#And it’s easier and more fun for me to draw them as humans anyway. LOL

[beatcroc]

a year!!! as of today i have now been drawing these funny little pizza freaks, to the exclusion of almost everything else, for!!! an entire year!!! i wanted to do a nice group shot/lineup of everybody to compare to when i first started trying to draw them because oh boy were they bad. i never even posted most of them anywhere because they were so bad. but im posting them here, now, to see how everything's changed/evolved.

this is probably the hardest time i've ever had trying to figure out how to work with a style, but we got there eventually; i'm pretty happy with the handle i've got on everybody now...dont let ur memes be dreams. lots of unimportant journaling and idle thoughts abt it below.

older pics

the first one is the VERY first time i drew them, before i thought i was going to actually have any interest in drawing them [lmao]; it was just the one isolated image, for my friendserver, to illustrate the funney message, so there was no attempt to make it Good or actually understand anything going on w/ the designs or style.

second is the original run of practices sketches to start trying to figure them out for real; done after i started having ideas for the comics and such and realized oh god maybe i am actually gonna draw fanart for this. [again, lol, and lmao.]

third one is the first pt art thing i posted on here. there were a couple weeks of sprite studies between this one and the previous image. the one on the top right wasn't part of that post i just threw it on as space filler; i'd intended to shift to doing Sprite Redraws But Stylized to explore tings more, but that was the only one i did. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

individual characters

peppino: by far the hardest dear god. bro what ARE your shapes how DOES your face work. jesus christ. everything i have trouble with this style for, peppino has it in excess. i draw in polygons! i need consistency! and that is the last thing this kind of style is concerned with. they are made of squarshy clay and i do not understand how to mold them. i was really hoping trying to learn this game's style would GIVE me that kind of flexibility for fun exaggerated facial expression but i don't think much came of it in the end 😔. anyway on the bright side all this means once i got peppino figured out a little bit everybody else clicked way easier.

fake peppino: honestly i never did anything with him on purpose except for how his eyes work + the perma-smile thing. i figured ok hes supposed to look weird and off model so whatever happens with him happens. and it did. and it kept happening. it is still, in fact, happening.

noise/ette: somehow, for every bit that peppino was the least natural thing i've ever tried, these two worked pretty much right off the bat. i still don't understand it, seeing as pretty much all the things at play for peppino are also at work for them. i think the new sketches are actually a little worse than older ones but not enough that i care.

gustavo: really funny bc i drew him on model twice and just went 'okay, cool nice, easy, um. he doesn't have any fucking legs?' fortunately he was the only one i had a strong idea for how to stylize him [square] and it worked exactly as i was hoping so wahoo.

brick: is an animal and therefore 5000x easier and more natural for me to draw/stylize than anything else in the cast. that is Just a rat bro. i can draw a rat.

gerome: i think the funniest one here. the most drastic and least necessary change imo. i was gonna have him be really small at first, like smaller than the noises, but then i just... didn't. he's just peppino-sized now. also i gave him like. actual human facial structure, which is funny bc in most cases i'd do anything to avoid, but it works well for his being A Rock to give him some angles and definition like that+ to differentiate his vibe from the rest of the cast who are all very squishy. also since he is essentially Just A Head it's good to emphasize that too ig.

john: i only drew john a couple times but he gets to be here because i like him. and because most of the stuff i applied to gerome was readily applicable to john, though i did try to keep him a little more uncanny because he is a Huge And Lanky Freak. i hate that he is barefoot btw but idk how to make his color balance look right with shoes.

pizzahead: i did not want to put him on here honestly but i Have drawn him a handful of times and more importantly i didn't know what i was gonna do with john's pose if i didn't have him there to be glared at. the only thing that's different with him is giving him wider-bottomed pants, which i got from when i tried to draw these guys in clone high style [i never posted that one either][i will eventually]

snick: he gets to be here because 1. he's like 6 lines 2. i like him and 3. ive scribbled him a few times offhand and it went pretty well

misc

there are some guys missing because those are guys i didn't draw enough [or at all] to have gotten comfortable with them. sorry

i would have Liked to shade these but for the time being i have accepted that my grasp of light/shadow has decayed to the point im not going to be happy with anything i try there, so For Now i am working on my presentation with flats i guess. gerome has a shadow only because he's shaded like that ingame and looks naked without it

anyway if you are still reading [hi?] i get to shamelessly plug now. i'm over the hill of my pizza run now, and while i still have plenty of things i want to make here, most of the bigger more in-depth ones have passed. pizza tower was the first thing in THREE YEARS to get me out of my oc groove to doing fanart, and once i am done with my ideas here i will be going right back to it. if you like my art or how i write characters/interactions you should check out my oc/webcomic blog @jamverse . i can't promise people who like pizza stuff will be terribly into my designs, but i can guarantee i treat my guys with the exact same sort of tone i handle the pt guys with. and hell, i've mentioned it a few times before, but like 70% of my characterization for fake pep is just copied off one of my characters, so if u are going to miss him... he will still be there in spirit >;p

and if you dont care about any of that and are still reading thank you anyway. actually making these comics + seeing how shockingly well-received they've been has done a lot for my confidence, and for seeing that my kind of stuff IS something people enjoy :')

[lettheladylead]

Hi! I was looking through Magica De Spell’s Wikipedia page today and it says that Magica has a sister named the Wicked Witch of the West, who has children named Witch Child and Warlock. I couldn’t find any information of them online so I was wondering if you knew anything about them, if they exist at all.

If they don’t, do you think you could instead do a character post on Magica’s cousin Matilda? Your old family tree posts helped me a lot in understanding Duck lore.

Aw I'm glad those posts help!! I'm still down for making them 'cause it's a lot of fun for me to find old comics and do some research.

So before I talk about Witch Child, I wanna clarify some things that are relevant to the character.

This is another case where Americans can't stop themselves from taking "sister" and "aunt" literally. Aunt can be used to refer to any older woman in someone's life. Sister is frequently used in stories about witches (because a coven is like a sisterhood/sorority, it's a whole thing). Neither imply blood relation! Even "cousin" is often used to refer to friends/neighbors. Different cultures and languages treat words like that very differently than Americans do.

Witch Child, Warlock, & Witch of the West are all from a very specific time period of Brazilian duck comics where Magica and Madam Mim (from The Sword and the Stone) were living together/dating/???? and interacted with other Disney movie characters. In this specific timeline, the ducks live amongst regular humans which is very strange but you just gotta accept it. Magica also lives in Duckburg I think? It seems like she and Scrooge just run into each other randomly so I believe she and Mim have a house in Duckburg for whatever reason

"Witch Child" is not her name and I don't know why she's referred to like that on InDucks/other wikias. Her name in Brazil (where she was created) is Magali, in Italian she's Maghetta/Maghina/Streghella (inconsistent names in translations are very common), and in French she's Seraphine. None of her comics have an official English publication so again idk where "Witch Child" comes from! But I'll probably refer to her as Streghella for the remainder of this post 'cause it's easier that way.

OKAY now for details:

In Streghella's first comic, Magica gets a letter from a friend asking her and Madam Mim to babysit her friend's daughter. Streghella is whiny and rude and a troublemaker. She ruins a magical career opportunity for Magica and it's pretty funny

Then there's a whole bunch of comics where she just appears for no reason, making trouble. She's a surprisingly powerful witch but she just loves to piss everyone off, especially Mim.

Another important note about Streghella - she was only really drawn by two comic artists during the height of her appearances (in the 70s, pretty much). The above drawings were all done by an artist named Jim Fletcher. But she had a lot of appearances drawn by an artist named Glenn Schmitz, who drew her completely differently.

I don't know if I would've realized these were even the same character if it wasn't documented lol but y'know they didn't have the same resources in the 70s that we have now so they did what they could.

Anyway, from what I can tell her personality stayed mostly in tact through most of these comics. Whiny, stuck-up, nosy, but also very funny and magically powerful. She would occasionally interact with Scrooge or HDL but mostly her appearances were in Magica and Mim comics.

Oh there's one comic where she looks like this for some reason?

BUT THEN what's interesting is Streghella making a few appearances years after her comics all came out. First there was one comic in 1995, then twice in 2011 and once more in 2016. There's also apparently a 2020 appearance but I couldn't get my hands on it :(

In her 1995 appearance she looks really cute but her personality is, well. Personality-wise she's completely unrecognizable. Now Magica makes comments about Streghella always trying to be good and getting in trouble for being good all the time.

(Ignore the bad english translation I was just popping pages into google translate lol)

She's still a troublemaker in the sense that she tries to trick Magica and Mim into consuming a potion that will make them good, kind people. But then the comic ends with Magica doing something nice by choice and it's cute but yeah the character is nothing like her original self.

Her first 2011 comic is where she...wants to go to a Jonas Brothers concert and chats with April May & June online to try and make it happen. Something like that. It follows along with "Streghella is too kind and Magica tries to teach her to be evil" from the '95 comic, but for some reason the colorist made Streghella a brunette. Idk! They also forgot her iconic hat!

Next 2011 comic has Huey Dewey and Louie accidentally traveling to a magic academy. It's very Harry Potter-y? I guess? Streghella is friendly and does some magic. You can tell it's her 'cause of the pigtails and bows. But still no hat :(

In her 2016 appearance, she's been reading April May and June's blog and wants to help them with some problem. Magica is like no be mean and Streghella's like no I want to help! You get it.

This comic is pretty fun. Magica turns herself into Grandma Duck and puts a truth potion into some cake Streghella bakes for the Duck Family and gets a bunch of secrets out of them.

There's also a joke at the end where Daisy accidentally reveals Brigitta's age to everyone (we don't get to see it) but according to this comic, Brigitta is much older than she looks lol Not that we didn't already know that.

Anyway so that's all there is to know about Witch Child/Streghella. She's cute!

Warlock time!

Warlock is Streghella's brother. He's only in four comics total and they're mostly very early comics - his real name is just whatever Streghella's name was at the time but with an -o at the end. If she's Maghetta, he's Maghetto. If she's Maghina, he's Maghino. You get it. He'd probably be Streghello if he had a named appearance more recently.

His personality is not very distinct from Streghella's. He's also magical and a troublemaker. In his first comic he arrives in the mail, in a, like...little jail cell? Crate? Idk? And then Magica and Mim eventually box both kids up into the crate and ship them away.

(Yes that's supposed to be him, apparently.)

He appears in the magic school comic as well...

And that's it! There's not really anything else to know about him.

Last but not least...the Witch of the West! Actually, that's a lie. Least. She appears just the one time. And I'm gonna be honest. I don't think she's the biological mother of these bird children.

'Cause yeah she's a human witch. Idk if she's from another Disney property or if she's supposed to be the witch from the Wizard of Oz. Idk man. But Streghella calls her "mama" and she refers to Streghella as her daughter so I'll take those ones literally.

There's nothing much to say about her - she doesn't have a name and all she does is drop her kid off with Magica and then reappear when Mim and Magica threaten to lock Streghella inside a bottle.

NOW if you're wondering...how do these characters connect to the previously known characters that are related to Magica De Spell?

They do not! The fact that Streghella has made a few recent appearances means you can decide how you want her to fit in, but trying to blend these different canons will not be seamless. You just gotta take what you like. Streghella frequently refers to herself as Magica's apprentice so you can always take that route, too.

Aaaaaaaaaand since you asked, I'm happy to talk about Matilda! God there are too many Matildas in duck comics. I have never met a woman named Matilda in my life. It's fine.

Matilda De Spell (not an official name but I call her that anyway) - Magica's teenage cousin! Is she actually, biologically, Magica's cousin? Probably not. But it's fiiiiiiine.

I did actually scanlate all three comics that Matilda appears in, so you can read them if you'd like:

There's not really anything to know about her outside of these comics. She's tomboyish, spunky, fun. Really looks up to Magica. I think their dynamic is fun and I always like to see more teen characters lol I think I've portrayed Matilda as Amelia De Spell's younger sister but that's definitely not canon, just me trying to stick the blondes together.

Anyway sorry this ended up being such a long response. I haven't had the opportunity to research random duck characters in a while. I hope this has the answers you wanted :)

[starrysharks]

OK so I'm feeling some guilt I started to draw cartoony like you but I get frustrated because it does bot look perfect like yours it's mostly small stuff like colors and clothes I love making cartoony body's sometimes clothing but I have color picking because I'm still new to art that has colors is my feelings normal or is it wrong of me? And how do I pick colors because it frustrated me to no end and made me stop drawing for months anyway in short summary how do I color the right way like I guess I know skin tones but anything else goes wrong and the other summary is how do you draw clothing because I can't for the life of me get clothing right

don't worry - it's normal to get frustrated when drawing. i know i've literally quit and deleted entire illustrations in the past because i didn't like how the colors came out, and i can spend whole hours just choosing base colors TwT i think the important part about learning art is not to rush. i'm seriously flattered you see me as inspiration, but what worked best for me back when i heavily referenced other artists was "mixing" styles together to create a "new" one - so i'd recommend studying and copying multiple artists you like and trying to blend their styles into one if that makes sense! ^^

hating color picking is completely normal when you're first starting out, and even late into art like i said before - i've been making original digital art on ibispaint for about 5 years now, and it's still difficult. but it's easy to make it fun, and the best way to do that imo is to experiment! i'd recommend studying color theory on a larger scale, and understanding how certain colors might look completely different based on where you put them. or maybe make an illustration and color it in a bunch of alternative ways! also, having "bad" or "awful" color skills starting out is OK - i still think my colors suck sometimes even now lol.

anyway, the best way for me to color pick is to just use that color for whatever the OG artist used for their art. let's use alex ahad as an example because i find his art and color use super interesting -

i don't usually color pick, but when i do, i typically start with picking the eye color. then, based off of the eye color, i chose a base color based on the character's color pallete (easier of the eye color is already close to the main color of the character, which for clyde is turquoise).

then, i pick more colors directly from the reference, for stuff like skin. at this point i have a good idea of the colors i want to use and stop color picking from the ref, but there's no shame if you still feel you need to.

after that, based on the colors i picked, i'll color in the rest of the piece. i usually end up changing the colors that i did take from the reference due to experimenting - for me, i just use color picking as a sort of stepping stone for when i'm not sure how to color a piece the exact way i want.

eventually, you can learn to color pick by eye rather than with the picking tool in your art program, tho that takes a lot of knowledge on color theory.

really there is no "right" way to color, especially for skin imo - don't limit yourself to just peach, tan and brown. clyde's skin is bright white, but i still used a yellowy color here because it was relative to the other colors in the piece. i've also used "alien" tones for human-toned characters in the past before!

and about clothing folds - i can make a full post on that if anybody else is interested OuO

[skunkes]

would love to see a breakdown of some of ur design decisions for ur furs ^_^ like what animal traits u have fun including, which traits arent accurate but are Cute so u included anyways etc. not necessarily super detailed or anything but like stuff u have fun with ^_^

hi hi hi

dis is kind of hard to answer since I don't have many furry ocs + am still learning to draw them in general when i take comms and such! i'll try to explain some with skunker and cow al

I like sort of mixing and matching things to fit personality, while trying my best to keep it Animal. skunker is my sona so design choices are to my preferences, nose and eyes are more Iconic (in the sense of representive, stylized symbols) because its Fun, Cute, and Me, when in the past i was more focused on drawing the nose "Accurately", like the skunk on the left.

but that doesnt mean i cant still draw it if necessary on another character! His hands also aren't accurate to the big claws skunks have (i bite my nails), and his tail is Smooth! all comes together for a specific character representation as you can see with the difference between em

it's similar with cow al (+ easier to base off of his human form lol) (also sorry the random cow looks so uncanny i didnt give it as much atention + im tired rn).

I try to keep traits i associate w the species (like the cute big eyelashes cows have) but there's always room to remove or adjust em if it fits the character, like with smunker's tail + claws, + cow al's chin etc! i try really hard to still keep them looking like Animals (and recognizable as their species!) though despite this, + there's lots of room to adjust for that while keeping em recognizable as Themselves

i wish i cld say something more coherent but it really is Case By Case for me...! + im still learning + i don't have a lot of room to do so... + also im sure id have a slightly harder time with individual traits if i was drawing a new fur from scratch vs based off a human form bc im not used to it

(this is actually all why i have such a hard time with furry comms...! like, i wont draw someone's skunk oc the same way i draw smunker...most immediate obvious trait on a character is Eyes and i struggle with eyes so much, have to make it all Fit the character's personality while not straying too far from the 2 furry ocs people see me draw and expect things to look like, have to think outside the box of the aforementioned 2 furry ocs whose specific traits im already used to etc etc...

wish i had all the time in the world to spend drawing someones furry oc to get them down accurately but for now i jst gotta keep practicing)

[toyotacorolla2008]

hi!!! i was wondering if you could do a tutorial for how you draw transformers? i can never simplify them like you can. do you have any tips?? also love your art sm <33

hi ヾ(•ω•`)o

I WILL TRY MY best to explain what i do… i don’t actually have a very structured system but this is vaguely how i got started and how i simplified the process

1. look up and compile a whole bunch of references

this will be useful for EVERYTHING– transfomos come with lots of shapes and gizmos and details and stuff so a variety of references from different angles and in different poses is really useful because you can see the shapes they’re made out of and also understand how everything connects with each other

trapezoid town! this is a mess but it’s a quick example of how by looking at everything you start to notice trends or details like what moves with what or how flexible some parts are

there are a whole bunch of resources very nice people have compiled on the web like here here here here and here (mainly MTMTE) and there is a discord server (this is a link to a tumblr post about it and not the invite link itself) for it too but you can always look through the source material and just start screenshotting and pasting shit into a folder. 

you don’t have to do humongous in-depth breakdowns if you just want to be able to quickly doodle robots (god knows i don’t!!) but having the references on-hand makes it easier for the times when you’re like This pose is going to be challenging and I’m not sure how all of the cuboids will be positioned.

references also help break you out of thinking of it as just drawing blockier humans because the proportions and shapes vary a looooooot

2. draw draw draw

at first i drew a lot using refs heavily to get an idea of the shapes then i got lazy and just started drawing anime girls and smacking rectangles and kibble on top BUT as you draw more and more you start to pick up on the Salient Features as well as their General Silhouette.

drawing from memory means that what makes them look recognisable will become more emphasised in your mind so you’ll naturally pick up on how you can simplify them without losing what makes your guy Look Like Your Guy. so if you want to simplify the robots just be incredibly lazy like me B)

i'm kind of horrible because i don't even do like Basic Shapes i literally just eyeball it

for poses i rectangle it out while thinking really hard

anyway when i first tried to draw transformers but Something Didn’t Look Right it was either a) the level of detail across the entire drawing was inconsistent and threw it off balance or b) proportions weren’t right and these things only got better with me finangling and doodling and learning by iteration.

of course sometimes i don’t give a fuck because no cops in transformers doodle land but yeahhhh i’m the kind of guy who only gets through stuff by throwing a lot of rocks at it. i don’t have a Method to offer you unfortunately but what i did do was

3. experiment and exaggerate and experiment!!

The First Rule of Gun Safety is to Have Fun and Be Yourself! i took a lot of liberties and rarely stayed on-model when i doodled and waffled around (and i still do…) but it helped me figure out how much i was willing to draw lol and consequently how i would stylise them.

i would play with how big or small or exaggerated or expressive they'd be… even my most detailed drawings are nowhere near comic-detail but my least detailed ones were. turquoise triangle that’s vaguely brainstorm-shaped. having fun with it and just doing it to make stupid jokes makes the practice seem like not practice.

so yeah tl;dr i started by reffing what bots actually look like, would trace comic panels to get an idea of the shapes and details and then start drawing side-by-side → drew billions of perceptors from my diseased mind and played around with lines → ??? → upgraded from goofy-looking rectangles to goofy-looking rectangles

that’s it for advice! (i don’t feel qualified to say that much)

below are just examples of stupid doodles i’d make on my ipad in class or in the margins of assignments lol, you can tell the last one is from when i still didn't understand brainstorm's build very well because the wings are placed wrongly... But i grew.

hope this was somewhat helpful! there are other tutorials from other artists that i can direct you to but this is how toyotacorolla2008 got to shitposting on tumblr dot com

[kiisaes]

How do you draw hands?

love ur art!!!!

thank u sm !!!

i don't really know how to explain how to draw hands because i feel like everyone's process will inevitably be different. for me, drawing hands is really fun but tricky due to how many poses u can make with them. below i made a messy diagram of how i break down hands — when starting out, i recommend splitting the hand into different shapes like so:

obviously everyone's interpretation of shape make-up will be different. i see the palm as sort of a misshapen square and the joints (including knuckles) as circles. imo, dissecting a body part into shapes really helps you understand an otherwise intimidating and "unnatural" form. instead of drawing hands and fingers as they look, which are weird things that curve awkwardly, you can now see them as shapes that have easy-to-comprehend forms. now you can stack these shapes together and use lines to fill in the rest

some things to note:

hands don't always have to look perfectly anatomically correct to be serviceable hands. all of my hand doodles are always misshapen and don't work at all when critically compared to an anatomically correct sketch. but as long as the general idea/pose works, then the hands work. i've noticed that, at least personally, i'm way more drawn to hands that evoke motion and personality than hands that look "right"

make sure to study other hand types! using your own hands as reference is 100% valid and useful, since they're right there in front of you and can be excellent tools. but everyone's hands are different and if you want to expand your hand-drawing skills, consider branching out to what's unfamiliar! i have very stubby hands so my drawn hands tend to have small and thick proportions, for example. i also have a hitchhiker's thumb so every thumb i draw looks broken lol. i gotta diversify...!!!

hands also get a lot easier the more you draw them. i rarely have to rely on using shape diagrams (like shown above) for hands anymore, because i've drawn them so frequently that i can just look at my hand and figure it out. but that's also because i've been drawing hands for almost a decade so my progress is pretty slow all things considered ^^' anyway that's my biggest tip for art relating to the human body — draw them over and over and you'll really get an idea of how the body works! and the more you practice, the more you'll enjoy drawing. ik it's hard to feel motivated at first because you're critical about your art and your work isn't turning out as good as you want it. but once you get past the rough hurdle in the middle, drawing human limbs and figures are really fun !!!

[theendofuno]

alr i said i felt like writing about my aus and then i went to sleep. the most responsible person ever

ALSO SORRY IM KINDA LATE..i was..eepy..mimimimi.........

ANYWAY (prolly big text down there)

ive been writing a bunch of stuff recently for this au.....who is nameless.......like all of them............we just call it the hermits au lol

for context, theres a few different species going on: hermits, humans, demons, animalpersons n the list goes on (not really)

the hermits are human-looking with horns, pointy ears and cat-like pupils, theyre also pretty much known for being agressive towards humans and cannibalistic tendences (which is not a rule [for the lack of better word lmao..not sure if condition would be fitting in english the way it would in pt] and can be avoided)

what differ them from demons is basically their reputation towards humans, some demons do have non-human skin colors (pink, blue, purple) but not all of them, and they have round pupils aswell

not quite sure i need to explain humans or animalpersons.. 😭 ykyk, just people and people with animal ears and tails

the hermits are Uno, Lass, Veigas, Mari, Ronan, Lupus and Zero, and hermits basically live in the forest isolated from the rest of the population due to their reputation. in some places theyre even banned and activelly hunted down to death (pointing at Noir and Frost royalty) , while others simple don't actually care and its more "if you dont mess up youre cool here" (the CrimsonCanyon royalty and the witches)

i would talk about everyone here but i really want to draw more stuff before cuz i like having images to visualize stuff 😭 so i'll just keep here with Uno n buddies

Uno (who uses they/he!) lives in the forest with Ronan, Mari and Lass, Veigas used to be with them but they ended up disappearing one day (ooo lore.....cool), they're also Zero's adopted sibiling who don't live with them since he's a witch, and the hermits live close to Azin's house, who's a sorcerer and very good friends with everyone there

(fun fact! the arm in the drawing is indeed from Azin, Uno is very agressive towards everyone except the hermits they live with, but different from canon Azin is very kind and sees Uno as a lil child [besides he being 18] and likes to take care of him, in fact he's the only person who is trying to cure the curse Uno has [who is on his hands and spreading to his face]. they experienced remorse for biting him......poor thing)

Uno grew up alone, and ended up finding Zero at a very young age (dumbasses here [me and panela] didnt noted Zero's actual age so he's listed as 20-22 but you get the age gap), who was also alone and started taking care of Uno. after some time Zero ended up getting hurt real bad and Ronan and Mari appeared out of nowhere to help them, and ended up inviting them to live with the others (Lass and Veigas), which Uno and Zero accepted cuz it's easier to live around by other adults rather than being two alone teenagers

it took a long time to Uno to actually like them cuz he was always paranoid and over-protecting Zero, but no one never showed being an actual threat to both of them, so Uno started cooling down and lately accepted them as a family

n thats basically all for now :D

wanna talk more about them but i would get annoying.........hehe

[8-beats-per-minute]

Uncanny Valley AU Designs!!

ITS FINALLY HERE

You can skip to the designs if you want then come back, I wouldn’t blame you but I would like to apologize.

I don’t know what happened, I started this right after Christmas 2022 then worked on it basically nonstop for a week and a half. I basically finished Mikey’s design with a few changes and started brainstorming for Raph then my brain was like “lol no”.

It might have been part finding reference poses for Raph or stress from school and exams or burnout or idk. Whatever it was made my motivation disappear. For 3 1/2 months.

I was like “yes stuff is coming!!!! I’m making stuff!!!” And then that just didn’t happen.

Again, I’m sorry.

I’m not going to do much in descriptions (unless I add them later) cause it’s late and I’m tired. I’ve been actually busy for the past 2 weeks.

General design notes!!

I need up doing the connected ears to head idea so that’s why they look so flat

These are meant to reflect Black and Japanese features. I AM NEITHER. If I did something offensive to one of these groups in these drawings I can guarantee I did not know and did not do this on purpose.

PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I DID SOMETHING OFFENSIVE AND I WILL CHANGE IT. I would appreciate it if it is done in a calm matter but I understand if it’s not. Just please don’t call me stupid or racist cause I also have feelings. You can yell at me if I take longer than a week to respond. It would also be best if it was in the comments so it’s easier to respond.

They all have naturally really sharp and thick nails, I just couldn’t show for some of them

I tried giving them masks that incorporated how they wear fabric in their hair. It looks okay but a little weird, especially for Leo and Donnie

I’m writing/posting this between 11pm and midnight after a very long day and with a long day tomorrow so I’m not writing the (aaa I forgot the name for it. The text that explains what the picture looks like) I’ll add it when I have time I’m really sorry tho

Now, without further ado…

The designs!!!

(These might be changed, I have a tendency to change things after and be like wait I like that more but these are basically the designs. They’re also all post-movie so if you want to see pre-movie, as kids or apocalypse let me know :)).

LEO

I gave Leo both vitiligo and red birthmark stripes. Everything is blue (of course) and I’m not a huge fan of what I did for his clothes design but oh well he’s allowed to switch styles. I was stuck between giving him short hair and long hair and blond extensions or not but this is what I settled on. He’s also 10% the type of person to have little bracelets on (Mikey made him the braided one obviously). I have this headcanon that he’d look the most similar to Splinter (as a human obv so Lou Jitsu) so I tried to do that, it’s just hard to go from animated to semi-realistic. Anyway he’s got that superstar dazzling smile/mysterious troublemaker grin. You can’t see but his hair tie is blue. Maybe an actual hair tie maybe a strip of fabric, maybe a scrunchie. It changes every few hours. 

DONNIE

I was actually pretty excited to do Donnie’s face specifically (him and his very square face). I had a really fun time with his shell tho and all the little spots and scars and spiny parts. I tried to make him look similar but not the exact same and I think I did okay. I definitely think they’d look pretty similar just cause it’d be like “haha were twins :)) -Leo”. I was going to give him headphone but forgot so just pretend there’s headphone plz lol. I also believe he’d wear very baggy clothes but I made his collar way too high cause I feel like he’d hate the feeling of stuff on his neck (no this is not me projecting 👀). He also has sharp teeth but I didn’t show them.

MIKEY

Oooh boy. I was so excited for Mikey!!! I also gave him vitiligo on his face, arms, hands and legs )not visible). I also feel like he’d change his hair around A LOT so I gave him a few different hairstyles. He also definitely has paint on most of his clothes and paints on them intentionally. He’s a cool sock guy I just KNOW it. I tried keeping his little shell stickers on his “casual” design but had to move it to the other one cause it looked weird. I did put them on his knee pads if you looks close. I had to keep his other cool face knee pads of course, they’re iconic. And I of course kept his off-centre gap tooth.

Last but certainly not least…

RAPH

I had so many ideas for him and I got most of them but they’re so half-assed I’m sorry Raph 😭. Especially the pose ughhhh it’s so bad. And the shoes 🥲. Anyways instead of focusing on what I did badly were going to focus more on the idea. A few thoughts I knew I wanted was the scar on his eye and shoulder and to add markings cause Raph deserves to glow too. I added some markings on his forehead and just below his ears if you look close. I also added some on his shell and the spikes on his shoulders. He definitely has the most obvious shell out of his brothers but it’s still smaller than how it is in the show. AH I JUST REALIZED I FORGOT HIS RAPH CHASM 😭. Sorryyyy. I also wish Raph’s markings were lighter but oh well.

That’s all for now! Now that I can stop stressing about finishing this I can try and post more about this, whether it be art or talking about it idk.

Also I plan on making a proper logo soon I just have a very busy month ahead of me so we’ll see how fast that gets done

[chaotictomtom]

thanks @egirlgarak for tagging me!!

tagging anyone who wants to do this hehe im too shy to tag ppl smh

Were you named after anyone?

only one of my middle deadnames lol, my grandma italian's name she had to change when getting to France. adam came from seeing cool ppl with that name + movie with hugh dancy getting me to finally pick it. i mean i DID a strawpoll on twitter back then to help me choose lol. so not really after anyone ig technically. thomas was given to me by people calling me this name umprompted even before i came out to myself so like. alright will keep it I GUESS random people in my life chose it for me

When was the last time you cried?

ppl say T will make you unable cry and....prob depends on the person. i still do cry seeing videos of cute dogs getting groomed and seeing general good in life and people 👍 so i think it was 2 days ago watching daily dose of internet last vid cos a bit about a kid trying to make friends made me tear up lol. humanity.....<333333 cries like a baby instantly

Do you have kids?

if da bébé (cat) counts yes. but no.

Do you use sarcasm a lot?

i don't think! a lot! but i guess i do use it sometimes. more irl tho i just realised i never really use it online in case it doesn't read as sarcasm. mibbe when i rant in the tags on my own posts tho lol

What sports do you play/have you played?

played a bunch of different sports during my school years but it's been years of not doing anything and it's a struggle between thinking how my knee can suddenly fuck up and needing exercise to be healthy </3

What's the first thing you notice about someone?

i honestly don't know............. ig i try are they. like not a cunt and a bigot. can i exist without them thinking im out of line by just. being me fdhglkjhdflkjd. also. do they think im funneyyy >:)

Eye color?

light brown. i think

Scary movies or happy endings?

not picky i like em all 👍

Any special talents?

that pepe silvia scene with charlie kelly but it's me linking everything to Die Hard. not kidding. it's a curse i could think "pff no way what im watching rn is linked in any way to Die Hard" and i can while saying that already do the mental exercice to link the two things. everything is fucking linked to these movies. even bands. mcr! weird al! talking heads!!! movie/tvshow is easier to link up to Die Hard but still anyway been thinking abt doing twitch stream abt this for years now. like that wikipedia speedrun game thing but. mmm die hard......

Where were you born?

South-ish east of France, didn't live there long at all was a babey when we left to get further south 👍👍👍

What are you hobbies?

movies 👍 tvshows 👍 music 👍 im so original ik. i like to draw too!!!! computer stuff yumyum!!!! viddie games 👍👍👍👍

Do you have any pets?

How tall are you?

da bébé (basically garfied if he slayed more + had longer hair)

</3333333333 like 5'2. jerma voice why are u short because god doesn't fucking love me that's why

Favorite subject in school?

honestly don't remember much </3 ig art back in middle school. and i liked learning about everything we had but highly depended on the teachers + class too. learning is fun!!!! not in france's school system tho

Dream job?

scary question..................... currently having a "realistic" work project (very long term) to be a cyber café owner!!!! but capitalism wasn't a thing i guess would like to do my shit, drawing and creating other things to trade for other things................ wanted to work in space as a kid so ig this too

[vonkarma2]

3 + 6 + 20 + 40 + 44? For oc asks

3. Have you ever adopted a character or gotten a character from someone else?

Not that I can think of I’m trying to think… I guess the closest would be making Meat City characters in a collaborative world, but I don’t think I’ve ever like made an oc together with someone else to my knowledge, + I definitely haven’t paid for an adopt or been gifted someone else’s character. I could be forgetting something but I don’t think so no :P it would be cool though maybe sometime in the future

6. Two OCs of yours that look alike despite not being related?

David and Tiago look somewhat similar for now, but I think I’m going to redesign David to make him stand out a bit more/convey his personality better. Rocio and her dad both look a bit like Shamash. Outside of that though I really try to contrast people’s looks so I don’t think many of them look that similar?? Maybe they do lol idrk

20. Do any of your OCs sing? If they sing, care to share more details (headcanon voice, what kind of songs they like etc)?

Saida: Originally, she wanted to play guitar, but she quit bc it was too difficult, + singing was ofc much easier so she decided to focus on that instead. She has been like actively studying for a while and she’s in the chorus of her school. She ofc likes punk rock/hard rock type music. She’s not like super talented or anything but she is pretty solid at least for her age, and she’s good at like not holding back and putting a lot of power in her vocals.

Melanie: She isn’t particularly good at singing whatsoever, but she does really like doing it for fun. She thinks it is incredibly embarrassing, however, so only does it when she’s alone. She likes a lot of genres of music, but she actually prefers pop + r&b style vocals over those of rock music.

Remy: In making pop music, he does have to sing sometimes, + his alien species has both like highly improved hearing and wider vocal range than humans, so he is considered really good. That being said, he doesn’t find it particularly enjoyable, he’s more of a dj/electronic musician, so he’ll like heavily modulate or like distort his vocals in some way to make them more interesting to him.

40. Any fond memories linked to your characters? Feel free to share!

Mostly talking abt them with people shout out to anyone who’s ever talked abt ocs with me even if it was only for a little bit I always love doing it. Staying up late to work on writing for them was also really fun, and ofc I’ve made some drawings I’ve liked of them that were a lot of fun. Artfight as well

44. Something you like about your OCs in general

I have to come up with another one rip 😔😔😔 I should have saved the masc women thing for this one. Has anyone actually read all of these to get that reference I feel like I’ve done 500 even though this is literally the fifth one. Ok anyway this is like a personal taste thing but I like how for the most part most of my ocs are generally nice people, like don’t get me wrong I love terrible evil mean characters in general and making them sometimes as well, but it’s nice to think abt these people who all want to help each other and would probably get along. Super super corny I know but I like to think about it nonetheless. Here are the biggest exceptions to this rule

Joanna

Rocio

Aya

Salem

Tora

Henry

This other girl whose name I haven’t come up with yet she’s the one who looks like this

if anyone who has read this far has an idea for what her name should be please comment with it lol

[acnhretreat]

wow this post sure got long.

i’ve been wanting to make some more animal crossing art

i’m getting used to drawing again after almost 10 years of stopping (with like one drawing here and there every couple years) so i’ve been warming up letting myself draw poorly and it’s been extremely freeing, since the reason i quit drawing to begin with was because i started feeling like i wasn’t good enough. at that time i quit drawing and got into abstract painting because “you don’t have to be good at it” but newsflash to past insecure me you don’t have to be good at any art to make it. and while logically i know this, and i actually believe it deeply with my whole soul that you do not have to be “””good””” at art to create art and in fact it’s very human to create art and whether art is “””good””” or not is subjective anyway and i’m genuinely, and always have been, a huge fan of “””bad””” art because so much “””bad””” art is sooo good. and i feel this way about like all mediums. catch me consuming and appreciating all kinds of art all over the place. but, sorry gonna overshare for a sec, i’ve got an eensy bit of a personality disorder that makes me an eensy bit insecure and filled with an almost unshakable sense of shame and humiliation. well, it’s my fucking life goal to break free from that shame. and thank god, the older i’m getting the stronger my sense of self and self worth are becoming. and finally, i’m allowing myself to explore drawing again, which i used to do and enjoy for hours upon hours every day of my childhood. drawing was my main form of escape and artist expression aside from writing. i create all different types of art but drawing used to feel like mine. it came so natural to me i never thought twice about it. i let a small comment that someone made get to me. and i am determined to concur this. i was 16 at the time, or maybe had just turned 17. when i stopped drawing. and i’m 27 now and it feels soo freeing to let myself draw and not be “great” at it.

since i was about 20 i’ve been trying to get myself back into drawing, dipping my toes in drawing just one little thing every couple years. i felt so stressed because i had a lot of artist’s acquaintances. i grew up in a pretty artsy town in northern california. and i remember when i started trying to draw again, i felt so frustrated that my peers had never stopped drawing, they continued to practice and got better. whereas i stopped and got worse. and i compared myself and felt so angry. i felt like i would be just as skilled as them had i never given it up! and it made it so hard for me to start back up again. my drawing abilities had regressed to the skill level i was at when i was in like 4th/5th grade. i wasn’t even at the level that i was when i had stopped drawing at age 16/17. and it took me a long time to get over the fact that i’m going to have to practice a whole lot more to get back to the place i left off.

this year i decided i don’t care anymore. i keep a sketchbook in my bed under the pillow on the side i don’t sleep on. pencils and markers within reach. and i’ve been allowing myself to draw whatever, whenever i feel like it. silly art, vent art. sometimes i want to draw but all i can do is write on the page and that’s alright too. i’ve spent the last 10 years mostly just writing and painting abstract to express myself, so that’s just what flows easier sometimes. but i’ve been creating. drawing stuff. the other day i thought to myself “i havent really drawn a picture of spongebob since i was a kid” so i took out my markers and i drew a really crude drawing of spongebob. and then i drew patrick and squidward and sandy and a jellyfish. and it did look like a kid drew it lol. and it was so fun to make. A couple months ago i took out a crayon and drew along with Steve on some episodes on Blue’s Clue’s like i used to do when i was 5. Steve actually taught me how to draw a lot of basic stuff. and that felt so nice to imitate what he draws on screen and get my hands comfortable creating shapes intentionally again.

the other day i drew a whole bunch of pictures of Stitches and some of them turned out looking real freaky and i actually was pretty happy with the end result, having a bunch of blobby drawings of my favorite animal crossing villager all on one page lol.

i feel so inspired by the animal crossing art i see online it makes me excited to get to draw more. sometimes i don’t have a ton of creative energy to draw a big elaborate drawing like i used to when i was a teen but i’m gonna baby-steps my way up to drawing more and more elaborate and interesting animal crossing artwork. not even to share with others people or anything, although i might someday. but just for me. for the love of my favorite game and for the love of drawing

[selective-yellow]

Finished (the main story for) pla last night!

I've avoided spoilers and reviews for this game so I don't know how it was received by fans but after getting used to the controls and the new style, I thought it was really fun! Again I'm not an open world sandbox game kind of person so this was a first for me but man yea pokemon feels very natural in this kind of game which makes me excited for Gen 9

I haven't started the post credit stuff yet so I'm sure there is plot that I'm missing as of now, but I liked the story of this a lot. I don't usually respond well to time travel, but I like how the game finally justifies why the protag is so special - bc they come from a future world where pokemon and humans are permanently intermingled and it's totally normal to catch them and battle with them. But in the past they haven't normalized that at all yet, so the protag is the only one who can do what they do. I also like that they establish you are 15 instead of 10 - still young but its certainly less ridiculous than the "modern" games where all these adults depend on (1) 10 year old

I also found myself really liking the characters in this one. I remember playing Sword and not giving a shit about any character around me, even the ones I liked was ultimately just "meh." But here I liked the captain, I liked the villagers, I liked the clan leaders and their rivalry (tho I did favor diamond more, I just felt they were more helpful narratively and I liked Adaman a lot) and I adored Volo even tho he didn't do shit. Rei and the professor were kinda boring but I did like them.

I remember watching trailers and thinking the Strong vs Agile style stuff seemed dumb but I ended up liking that too once I understood how it could be used. I think if I do another go around my battles will be smarter lol. I actually wish Gen 9 had just kept this feature instead of [redacted for spoilers but watch the trailer] which right now strikes me as a silly gimmick. I also liked how it didn't always feel like a "press A to win" feature like most Z moves and Dynamaxing definitely were.

I will say I don't really feel like there was a lot of reward for exploring - which is to say unless you had a request in the area or are a completionist, there isn't much reason to uncover every nook and cranny of the map other than "just because." But again this is probably not a concern I would have if I was more used to this type of game, and it's not the games fault that I don't find "There's nothing to do so just explore" to be fun. I also tend to play games around people instead of alone, which makes me more likely to focus on immediate objectives.

Loved the feature of Alpha pokemon, my final team was 4/6 alphas and it was just a joy. Maybe I made the game easier on myself by using them but I thought it was great, seeing them in the wild never failed to be exciting. Although I will say their existence made it even more unfun to "just explore!" bc wondering aimlessly usually meant constantly running from pokemon that are too high level for where you are in the plot.

Anyway yea - a fun game! I'm looking forward to what the post-game has but it certainly made me ready to see what the next gen brings. I'm hoping features of this game will stick around, but I'm not gonna hold my breath either. Would also love to see this for other regions as well - Kanto was mentioned a lot, maybe a Legends Mew? Legends Celebi? but also not holding my breath for that either

My final team which I'm definitely planning to draw:

Owlhouse, Hisuian Decidueye

Mayberry, shiny Luxray

Bedrock, alpha Hippowdon

Gotham, alpha Skuntank

Dimsdale, alpha Bibarel

Hyrule, alpha Vespiquen

[goodmode]

Do you have any tips/thoughts on drawing stylized bug mandibles?? I have an anthro bug character and I am sTRUGGLING with their weird face (I remember a little while ago you mentioned not being a big fan of drawing realistic bugs so. Thought I'd ask lol)

alright here we go!!

== WARNING FOR CLOSE-UP INSECT PHOTOGRAPHY BELOW THE CUT and also hilarious plastic skulls that i slapped some mandibles on ==

my blog contains so many bugs anyway but i am just being polite in case of people who (understandably) find them scary to look at. however there's also some of my cartoony art under here too so hopefully that balances

SO as with all things i find it extremely helpful to use a reference. the original ref of my character (which i can't seem to find) was even more insecty than the current one - bug has been through a few iterations while getting simpler/easier for me to handle each time, and now they look kind of cuter and more concise than they did back then. BUT while the design got simpler, the basics have stayed more or less in place, so let's look at the original first

the first thing you should know is that Bug is, as i've mentioned before, kind of a mixed up amalgam of lots of different bugs. but i based their main face structure on an ant, because i like their faces and they often have bigger mandibles than wasps and such

(on with the show!)

if you run an image search for "ant face close up" you'll get a lot of useful macro photos of ant heads. (some are other insects wildly mislabelled but that's the fault of the search engine and people not knowing what bugs are which. as with any image search, use discretion). real-ass ant faces up ahead, scroll at your liesure!

ATTRIBUTION: morganglines @ Flickr accessed 15/08/2022

the first problem i ran into was that ants are kind of.. flat. their heads are angled the way they are because they aren't bipedal - they're bugs that walk close to the ground on six legs, so it's like this:

it felt weird to me to just slap a flat ant shape head onto an upright body. i eventually made bug's head a lot taller, and allocated the eyes/mouth/antennae to that new space however it felt right, which inevitably meant a slightly more "human" distribution of features (that's anthro art, babyyyy)

now let's talk about that weird seam line thing. rather, let's look at some more ant pictures!

ATTRIBUTION: PaDIL/Simon Hinkley & Ken Walker/Museum Victoria @ cabi.org accessed 15/08/2022

you won't find this as clear or even extant on every single type of ant ever, but a lot of them seem to have it, and i make some important use of it when i draw my character!

the seam dictates where i start my antennae, where i put the eyes, and helps me place the mouth/mandibles.

here's the modern ref. i decided i wanted to go Full Furry and give Bug a bit of a snout. because it's more fun for me to draw and it's my character and i hold all the cards and the reins and i can't be stopped. i like drawing Shaped Faces instead of circles, what can i say

SO what i did was, i used that "seam" thing as a sort of facial divider. drawing bug goes like this: the seam is like a "glasses bridge" between the eyes (which also look like glasses. bug's face is just a big secret pair of glasses, shh)

then from the seam i build the nose. if you draw your bugs with the flatter faces like up above, you can still use the same logic! just don't draw a big snoot on it, job done

THEN i fill the rest of the space with an imaginary pikachu cheek circle. and then i attach the mandibles there.

it also helps to think of the mandibles in terms of a real, 3d fursuit head (not that i can afford one lmao). i designed Bug so that if the jaws open, the mandibles HAVE to also be open. Bug's jaw is hinged, and the mandibles are a solid part of the workings of the jaw.

this is just a personal rule i set for my own character, and of course you can make whatever rule you want about how the mandibles/jaws work. but i'm including it here because i think it helps to show how my brain works when it comes to attaching the mandible "pieces" to the face.

i also try to remember at all times that Bug is a creature with an exoskeleton. basically Bug is a suit of armour with all the soft and squishy parts kept inside that.

you can see it here on the body: i draw Bug similarly to a kind of ball jointed doll! where the joints are mostly hidden because the parts are fit together very snugly - but not so snugly that i don't hint at there being joints and seams in there:

(i'm talking about the black bits. and the orange bits on the mandibles! which i also sometimes draw black because i'm inconsistent, oops)

the blue "over-armour" and the black "under-armour" are like a running rule that i also apply to the face. the nose-bridge seam and the mandible seams are the same rule, just applied to finer details

tl;dr what i do about the mandibles is: i set up some rules based on ants, these decide how the face is built, and then i tweaked/simplified them over time. my original design 2015 will probably help you understand this a lot more than the current one, but even the current one follows the same rules!

nosebridge, jaws, mandibles sit on the jaws' hinge. THE HINGE IS THE KEY now look at these fake plastic skulls from a stock image website whose license allows me to edit the image

ATTRIBUTION: Halloween @ freeimageslive.co.uk accessed 15/08/2022

check those out. now look at this:

these are wonky (no bones about it) but hopefully you can see my process a bit more clearly!

CANNOT EMPHASISE THIS ENOUGH to anyone reading this: I DRAW FUNNY CARTOON BUGS that i have tweaked and pushed and pulled like chewing gum to look more anthro/humanlike and allow for fun facial expressions. i do not care about making them particularly Species Accurate or adhere 100% to the laws of physics or biology or whatever. i draw funny cartoons and that's my thing, that's what i do. so take all of this with hefty heapings of salt and the full context that i draw cartoon furries, NOT anatomically accurate real insects for use in science papers. thank you!

there are squazillions of types of bugs and arthropods and etc out there with wildly variant faces, mandibles, mouthparts, and everything else. i just took a bunch of ants, chewed them a bit, and spat out a face inspired by them that worked for me and i found fun/interesting to draw. i encourage everyone to do this with any insect face and see what happens!

this got really long. if you made it this far, thank you for reading!

special thanks to the OpenDyslexic font, which i picked to try and keep things as clear/legible as possible. i could have just used comic sans or something but i like the look of OpenDyslexic :] it's pay what you want on gumroad

EDIT: OH AND!!!

don’t worry about getting mandibles symmetrical. mandibles in nature are pretty much never symmetrical. check out this Bigheaded Ant

ATTRIBUTION: Eli Sarnat, PIAkey: Invasive Ants of the Pacific Islands, USDA APHIS PPQ, Bugwood.org via insectimages.org accessed 15/08/2022

(damn they didnt lie that ant can bighead) anyway what i’m saying is mandibles will meet in the middle in very strange ways sometimes. sometimes one will be bigger than the other, sometimes the “serration” at the meeting edges will be lopsided like one mandible will be > and the other will also be > so it’ll look like one is pointy and the other has a triangle cut out of it. that’s just the way of the world

[shima-draws]

Wait in your roommates au was Sonic and Shadow always human or did something happen to make them human?

Always human :’) It’s basically a “Mobians are just humans with superpowers and weird hair colors so they’re labeled as aliens” situation lol

[lilblueorchid]

Thought process and easter egg on the Digimon Anniversary Illustration! 

Hello everyone, today I feel like explaining some stuff over my Digimon Illustration, mostly why I drew thing this way or point out some little details and easter eggs you might have missed. ;)

Click on read more if you want a LENGTHLY explanation with a lot of rambling from me, or if not you can just enjoy the process gif. <3 

The Digimon illustration was a special one for me for different reasons. Firstly, obviously, Digimon! It was a show I grew up with, and I find it quite fitting that after a tough year of graduation movie under a pandemic, in which I really experienced the pain of growing up, I ended up finding back Digimon. 

Secondly, as a child, I remember spending HOURS looking for fanarts online! I would save all the ones I found pretty and keep them preciously, i still have the folders actually haha. While pursuing art, I always had in mind thatI wanted one day to make a fanart my child self would have gone crazy over! And, i think I achieved that with that one haha. 

Anyway LET’S START! Shall we? 

First off : the illustration process

When I do an illustration I always do a quick draft first, and most of the time, in colors. I think I’m more of a “color” person than a “line” person, I tend to need to see colors quickly in order to see if it’s ok. 

For this one, I’ve always had in mind it would be a double illustration, with the older Tai’s silhouette acting as a frame for the children illustration. It was a bit tricky, I had to make the children illustration fit nicely into his silhouette, it was hassle around the neck area, that’s why I made little Taichi stand up haha. Also used Mimi’s hat to balance the picture : the bottom part is very heavy and there’s only sky in the upper part, adding the hat helps making it more balanced. 

The character were the longest and the most challenging part by far. As you can see I had 3 different steps : super rough, they’re almost like stickmen and smiley face, a more detailled one in which I figure out their actual pose and anatomy, then a last one in which I fix some proportion, add details and clean. Fun fact I don’t clean over a new layer... i just erase the unwanted part of my sketch. :’D

I did a quick pass over the BG after that, then I colored the characters in flat colors before rendering them. It was a back and forth between the BG and the characters to make sure everything was working together nicely. 

Now was the time to render the BG, I did the tramway first, the flower field after. Fun fact, I did my flower field study in order to know how to approach the flowers in this illustration! If your have the time, i totally recommend finding a photograph close to the kind of BG you wanna do, and make a study of it so you can try your hand at it first and go into your own BG later with an idea of how to approach this.

Adjust colors, add flower petals and butterflies and emotional text, slap over a paper texture, and THERE. You have it! On to the next part now...

The meaningful details and easter eggs

Be aware there will be spoilers for Digimon Adventure 01 (but I assume you already know it), but also for Digimon Adventure : Last evolution Kizuna, which is the conclusion of the first serie. So read at your own risk! 

The tramway is obviously a reference to the end of Digimon Adventure 01. The kids used it to go back to their world, so It was their goodbye to their Digimon at this moment. In Kizuna, Tai and Matt find the tramway trapped in crystal in Menoa’s fake memory world. Hinting that had they been caught by her, their memories would have brought them back here.

Tailmon has Kari’s whistle! At the end of Digimon Adventure 01, Kari gives it to her as a memento. 

When I drew Sora, I had in mind how she was in Kizuna, very stressed out by her mom’s expectation, which led her to neglect Piyomon. She realized it too late, and after that she refused to fight because she wanted to keep Piyomon with her as long as possible. Tragically, she was the first one to lose her Digimon. Here I tried to convey a softness and a kind of “I won’t forget to appreciate you” vibe in the way she holds Piyomon’s hand. As for Mimi and Palmon, in Digimon adventure 01 Palmon was very emotionally affected by Mimi’s departure, so, a hug was fitting. :’) 

The screens on the Tramway display DA for Digimon Adventure, and also 01.08.1999 which is the date of the children’s journey’s beginning. :) 

The little drawings also show the 8 crests. 

There are butterflies flying over the illustration, it’s a reference to Butter-fly, the first Digimon opening, by the late Koji Wada. 

"I'll become a happy butterfly, and ride on the glittering wind, I'll come and see you soon. “

Now, let’s the see the counterpart of the illustration. The one with the grown up Tai from Kizuna.

I made him wear the hoodie he had in his very last adventure with Agumon.... but truthfully the reason is that I think hoodies are cool lol. And the hood’s volume gave me more space in the silhouette, which made it easier for me to do the other illustration inside.

You don’t see it clearly, but he is holding his Digivice, albeit the darkened version once his partner bond with Agumon is broken. The Tai in this illustration has already lost Agumon. (Yes it was painful for me to go fetch the screenshots)

He is also holding his dear signature google he used to wear as a child. Fun fact, I rewatched the older movies, and as a kid he even used to sleep with it, how cute haha. 

Also yes, the crest of Courage over his hand, which is his own. I’m so dumb I realize I should have made the time counter from the movie instead of the crest for a maximum emotional hurt impact. 

And the quote is from one of the trailer for Kizuna, I think.....................

But then you go : Oh that illustration is so depressing then! Well. Yes. But no. but yes. But not really. 

One of my favorite shot of the movie is this one : this is after Tai and Agumon learn their time together is limited. Agumon asks him if they will have to go separate ways once Tai is all grown up. Tai doesn’t answer, and takes him to eat something instead, as Agumon was hungry. In this shot Agumon eats to his heart content next to Tai, who’s not eating at all and just watches him fondly. I love that the framing doesnt show agumon. It’s a foreshadowing of their unavoidable separation. 

At the very end of the movie, Tai write in his thesis about Human and Digimon’s relationship that Agumon was like a part of himself.

In a way, Agumon symbolizes childhood, the carefree days we would spend as a kid, with our big dreams and hopes. When you grow up, you tend to forget those simple emotions because you get swallowed into the stress of studies, figuring out your carreer, your life path. Just like us, Tai forgot this part of himself. In the madness of growing up, he lost Agumon. 

However, it’s not the end. He will pick himself back up. He will move forward in life despite his worries and incertainities, and he will find himself again. Therefore, he will find Agumon again. The kids in the illustration are waving goodbye, but it’s not goodbye, it’s a see you later.  In the meantime, Tai is holding on to these precious memories, until they meet again. 

[meruz]

once again i am answering asks in a big compilation post. included is... gotham, patrick stump, tips about drawing backgrounds, tips about drawing in general, links to my faq, and infinity train

like.... the tv series? No... I’ve drawn dc comics fanart before, though. But it’s been years since I’ve been really into it. I like jumped ship like 10 years ago when the New 52 happened LOL.

AFJHDSLKGH I’m sorry I (probably) won’t do it again??

Actually full disclosure I have a truly cringe amount of p stump drawings/photo studies in my sketchbook right now LOL. He’s just fun to draw... hats, glasses, guitar, a good shape... but I don’t think I’ll rly post those until I can hide them in another big sketchbook pdf.. probably Jan 2022. Stay tuned........ (ominous) 

(ominous preview)

These are all sort of related to backgrounds/painting so I grouped them together even though they’re pretty much entirely separate questions.... ANYWAYS

a) How is it working as a BG artist? Is it hard? What show are you drawing for?

I think you’re the first person to ever ask me about my job! Being a background artist is great. It’s definitely labor intensive but I think that could describe pretty much any art job (If something were rote or easy to automate, you wouldn’t hire an artist to do it) and I hesitate to say whether its harder or easier than any other role in the animation pipeline. Plus, so much of what truly makes a job difficult varies from one production to the next, schedule, working environment, co-workers etc. But I will say that I think while BGs are generally a lot of work on the upfront, I think they’re subject to less scrutiny/revisions than something like character/props/effects design and you don’t have to pitch them to a room like boards. So I guess it’s good if you don’t like to talk to people? LOL

A lot of my previous projects + the show I’ve worked on the longest aren’t public yet so I can’t talk about em (but I assure you if/when the news does break I won’t shut up about it). But I’m currently working on Archer Season 12 LOL. I’m like 90% sure I’m allowed to say that.

b) ~~~THANK YOU!! ~~~

c) What exactly do you like to draw most [in a background]?

@kaitomiury​ Lots of stuff! I really like to draw clutter! Because it’s a great opportunity for environmental storytelling and also you can be kind of messy with it because the sheer mass will supersede any details LOL. 

I like to draw clouds... I like to draw grass but not trees lol,,, I like to draw anything that sells perspective really easily like tiled floors and ceilings, shelves, lamp posts on a street etc.

d) Do you have any tips on how to paint (observational)?

god there’s so much to say. painting is really a whole ass discipline like someone can paint their whole life and still discover new things about it. I guess if you’re really just starting out my best advice is that habit is more important than product. especially with traditional plein air painting, I find that the procedure of going outside and setting up your paints is almost harder than the actual painting. There’s a lot of artists who say “I want to do plein air sometime!!” and then never actually get around to doing it. A lot of people just end up working from google streetview or photos on their computer.

But going outside to paint is a really good challenge because it forces you to make and commit to lighting and composition decisions really quickly. And to work through your mistakes instead of against them via undo button.

My last tip is to check out James Gurney’s youtube channel because hes probably the best and most consistent resource on observational painting out there rn. There’s lots other artists doing the same thing (off the top of my head I know a lot of the Warrior Painters group has people regularly posting plein air stuff and lightbox expo had a Jesse Schmidt lecture abt it last year) but Gurney’s probably the most prolific poster and one of the best at explaining the more technical stuff - his books are great too.

e) Do you have tips for drawing cleanly on heavypaint?

@marigoldfool​ UMM LOL I LIKE ONLY USE THE FILL TOOL so maybe use the fill tool? Fill and rectangle are good for edge control as opposed to the rest of the heavy paint tools which can get sort of muddles. And also I use a stylus so maybe if you’re using your finger, find a stylus that works with your device instead. That’s all I’ve got, frankly I don’t think my drawings are particularly clean lol.

f) Tips on improving backgrounds/scenes making them more dynamic practicing etc?

Ive given some tips about backgrounds/scenes before so I’m not gonna re-tread those but here’s another thing that might be helpful...

I think a good way to approach backgrounds is to think of the specific story or even mood you want to convey with the background first. Thinking “I just need to put something behind this character” is going to lead you to drawing like... a green screen tourist photo backdrop. But if you think “I need this bg to make the characters feel small” or “I need this bg to make the world feel colorful” then it gives you requirements and cues to work off of.

If I know a character needs to feel overwhelmed and small, then I know I need to create environment elements that will cage them in and corner them. If a character needs to feel triumphant/on top of the world then I know I need to let the environment open up around them. etc. If I know my focal point/ where I want to draw attention, I can build the background around that.

Also, backgrounds like figure compositions will have focal points of their own and you can draw attention to it/ the relationship the characters have with the bg element via scale or directionality or color, any number of cues. I think of it almost as a second/third character in a scene.

Not every composition is gonna have something so obvious like this but it helps me to think about these because then the characters feel connected and integrated with the environment.

Some more general art questions

a) Do you have any process/tips to start drawing character/bodies/heads?

I tried to kind of draw something to answer this but honestly this is difficult for me to answer because I don’t think I’m that great at drawing characters LOL. Ok, I think I have two tips.

1) flip your canvas often. A lot about what makes human bodies look correct and believable is symmetry and balance. Even if someone has asymmetrical features, the body will often pull and push in a way to counterbalance it. we often have inherent biases to one side or another like dominant hands dominant eyes etc. you know how right-handed artists will often favor drawing characters facing 45 degrees facing (the artist’s) left? that’s part of it. so viewing your drawing flipped even just to evaluate it helps compensate for that bias and makes you more aware of balance.

2) draw the whole figure often. I feel like a lot of beginner artists (myself included for a long time) defer to just drawing headshots or busts because it’s easier, you dont have to think about posing limbs etc. But drawing a full body allows you to better gauge proportion, perspective, body language, everything that makes a character look believable and grounded.

Like if you (me) have that issue where you draw the head too big and then have to resize it to fit the proportions of the rest of the body, it’s probably because you (I) drew the head first and are treating the body as an afterthought/attachment. Sketching out the whole figure first or even just quick drawing guides for it will help you think of it more holistically. I learned this figure drawing in charcoal at art school LOL.

oh. third mini tip - try to draw people from life often! its the best study. if you can get into a figure drawing/nude drawing class EVEN BETTER and if you have a local college/art space/museum that hosts those for free TREASURE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, that’s a huge boon that a lot of artists (me again) wish they had. though if youre not so lucky and youre sitting in a park trying to creeper draw people and they keep moving.. don’t let that stop you! that’s good practice because it’s forcing you to work fast to get the important stuff down LOL. its a challenge!

b) I’ve been pretty out of energy and have had no inspiration to draw but I have the desire to. Any advice?

Dude, take a walk or something.... Or a nap? Low energy is going to effect everything else so you gotta hit that problem at its source.

If you’re looking for inspiration though, I’d recommend stuff like watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games etc. Fill up your idea bank with content and then give yourself time/space to gestate it into new concepts. Sometimes looking at other art works but sometimes it can work against you because it’s too close. 

Also something that helps me is remembering that art doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking... like it’s okay to make something shitty and stupid that you don’t post online and only show to your friend. That’s all part of the process imo. If you want to hit a home run you gotta warm up first, right? Sports.

I should probably compile everytime i give tips on stuff like this but that’s getting dangerously close to being a social media artist who makes stupid boiled down art tutorials for clout which is the last thing i want to be... the thing I want to stress is that art is a whole visual language and there are widely agreed upon rules and customs but they exist in large part to be broken. Like there's an infinite number of ways to reach an infinite number of solutions and that’s actually what makes it really cool and personal for both the artist and the viewer. So when you make work you like or you find someone else’s work you like, take a step back and ask yourself what about it speaks for you, what about it works for you, what makes it effective, how to recreate that effect and how to break that effect completely, etc. And have a good time with it or else what’s the point.

for the first 2, I direct you to my FAQ

For the last one, I don’t actually believe I’ve ever addressed artwork as insp for stories/rp but I’ll say here and now yeah go ahead! As long as you’re not making profit or taking credit for my work then I’m normally ok with it. Especially anything thats private and purely recreational, that’s generally 100% green light go. I only ask that if you post it anywhere public that you please credit me.

(and I reserve the right to ask you to take it down if I see it and don’t approve of it’s use but I think that case is pretty rare.)

a) @lemuelzero101 Thank you!!! I haven’t played Life is Strange but actually  that series’ vis dev artist Edouard Caplain is one of my bigger art inspirations lately so that’s a really high compliment lol. And yeah I hope we get 5-8 too...!

b) Thank you for sticking around! I’ve been thinking about Digimon and Infinity Train in tandem lately, actually. They’re a little similar? Enter a dangerous alternate world and have wacky adventures with monsters/inanimate objects that have weird powers... there’s like weird engineers and mechanisms behind the scenes... also frontier literally starts with them getting on a train. Anyways if anyone else followed me for digimon... maybe you’d like Infinity Train? LOL

c) @king-wens-king I’M GLAD MY ART JUST HAS PINOY VIBES LOL I hope you are having a good day too :^)

a, b, c, d) yessss my Watch Infinity Train agenda is working....

e) aw thank you!! i think you should watch infinity train :)