#got a little comic sketched for this I wanna finish at some point~

[the-artist-grimm]

Hello! So sorry to bother, I know your inbox must be full but I was reading your latest post and couldn’t help but notice you writing this

“And once Aym died and she saw how grief-struck he’d looked, heard how he rasped out Anthea’s name, watched as he reached out a trembling hand to the Lamb's collapsed, wailing form not to hurt but to comfort, she realized there was more going on.”

And it made me wonder even more how exactly the entire fight sequence went down between them all. I thought that Narinder would make the first strike after the twins deaths, but is it Anthea that does so out of grief or rage?

Anyways I love your content! Its great! Im normal about it!

Anthea strikes first yeah-Narinder had ordered them to sacrifice themself, then the twins to fight at their not so much refusal but more-so asking what the heck was going on (while he'd initially hoped the cages would be enough to encourage Anthea to lay down their life since he was betting on their self-sacrificial nature, when that didn't work he had hoped their love for the twins would get them to stand down instead). But after Baal got killed on accident via knocking Anthea off balance to ensure he'd get hit, then Aym doing almost the same via intentionally aiming for the cages with magic to force Anthea to counter (which unintentionally the curse they chose, an ice-based shield one produced a lot of shrapnel that pierced his stomach), he kinda broke a little? Like with Baal, he froze up in shock and didn't know how to react when Aym immediately went on a mana rage, then when Aym died as well that's what made his brain finally snap back and realize 'oh god what just happened my kids just died'.

Like he only asked Anthea to lay down their life because he was convinced they were going to betray him (see his overview here). And while at the moment he still thought as such, the shock of just losing his sons and now watching the love of his life break down covered in their blood had him just acting off instinct-Anthea's crying, comfort them now.

He reached out a hand, but the looming shadow just triggered a 'Fight' reflex, which was amplified by both their own grief and the Crown's desperation to defend its bearer in the wake of a threatening situation from its POV. Narinder nearly gets his hand blasted off with a curse launched on reflex, and it snaps him into realizing 'oh ok we're fighting now' which the battle goes from there. Narinder's chains had fallen off with each bishop's death so only his collar which was bound to the metaphysical one remained, so he was able to just jump into defense.

Which as a side-note (also see their overview here) Anthea doesn't actually remember much of the fight, like with losing the twins it was like losing their family all over again but worse since this time it was them who killed them, and the grief, confusion, and anger just took over. Combined with Red giving them essentially a massive adrenaline boost to make sure they could fight things just went downhill from there. Had Narinder not reached out his hand like that things might've gone a little differently-but because he spooked them battling it was.

All Anthea could see during that battle was red until Narinder was mortal size and their blade was pressed into his throat-and it was only at seeing how terrified he'd looked in that moment and the fact that they still loved him they snapped out of it. From there they sent him back to the cult, the two had an argument over who planned to betray who, and then they ignored him for the next few months.

So TLDR, the final battle is just a long chain of people making really bad split-second decisions (Baal tripping Anthea thinking he'd just get a simple cut to get Narinder to call it off, Aym following his brother's lead and miscalculating the possible results, Narinder reaching out a hand out of shock, Anthea getting spooked), and them snowballing into more.

(also thank you! :D)

[trinketstar]

TEKVENTURES! I wanna ramble about Tekventures.

if you remember them you qualify for a veterans discount

So they were Sgt.Frog ocs that my best friend SARAZA and I made on flipnote for edgy amvs and comics. I wanna say I wassss 13? give or take. But these little guys were my EVERYTHING. We thought of a billion stories about them. Then I got sick of drawing frogs eventually and wanted to make them more of an original thing. Our first sketches were of anthro goats, but over time with my style changes, an the fact that I hate spending more than 2 seconds drawing anything, they no longer resemble any specific animal and turned into fuzzy nondescript species of alien thing. ANYWAY I wanted to make them into a "real comic series" when i was 17. That's when I started the chapters that are still up on tumblr n webtoons! and a few other sites probably that I forgot about.

I've been harsh on it in the past but honestly I still love it to bits. What's there is a solid little comic and i still think it's adorable!

The only thing is, that's judging it based on what's there. It's a basis for a cute episodic thing with low stakes! Like the early mlp fim episodes or the new care bears cartoon. But that's NOT what it was planned for in the long term. Oh no, I was so ambitious. I had at LEAST 50 episodes planned which would weave together into this massive arc that would introduce other space teams, wayward space travelers with secret pasts connecting to the main cast, sad backstories for everyone, ALL of the family members of the main cast, a villian team with like... 'anti-versions' of the main cast, and a dramatically foreshadowed final confrontation with robot clones that want to destroy their planet. OH AND ROBIN too! Besides all that, they ALSO have multiple side story episodes about crashing to earth and befriending a human girl named Robin who has to keep them secret.

That might have been um. a lot.

But when you start writing a story with your best friend when you're 13 you most likely have NO CONCEPT of "too much". Who am I kidding I STILL have trouble pacing myself. But when you come up with a story it's hard not to think it's just GOLD! And that you've gotta keep it no matter what! Because that stuff is fun!

I went full force into the comic in my senior year of highschool and eventually I finished the first chapter! It took me a year. And then I looked at my plans for the other 49 episodes and thought "maybe I need to rework some things.."

I rebooted the comic once, tried making smaller stories, all that, but I wasn't quite feeling the same drive anymore. I realized I was comparing my work to high budget tv shows with like. a full team of writers and artists. and studio funding. and greenlit seasons and all that. And it was making me feel TERRIBLE about my art!

So I quit comics! I started hating comics! I hated how long they took and how restricted I felt (with my own expectations) and I lost my confidence in finishing projects because I was so sad about giving up on my big magnum opus. and I just kinda gave up and started only doing fandom art for a couple years. I did a jyushimatsu ask blog and kept it up for ages! And then a new season of Osomatsu came out and I realized when comparing it that I was basically writing an oc at this point. And that I CAN commit to long term projects if i dont get self conscious about it!

I still didnt wanna jump into comics again. But I thought of some new characters that I was becoming attached to. the very very beginnings of what could turn into a new idea.

I thought "well i still love cartoons about space! even if im not making tekventures anymore maybe i could do another space story. a really tiny one."

so i started making an rpgmaker game! and it started taking forever. so in the meantime i made a really rough doodle comic about how the characters first met. as a little side story thing.

and THAT was the key. I had to stop thinking about it like i was making a big cool tv show and starting my career and all that. its just a fun thing, off the cuff, not overthinking it, just for fun and personal expression.

so im still going with it! and its GREAT! Rocket chip has 12 planned chapters, and I'll be halfway done by the end of the year.

But BOY did it take me forever to learn that.

[tryingtolearnartsob]

DAY STARTING OFF STRONG….!

—okay I saw some super cute comic from diff fandom and it really got me fired up. I wanted to draw comics of MY otp. 🥺🥺🥺 and I thought going for a more simplistic style would help with my high expectations of likensss that I can’t meet right now 😭😭😭 and so I got to sketching!!!!

—had some kind of idea and it was a very simple one and I just went….to do it. it did seem very ambitious too (with lol a big panel of holding…..hands…….)with the FOCUS but ehhhh just yesterday I was practicing hands I would be fine. they thought<3 lolllll

—I had thoughts of changing the comic to be different but I was like nahhh this is simple let’s stick with it! just go for it! I didn’t want to over complicate stuff or anything

—and so I got to overlarging the sketch and making it big so it can be the size I want it to be… and so I got to drawing over it and that’s when I immediately hit a block….

—the thing was the first rough sketch I did was so much cuter and better…. I feel like when I tried to draw over it….i tried to more capture likeness and then it just didn’t turn out as cute or as good as the rough sketch… so obviously I had to redo that. I did try to fix it at first (seeing the diff:larger eyes extra but ehhhhh it didn’t work) so I just went to redoing it. And ah!!! this attempt was def better!!!!

—also ha………drawing bust shots are Hard……….so I tried to (during first redraw over rough sketch) to also include in bits of torso etc to see how things would look like. I remembered this video I watched that said it’s best to draw things that aren’t in the shot so you can know where things are or smth. my quoting isn’t the best. anyways! it def helped…. also initially wasn’t even gonna include the bit I drew to help imagine the rest so I can draw bust shot… but I ended up including… I think it was good to hand in bits of the arm… also I remembered that they’re were supposed to be holding hands so I had made sure to make the hand their moving to hold hands looked like that

—I don’t even wanna talk about ssk’s hair it was so fcking annoying. clothes…….im so glad that ssk’s clothes is very simple in this era… lol… just a cape…. and I tried to remember to add in wrinkle since hand was moving…. sskkr clothes were simple too…. I’ve gotten used to it while drawing a lot of Srda who wears similar to her mom 💗

—I went straight to lining it… I didn’t even redraw over the hands… was impatient lol and just wanted to get to lining the characters…. and so I went! and did! and lol it’s obvs I started to loose the patience lmaoo. I didn’t take that much care when it came to skkr hair and roughly lined it like I was sketching. I didn’t mind. it looked okay.

—also crazy that I just went into lining the hands like that. my rough sketch of the hands was super rough sketch too lmaooo but somehow…?! it turned out well….?! this is the one im almost surprised at. I thought it’d turn out way worse. I mean yeahhhhh skk’s fingers over hers make no sense but skkr’s turned out better than I’d hope for…..im really proud of them…. so djjdjdjd I just didn’t want to cover up with ugly skk fingers so I made his fingers still continue to not make sense 💗

—finished the line art and honestly at this point…..I wasn’t feeling great about the art………….. which made me feel sad…. anyways I thought to add colour??

—and my GOSH do I need so much practice with color like wtf….picking the right color can be so hard wtf………it was turning out worse and I didn’t likeeee ittt. one bitttt. but I decided to just continue and go to ssk and do his hair and THIS WHERR THINGS CHANGED!!!!!

—like okay I was thinking what color for his hair…..since I did the line art dark purple….black made no sense. I usually just scribble in lines for darkness so I just decided to do the purple line art color for the hair and WHEN I LOWERED THE OPACITY A LITTLE… SO I CAN BETTER SEE THE LINEART SO I CAN COLOUR IN MORE ACCURATELY… TAHTS WHN THE MAGIC BEGANZZZZ

—-I realized I can do this in MONOCOLOUR!!!!!!!!! omg I forgot that so much and by gosh, was I so happy by this discovery!!!!!!!!!’ ahhhhhh I love monocolor so muchhhhh. my fav shit. it turned this into super fun drawing. I had much fun in trying to decide the diff opacities/values of diff stuff and really —when I was doing his cape for the hand…..that’s where the magic really flourished…. ah it made this drawing a very happy one for me… <3333

—it did still a lil empty so here I was just adjusting and trying to figure what to add and how to not make it too much and now looking back this version is totally fine……ahhhhh…..I kinda wish I kept the hearts. I did like how I scribbled it in…..they looked fun….oh well.

—also seriously lol I gotta stop posting stuff as soon as I finish it…. There should be something about looking at stuff with fresh eyes but also man…. I’m just pretty lazy abt that lol.

—RIDING THIS HIGH!!!! I WANTED TO DO ANOTHER SS PIECE!!!! THIS TIME MORE LOOKING LIKE THEN!!!!! I had this pose/idea in mind and just went straight to sketching the idea and very happy with it…. it feels so nice too to just have an idea for pose and get to sketching it and be able to doing it ahhhhhh. also felt very nice when I roughly sketched it in and cleaned it up a lil like the face and stuff… properly adding in some features n stuff. also hmmmm i probs should do something with ssk’s other arm….

—also lmao I really have neglected the feet too much. I need to do something about learning them but also ahhhh I really don’t want to. also did have some struggle with trying to find out if they were sitting or what they were lying on… or kneeling or whatever. floor or actual sofa/chair…. I need to better visualize stuff like that… also I think for me, ss in side view I think im the best in… also man I really need to work on her hair a lot.

—anyways as I was doing this I had started to get a better image of like a story so I kinda wanted to turn this into a comic and while I was drawing the hair that kinda turned into a redraw of face too… I ended up trying to draw the comic bit that I wanted to include and ha………..this where things started to fall apart….. 😭😭😭😭 my problem of deawing ss faces came back to me 😔😔😔

—and ahhh seriously I don’t know what it is. I thought maybe the nose…? So I tried different way but nope. it’s not that. it got me so frustrated n sad I just stopped the wip there. I was already planning to pause anyways since I was getting tired… and plus trying to think of clothes was also too exhausting but sad to have to pause the wip in that moment…

(now looking back at this as I am uploading the images on to here… I think it might be the mouth of her face that’s the problem…..? also lol noticed problems with her side profile face too it looks a bit off but eh well I can always fix that later)

—-ahhhb seriously I need to do ss face sketches…. I looked at the manga to see what it is that im just getting so wrong that feels so frustrated…. and I think maybe the eyes…? is a big one…? and maybe nose???? anyways I just really need to practice!!!! but forgetting that part. today start was very good!!!! im pleasantly surprised!!!!

—I want to go back to the comic sketch that I drafted yesterday…. and also I want to do lots of figure pracs so I don’t go out of practice…. yeah….! and more hand studies… feet I can’t be asked to do. BDJFJKFKD. im just not interested into doing it and don’t care to right now even though I probs should be….. 5.56

6.00 I kinda just wanna do the ss face prac right now but also I really am too tired for more art stuff… Rn…. I just wanna take break….

[runewriters]

Runewriters Will Not Be Continued

Hey gang, it’s been a little while. Wanted to make an official update.

So, the short version: Runewriters will not be continued for the foreseeable future. I’d like to put together a post to share how the rest of the comic was planned to go, but it’ll take some time to figure out how to put that together.

Obviously I can’t say with 100% certainty that I will never return to this story, but I think I am finished with it. This is a decision I thought really hard about – is there some way I could do a paired down version, or a very sketchy version, without dipping right back into burnout? This is a comic that ended before it ever got to a lot of things that I really wanted to share. But… ultimately I think, I can’t keep holding out hope that some future version of myself will want to finish this. As dear as Runewriters has always been to me, I can’t imagine coming back and working on it again. I still really appreciate how much folks invested in it; it genuinely means so much to me still today, and I’m sorry that I no longer have the rest of the story in me to give you.

Here is a comic by Valerie Halla that resonated with me… a lot, while I was trying to make sense of this decision. Obviously, she wrote that for her, not me – but she really captured feelings I couldn’t put to words.

That said, I’d really like to come back at some point and put together, like, a little rundown of concept art and synopsis for Runewriters, just a little something to share what the story would’ve been and the ideas I had, to kind of resolve it. I’d like to not keep spoilers for a comic I’m never going to finish locked up inside my head, haha. And there’s a couple of characters you guys never even got to MEET! I’d like to let people meet them, even if it’s just through me and the ideas I had. Maybe it’s silly to do this so far after the last update; after all, I don’t know how long it’ll take me to put together, and I’d like to wait until I have friends nearby to help me organise it, and that’s a long time to wait for a story that won’t really be finished. But I’d still like to do it!I think that’s all I’ve got. I don’t know if I’m going to do another comic eventually. I don’t have anything else lined up! I’m still drawing, but less focused on PROFESSIONAL PROJECTS at the moment.

Follow me on social media if you wanna know what I’m up to online (tumblr, twitter)!

Follow me on patreon if you just wanna get alerted the next time i start any kind of personal artistic project, and not other stuff!

Connect your patreon to discord and pledge one dollar if you want to see everything I'm drawing, to get dumped into the server where I post All Of My Sketches right after I sketch them!

THAT'S EVERYTHING FOR NOW! This might've been kinda expected by now, but I did want to tell you all for sure what the decision was. Thank you to everyone who's supported me, and supported this work that has meant so much to me, and thank you all for being so chill and supportive while I took the time I needed to figure out what was going to be best for me. ;u;

[sunsetcarnation264]

WIP game

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have wips. (You can make your own post or reblog this one!)  I have deemed that this isn’t just for writing either. Sketch titles? Comics? Dnd campaigns? If you have an unfinished project, it counts!!

I saw this on @sweetcircuits‘s blog and I figured why not, I have WAY too many writing WIPs that I might not finish for a while so y’all can ask about them if anything interests you lol. The only things I won’t include are vent-y or NSFW stuff for what I hope to be obvious reasons. It’ll all be in the order of fandom so if you’re looking for a specific fandom, it’ll be in that order.

Writing WIPs

-The Conductor and The Singer (A Hat in Time)

-Dare Yori Suki Nano Ni (Ace Attorney. On-going, dorment)

-Feeling So Used, No Love Left To Lose (American Dragon: Jake Long)

-Should Be Loved (Amphibia)

-If I Told You I Loved You, What Would You Say? (Animal Crossing)

-I Got A Crush On You (Billy Hatcher and The Giant Egg)

-Four Chickens in Winter (Billy Hatcher and The Giant Egg)

-Golden Flames (Bunnicula, twin flame AU. On-going, dorment)

-Every Night, I Dream You're Still Here (Danganronpa) Finished, just haven’t properly cleaned it up yet.

-Through My Full-Blown Implosion, I'll Stay Golden And Retreat, Into My Sweetest Fantasy. (Deltarune)

-No Matter What They Say, You’ll Never Meet Another Me (DuckTales 2017, for Twitter Mutual)

-Opening The Closet Door (Kim Possible) Abandoned it, might pick it up again and redo the whole thing at some point

-Words on Pages (Phineas and Ferb. Soulmate AU)

-Obsession (She-Ra. Dark modern day coffee shop AU)

-Rose Gold Stars (Sonic The Hedgehog. Related and yandere AU)

-Of Now and Then (Spyro The Dragon. On-going)

-Every Breath You Take (Vocaloid)

-Habits (Are Hard To Break) (Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!)

I might add more to the list, might not, idk but either way keep an eye on this in case it ever gets edited. I wouldn’t doubt there’s more but they’re on my computer if they are and I’d have to open EVERYTHING to see what is and isn’t a WIP. There’s also AMV WIPs, but I ain’t boutta go through everything to see what I have and haven’t finished yet lol nope not today folks And I ain’t tagging people so if you wanna do this, go for it!

[the-fiction-witch]

Seriously?

MOVIE DEATH OF A SUPERHERO COUPLE DONALD X READER RATING: SWEET

I sat in bed drawing away as usual trying to get the shading right on this damn sketch whenever I tried the lighting never quite hit right, "Visitors" The nurse says opening the door I nodded to her barely looking up as I heard the guys come in

"We have a surprise for you"

"Ohh? did you bring me a chocolate bar again," He says

"No better!"

"okay" I sighed looking up each of them had a picture of a girl "what is this?"

"We found a solution, to your problem."

"My problem?"

"all these girls said they were down"

"with what?"

"You know... your problem"

then it hit me "did you go around asking these girls if they'd have sex with me?"

"well yeah"

"Seriously?"

"yeah"

"you went around asking girls if they would have pity sexy with me? do you not understand how much of a dick move that is"

"These are not the only ones"

"no! just no," I told them, getting back to my drawings

"Don't you wanna take a look at least?"

"No" I answered

"You sure?"

"Positive"

"even this one?" he smirks waving one of them between my face and my drawing

"I'm sure" I sighed

"even this one?" He suggested showing me another one

"No thank you" I sighed pushing it away

"You sure? this one might be interesting" he says waving it back in my face again and I noticed snatching it out his hand

"Seriously?"

"Yep"

"You asked y/n!"

"Yep"

"you went and asked y/n if she'd have sex with me!"

"We did yes"

"Why the hell would you do that!"

"because you've had a crush on y/n since you were twelve! we asked her and she said she would"

"she would?"

"When we asked she said she'd like to, so long as you wanted her too"

"did she know, you were doing this without informing me,"

"We did tell her to say you didn't know, so... you wanna text her?"

"No! I don't want some pity sex, I'm not mentioning it to her at all or any of these girls" I said

I sat finishing up my drawing when I heard the nurse again "Visitor" she smiled I rolled my eyes assuming it was the guys back again but

"Hello" she giggled I looked up and saw y/n in the doorway in her cute little dress with all her books

"Hi y/n" I smiled the nurse left us alone and she giggled coming over and getting the chair to sit by the bed

"Is it safe?" she asks opening her arms

"It is" I laughed

"yay!" she giggled giving me a hug "Ummmm I can hug my little squeezamal again" she smiled before getting her backpack off "how are you feeling?"

"Better but still like a slab of shit"

"how's it going?" she asks

"almost done all the line works and shading"

"I meant you dummy not the comic"

"Oh, alright. shoving me full of this drug and that drug, stealing my blood all the time"

"Maybe the hospital is infected with vampires" she giggled sitting down

"Umm then how do I know your not a vampire?"

"don't you trust me?" she giggled faking to be offended

"Should I?"

"No!" she giggled ticking me

"Hey! y/n!" I complained pushing her away she grabbed my hand and began nibbling at my wrist so much it tickled too "Hey! don't you bite me! you dirty little vampire"

"Fine" she sighed getting her books onto the little table too "so," she began as we compared our notes her writing and my drawings making sure everything lines up the way it should and we got to work tweaking things where they needed to be, I had to add a pannel or two she needed to reword some bits just usual stuff sitting quietly deep in our work for a while "I had a funny chat the other day"

"With who?"

"The boys"

"Ohh.... about what?" I asked trying to play innocent

"They had some silly idea in their head, honestly I'm surprised they didn't get knocked out, going around asking that"

"asking what?"

"They really didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"you really? honestly don't know?"

"I don't know if I know I would need to know what it was to know if I know or not"

"Liar"

"what!"

"You always do that when you lie. you go around and around the same point" she giggled pointing as she spoke with her pencil

"I uhhh I don't know what your talking about" I stuttered

"Umm hummm" she nods moving a little and giving my cheek a kiss "i assume you heard from them"

"They told me. after the fact. I had no idea they were going around asking anyone that they didn't tell me, they only turned up once they had the answers and told me"

"you promise?"

"I promise. I didn't know until after"

she nodded and went back to her work so I went back to mine for a while the ticking of the clock on the wall sounded impossibly loud in the silence between us "They told you they asked me then?"

"They did tell me" I nodded sheepishly

"and they told you my answer"

"They did. yes"

"and?"

"and?"

"and your opinion on that is?"

"They should not have been going around asking people. much less without my permission,"

"But?"

"But... if you. wanted to." I said avoiding her eyes as she chewed on her pencil rubber a little "I mean, if I was going to with anyone like if I had anyone in the world to pick from, I'd... pick you. But as I said I didn't know they were asking and.... I don't want some pity sex of some girl who's only doing it because she feels sorry for me"

"well then." she nods "we don't need to worry about that" she smiled leaning over and giving my lips a gentle kiss, I was in shock trying my best to breathe! I kissed her back gently and rested my hand on the back of her head gently playing with her soft hair she smiled into the kiss and rested her own hand on my neck and shoulder gently stroking my skin she pulled back after a while and gave my nose a little kiss, she smiled putting all our stuff on the little table and pushing it away from the bed, climbing into my bed sitting on the little spare space gently laying her head on my chest and shoulder wrapping her arms around me, I smiled pulling her in close too "and they told me you had a crush on me"

"Honestly I don't know how it lasted this long before they told you" I sighed

"How long was it?"

"Since we were twelve"

"Yeah, they told me a lot. I always thought the girls told you I had a crush on you"

"Uhhhhh no?"

"well I did"

"How long for?"

"about we were eleven" she smiled giving me another kiss

"y/n? did you maybe wanna... be my girlfriend?"

"I thought you'd never ask"

[axemetaphor]

im definitely not ripping off my friend by making a list of au ideas i have no siree //gonna slap this under a readmore cause i. well i say a lot. all of the time. i tried so hard to format this Good but tumblr fucked me up i am so sorry

so first-off i know i already have one WIP AU (Auckland) on ao3 so i wont talk about That one cause like. spoilers. i actualyl have it like 80% created so its likely gonna truly get finished for once and i dont wanna ruin shit

the other one ive posted about is something me and ben (catgirlrepublic) have worked on together its not at all close to done or anything but it's. a fun little crossover. Between jdate and my fuckinuhm. Original characters story “Untitled Villains Project”. the sketches of the comic version ive started is actually my pinned post 👉👈 its like the first chunk of the story, i think half of part 1? yea.

Tldr john fucking Somehow is able t oget into contact with a certain curious scientist from another reality who’d just love to study the Soy Sauce, most certainly not for her own nefarious purposes

John and Dave meet up with the scientist, her name is Boss, and her lab assistant, Toxic, and after a bit of a preliminary Vibe Check where john determines her trustworthy (which Dave doesnt agree with,) the two agree to be taken to the world UVP is set in. from there they stay in Boss’s lab (big old fucking abandoned military lab). John and Toxic are fast friends due to mutual love-of-chaos. John n Dave get to fuckin, camp out on an air mattress.

The day after they arrive, the two get split up, not exactly intentionally; big plot points of UVP are liek. Fueled by Boss sending Toxic to go fetch her “research materials,” which are usually important artifacts

Fuckin side note i guess i have to explain my dumb bullshit: Boss’s, uh, field of expertise so to speak is actually fckin, basically the scientific study of magic and superpowers n shit like that. This shit’s all real in that world. Toxic’s got fuckin superpowers, so do 4 other main characters, whatever. It’s got a bit to do with spirituality, iss Boss’s hypothesis. So she has Toxic fetch important artifacts that might have “energies” to them. The thing is actually way more fuckin complictated than that, this is just Boss’s initial hypothesis.

Motherfucking anyways. So Boss gives Toxic a job to do, and John get excited about how Cool that sounds, and ends up going with Toxic, leaving Boss and Dave alone. Neither is thrilled about this. But Dave and Boss get to have a bit of conversation (while Toxic and John are off bonding and having a good time) and come to a… mutual grudging understanding of some kind. They still dont like each other though lmao

Theres gonna be deeper shit going on but we havent sorted it out yet/tbh havent like Written For It in a while but i still like thinking about it a lot lol

Also pretty sure our endgame is john and dave steal toxic and bring them back with em lmao boss is kind of not nice and toxic would most certainly be better off in Undisclosed. Actually theyd fucking love it. Theyd become a local cryptid im sure. Undisclosed’s mothman is a teleporting spike baby.

I have. Another crossover AU that i might. Post something about for halloween? Maybe? If i have it finished?

Crosses over into, you guessed it, another one of my original-character projects. God, am i vain or something?

I promise this is just because i think blue and dave should get to team up to beat up some monsters

Quick briefing on my fuckinuh. Original character story, this one doesnt have a name (yet? Idk lol my work never actually goes anywhere sso who gives a shit). It centers around two grim reapers, Red (26, bi woman) and Blue (22, aroace agender asshole). In this reality or whatever, grim reapers function kind of like low-level office workers. They get told who’s going to die + when by some middle-management types, and upper management only involve themselves when punishment needs to be doled out. These Higher-Ups can be seen as analogous to Korrok; they’re decidedly not human, never were, and fucking terrifyingly powerful. Additionally, grim reapers are sort of .. designed to be “background noise” people. In reality theyre supernatural beings and, uh, look Real Fuckin Weird (the whole deal has a neon aesthetic im terrible at drawing uwu) but most humans just perceive them like extras in a movie. A body’s there but the camera’s not focused on it.

To the narrative: the shit starts when Red n Blue get relocated to Undisclosed. Relocation is something that just happens every now and then to reapers; they usually work in teams, but they get split up into different cities to avoid any strong bonds forming (a counter-union strategy from the Higher-Ups).

Red, Blue, John and Dave end up running into each other for the first time in a McDonalds where John n Dave are getting some 4am “hey, we just survived another horrific monster fight” celebration burgers. John and Dave are the only two people who can see how… strange Red and Blue are. Nobody else notices.

John unintentionally pisses Blue off, leading to Blue whacking him upside the head with a dildo bat. They all four get kicked out of McDonald’s. Dave and Red both are less than thrilled

Blue and John end up resolving their differences, somehow. Red and Dave briefly bond over their dumbass best friends being, well, dumbasses. They all part ways amicably.

somehow-or-other (idk yet) they end up running into each other a few more times, and eventually john invites them over to his place, and the four (plus Amy now!) get to know each other a little better

while there, Blue gets a text about some guy who's gonna die and John offers to drive them to where that's gonna go down. they take him up on the offer and get to have a bit of one-on-one conversation

after that ordeal though Blue has had Enough of people and bails, leaving John to head home alone

theres a sort of mirror-development going on with the five of em. Red, John, and Amy would all like everyone to get along, though theyre a bit tentative about it (John moreso than the other two, actually, jsut cause. well Red n Blue could still be Sauce Monsters). Dave and Blue on the other hand do Not like people enough for this shit, and Dave's not unconvinced theyre Sauce Monsters. he will not trust them until proven he should

the story's kinda nebulous but i got an idea for some Shit going down that involves both Sauce Monsters and also the Higher-Ups to have some fuckin absolute chaos go down.

Oops! All Trans

Everybody is transgender. Everyone

Ive actually workshopped this one both with ben (catgirlrepublic) and ghost (ghost-wannabe) lmao its a fun lil concept ive had from the get-go cause i mean. What’s an internet tran gonna do other than hit all their favourite media with the Everyone’s Trans beam

Dave transitioned post-high school and faked his death for it. People go missing in Undisclosed all the damned time, after all. He moved to the next city over, transitioned fully, then came back as a completely new man. Yes i know this doesnt exactly fit with the “everyone knows David from high school” thing alright, hush.

Anytime anyone brings up John’s old best friend (pre-transition Dave) John throws an entire fit like an overdramatic grieving widow. Full-on sobbing “why would you bring her up?! I miss her so much—” to the point that people just stop bringing up because Jesus Christ That Sure Is Uncomfortable KJHGFDS.

This is a scheme he and Dave came up with prior to Dave leaving, though Dave hadnt exactly anticipated John putting on this much of a performance about it— but it’s stopped Dave from ever having tto hear his deadname again, so hey.

Amy transitioned sometime in middle school/early high school. Her family was super supportive and loved her a ton and most people just know her as Amy. she was super shy her whole life really so. Yeah. people just dont think to bring it up lmao also i Feel Like big jim would absolutely wallop anyone who gave her trouble of any kind

John’s nonbinary (genderfluid specifically) and not exactly Interested in transitioning ? like hes fine with how he is. mostly.

he came out to Dave in high school but hes not out to anyone else exactly. Maybe his bandmates. Probably any other trans person in Undisclosed knows, too, cause theyre safe to tell lmao. Johns mostly a “he/him out of convenience” kinda nb who’s cool with any pronouns but does prefer they/them most. Dave and Amy use they/them when the trio are alone

Also this is a totally self-indulgent caveat that i think would be great, Dave’s actually agender but because he's transmasc and transitioned when he thought there were really only two options, and being Boy at least felt less weird than being Girl, he just kind of assumed he was a dude. It’s only through a lot of (like fucking years and years hes probably in his 30s/40s when he puts 2 and 2 together on this one) talks about gender with John that he realizes he actually feels like No Gender. Masc aesthetic with none gender.

I Just Think It’d Be Neat Is All Okay

Also Amy came out to Dave about being trans early on in them seeing each other and his response was to get very nervous before blurting out “me too” and then just being too embarrassed to talk about it for the rest of the day. Hes got a lot of hangups on talking about it actually it takes years for him to get comfortable in that

by contrast when Amy comes out to John about it his response is to yell “EYYY ME TOO” and give her a big ol hug lmao

I think itd be neatt if Amy ran a like. Transfem help/advice blog on tumblr. Kind of helped-with by John who can give her transfem nb insight for certain asks. I also just think that would be neat.

Cowboy AU - i put this one last cause its got drawings to it actually. Theyll be at the bottom

Basically just. Hey you ever watched a western. I think they look neat

This is another one me n ben have come up with lol

The soy sauce and all that shit still exist, im not sure where korrok fits in yet but ill figure it out

Theres no real like solid narrative yet ? but heres the barebones of everybody’s arcs.

John

Johns an absolute troublemaker, Of Course. Hes wanted in several towns for absolutely stupid shit. Hes a loner who shows up, causes chaos, gets drunk, does some drugs, runs away if people get too mad at him

He definitely had the same kind of deal with the soy sauce as in canon— he was at some kind of party, somebody offered it, he took it cause why the fuck wouldnt he, now he can see monsters and shit

Hes kind of a mooch also. Like. dont let him stay in your barn man he’ll never fucking leave and drink all your booze.

He runs into Dave when they happen to just, cross paths in the same town. the bullshit John stirs up ends up involving Dave in a way that makes it seem like it's his fault too, and they both get run out of town

after that he just tags along after Dave. hes decided this guy's Cool he wants to stick around. Dave is pissed at first, but not enough to shoot him or anything, and eventually, John grows on him

Dave

Dave also is a loner but unlike John hes simply so fucking awkward and bad with people. He doesnt feel like he belongs anywhere so he just travels

He’s the stereotypical Lone Ranger tbh. He wanders from town to town, solving their problems, though hed deny its out of any moral obligation (it kinda is, a little bit, tbh. He does like feeling useful). He shows up, fixes things, leaves. He's kind of a legend but most people think he's hiding something dark. other people jsut know him as that guy who farted real loud in the middle of the saloon and promptly skipped town out of sheer embarrassment. you know how it goes with Dave

He ends up involved with the Soy Sauce when a snake (not Actually a snake,) bites him. The snake’s more like the wig-monsters, really. Anyway, it injects him with the soy sauce, he fucking trips balls in the middle of the desert, he can see monsters now

He runs into John and shit goes tits-up, as said, but they become traveling buddies after that. he'd never say so, but he's glad for the company, actually. it's nice. hes not used to companionship but he feels a strange kind of easiness hanging out with John....

not sure how the Monster Dave concept will like fit in to this reality but like. trust me i want it in here. I'll Figure It Out.

Amy

Amy’s been living in a town John and Dave end up passing through and she is very curious about these two new Handsome Strangers who claim to fight monsters and just kinda. Persistently tags along til they let her join for real

Her family’s all dead, unfortunately, just like in canon, and she’s been living alone for a few years before meeting John n Dave. she had nothing left in that town to stay for, she'd been fantasizing about escaping on wild adventures for a long time and this felt a little like a dream come true. (Dave still gives her a spiel about how Difficult it is, but really, her fantasies were pretty grounded-in-reality already. i jsut think thats how she is, yknow?)

Shes the first person to react to the whole “we see monsters” shit with a kind of “oh, okay. neat” kind of response lmao

John and Dave fix whatever the fuck is up with her town (maybe that’s where the Korrok shit can fit, who knows) and Amy ends up being integral to that. After, she insists they take her with them because “they need her now” and Dave just cant really say no. John too is very much "the more the merrier!" and hes actually glad to have another person along he loves people lmao

At the start she has long hair but after she joins them she chops it short with a knife for convenience

also she still is an amputee. justt. idk. it was a wagon/stagecoach accident rather than a car accident lmao. just to clarify since i hadnt mentioned it, i wouldnt rob her of her ghost hand or yknow. all of the significance to her character that Missing A Hand has. although also now im going to have to research what was used as painkillers way-back-when, but im betting shes still got, like, her pain pills, they probably had those, maybe i wouldnt have to try too hard there. old timey medicine could be WACK though,

Shitload

Yeah hes in tthis shit mostly cause i liked designing his cowboy self lmao

Hes a kid (like 16, 17, technically i think in those days that was more Young Man than Kid but whatever. Hes Young i mean.) who got possessed by the Worms out in the desert and, by his family’s perception, just went missing!

Hes also a wanderer, but he ended up at the same town john and dave met in, at that same time, and starts following them after, already aware of who/what they are.

He keeps his face covered 24/7. actually he covers a Majority of his self for reasons. kinda want him to be a slightly more horrifying Worm Entity rather than human idk,

I kinda dont have much for this boy yet sorry Shitload

images !

with some editing notes for me cause im doing a very specific aesthetic with this lmao. i might change some lil details/colours though ...... idk

im also kinda 🤔 about shitload's colour palette. i want things assoicated w the sauce to be black'n'red predominantly but i think his palette might mirror dave's too closely. also im working on a korrok design i jsut am too busy to draw it now

[ravenwolfie97]

2020 Art Summary

Yep, it’s 2021 already. 2020 is finally over. It felt like it lasted forever, and it felt like the end would never come, but here we are. Crazy how the time flew by.

I felt like I didn’t get much art done this year because of Current World Event, but I made a lot more than I thought I did. Even some of my new favorite pieces came out of this year, so I think that’s worth celebrating and looking back upon!

I was insanely productive during the first month of 2020, and looking back I was surprised at all the stuff I did, but then I remembered that that winter season was actually one of the best times of my life! I started being more socially involved, and I think my newfound drive at the time translated into all the art I pumped out this month. This is just a small fraction of what I made in January, but I only have so much space. Quite a few complex pieces in both style exploration and polishing my own style.

Apparently February was a rather intimate month. Things began to slow down in terms of my own art here, with me spending more time in social settings and school work ramping up, I didn’t have as much time to coop up in my room to draw. I did wanna do something for a friend’s Valentine’s Day OC art challenge, so I drew my lovey-dovey couple from Dance of 1000 Words havin’ a dance. Nothing actually came of that challenge, but it was fun to do regardless.

One of the things I was most proud of in the winter season was making more friends, and one of the closest friends I made was completely coincidental. I met a person named Kiri on the bus one night I decided to volunteer somewhere by myself, and we ended up chatting and getting along. They quickly told me their tumblr username, and I shot them a message immediately after they left. A couple days later, we met up for brunch, and we started becoming really close friends and creative partners!

Not much else happened in March cuz that’s when Current World Event started becoming an issue, but Kiri and I still kept in close touch and we randomly started developing a concept for a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Galar Edition. These are a handful of characters we thought up, with Skipper the Scorbunny and Dross the Dreepy as the main characters, Morgrem as the main antagonist, and some shopkeepers such as those of the Greedent Bank and the Indeedee General Store. This was also my first time drawing all of these Galar Pokemon (except Scorbunny, but I also made Skipper a bit more unique than a regular Scorbunny).

Lots of events happened this month. First of all, Steven Universe Future ended, one of my favorite and most influential shows was no longer continuing. I had to do something as tribute, both as a send-off to one of the greatest cartoons in the world and as a cathartic release for my feelings towards it.

A while later, I got the opportunity to start playing an MMO in beta called Fer.al, by the same people who made Animal Jam, which coincidentally I had also beta tested for back in the day. I ended up getting really attached to my first character, a Senri I named Sasha, and though I’ve made more characters than them since, they’re still my absolute favorite. Though I haven’t touched the game in a few months, I was really engrossed for a long time and enjoyed playing through the beta and early access phases.

At the end of the month, some friends of mine invited to a roleplay group with some mutuals, and we all played characters in a crime syndicate. Just a bunch of ragtag thieves and criminals who ended up together in order to protect an artifact called the Crown of Thieves, which was essentially a flag to be taken by other groups to prove that they are the best thieves in the land. My character was based heavily on my sona (if it wasn’t obvious) and was also influenced by Cloud Strife, since the FFVII Remake had just come out and I was super into watching the cutscenes at the time. My character’s (code)name is Valkyrie, and they are a mercenary, going between multiple different employers to carry out whatever duties they need to do. They have a more complicated backstory, but presently they were recently hired by recommendation of their friend Shark (played by @shmoots-universe​ who is also My friend now ily maya) who works with a group called the Court Cards who are currently in possession of the Crown of Thieves. Valk never really had a place to call home, but staying with this group of people had to be the closest they could get to that feeling. They still sleep with a knife under their pillow because of trust issue but that’s okay.

Okay, so technically these examples started in April, but I continued making content with them in May, and the month was just pretty void of art in general, so here I am addressing them.

There were two main things I worked on this month: a Steven Universe AU of my own and the whole #sixfanarts thing that kicked off around then. Let’s start with the fanart bits. I did two and a half of them (six in April and nine in May), and it was so much fun to be able to draw stuff I don’t normally do! My personal favorites are shown here: Blake Belladonna from RWBY, Roll from Megaman, Yuki Konno from Sword Art Online, and Link from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The other thing I’d been planning for a while was a Steven Universe AU, probably to cope with the show being over but also because I was inspired by a lot of those SU AU artists I started following at the time. I won’t share the details here because it’s gonna have its own blog at some point, but the example I’ve shown here is of a comic I made loosely in order to introduce a divergence in the plot of the story as well as introduce a character unique to my AU. It was a lot of fun figuring out how to draw the characters and get a feel for the style.

As the year progressed, my amount of art I made per month began to dwindle, this time mostly because school was kicking my ass especially hard with finals. However, I took what time I had to get some backburner pieces finished, like the Tigerlily picture which I sketched out a couple months back, and the Gunvolt picture which I started working on SIX YEARS AGO. I don’t quite know why I got the urge to work on it again after so long, but it was nice to finally realize. The other drawing for DOTS was done in the dead of night but I was really happy with how it came out.

Despite only having two summer classes left of school, this month was really rough because they demanded a lot of my time and attention. I did not have the gumption to do anything digital, so I stuck to my sketchbook to get out what I felt like getting out.

My friends and I did a stream of the game Helltaker, and I really enjoyed the concept, so in following my friends I made my own Helltaker demon OC named Raksha the Ravenous Demon (it’s a pun but also got mythical insp). I also got super into Hazbin Hotel at this point, mostly because the Addict music video dropped and I couldn’t get enough of it, so I doodled Angel Dust cuz I felt like it. The other drawing I did was actually a free commission I gave a friend of mine as a prize for a trivia game show I ran back in June. He along with a couple other friends got some free drawings from me for getting the top three scores, and this one in particular was fun because of how interesting it was. He wanted me to draw a video game reviewer called the Irate Gamer from a specific moment, and I decided to go ham and just make it as dramatic as possible.

University classes finally wrapped up and right after that I was in the process of moving out of my apartment and getting adjusted to living with my parents again. I did a couple of agg.io drawing sessions with my friends from the Court Cards group as well as a new Dungeons and Dragons homebrew group I had joined. I drew some more of Valkyrie and came up with a design for my DND character Qakuqtuq (or Kai for short). He is monkey grandpa and I love him.

My main focus was on finishing a polished piece for my friend Cake, whose birthday was in the upcoming month. I wanted it to be as amazing as possible, so I put a lot of time into getting more detailed and making them look good. In addition to that, I did a few TOME doodles just for fun. The creature on the bottom was for this month’s art challenge on my Discord server where we made original TOMERPG monsters, and I created Hundylow, a Crystal-element monster based on the Grindylow from English folklore.

This month was a lot more productive than the past few had been. I tried to do a 31-day art challenge called Creatober but failed to get past the third prompt because I was still swamped with other work. I’m still happy with what little I did, including the piece with my characters Kyle and Guarudan from DSWD.

I don’t remember how, but I also suddenly rediscovered an old Flipnote Hatena series called Tales of LostClan, a Warriors fan series that I would say was the most obscure thing I’ve ever been super invested in. It was what got me into the actual Warriors books, and I liked it so much I redrew the animations into a comic... twice. Didn’t get nearly as far the second time but clearly my love for this little fanfiction had not waned after nearly a decade. I felt like drawing a book cover/movie poster for the series, just to get it out there and see how much I’ve improved over all that time.

Also I felt like making a vampiresona just before Halloween because I never dress up for Halloween in art (or real life anymore, for that matter), and I wanted to do something like that for once. It was short-lived but I really liked the design!

The focus of this month was definitely on Pokemon stuff. As per usual I contributed to the current Gotta Draw ‘Em All collab, and I was tasked to draw Regieleki. It was really fun to figure out how to make it stand out and look like it was made of electricity.

I also committed a lot of my spare time to my Fakemon Gym Leaders, as I had been working on bringing them to life in the past year or so now. As of this post, I’ve finished rendering their full body poses and gym badges, but I’m still working on completing all eight VS portraits, the first half of which are shown here.

I... didn’t draw anything this month, actually. What I’m showing here was worked on in the last few days but has actually been in progress for a couple of months, and I just finished it earlier today, in 2021. But I needed to show something off, and it’s also about time I mentioned it.

Back in October, I kept seeing people rave about this game called Genshin Impact, and I was interested but not so much as to start playing it... until my friends started playing and I was like “fuck it, let’s download it”. Since that day, I have been super immersed and in love with this game, to the point I came up with my own canon based on my gameplay experiences. This also included the creation of an original player character: Astra, the non-binary Traveller. And now, I’ve finally drawn them and brought them to life.

It has been one hell of a year. I had some of the highest highs and lowest lows in 2020, lots of changes, and I have now officially moved onto the next chapter of my life now that my time at university is finally over. I’m very excited for what 2021 has to offer, and I’m going to go forward with great ambition.

[mcrmadness]

Yaaass, it’s 8am and I just finished the pencil version of my new drawing project 8) I gotta say it turned out quite nice actually, wasn’t as hard project as the previous one but still very interesting one.

I also did some first finelining for the marker version - here’s a sneakpeek of that one! (The brush is there only for the eraser bits so I don’t smudge everything with my hand - tho also the brush collects lots of pencil dust so it makes paper darker. But it’s not as bad as having lines become smudged where they don’t need to.)

It looks very stupid and hilarious and crazy at this point XDDDDD Especially Farin lmao. But he looked like that in the pencil version’s sketch too and once I got all the shadows there, everything started to make sense, so I trust it to be the exact same way with this one too :D

More talk underneath the link.

And you might have noticed I haven’t drawn everything with the black - it’s because I now only did those lines that will have the black Promarker on either side and the ones with the pencil only are something that need much lighter color for the edges. I don’t have Micron fineliners in any other colors but black so I have to use the grey Promarkers for those lines and wish for the best - I didn’t start them yet because I should work while they are still wet in order to avoid too dark edges so I need to do those lines when I start acually working on this.

I own some Stabilo fineliners but I’m afraid of using those because they did smudge when erased when I was drawing my comics, and I don’t want anything to get smudged here in case I need to erase the pencil marks from under the grey Promarkers. Microns and Promarkers don’t get smudged with erasers, I mean. They maybe get slightly lighter in color, but that’s not a problem.

Anyhow, I’m feeling so excited for this. I already blabbered something yesterday here but I’ve never drawn a drawing like this with Promarkers and I wanna see if I can discover a new style of drawing for myself. And just want to challenge myself to see if I can draw like this! There’s already the pencil sketch but it’s much harder to save a drawing made with markers than with pencils. In a way pencils are so safe and markers feel like taking more risks. My hand was already very shaky here because I’m tired and hungry (and have been drawing for the past 6-7 hours already) so making those small lines like the mouths was, well, very risky :D Let’s just hope they will turn out good.

But I do also have my white gel pens. I always forget about them because I only recently bought them and haven’t used them much yet, just for correcting little things in my comics. But now I can also use those and I might actually use them as one tool too, because they work well on top of the black promarker too and surrounding small white areas is always difficult with such a big marker tip, so I could use the gel pens for that purpose too. Plus white areas (or anything bright) always look much better if they are done with something that is white. Highlights always look more like highlights when they are basically the top layer of everything. So, I’m also very excited for that - they looked REALLY good with the comics so I bet they look even better with this one! :D

Also it was a very good move from myself to draw the grid for both drawings. It seems to help me a lot because the whole time as I was drawing, my brain kept screaming that what I draw is WRONG and too SMALL or too BIG or too much or too less of this and that. It constantly looked so wrong to me but I trusted my grids and didn’t improvise, and it really paid off. And I think I’ve never been able to draw anything this well as I now did (you will see the pencil drawing later). So what did we learn? I should never trust my eyes too much, apparently :DD

Anyway, neither of these are nor will be perfect of course because I can’t do that, but at least I think I’ve again “outdone” myself and that’s all that counts. At least for me. I no longer compete against other artists skills. Only against my own.

[brakken-spideyverse]

Answerin’ older asks :)

Sorry some of these are so late! Answers below the cut

@everythingsucksbutthatsokay​ asked:

So what exactly was the nature of “the Baxter Building accident”? Is it similar to the set up in the Ultimate comics and Fant4stic movie, or something else?

Similar, yes. I wanted to play on the arrogant side of Reed by having him essentially say “hey, this cosmic ray siphon that would be highly dangerous if my calculations are even slightly off? I’m gonna activate it in the middle of a city.”

While it looks like a regular skyscraper from the outside, the top floors of the Baxter Building are only accessible to the four of them because the molecules are completely unstable.

@c0smicfool asked:

Hi so I got inspired by your redesigns and came up with my own redesign idea for Ben as Scarlet Spider, even if it’s not for the old contest or anything is it cool to submit it? Also love you’re redesigns and how creative they get with drawing on characteristics to create something entirely new

If you wanna just post it and tag me so I see it I’m more than fine with that! Always happy to see folks’ designs :) Also, if you have a twitter, tag me there! twitter.com/makeoververse 

@mackysack asked:

Who's your favorite comic artist all time?

Of all time? Dang, uhhh.... first that comes to mind is Takeshi Obata, who drew Death Note and Bakuman. But for western comics, gosh - I really like Sara Pichelli’s work? Old Romita stuff is great. A lot of the Spidey artists over the years really, but I’m biased. I feel like I’m blanking on somebody really obvious.

If you want an off-field pick, Kelley Jones’ Batman art is top tier. If they make a Spider-Verse style movie of Batman, I want his work to be one of the main influences.

@avenger09 asked:

Outside of Spider-Man's rogue's gallery whose your favourite Marvel villain?

Magneto, probably! Not typically big on X-Men myself, but he’s rad. Will finish the character sketch for him at some point <.<

Anon said:

WAIT you can't just tell us you have an ASM3 script under your belt???? Now it's all I can think about???? By the way Electro looks amazing as does the rest of your universe but PLEASE OH PLEASE LET US SEE THIS SCRIPT!!!

Thank you! And yes I will share it eventually! It’s currently getting read by close friends for feedback but it’s something I’m sure I’ll show to y’all someday.

Anon asked:

How did Eddie and Peter know eachother before he turned into Venom?

They didn’t, so much. They go to the same school and I think Eddie crushed on Peter a little from afar, but he’s really just a tragic pawn in the Symbiote’s obsession. Viewing the black suit story as a toxic breakup, I see this version of Eddie as someone being used solely to get at Peter. An innocent who is thrown into the deep end of all the built up trauma and monster stories.

Anon asked:

Will Harry become a bad guy or still a good guy? Since in the your comics, it shows that he finally knows Peter as Spider-Man and already knows his father's secret identity.. will he? (Btw love your arts so much!!!

Thank you!! Harry would become a bad guy for a bit. He’s real hurt and confused by everything that happens and aims that pain at Peter. But he can heal, with time and the right company.

Anon asked:

here about the spidersonas in the spiderverse comic?

I did! That’s so cool that they acknowledged the fanbase in that way. Here’s hoping for something like that in ITSV 2? No-one’s called me about Abrakknid yet tho, ha ;_;

--

Thanks all, hope I can keep up a bit better with questions in the future <3

[comicteaparty]

July 11th-July 17th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from July 11th, 2020 to July 17th, 2020.  The chat focused on the following question:

How do you personally stay motivated and/or disciplined enough to work on your story?

🌈ERROR404 🌈

being under schedule DEFINITELY being under schedule

there has been nothing that has lit a stronger fire under my ass than self appointed deadlines

eliushi [Keyspace]

Deadlines definitely help for me! I also find talking with supportive fellow comic folks, writers and artists very inspiring Their successes help me focus on my work too!

carcarchu

I'm motivated by the desire to see how my story ends

eliushi [Keyspace]

That is also very true and very much the Mood

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I agree with self-appointed deadlines, but also just my eagerness for future scenes propel me. And a little bit of a desire for other people to see a bit of the world that's in my head.

eliushi [Keyspace]

I desire to see the world inside your head

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Hahaha, and I desire to share it

Seriously though, as much as I write for myself, I get an obscene amount of motivation from seeing other people getting excited about my story.

I thrive on the curiosity and eagerness of others, and the potential for others to love my characters just as I do

Feather J. Fern

For me, I think motivation for me is "If I get this done, I can show my friend who is really excited about my comic" Because you always need that one hype friend who wants to see your comic

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

100%

A hype friend or family member can be a great motivator!

Shizamura 🌟 O Sarilho

Scheduling, deadlines, having other people to talk about your work... Definitively my top 3. But also, if for some reason I'm not motivated to do a particular thing, I like to think why is that exactly? Is this page/scene not convincing ME? what can I change to fix that?

Deo101 [Millennium]

^^^ YES!!! 9/10 times if I'm not working on a page it's cause I'm not feeling it 100%, and restarting the page to try something different helps almost always!!!

So I stay motivated by keeping it fresh, and also yeah deadlines help a lot

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Personally? Just hanging around people who also art and seeing how they work. Also trying to keep myself physically healthy because I can't focus on my work if I'm not up to par.

DanitheCarutor

You know, in spite of how busy my life has gotten within the past couple months (Now balancing housework with a job that keeps me away from home for 12-13 hours a day.), the two things keeping me motivated are seeing certain scenes play out and the ending. I have some really major events coming up and I want to see them happen, I want to see that development from where everything began pay off, and I want the characters to get that satisfying ending they worked hard for. Also I really want to see readers reactions, making people upset with my characters and what they're going through is my jam and admittedly a major driving point for me to continue working on my comic.

eliushi [Keyspace]

The emotional connection is key!

persephinnie

Having a support group of friends, even if not exactly friends but peers and mutuals in online communities does so much wonders! And also not necessarily having a strict structure on my end, but telling myself every week what progress needs to get done and writing it down instead of keeping it all in my thoughts helps tremendously.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I'm very motivated by producing the next parts/end of the story

Getting to future scenes

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Fanart is also a biiiig motivator for me. Just the idea/fact that people took the time, care and love to draw my ocs makes me a lot more motivated to tell my story even more, because it means that people care enough to want to see more

TaliePlume

My family mostly my brothers are a huge motivation because they have been through a lot and and there's not that many comics with positive Haitian representation. I wanted to dedicate my comic to them.

GuildmasterPhill

I just started uploading my comic on webtoons now, as well as my main website. Hopefully it can reach more people that way!

In terms of staying motivated, Any amount of feedback from readers is key. I want to connect with them through my art, and if they let me know it's working, then I just gotta keep going!

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

When I can I treat Wayfinders like a full time job. That helps because then I have my usual working schedule and then I just work away! When I have a job I take small breaks to help Q out, like five min breaks, and work on it in weekends and evenings

So motivation is not a problem. I want to make this story so bad. I want to work creatively on my own stories every every day

crittybonbon

I used to be quite motivated by my readers, not wanting to disappoint them by missing updates. But I realized that this was actually causing me a lot of stress and anxiety. Now I'm mainly motivated by strict schedules and habits ("Tuesdays from 8pm-10pm" is my sketch the whole page night, ect). I have a kid now and also work FT so I take my schedules seriously, I cant delay or procrastinate like I used to because I have to balance work and family. On that some note and if Im sick or something I will push the update a day or two and I try not to feel too bad it, your readers will wait. But it did take me years to develop a good work ethic.

Artem Ficta (Ring Spell)

I don't have many readers so I stay motivated purely by my love of the story, my habit of drawing, and my desire for a finished product.

Miranda (Into the Swell)

I feel like my story is what keeps me motivated. I finally have a story that I'm very invested in and it's made it so much easier to keep working on it. But I think also knowing that people are reading my comic would be a good motivator as well. I've also found an art style that I genuinely enjoy drawing and improving at so it's fun to see the improvement as I work on pages.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I want to tell these characters' stories. And I want my readers to know what happens to them. Every page I make is a step closer toward that

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I relate much more to the recent love of story comments than the friends and readers comments

i wanna get to the good partsss

i love my endinggg

and i refuse to be yet another incomplete webcomic

Desnik

I stay motivated by having a critique group to share with on a regular basis. If I have no progress ready to show I feel bad

AntiBunny

I agree that point. My motivation is to get these stories out of my head and into the world, or they might just build up until my head explodes.

Yung Skrimp (Carefree)

Motivation where you at

Mitzi (Trophallaxis)

squeakin in just before the deadline to add that, and this might sound a tad mean, spite honestly keeps me motivated to make art and continue my comic/other art pursuits There have been people who tell me I should be doing something else with my life (to put it nicely), and what better revenge than to keep improving and putting more and more of my work out there for people to see?? ain't no one getting rid of me lmao

carcarchu

i feel ya on the spite thing mitzi, the best revenge i can get against the people who doubted me is to flourish

varethane

I think my main drive is being extremely hype to have people outside of my own brain get excited about the story things I have planned. These moments I daydream about.... if someone else can share that dream even for a moment, that's what I want (just realized this wording is extremely sappy skdjdhfbf sorry)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Ah no I think it's lovely the way you worded that

Shizamura 🌟 O Sarilho

Hahahaha [I laugh but deep inside in just... Uwu.. Same]

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Deep same. I do want to see the story come to life for myself as well, but it wouldn't be the same without potential audience engagement. If I were to do this in a total vacuum, I'd probably just do illustrations of my top favorite scenes only.

But it's a little bit more complex than that in practice. Drawing all the scenes enriches my own understanding of/ love for those favorite scenes. It's got the opposite of vicious cycle effect going on.

[bisectionalbisexual]

Born to Hate, Made to Love

(Human AU)

Word count: 2,163

Pairings: Royality

TW: Angst, self-deprecating thoughts, body issues, food mention. (Let me know if I should add any!) 

Summary: Patton is a plus sized man who likes to dress more on the feminine side. He’s always been fascinated with cute sweaters and pastel colors, so when his new boyfriend Roman wants to take him clothes shopping, you’d think he’d be excited, right? Sadly that isn’t the case a Patton tries to cope with his body issues while struggling to keep it together in front of his newly found love.

~~~

“Be ready at five, K? We’ll grab dinner from the Food Court then go shopping!” Roman’s voice sang happily from Patton’s cell phone.

While Roman was excited, Patton was nervously fiddling with the hem of his old worn out shirt.

“Um, yeah,” he tried to match his boyfriend's enthusiasm, “yeah I’ll be ready. See you then.”

Patton hung up and shoved his phone into the pocket of his sweatpants, sighing as he sat on his couch. He had no idea how this evening was going to turn out, but all he could feel was his stomach twisting into knots at the thought of trying on his eccentric choices of clothing in front of his boyfriend Roman.

They had been dating for almost three months now, but every time Patton was with him it felt like their very first date. He was in constant fear of how Roman would react if he wore something that showed off his true silhouette, so instead, he opted for wearing baggy hoodies and loose pants whenever he saw his boyfriend. He couldn't risk Roman becoming disgusted once he saw Patton's body, grimacing when they hugged or even refusing to be near him.

In every relationship Patton has been in, he’s always been afraid that every single one of them has only settled for his body, never loved him for how he was.

“He has a great personality!”

“He’s not that big…”

“He’ll break you with how fat he is.”

Oh god, it was all too much, why was just a simple shopping date making him so worked up? 

“Maybe I should just cancel,” he thought out loud reaching for his phone.

Just as he opened his messages a text popped up from Roman.

‘Don’t forget your favorite headband! We’ll find something to match ;) <3’

Patton couldn’t help but smile after reading the light-hearted message. After a moment of thought, he felt the confidence he needed to go through with this date. With a tiny squeal of excitement, he hopped up from his couch to get dressed.

His wardrobe wasn’t as extensive as most people, but a few years back he was lucky enough to find some nice outfits to save for special occasions. This time Patton decided on some plain khakis and a teal sweatshirt with sparkly pink lettering saying “I believe in Mermaids” with a seashell border around the message. He ruffled his caramel curls a bit before sticking in a pink headband that had cat ears covered in glitter.

Patton smiled to himself in the mirror and gave a twirl, and just as he was feeling good about himself he heard knocking at his door.

“Must be five!” He exclaimed to himself as he ran to answer it, and there he was.

Roman, sweet handsome Roman stood in the doorway shamelessly wearing blue skinny jeans and a white tank top that delicately hugged his chiseled figure from under his red letterman jacket.

How was it that Patton got a man almost the complete opposite of him?

“Ready to go, Pattie Cake?” Roman greeted with a charming smile, extending his hand for Patton.

Patton gladly held onto his hand as he was led out of the apartment building with the biggest smile plastered on his face.

~~~

The drive to the mall was mostly silent as they both listened to the music booming from Roman’s sound system. Patton sat back comfortably watching out the window, that was until he got a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Suddenly, his posture straightened, sitting up with his head tilted slightly to try and get rid of his double chin. He felt the back of his neck heat up as he began worrying about every tiny detail of himself. At least he was until Roman rested his hand on Patton’s thigh.

“You excited?” He asked, keeping his eyes on the road as he drove.

Patton smiled to him and adjusted his glasses, “of course! I’m with you, Silly.”

“Aw,” Roman blushed, “you’re too sweet.” For a moment Roman took his focus away from driving so he could lean over giving Patton a quick peck on the cheek before turning his attention back to the road.

Patton giggled softly touching his flushed face with his sleeve, every bit of fear melting away with Roman’s simple little acts of affection.

~~~

Before the two of them knew it, they were at the mall wandering around the food court.

“What do you want, babe?” Roman asked pulling Patton closer to intertwine their fingers.

“I um- I’m not sure,” Patton chuckled breathlessly, “you pick.”

“Nope, your day, your choice,” Roman stated simply with a small shrug making Patton roll his eyes.

He had no idea what to pick, there were some food places that were exclusive to the Food Court, but then again there were some of Patton’s favorite shops there too. He hated being put on the spot like this, why did Roman have to be such a gentleman?!

“Hmm, are you okay with Subway?”

“Whatever you want,” Roman winked and pulled Patton into the line of people.

They ordered their food and sat down together once it was ready, each of them taking time to eat a little before sparking up a conversation.

“So…” Patton began, “where would you like to shop?”

Roman pondered the question for a moment as he took a sip of his Sprite.

“Hmm, well, I was thinking about Hot Topic. Looking past all the edgy stuff, I think there are some cute things in there you would like.”

Patton nodded with a small smile and once they were finished with their food Roman dragged Patton along by his hand.

They entered the store to be met with an intimidating but friendly enough worker folding shirts at the check-out counter. His plum colored bangs falling in his face on occasion, but he paused seeing the two enter and brushed them away.

“Hi there, how may I-” He was going to continue his regular “customer service” monologue, that was until he recognized the pair, “Roman? Pat?”

“Woah, Virgil?” Roman gasped and rushed up to the worker, “you work here?”

Virgil shrugged lightly and continued to fold shirts, “just my summer job for now. What can I do for you guys?”

“Well, Roman decided to take me clothes shopping today,” Patton said while he turned his head to look around the store.

Virgil inspected Patton, ultimately making him tense under his gaze as he worried the look was judgemental. Instead, Virgil nodded and pointed to the display in the corner of the store.

“To avoid all the angst, cute stuff is in the back.”

This made Patton giggle, “thanks, Virge.”

“No prob, Bob.”

“... It’s Patton.”

They all chuckled and Roman gave a wave as he led Patton to the colorful display. There were clothes, jewelry, headbands, and other such artifacts ranging from colorful Disney Princesses to dark DC Comics characters. It was obvious that Patton looked to the more light-hearted of the items, flipping through bracelets and necklaces that would catch his interest. 

Roman, however, was going through shirts that he thought Patton might like, and after a couple of minutes, he slapped a stack of different clothes into Patton’s arms.

“Here, go try these on.”

Before Patton could interject he was shoved over towards the dressing room and nearly placed inside while Roman waited outside the door.

Patton went through the clothes finding all of them quite cute, so he picked out his favorites and started trying them on.

First was a Lilo & Stitch tie-dye muscle top, Patton thought it was adorable with the happy Stitch image on top of the blue and white tie-dye with the stripe of purple. But when he tried it on he didn’t quite like what he saw in the mirror. Surprisingly enough, the tank had fit fine, he just didn’t like looking at his arms. All he saw were two ugly, pale blobs pressed against his torso, his pudge making them almost look disfigured as he relaxed his shoulders. The image made him grimace and he quickly pulled off the shirt.

Luckily there weren't any more tank tops, but the graphic tees in the pile brought up a whole new set of problems.

There was one shirt that hugged his tummy a little too tight, another one felt like the sleeves were squeezing his arms making him fear that he would rip the hem. He tried on a plain pastel pink knit sweater, but that one was much too short, barely pulling down past his stomach. Next was a blue t-shirt with a sketch if the lovely princess Cinderella, it was long enough to cover his bottom, but it was lying in such a way that made his love-handles stand out much to his dismay.

The rest of the shirts were a similar story, and by the time Patton was finished, there was a tight ache in his chest and tears stinging his eyes.

“How’s it going in there? I wanna see you.”

Roman’s sweet voice chimed in from behind the door but Patton couldn’t take it, all he wanted to do was go home. He wanted to go home and just bawl his eyes out. Patton was such a kind soul, he tried to see the bright side of things but when it came to his body he just couldn’t, he hated feeling this way.

The dressing room door creaked open and Roman was met with a sad sight. Patton’s arms her crossed against his stomach hugging himself as he held his head down, notably wearing the same outfit he came in with.

“Hey, what’s up?” Roman asked concerned, “you didn't like any of them?”

Patton shook his head and spoke softly, “I just wanna go home…”

“Home? But we haven’t even bought anything!”

Roman was confused, hurt to see his boyfriend in such a state as Patton walked passed him. Virgil noticed this and came over.

“Is something wrong?”

Patton sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve, “nothing fit, okay?! Nothing ever fits…”

A small whimper left his lips and he just couldn’t take it anymore. Roman tried to go after him only for Virgil to hold him back.

“Hold on, hold on, just give him a minute.”

~~~

Patton ran to Roman’s car and jumped inside, tearing his cute headband off and pulling his sweatshirt off over his head leaving him in a plain blue t-shirt. He promptly shoved his face into the sweater and let the tears flow as he sat under the hot summer sun.

Very little time passed before Roman came to the driver's side and opened the door, his heart aching to see Patton in such a state.

“Pattie Cake?” He asked gently as he got in the car, “it’s okay, I’m sure we’ll find something that works.”

“You don’t understand,” Patton cried, “I’ve never had a good shopping experience, Ro, never! I’m so sorry I let you drag me to this awful place…”

“Hey, I thought you liked the mall.”

“Sure, when I’m just getting things and not receiving those judgemental looks. Clothes shopping is different. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, darling, just talk to me.”

Roman reached out and placed a hand on Patton’s shoulder prompting his rant.

“I don’t know why you like me… I’m gross and ugly. If you saw my body I’m sure you’d feel the very same. Hate is such a strong word… But I hate myself! No matter how hard I try to look at it, all I’m going to ever be is this disgusting blob! I’m never able to find anything I like, I can only see if it fits, and if it fits then I wear it,” Patton just kept getting more and more worked up, causing him to pause and take a deep breath, finally looking over to Roman. “I wanna express myself, so I wear makeup and pretty headbands, but my clothing?” He shook his head. “I loved those shirts you picked out but… I’m sorry I’m just too fat to wear them.

Fat. The word hissed from his lips, sounding like poison. This one word caused Patton so much pain but he shows no hesitation when referring to himself as such.

“Patton, darling, why are you so hard on yourself?” Roman rested his hand on his cheek wiping away his tears, “gross? Ugly? Never!” He wrapped his arms around Patton and hugged him tightly. 

Patton was tempted to hug back, but he just felt so numb after his fit of emotions.

Roman sighed and turned his head to kiss Patton’s cheek, “my dear you are handsome, gorgeous, beautiful, absolutely magnificent! Whatever you prefer!” He pulled away and lifted Patton’s chin ever so slightly, “I love you… I love you just as you are, and you should too.”

Patton pouted trying to avoid his gaze, “doesn’t change the fact that I don’t…”

“Then,” Roman began, “you can take the steps to change that, and I’ll support you every step of the way.”

He put on a comforting smile then perked up remembering the trip to Hot Topic prior, “until then, Virgil wasn’t gonna let me leave unless I bought something, so here.” Roman pulled out a gift card and handed it to Patton, “he told me that they provide more sizes on the online store, you can get whatever you like.”

It was then Patton wiped away his tears and smiled, looking down at the gift card then to his loving boyfriend, “Thank you, Roman, so so much.”

He leaned forward and gave Roman a quick kiss before sitting back in his seat, “it means a lot.”

“I say,” Roman started up the car and put his seatbelt on, “we go get Starbucks and head back to your place. Then- only if you’d like to- you can come to the gym with me and Logan tomorrow.”

Patton listened to Roman’s plan as he clicked on his seatbelt then reached to hold his hand once he began driving.

“I think I’d like that.”

~~~

A/N: UUUUGGGGHHH I actually teared up writing this, because Patton is me, plain and simple. These are actual things I've said to myself or have been said to me. This single lady doesn't necessarily have a Roman but I do have a support system and I'm glad to say that no matter what, Big is Beautiful. Until next time, Lovies ;)

[realm-sweet-realm]

Defining Memories, chapter 8

This is the final chapter and contains Joey and Henry’s memories.

---

Bertrum fumed for a solid three minutes about how his memory wasn’t any indication of his engineering skills, responsibility, or anything else, before Lacie and Joey could finally get him to calm down.

“Who’s left?” Joey asked, mostly to himself. “Oh, that’s right.” He turned to look at Henry. “Only me and you.”

Henry chuckled awkwardly. This was the first time they’d acknowledged each other on this mystical plane. “Yeah, I guess so. So, um... life treating you well, Joey?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, a bitter tone to his voice. “The studio is just flourishing! Everything is going fantastic!” Henry felt like Joey was trying to bludgeon him with words. He certainly wasn’t doing his normal, cheery facade.

“Oh, I couldn’t have missed that. I mean, I’m still in the industry after all, and, uh...” The light, yellow, appeared by Henry’s shoulder. “Oh, look at this.”

Henry was grateful for an end to the conversation, and he was rather curious about what his best memory would be- his wedding, maybe, or the birth of one of his children? Or, maybe something from his own childhood.

The scene changed. It showed Henry in a University lecture hall. He was sketching in his notebook when a black-haired boy sat beside him. The boy peered over at the nice scene Henry was drawing, with deer and trees and the like.

“Hey,” the stranger said to Henry, “that’s really- oh.” At this point, the stranger realized that Henry was too engrossed to hear him and shook him lightly by the shoulder. Finally, Henry turned to look at him. “Hey. That’s really good. You know, we’re going to need partners for the group project. Wanna be mine?”

“Uh, sure,” Henry replied. He then offered him his hand. “Henry Stein. And you are?”

“You can call me Joey.”

Strange for a grown adult to call himself that, Henry thought. “Joey. Well, okay, if that's what you call yourself. Nice to meet you.”

Joey smiled. “Yeah. I get that a lot. Let me let you onto a little secret: once you reach a certain age, you stop caring if you look childish.” Henry was impressed.

The scene changed to the two sitting across from each other in a library, writing on sheets of paper. Henry was still going strong, but Joey was clearly getting bored with it. “Hey, Henry. Wanna go for coffee?”

“Sure. When?”

“Now.”

“You’re done your part already?”

“I can finish it up later. So can you. Come on. I know a great place.” He all but pulled Henry up. The scene changed to a nice little coffee shop where the two were chatting.

“So, Joey, you know what you’re doing after college?”

Joey grinned. “Do I! Let me ask you something Henry. How old do you think I am?”

“Nineteen,” Henry said without thinking. It seemed like a fair bet- a student in a first-year class would most likely be eighteen, nineteen, or maybe twenty, and Joey didn’t look any older than that.

“Wrong! I’m twenty-seven. Isn’t it just crazy how, when you’re young, all you want to do is just be away from your parents and your responsibilities? But just living to do what you want- that gets old fast. Soon, you want something more. You want to make something of yourself, bring something fantastic into the world. And that’s why I’m here. As soon as I feel ready, I’m going to, well, I don’t know yet. But it’ll be big!” At that point, Joey cleared his throat, having realized that he had gone on long enough (not that Henry seemed to mind any). “Anyhow. What are your plans?”

“Geez, I don’t know. Go to whoever hires me, I guess. I mean, I know there’s more you can do with an art degree than people think, but, well...” Henry has been about to make some comments about how he wasn’t the proudest of his major, but that might not have been the best thing to say to someone intent on doing “big things” with something similar. As was, he was at a loss as to how to sound slightly less lame, especially in comparison to Joey’s grand speech.

“Sounds like you need to learn how to dream,” Joey replied simply.

Henry blushed. Nail on the head. “Seems like you could teach me.”

From that point forward, the memory shifted often, showing a flurry of moments the two had spent together. It showed them going to Henry’s first college party together. It showed them hanging out with Sammy, and Joey, always the ladies’ man, teaching them how to flirt. And all the times that Henry had come to Joey for advice. Henry remembered how he had looked up to Joey’s optimism, energy, and suavity. Their nine-year age gap had felt huge back then, and as such, he’d also found Joey very worldly and wise, even if his ideas did need a little grounding sometimes. Joey had often used Henry as a sounding board for his ideas as well, and it wasn’t uncommon for them to start with something wild and nebulous and end up with a concrete plan to follow. Joey had decided that his big, fantastic goal would be starting an animation studio. Henry had been the one to suggest they start with comics and work up from there, a suggestion that Joey, thankfully, listened to. And so, Bendy and Friends Studio was born. One of the final happy memories was of Henry gathering up some film reel and playing the first animation he’d ever made. “We’re gonna make it,” Henry had said, watching the tape.

“Of course we are. I made sure of it,” Joey answered. The scene shifted to show the same animation, a bit more polished now, playing before a crowd.

After that, however, the memories darkened. Henry saw himself working late into the night, often coming home so late that Linda was already asleep, and at times even pushing himself until he passed out on his desk. He saw Sammy lose all interest in Joey’s friendship and complain about him with Wally. When Henry tried to defend him, Sammy had said, “You don’t understand. He’s easier on you. You’re his favourite.” Henry could remember when they were in college and he’d told Joey that he was sure Linda would get bored with him in a couple weeks. Joey had called that nonsense. That had felt good, and Joey had been right. It didn’t feel good now that Joey was saying the same thing, in the same encouraging tone, when Henry told him that they needed to hire more animators because he was working himself to the bone to meet deadlines. Their age gap should have felt smaller now, but it didn’t. It felt huge. Henry was coming to the painful realization that Joey would never see him as an equal. He saw him almost as a ward.

The image of Henry sending in an application to a studio in Florida flashed by, followed by him receiving the acceptance letter. Henry hadn’t even been sure he wanted this to happen. But, here it was.

The ball of light jerked out of present-day Henry’s hand and flew to the midway point between him and Joey. Henry hadn’t seen it change, but it was blue now. The scene changed to that of Joey’s office. Henry entered.

“So, Henry. I’ve brought you here to talk about that letter you sent me,” the younger Joey said.

Henry shuffled nervously. He knew that Joey had a temper. “Well, there’s not a lot to say. I’m leaving. Two weeks' notice. I’m sorry.” An awkward pause. “Can we still keep touch?”

“Henry, I want to talk about why you want to leave. What always happens when you have your doubts and we talk things over?”

Another silence. Often, what happened was that Henry got praised, then ignored.

“We work something out!” Joey chirped, a big, but somewhat nervous smile on his face. “So, what’s the issue?”

Henry sighed. “It’s not like that, Joey. I already have another job lined up. I can’t just change my mind now.” He really didn’t want to tell Joey everything.

“Can’t we at least try?” Joey's tone was like that of a parent speaking down to a child, and that made Henry furious.

“Fine. You want to know why I’m leaving, Joey? Here’s why. I’ve been telling you for months to hire more animators, but instead of actually listening, you gave me empty encouragement and dismissed me. It seems like you don’t listen to a word I say anymore. Working late all the time is hurting my relationship with Linda and my health. Sammy is giving me the silent treatment because apparently I’m your favourite, and even Wally seems to distancing himself from me. And I really don’t like the implication that you’re treating everyone else even worse than me!” Henry had let his voice rise to a yell. Quiet and calm again, he concluded, “Joey, I don’t know how long I could’ve kept this up, and I don’t like what working here has taught me about you. I’m sorry. So, that’s why.”

Joey stood up and turned to face the window. “Get out of my office, and out of my life,” he ordered, voice perfectly calm.

“Joey, I-"

“Get OUT of my office and out of my LIFE!” he screamed.

Henry left, disheartened but not surprised. At that moment, the blue orb landed in current-day Joey’s hands.

“You're nothing without me. You’ll never get anywhere without me,” Joey grumbled, though he wasn't sure Henry could even hear him. He turned around to reveal tears rolling down his cheeks. He wiped them away quickly and sat down at his desk with pen and paper. “Okay, Joey. What are some positives to this situation?”

After a bit of consideration, he began to write.

1. I can finally change the studio’s name. 2. I can change my name and name the studio after myself. 3. I won’t have to share the glory when the studio gets popular. 4. I can find a new confidant that won’t be so damn ungrateful.

The scene changed to show the music department just as everyone was packing up for the day. Joey standing to the side, seemingly for no reason. He grabbed Jack’s shoulder as he walked by, mildly alarming him.

“Huh? Yes, Mr. Drew?” He looked anxious and guilty enough to make Joey wonder if he was actually hiding something.

“Jack! Just the guy I was looking for. Listen, I have some ideas for the company and the cartoons we’re about to release, and I need someone to bounce them off of. You’re a smart guy, why don’t we go get a drink and discuss em’?”

Tension left Jack’s body as he realized that he wasn’t in trouble. They began walking to the exit. “Uh, sure, I guess. Or we could just do it here.”

“No. I want to have a drink with you.”

Jack walked in silence a while. “If I can ask... why?”

Because Jack was quiet, diffident, down to earth, and creative, just like who he was meant to replace. As well, he was about as gentle and approachable a person as you could find, and Joey was still feeling pretty fragile. But of course, Joey couldn’t say that.

The scene changed back to Joey’s office. Sammy came in. “Alright. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve checked with everyone and I think we can make the adjustments you want before the deadline. Also, Jack asked me to tell you something.”

“Yes?”

“He isn't interested in your friendship. He didn’t think he could wrack up the nerve to tell you since you’re his boss, so he asked me to. Now please leave him alone. You've been bothering him for over a week.”

"Fair," Joey said, keeping a smile on his face as the light drained from his eyes. The rejection actually stung this time, since it was coming from Jack, who Joey had sought out because he'd seemed too soft to turn him down. Not that Jack had been a great replacement Henry, anyhow. Far too much of a pushover, far too afraid to have his own thoughts. He'd essentially just agreed with everything Joey had said. Henry might be hard to replace. At that moment, Joey realized that Henry hadn't just been the little friend he'd helped to build up. He was also possibly the closest friend that Joey had ever had. And Joey had driven him away.

The scene faded. This time, there was a door floating in the void. With everyone's memories watched, people could leave now. "I guess that's it," Joey said. He couldn't quite bring himself to meet Henry's eyes. He, along with everyone else, turned to the door. Sammy, Tom, Allison and Susie were making plans to meet after work to talk about how to handle the changes in Sammy and Susie's relationship. Lacie was pushing Bertrum's buttons over his worst memory. Grant asked Norman to meet with him after work. Norman wasn't usually the type to want to talk about his problems, but those cult memories had been a lot, and as Norman's only friend in the studio, Grant wanted to at least give him an opportunity to.

Henry caught Joey's arm before he could go through the door. "Hey. If that door does what we think it'll do, we're going to be back in separate states. Before we go, shouldn't we talk about all that?" Henry looked down to his shoes. "Y'know, unless you still want me out of your life."

For once, Joey had to fight to keep a smile off his face. "No, no. Let's talk."

[houseofvans]

ART SCHOOL | Q&A with DETH P. SUN

Influenced by the works of Richard Scarry, Charles Schultz, and the likes of Tove Jannson, artist Deth P. Sun’s interest in art and zines started early on–from drawing everything in an encyclopedia to creating his first zine in high school. From that point on, Deth has been a prolific painter, zine maker, and doodler, focused on making his art on his own terms. With his central hero– a genderless cat – Deth explores various  natural and strange worlds through a subtle narrative, created by his brushwork, ambiguity, and color palettes. 

Find out more about Deth’s art, his wordless storytelling, and what inspires him by taking the leap below. 

Photographs courtesy of the artist.

Introduce yourself?   My name is Deth P. Sun, I’m an artist living in a tiny coastal town in Northern California, but most of my adult life was spent in the Bay Area, primarily in Oakland and Berkeley. I tell people I’m Cambodian, which is mostly true.

When did you begin having an interest in art and painting? How or why do you think you gravitated towards this profession? I’ve always enjoyed drawing, I think I kind of like getting better at it and learning about new things that are centered around that. It’s one of the cheaper hobbies to get started in as a kid. It’s not really a thing I think about too much these days. Mostly I wonder how my life was set by my 17 year old self.

How do you describe your work to people who maybe unfamiliar with it? Until I moved to this town I live in now, I kind of never had to. Mostly because I don’t meet new people outside of my circle. I just tell people I’m a graphic artist. If they want more info I just stare at them blankly because I think it’s kind of rude to ask strangers what they do for a living.

There are various aspects to your paintings from being narrative and storytelling to those that feature various painted objects and natural things. Can you tell us a little bit about the narrative elements of your works and how that came about? Yeah, I just like suggesting that there’s a narrative with my work, which isn’t that hard as long as you don’t stray too much from your pallette or reuse images to find in each painting. I kind of like seeing a whole set of paintings, that’s when you sense that there is a story.

When did you protagonist character start to take shape? How did that evolve and come-about? I’ve just always drew a character like that. Probably in high school. It’s been so long I don’t really remember. It probably came from my sketchbook. Most of my sketchbooks are kind of boring because it was just me repeatedly drawing the same stuff until I got better at it. I think I was trying to draw a cat and I drew something else that I liked.

In some of your other works, you paint collections of items from food, mushrooms, crystals to swords and old style cell phones. How did these paintings originate for you? Were you finding yourself sketching certain things that you read about or were you just obsessed with a certain object that week? My parents taught themselves English using Richard Scarry books so they were the first books I had my hands on. It’s just pages and pages of him drawing things with words describing what they were underneath. When I was younger I had this project where I’d take an encyclopedia and try drawing everything in it. I think I only got to M. Also when I was kid while drawing in my sketchbook I would just run out of stuff to draw so I’d go room to room drawing everything in each room.

It was just a thing to kill time.

How has where you live and its landscape influenced the work you create?  What’s your favorite thing about residing there? I guess it does a little, but I think I drew the stuff and then when I got here, I liked it a lot, so I ended up on this tiny coastal town on the bluffs. I started drawing weird epic landscapes after watching a bunch of Swedish films a few years ago.

What was your last adventure or walk through your neighborhood that showed up in one of your work, thematically or just visually? One time a friend invited me to a barbeque. They lived near the train tracks a couple of miles from me, so I walked up the tracks passed the cemetery and over a few tressel bridges. It was really nice walk. Met a turtle. They had to come down and get me because I didn’t know the path to their house, and it was getting dark.

What IS your favorite thing to draw or paint? Do you have an UNfavorite thing to draw or paint? I like drawing pineapples. I hate when strangers ask me to draw them. I want to punch them in the face.

When did you start picking up the paint brush and taking your works to the canvas? What do you enjoy about painting vs. drawing? The first time I painted was in my high school art class, I think like most other Americans. I was using tempera, so it sucked. But I started buying acrylic soon after. I think painting and drawing is kind of the same thing, or least I just paint like I’m drawing. I don’t think it was a strange transition.

What’s a typical day like for you at home and in the studio? What’s your process like? I fill out internet orders sometimes, or a wholesale order. Sometimes I draw. Mostly I get up and look at my email and go, “I have a lot of stuff to do and this is gonna suck”. I don’t really multitask, so it’s usually me filling out orders for 8 hours and trying to get to the post office before 4:30 while watching dumb shit on the internet, or me helping a friend screen print in my garage, or if I have a show just ignoring everything else in life and painting for two months.

A few years ago I kind of got burnt out of making a living with just painting. So I was like maybe I should make more t-shirts and prints. So I ended up moving to Fort Bragg and screenprinting more stuff and making more drawings toward that. But now my days are filled with me screen printing and filling out small orders or hanging out on my computer photoshopping all day. So now I’m in some other kind of hell.

What are your go-to art tools? A Pilot Hi-Tec C (They’re called G-Tec 4s in other places) pen. I use the .4, but should probably switch to .5. You have to have a light touch with them or else they’ll jam. 

Right now I enjoy using Mitsubishi pencils, but the cheap Mirado Black Warrior pencil you can get at most stationary store is just as good.

Been filling a sketchbook using Opaque markers. Posca’s are pretty good, but the color choices are limited, so I started buying Molotow. The Molotow’s can be refilled so they might end up being a better value.

Lately I’ve been painting with cheap $2 craft paints mostly because I don’t like mixing colors. Just bought a few of the Martha Stewart’s at Michaels. I still buy Golden and Liquitex, but it’s nice to mix in other stuff.

Not only do you draw and paint, you are always printing and creating zines of your works. Do you remember your very first zine you made? Are you working on a new zine? The first zine I made was pretty horrible. It was staple at the top corner, and I gave it out to my friends when I was in high school. I put everything precious in a box before I left for college and when I came back my dad had threw it out. At the time I was pretty bummed, but now I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that. I’m always working on something. Sometimes things take a really long time. I drew everything I ate while in England and Scotland several years ago and just now getting it all together. I’ve gotten rejected from a bunch of zine fairs, so there really isn’t a urgency to get it finished. I’m thinking of making one for the tiny town I’m in, and other that’s like a newspaper, but filled with just my gibberish drawing of words.

Do you have a favorite zine maker out there you’d like to share with folks? I’m pretty excited to  be tabling at Comics Art Brooklyn. Last year  I sat nearby Evan Cohen (http://www.evanmcohen.com) who I had just bought zines online from a few weeks before so that was kind of unexpected. He makes rad work. There was a few other artists there whose work I enjoyed. I came home with a lot of nice prints which I never really get from strangers. Stuff from Natalie Andrewson, Tiny Splendor, most everything Peow Studios publishes, and Jen Tong. I like this zine called Terror House by Sammy Harkham that I’d buy a few to give out to friends and the zines my friend, Evah Fan makes.

What are you constantly inspired by? And who are some of your early and current art influences? I think what keeps me going is random problem solving with how I paint. Or maybe the natural world. I don’t really know if I’m being totally honest.   I grew up reading Peanuts. It has it’s good moments. I think I became comfortable with not always having to be in the up. I really like Tove Jannson’s work.. I’m not a fan Tintin, but I like the way Hergé uses color and lines. I was lucky enough to come to the Bay Area while the Mission School was around and Yoshitoma Nara had a few shows, so it made it okay for me to make paintings the way I do.

What do you do when you are not painting, drawing or making zines? How do you find yourself unwinding? I watch a lot of dumb shit on youtube and take long walks. Each week I go to a game night where I do board games (Catan, Ticket to Ride, Dixit, Pirates Cove are in the usual rotation). I like to cook and have people over. I actually unwind by drawing and watching a lot of basketball while listening to basketball podcasts.

What advice would you offer to an aspiring artist who might wanna follow in your footsteps? Be nice to everyone you meet ever. Always try to learn. Don’t get caught up in what people think of you or your work. Know that if you keep on doing something you’ll get better at it. Pick up different hobbies. Make friends with other artists. Be open to all opportunities. Get used to rejection.

What’s your best Art School tip that you want to share with folks? Some random wisdom you learned through your personal journey or just while making art? You know I don’t know if I’m the best person to get advice from since I sort of carved out this weird existence. When you’re young, it’s easy to get caught up in weird things and maybe a person should just get caught up in those things. I do meet old school mates who have regrets about how their time in art school was spent, but I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way of doing it. I think there really isn’t any rush, and also if you feel like you “failed” you can always just get back up because no one is really paying attention.

I think I hear a lot from folks who worry that they’re too old to try painting or doing art for a living. And I’d hear this from someone who’s like 25 or 30. But there really isn’t a deadline to any of this stuff and also no one really knows how old anyone is. I think everyone’s trying to get to some sort of finish line, but really just existing and making work is all there is.

What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t an artist? In an alternate universe, what career would Deth find himself doing? I’d probably be working in tech if I’m being honest with myself.

What’s a question you never get asked in an interview that you wanna ask yourself and answer? There really isn’t.

What are your favorite style of VANS? My favorite Vans were the slip ons with a grey herring bone pattern on them. I had 4 or 5 pairs, but I think they switched to a smaller pattern because I couldn’t find them again.

What’s coming up for you the rest of the year or into the next? Comic Arts Brooklyn (http://comicartsbrooklyn.com), a solo show in January at Spoke Art (https://spoke-art.com) in San Francisco. I’ll have stuff at a print fair in Oakland (https://www.oaklandprintfair.com), and an art book fair in Berlin (http://www.friendswithbooks.org/content/about) through Vanilla Studios (http://vanillastud.io).

FOLLOW DETH | INSTAGRAM | WEBSITE | SHOP

[haeroniel-doliet]

Turns out its a helluva mess when i start messing beyond flat colors!! Might be a sign to not do so much again (but yet .. practice to get to where im one day happy??)

Like ive done as much as i know how to do at this point in time to the portraits (still gratuitously bloody shame on me :') ) oh except for a background bc WHAT does one DO for a character shoulders up portrait background??? Settled for now on a gradient old school photo style lmao

I like the fix it one as is, a lot (but also i liked the lineart for the portraits better i think) and idk, imngonna try give it a light bit of shadows and lights, maybe step away from a lot of blending bc i think i think thats where i went wrong on the other one

Like, they look fine, but they also look. Meh. Like ive used too much blur tool (i havent, i tried using kritas wet brush thing and it looks....ok close up but the effect is no good when zoomed out like posting size APPARENTLY) and its all noncommittally washy.

(cont'd over thinking)

Am i gonna 'render' them a third time??? Do i have the mental strength?? Bc i think maybe trying for something not so, "realistic" could do me better, like a little more cell shady. But also i dont?? I dont know how to cell shade? I dont watch anime or cartoons v much and my style isnt that cartoony or clean lined?

Maybe on the fix it i can try a more....... Conservative and less blended shade/highlights? (And if i like it/learn smth new go back and re re do the portraits same style) I also just. Idk. How does one make it not look so. Flat and meh?? Im doing basic color stuff ok i think, ive got a bit of texture but its still? Eh???

Honestly i could just post them and move on but i dunno, i have the energy to problem solve a lil bit so why not?? (Not tonight. Im gonna sleep on this all)

Why post shit im not 100% proud of? (Ngl kinda been in the mood to take down that first sketch of the fix it bc it looks nowhere near as good as what i fixed it up to but ....... Ah fuck it i was happy w it when i did it so eh)

Why why why oh why is art so hard?????????

I wanna try and become one of those cool artists who post multiple fun things yknow, like u get inspired and can draw it beginning to post in one evening! Im probably way over thinking and pushing myself to some standard of unrealistic perfection i have for myself...

(also i like thumbnail doodled out like, all these things i wanna draw for a really nice fic i read and even after editing some i have like 8 bits i wanna draw?? 4 as like a mini comic bc i havent done one since i was a child and i think itd be kinda rad if i learned to draw short comics for fic scenes i like??? But yeah basically in one inktober post there would only be 5 ideas (a lil more complicated on average i do give for granted but like. Those took me WEEKS) but yeah i just. I wanna draw them. Even if itll probably take me for fuckin ever... (And i didnt even finish off the last two inktober batches, oh. And i have a uni thesis to do ew) .... I wanna push myself to draw faster (less iterations to get it right) and so i can have rly solid and good and quickly done drawings to then color in as i learn to for future?)

Ugh man. You know what i need to do/shouldve been doing before i jumped into coloring original stuff?? I shouldve done colored studies. Like ive been drawing scenes both from reference and original on the inktobers and i think thats why my drawing/character stuff has gotten decent. I really should just whip out like prettily colored movie screencaps and work on painting studies of them. That would really fix up why i cant figure out lights and shadows and blending in coloring! No horrid tutorials just figuring out how can i make it work for me

And you know? You know what it is okay to have pieces that are from before i figured it out right? Im gonna try a slightly different thing for the fix its (if i hate it, theyre good as flat colors too) and yes they dont have a background either please love of god someone tell me how to add random backgrounds bc im not in the mood of scene building further but they float in off white space atm.

If i learn smth ground breaking and can QUICKLY do a bette rendition of the portraits, sure the perfectionist wins. But maybe just maybe. It would be fine to post them as they are. Yea, they look roughly as lifeless as my first big painting/that dinluke poster redraw. And maybe thats okay. Because hi if i do dedicate to doing like a good few color focused studies of star wars scenes as a treat i can come back stronger and have a better piece???? Its about growth babes. YEA

Alright i said to myself thats it in gonna go sleep on it and continue tomorro but. I thought id slip in here a secret surprise for anyone unfortunate enough to have clicked read more... And i got a little whiplash opening the picture bc it looks. SO WRONG but the more you look at it its like ... Fine. Ok judge for urself and tell me pls, first and second attempts at 'rendering' the portraits (the darker bground was the first attempt just going by gut, the lighter one after trying to watch like 1 tutorial and using more brushes and just generally trying rly hard!!)

yes ive clearly fixed issues in the sketch differently in both so they... look... like different expressions?? idk man idk idk idk see now this small they look differently off!! god the curse of the zoom in and out and perception.

[orbyssarchives]

A Brief tl;dr

This is probably a lot to say for 20 unfinished webcomic pages and I know I can be fairly long-winded so if you just wanna skip ahead and click through the pictures I’ve put up, I understand.

The TL;DR is

Hello and welcome to Mage Punk Archives! My name is Tables and this is some of the work that I’ve done over the last few years and what I’ve been up to in my little corner of the world. This is the third and last of a series of posts, outlining a number of updates that I completed on the site.

Included are some of my inspirations and a little of what I’ve learned so far about myself as an ever growing artist up to this point.

After this, I want to keep the content more focused on the actual art and story.

  I’ll post to this site as often as I am able.

    Thanks for reading!

  ***

Long Ago, Before the miracle of handheld internet searches and Instagram

When I was but a young, internet webling, I was heavily into shitty online flash games and looking for anything even remotely related to my interests at the time. From Mario and Sonic to various comics, videos games, anime and things never to be said aloud (pornpornporn). My love of the likes of Super Mario Bros and Sonic the Hedgehog (big fandoms for me at the time) would later lead me to sprite comics. Today, my feelings for the little hodge podge collage strips of old video game sprite sheets and backgrounds are a little mixed.

(They were beautiful and I’m gonna make one someday)

Then, in Highschool, I took a basic Web Design class. It was a VVoid World Web of Notepad and Internet Explorer where a kindly old crone passed on to those of us there, some knowledge of the ancient runic language which forms the foundations of the World Wide Web: HTML. Tables, frames, css, oh my! This knowledge would eventually prove invaluable.

Throughout our studies we were occasionally allowed to venture out into the Wider World Web. It was during these little adventures and travels across the Web that I happened upon the magical land of Webcomics. It was also during this time that I began break free of the enchantment of sprites. Even though I would probably never return to them, they would always hold a special place in my heart.

  The Internet is for [Comics]

    Webcomics – Synonymous with “Masochism”

At first, I had no idea just how grueling webcomics could be. Most webcomic artists pump out pages one to three times a week. At the time I got into them, MegaTokyo, then still partially a video game webcomic, was just releasing its third printed book; 2-3 updates a week with a loosely set schedule. Evan Dahm was wrapping up his surreal fantasy epic, Rice Boy; with updates consistently going up Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The various sprite and drawn webcomics that I was following at the time were updating all the time. Seeing all the great work going up, I felt encouraged to try it myself.

I drew these closer to the end of my junior year of high school.

Desu

Taking major inspiration from a lot of the manga and anime that I was enjoying then, I used pen and ink to make my comic pages. I liked working in black and white because it felt direct and skipping on color made it easier to finish faster. I figured I could work faster if I didn’t have to worry about the extra step. When I did want to use color, as is typical for the early pages of a new manga, I used markers.

At the time, I had no idea that mangakas used assistants. That’s messed up.

Not to say that it was completely unrealistic, but back in the real world I could only average one black and white page a week. If even. The spider webs I was drawing all over were so that I wouldn’t have to use a ruler to draw my panel proper borders. I thought it gave the comic an “old archive”. In the end, I concluded that the spider webs should have their place and not be all over.

This time, I decided to work a little more carefully and deliberately.

  Moving Forward

It was going pretty well but by the time page 7 rolled around, it was time for midterms and I had become too self-conscious and uncomfortable with the way I was drawing my comic pages then. Then, it was time to take finishing high school seriously and before I knew it, I was a freshman at The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. I did a lot of growing in the next four years that I attended there. Unfortunately, I never revisited those pages. Instead, near the end of my sophomore year, I took a Sequential Art class where the Final was a full-color, 5-page comic.

These are the ink-wash versions of the 7-page Final that I submitted. I’d originally colored them digitally to meet project requirements but I don’t want to post those just yet..

  In the End

I wasn’t satisfied. The truth was that I waited until the last minute, rushed it, and over-reached on a re-draw that wasn’t much fun for me to work on. During the course of that Sequential Art class my professor turned my attention to artists like Moebius and Mike Mignola. I also came across Katsuya Terada’s stuff around this time.

  And school went on…

    I worked on Mage Punk when I could between assignments.

    Between thinking I could possibly work on a for-print comic…

    …and a webcomic at the same time.

  The End was Near

Most of these were actually made towards the end of my four years at Ai. Those of us graduating were tasked with compiling our work from the years past in accordance with the requirements for obtaining our degrees. I believe that we were given two semesters to gather our pieces and do any revisions to previous works to get them up to date with the rest of the portfolio piece. Illustration Graduates at AiFL were typically required to gather a required selection of their work into an on-demand printed book. The year that I graduated, my department decided to change things around a little. Specifically, we were given the option to collect the requirement work into a plain black binder portfolio and make the printed book more geared towards our pursuits. I opted to make a Mage Punk/Orbyss Archives “Zine” as my main portfolio piece.

  And Then College was Over

I drew a few more pages of the comic until I became employed full-time. These days, there aren’t enough free hours in my days for me to keep up with any typical webcomic’s update schedule so for a long while I stopped working on the comic altogether. I’m squeezing as much work out of every second that I’m not there; with whatever energy I can muster. This includes planning, writing, sketching and drawing. Before I got back to work on the site, I was posting fairly regularly to my Twitter and Instagram; those posts took time to do as well.

  Most of this post was written in separate sessions on my commutes to work.

“Shortcuts”

Even though I always wanted to present Mage Punk as a webcomic, I always worked on it like it would go to print eventually. This created a confusing mindset for me when working on the comic, where I had to work on a whole book, but I have to rush to finish every page. If I wanted to put out pages more frequently I took shortcuts at any point I could to be done with them. Even if I created a good buffer of finished pages, I’d still run into that same pitfall eventually. I wasn’t enjoying my project because of a pressure I applied on myself to finish it in a way I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with. I didn’t even get that much done in the end.

It’s important that I work on it at a pace that lets me show the best of my ability. I would love it if I could be properly finished with the pages before I post them but if I wait before it’s all good and done I’ll just never get around to posting anything, forever floating, aimlessly, throughout creative internet limbo.

Instead, if I have to work on my comic in piecemeal, I’ll just post it up in piecemeal. Mage Punk will still be presented as a webcomic but, until the end of the book is done, certain changes are still a possibility. Editing is an important part of producing any book and I’m going to make its presentation reflect that.

  Cue Rhidiculous shouting “I told you so!” from some nearby bushes.

  A Webcomic in Presentation Only?

Those Two Images are the Same Page

Instead of trying to finish things at breakneck speeds, I’m going to work on the comics at a more reasonable pace. I’ll try to work on it mainly Chapter to chapter instead of page to page like how a webcomic normally is done (buffers aside) This gives me the opportunity to take a step back and get a broader look at the story while still putting out content in enjoyable chunks.

It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around drawing a comic on a start-to-finish, page-by-page basis. While I was working on the later pages in the chapter I kept finding myself jumping around and making changes to previous pages to make some things more consistent with later parts of the story. Instead of working page-by-page, I was editing the chapter as a whole to try to strengthen the narrative I’m trying to tell.

To that end, I still want to present it on this site as a webcomic; if only in name and archive.

The Process

At the VERY longtime behest of my editor, I’ll be presenting the comic as a work in progress at various points in the following production stages.

Writing

I’ll post dialog excerpts here and there. Nothing that can spoil the story too much.

This step will be kept largely behind the scenes.

Thumbnails

I do these on index cards in ballpoint pen to figure out the sequence of events that I most prefer.

This is the step where I’m prone to overloading a page with information.

First Drafts

Full size roughs of the earlier thumbnails. This step helps me get a better sense of how crowded or unbalanced a page might be early on.

This step also helps to prune out any strenuous scenes or dialog that could otherwise have their own pages.

If it isn’t working visually at this point, it’s not going to work in the next step.

Pencils

This is where the real drawing happens. Drawings in this step are made by either digital or traditional means depending on when or where I’m working.

Inking

This step is exactly like the drawing step but in pen and ink. Despite my affinity for real pen and ink, I’ll mainly be working this step digitally.

Color

This step is wrought with indecision but it also one of the faster, more fun steps to do.

Lettering

I’ve removed the dialog from all the pages currently up, opting to keep that out until a chapter is completed; it’s the thing I’m likeliest to change the most frequently until the end.

All lettering is currently done digitally but I’m considering the possibility of hand lettering.

Drawing dialog can be quite fulfilling but it takes a lot of practice.

Editing

This part will be happening all throughout. Page re-orders, panel redraws, changes in dialog.

Until the book is done.

  Here We Are

I’ve already made some revisions to a handful of the pages that are already up; if you browse through the comics you can see the revisions noted in the comic descriptions. I’ll make blog posts for any major revisions or series of revisions that I do. I have a few ideas for some smaller projects that I can work on while I work on Mage Punk. Whether they be illustrations, stories, or even mini-comics like this silly thing down here.

      Moving on

I might have also mentioned before that I have a few other drawings that I wanted to make for the site. In particular I have a neat idea for some social media icon illustrations. I wanna make something that takes advantage of what I’ve learned with using CSS. It’s nothing too fancy.

All that said, future posts will be a bit more brief than these last three were. I’d much rather write and post about the work itself, but I feel like I’ve hit a personal milestone and felt the need to ramble on about it a little.

    Until next time,

  Thanks for reading!

    The Big Site Update (Part 3) A Brief tl;dr This is probably a lot to say for 20 unfinished webcomic pages and