veryimportantsparkles

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Working on the chapter 7 draft (viewable on patreon) and man...this one guy is having a bad day. I kinda want to keep him around.

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I've been working on concept and draft work for the next chapter of Laserwing, and it's made me want to do some more random drawings of Trieg and Penki at other points in their lives. I've drawn baby Trieg before but it occurred to me now (not for the first time tbh) that this character's timeline is kind of messed up. Like it's kind of weird to have art of this toddler (who is maybe 25% human) being treated like a pet. He hatched with quadruped legs and took a few years to start talking (maybe Penki didn't know that's normal for human babies). Penki thought she failed to create a sentient creature and decided to keep what she thought was an animal. But we know, in the context of the present, that that's a guy! A real person guy!

So I reached forward into the timeline to ask Trieg's dad's opinion (he won't show up for a long time, and was last drawn in...2019?) and he agrees, this is messed up. Currently in the Laserwing 'present' he doesn't even know he has a son (a partial clone actually) but when Nanru shows up to meet Trieg he instantly likes the kid. Every time he finds out another upsetting detail of Trieg's upbringing he starts yelling at mom.

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And finally, some backgrounds. Backgrounds are hard, guys. Like yeah perspective is hard but also consistency is hard, and thinking of buildings is hard. I'd say even if I didn't develop carpal tunnel and spine damage during the making of chapter 6, the cafeteria table backgrounds would still have made updates very slow.

The Mistaire drawings are from when I was testing pen tools in Krita. Chapters 1-5 were made in an unupdated Gimp 2.2 installation. Chapter 6 was done in Krita so I had to decide what pen settings to use to match what I was used to. About halfway through the chapter I switched to a new tablet too!

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Here's outfit models for the mains, including Clarisse and Taylor who are barely in chapter 6. And outfits for the last two pages of the chapter, which takes place the next day. There's actually an error on Marjolaine's aura picture; in the page where you actually see her aura it has the Scythe medal properly on her chest.

Speaking of auras, there's a little side note on Tony's page where you can see his pre-Mistaire aura. Taylor has two auras too, how interesting. I wonder what that means!

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The girls at the cheer table were visible uuuuuh once. Jackie is a cameo! She's from Miss Melee. On the page she appeared on, I also did a quick addition of Rachel and Zeki from Raccoon Girl.

Britnee (along with her older siblings Kelly and Ivan from the goth table) is a holdover from a very old story idea from when I was like 13. Becky has existed since early drafts of Laserwing but exists purely as crowd filler. Christi is a newer concept, I just knew I'd see the cheer squad once and a while and they should have a captain.

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I finally finished chapter 6 of Laserwing, and that means I'm releasing chapter 6 concept art into the main blog. You could've seen these character models early if you went to the Patreon, but now they're here! And I know you were all waiting to see the details on those goths at the cafeteria. That was very important.

Gunnar and Verna are for an entirely different concept that should have a separate continuity that doesn't intersect with Laserwing. But I'm probably never going to hash out that story idea, and I wanted some filler for the table. You can KIND OF see them in like...one cafeteria panel. Well I like them anyways.

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"I'm not supposed to talk about it but souls are real and you definitely have one, okay?" Shouesh did his best to sort of lean in around the hologram avatar of Zatz. They couldn't touch physically, but he could sort of...mime a little pat on the shoulder. He then slapped one stringy palm down on the restricted access panel. "I can see it. It's literally right there, safe in the meat part of you. And nothing they do to the robot part of you can ever change that, alright?"

Nothing short of killing you, Shouesh thought to himself. But that wasn't an appropriate thing to say aloud.

"Thank you," Zatz spoke softly. The 'whisper' hissed over the speaker in the secluded maintenance closet they kept his core in. "Thank you..."

"So don't let them pick on you. Okay? You're a person. A real full person just like the stupid fucks who built you." It was a simple statement Shouesh found himself repeating in his head, silently to others like himself, or sometimes just to himself. It felt good to say to someone who could hear it, who needed to hear it.

Zatz nodded. "What does my soul look like?"

"Oh, disgusting. Like someone soaked a rat in vinegar. Hope you never have to look at your own core because it's probably horrifying."

"A-aaoh. Okay."

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fuck, fuck, shit, i made a minor edit to a laserwing blog post yesterday and now tumblr wants to default me to posting on that blog instead of my main, so I made this post and then had to delete it to move it to the correct blog

I'm pretty sure I've sent capslock feedback to tumblr about dashboard default blog selection at least twice, I'm so mad

Anyways this is TRIEG he's showing up in the next chapter with his EVIL MOM and her HARD TO DRAW FACE. His aunt's here too today

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Here's a warmup doodle before Laserwing work. There's three panels left to shade and then I color it all. I felt like drawing Zatz, the incredible endgame spoiler lad. I always default to airlock stuff for his dialogue. There's not a lot else he can talk about without putting him in a more complicated context. He doesn't get out much, he doesn't have hobbies, but he DOES have airlocks and will open them to get rid of you. I'm workshopping a second subject of interest for him to talk about but the best I have so far is "I will not go back in the tube" and that just gets followed up with more airlock threats.

Anyways he's not showing up for a while so it doesn't matter.

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This was long overdue! BellaBella finally has her fully evolved design. I was actually reluctant while leveling her to replace Vine Whip with a bigger move, because she's had it since the beginning and it's kind of her thing. But with Leaf Blade, I realized I could do a reference. Ivy from Soul Calibur even has an appropriate name for the plant theme, so it felt good to steal her weapon gimmick.

I wasn't originally expecting her outfit to come out so suggestive, but every visual motif I wanted to work with came together perfectly to make a skimpy dress and heels and a whip. I originally didn't even put the little shorts on under her Victreebel dress, but it felt a little incomplete without them.

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It's 5am and for some reason I spent 20 minutes trying to work out a 'thumbs down' pose for Matt's right hand then realized I couldn't even make that angle with my own hand without moving the whole arm into a position that obscured the sweater

and anyways the whole point was that I wanted a good drawing of Matt's 90s sweater with the smash logo on it, because it's never shown at a good angle in the comic

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Just finished coloring the next Laserwing page but I'm going to check it tomorrow for errors before I post it. Anyways here's a cooldown doodle.

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Look how much background detail I made just to get covered up by the foregrounds. It's intentional, I use my horrible, ugly backgrounds as practice, but it still feels like wasted effort at the end. Anyways the next Laserwing page has just foreground coloring left to do.

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I realized Tony didn't have an image for his playlist, even though he's THE Laserwing. So here we go. All the audio devices the kids are holding up in their covers are supposed to be canon, but a Goku-colored Sony Discman seems unlikely to find. Did he start with a regular orange one and paint the buttons? Where'd he get the sticker? I guess I'll choose not to think about it too much.

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I had this idea in my head for months and never got around to it. From the Laserwing villain cast, Tina is the insufferably quirky memelord one. So of course her spotify playlist was going to have Caramelldansen on the cover. Of course.

Laserwing character playlists are ongoing works in progress that I add stuff to sporadically. Not everyone has theirs yet. Some don't have their covers yet. So far we have:

Tony: Anime and video game themes, Queen, and for some reason, ska. All the hallmarks of a nerd who isn't actually into music.

Matt: 70s and 80s rock, with a sci-fi theme whenever possible, with a few more modern things peppered in when they really speak to his personality.

Josh: Emo and goth and pop punk with a lean towards bad relationship songs.

Mistaire: Basic Becky 80s tunes you can dance to, with very little further depth to be found.

Clarisse: Chaste churchgirl 90s pop with a few anime and cartoon songs peppered in. The music you'd hear on the mall speakers when you went to buy your Neopets merch from Limited Too in the year 2001.

Marjolaine: Classic goth and a little metal, with modern goth and emo mixed in if they're 'sophisticated enough' (has piano in it). She likes to hear songs about how amazing a girl is and pretend she's that girl.

Contrabrigands: One song for each of the villain kids, this was their team playlist from before I split them up into their own individual playlists.

Lance: Cynical punk and ska, with some covers of 80s songs that would be on his mom's playlist...if she had one. Songs about questioning authority, and occasionally feeding Lance's messiah complex.

Renei: Any song you'd hear accompanying a rad action scene in an 80s move. Songs you can punch bricks to. Songs for overcoming opponents to. Songs with no emotional vulnerability or time for contemplation. Karate!!!

Eli: A complex blend of light, airy, new-age relaxation and dark, plummeting violent crisis. Songs about magic, the supernatural, and general paranoia are constant. The only light that cuts through the darkness is love.

Marina: The kind of playlist that serves as a warning, don't date this girl. Unstable, troubled, constantly oscillating between the victim and the abuser, and kind of pretentious on top of it all. As many nautically-themed songs as I could keep within that mood.

Heather: Songs about stardom, fame, and beauty punctuated by screaming feminist punk. Lyrics you can photoshop onto a grungy selfie after you let your mascara run.

Zack: A political edgelord in a fine tailored suit, with a historical hyperfixation on East Germany and the Cold War. Zack feels most comfortable when you aren't sure what he actually believes.

Draco: Metal, both regular and nu, with a little anime (also metal). Hits incredible synergy with Zack somehow, because a weird number of songs on the Zack playlist have nu-metal covers.

Tina: Upbeat danceable memelord jams. The kind of insufferable shit you'd put on blast before trotting onto the convention center floor in your best cosplay and/or fursuit. Peppered with some songs I actually think suit her, which are nigh-indistinguishable from the meme songs in most cases.

Characters without playlists yet who will definitely get them at some point: Pauline, Taylor, Jenny, Sylvette

Characters who should get playlists but I have NO idea what I'm gonna put on them because this character is hard to pick for: Trieg, Victoria

These genuinely help me focus on making Laserwing, most of the time. Sometimes. When I'm not doing other things, like picking songs for the playlists.

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I finally have a little time to draw, but I was going to work on shading a Laserwing page, which I won't be able to finish in one night, so it'll be another night without a drawing to post. So I did a warmup doodle. My spotify queue is going through Marina-adjacent songs so here's Marina, with her 'sisters' Erinn and Naida. They might not make it into the comic for a long time, and they're not major characters. But I really like writing conversations for the three in my head. I gotta work on pages til I get to them!

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I've been doing real shitty dark souls streams, forgot to post to tumblr about them (I'm also self conscious about doing too many stream posts to my art blogs)

But this was funny