully-developed mane.

[bvnga-aprikot]

VERY long overdue, this was wip that was supposed to be a sketch of what i want Athy, Jetty & Kiel’s outfits to look like in my Reincarnated!Jennette au that continuously haunts me for some reason. except i got bored at some point and just now i decided to rush coloring them now for some reason now that i remembered it's existence.

first attempt at my r!jetty au debutante dress my wip from last year

more under the cut :0 it's a bit long so sorry for that

i did this because i ended up feeling dissatisfied with my first attempt at designing a debutante dress for r!jetty since to me i just don't like how i executed things. granted i'm not really serious about my art but the colors looked too muddy lol. aside from that though, i also wanted to finally draw Athy's and Kiel's outfits mention in my other posts since they're obviously integral to this au.

i went more in depth in my first design post, but i decided to stick more true to the neoclassical silhouette that came after the rococo era which heavily influenced Jetty's dresses in both timelines in the manhwa. obviously a huge departure imo bc i think Jetty and her bows are too iconic to be left out of this one and i find it unfortunate that even when redoing my design i still couldn't find a way to incorporate bows lol. besides that, i'm quite happy with how her dress turned out this time.

i didn't point this out in the actual photo but if you're wondering why there are green marks on her neck and hands, long story short it was Viscount Patterson's fault (not to spoil on my own au but they do meet earlier).

Athy's dress is an homage to traditional debutante dresses being white, with the added edge that Athy's dress isn't supposed to stay white and turns into the iconic pink the more she dances. i wanted this to look more elegant and as if she is becoming a blooming flower as the night goes on. though i do wish i did more with the dress since it's supposed to represent how Athy is fully taking her life in her own hands to become Ruler of Obelia and thus, blooming into a new person. i should do a separate sketch for her dress bc it's more complex than what i had intended.

Kiel basically went full-on duke of the north with this one haha. full-disclosure, yes Kiel and Athy do have a thing with each other in this au though i don't intend for them to end up with each other, so i drew his outfit to compliment Athy's which ended up making him look like a Izek clone. however i specifically chose the dark colors because at that point, he and Jennette are still grieving the death of the Duchess due to... very unfortunate circumstances.

for the accessories Ijekiel and Jennette are wearing i'm keeping their connection to Duchess Alpheus, she's like the Lily in this au except she tragically passes away in their late childhood. it's an event that acts as a turning point for their characters and puts a strain on their relationship since she was the only adult in their lives who saw them for who they are outside of being Roger's pawns.

[starrysharks]

Ooo!! Which OC was your favorite to design? (Feel free to list multiple if you can't chose!!)

honestly the funnest characters to design are the ones where you instantly know what their ***color pallete*** will be cuz it's all fine and dandy knowing the shape and the face until you realise you have no clue what colors you're going to slap on those shapes and face. that being said the funnest funkiest top 5 are as follows -

5. diane lodestar

even her first design 2 ish years ago was fun to draw (brace yourself for ugly old zeno art):

(why was she so skinny here...💔) anyway i knew exactly what she was going to look like because she was heavily based on that one pokemon character (wicke) and just had a fun futuristic pallete i guess? and now her features are more stylised which is fun. there's a reason she barely changed after her first design lol

4. needles (of the church)

here i'll also say that needles doesn't have a last name so she's just called needles of the church! anyway i drew her up in one go and i knew i had a hit on my hands, she's very fun to draw and i love her very much even though she kills indiscriminately

(first design of her, complete with all my ref pics so you can take a peek into the inner machine algorithm workings of zenobot-3000)

(final design noticed how hardly anything has changed. she is too cute and perfect for this world)

3. lars lycan

i don't have many big guy ocs so lars is fun to draw because he's so top heavy. also the like line/swoop thingy shape he has going on that's fun idk how to describe it sorry

(literally cannot crop shear out of this image without cropping out lars' snout which is kind of in character for shear lol. also having 6 top surgery scars (yes the x's are scars) doesnt really make sense but its funny and it fills up the torso and its fun to draw)

2. doctor novocaine

big hair twintails upturned eyes :3 face and cotton candy/toothpaste/trans flag colors NUFF SAID 😤😤😤

1. octaviaaaaaaaaaaa

she's fuckin COOL!!!!! also here's the first sketch of her most recent design. even when i gave her and savory massive overhauls i hardly changed her apart from getting rid of a lab coat and slightly changing the dress and changing the color palette to be edgier and when i say it like that it sounds like a lot but its really not kind of

(ohmygod she looks so weird without lips honestly ,,,, and also her face was kinda long it's like flatter and wider now,,, i gotta redo her refsheet man)

[synthshenanigans]

woah hey a year has been passed wowie :0

First two weren't posted here cos they were too long ago & not CJish related but love the way he took up 70% of the year lol

[ Full images + templates below :} ]

[TW for Bright Colors, maybe blood & very very vague themes of depression/suicide for like 2 drawings I believe]

Long text about the arts if anyones actually curious!!

January: An old OC I completely forgot about until making this. He's based on old radio like things :}

February: Played Person 5 Royal last year & drew Joker cos idk he's neat. Fun fact, the same day I fully finished the game was the day Storm & a Spring came out. Also while grinding in the game, I had his Bidding & VoaC covers on repeat. Which was a bit annoying to do since they weren't on Spotify yet & YT on mobile didn't have looping then.

March: The Hawaii Part ii album cover :} I did post that eventually but that's the time I actually made it. Had listened to TME a couple of months before then which got me into the album, so months later I drew it cos why not? [Also the month Vol.1 fully released on everything. What's funny is my gallery for that day was a handful of memes I saved at 4am before I fell asleep. And then the next image saved is when I woke up which was a screenshot of the whiteboard in TfaR lol]

April: First main Jash art !!! And its not even with any of the songs from Vol. 1 lol. I had his Moss cover on repeat again & now that all of Vol. 1 was out, I drew Heart in some moss. Or really in the image from the video.

May: Lil animation I made of Heart with the song Don't Hit the Lights! Link to my post & the song can be found here :}. Still really like the song & even the drawings. Might remake em eventually idk

June: Sky/socialc1imb's Clue AU! I like murder mysteries & this one was real interesting so I drew it a lot lol. Might remake that one or one of the others I made at somepoint? It'll be a bit later if I do but ye

July: A redraw of a HMS piece I originally made back in May, based on the Three Wise Monkeys thing. I like the idea of it so I keep wanting to remake it.

August: I honestly can't remember if I posted that art or not. Actually yea I don't think I ever did PFFT. It's one of the few drawings I did of myself this year & its from CJs Not Perfect cover [as you can tell by the lyrics on it]. Also one of the very very few vent-ish arts I made. I like the background more than anything but its still neat ig?

September: Art for one of the best songs ever. I love Fine, I'm Fine its so good & I listened to it for like 70% of the 20+ hours it took me to make the drawing. Still proud of it so there's the sketch I drew on paper, the one on my tablet & then the final versions.

October: There was a lot from this month due to Jashtober. I still like this one lot & it wasn't insanely rushed so I picked this one to show lol.

November: I have no idea why I made a fun lil soul. I was having an identity crisis over my art style & ig decided to draw the guy who is a walking identity crisis/j

December: Same as September. One of my favorite songs ever was covered & released, so I made a drawing like everyone else lol.

[digitalclaws]

WHAT'S THIS? AFTER 20 YEARS SHE GETS A MEGA?

Well, it would seem, the moment has finally come for Raptomon.

In these past few months, I made and scrapped a lot of ideas, that just weren't coming out right, that just din't "feel" right. Until one day, I'm not even sure how or why, the design finally started materializing into my head. I was afraid I'd eventually scrap it, and I was sad because I was liking it. Yeah, liking it too much to scrap it. This was starting to feel right, which is weird after more than 20 years!

Last image is a selection of all the in progress design sketches I had saved, but I made many more that are forever lost, not counting the whole entire designs I just scrapped.

Some design notes here not to make the post too long:

NOW, about the design itself. I feel like this design is an amalgamation of many "design tropes" that I adore and they just felt right to be all put onto my partner of over 20 years. The references to the Mass Production Evangelions might be pretty easy to spot, but it's not the only influence. Look closely, and you'll catch elements inspired by the designs of the Pokemon Toxicroak, Spittor from Extreme Dinosaurs, 90's Jurassic Park Chaos Effect toys (in particular, the Velocirapteryx figure), and probably something else too!

The thing that gave me most trouble with the design? The wings. I didn't want to just make a larger AeroDeinomon, but getting rid of the wings as a whole concept seemed wrong. There was also the issue of the red black plates of the pre-evolutions. I didn't want to turn her into a Stegosaurus by making her plates bigger and more imposing. So many times, I had been tempted to remove the plates altogether, but at the same time, I felt they had to stay as they were into Deinomon design since the beginning. So, I merged the two issues into one and found a solution. The back plates became shards that come out of her body and turn into wings. I think static images aren't able to do them justice, but they're supposed to be looking like floating glass shards. I imagine they could also be rearranged, shot at the enemy, take different shapes… I feel like there's a lot to explore with this design element.

By the way, I'm sorry if the "peeled" image is disturbing! It ended up coming out a bit more horror-ish than I wanted, but I wanted to play with the "exposed flesh" design trope many Digimon have, and show the body structure underneath the cream-colored parts. I promise that outside of Halloween images ( :P ) I will try not to show her looking this creepy too often, lol.

Now, I'm not sure if she "feels" like a Mega Digimon. Does she? Even with many Megas looking like overly complicated humanoids and/or robots, some of my favorite Megas aren't really distinguishable from Champions just by design alone. Look at Plesiomon or Griffomon, for example… But, I think that seeing her next to her unevolved forms, it just feels like a natural evolution and that's what counts.

Enough ramblings for today, I hope you'll like this design and if you have any questions let me know-

…and by the way, HOPEFULLY NEXT TIME I DRAW HER SHE'LL HAVE A NAME (that's the real part I struggle with… can you believe her baby forms ALSO still don't have a name?)