#But I do have a three page comic WIP that I will try to finish and post maybe next week or so when I'm back from camping

[momo-t-daye]

Welp, I am off to go brave the pre-eclipse traffic (and later, the post-eclips-tic traffic) and park myself in the campground a few days before the event!

There should be some nice birding nearby too...

[dhmis-autism]

SORRY. JUST REALIZED I ORIGINALLY SKETCHED THE STUFF FROM THAT LAST WIP POST IN. MARCH.

GODDDD...

[feathergil]

semi-emergency commissions

hi! good news: i can start hrt (hormone replacement therapy) sooner than i was expecting, within the next few months! bad news: it is around 100 dollars a month.

i am currently a broke college student and don’t know how i’m gonna pay for everything, so i decided to open up more options for commissions to try to save up some money. 100% of proceeds from commissions/ko-fi donations will fund my hrt.

there will be three options for commissions!

OPTION 1.

includes: sketchy style, flat background and simple accessories. this is what you see me do for tumblr requests!

BUST $15, HALF-BODY $25, FULL-BODY $35

OPTION 2.

includes: sketchy style, simple background and detailed accessories, light lighting/scenery

BUST $20, HALF-BODY $35, FULL-BODY $45

OPTION 3.

includes: experimental style (mix of both sketchy and rendering style), complex background and complex accessories, lighting/scenery

BUST $25, HALF-BODY $45, FULL-BODY $55

ADD-ONS

- extra character(s) -> 40%+ of 1st character - comic page -> ask me! prices will vary.

WILL AND WON’TS

YES! sfw, nsfw, tk art, non-tk art, ships, any fandoms/characters, ocs, sonas, pretty much anything that isn’t in the “no” section

NO! nsfw/kink content with children or loli/shota, dark content (noncon, pedophilia, incest, that type of stuff), rpf (real person fiction); anything i feel i can't do justice for (i will let you know!)

PROCESS

once you describe to me what you will like, i will give you a rough pose sketch. this is to make sure we're on the same page before you pay.

once payment is recieved thru ko-fi, i will begin working on the commission. i will send wips as well!

turnaround time can be anywhere from a few days to a month. my schedule is pretty busy with college, so please have patience with me.

THERE ARE NO REFUNDS. unless it has been over a month and you've not yet recieved the finished commission, you may not request a refund.

once finished, you can do whatever you'd like with the commission. i just ask that you do not remove my watermark!

[kawareo]

Artist asks; 3, 13, 30?

3. your favorite piece(s)?

Already answered this one here but honestly i have a lot of them so i'll answer with a different one; honestly almost all of my current stuff, especially the comics and fluff, are in some way a favorite, i really enjoy what i'm doing atm

This is one of my favorite panels tho, really happy with how it turned out

13. talk about a wip you like!

I have this whole Dead Three comic figured out! but i cant get myself to finish it, it's been sitting on the shelf for a while but im not sure if the punchline will be funny enough to warrant four pages u_u

30. whats something youre proud of about your artstyle?

Well for one, it's finally starting to feel like an actual artstyle, i've been trying to find it for literal years lol

If i had to pick a specific thing i'd say lineart though. Or expressions.

[shaykai]

WIP Game :>

@herearedragons tagged me to share some WIPs! Here’s a handful of some that I have easy access to

The first one is mostly just waiting for me to actually commit to it, I’m just afraid of trying to leave the sketch process- but the whole deal is that I just wanted to draw my little Dread Wolf Dragon design flying through Arlathan, and I think Soraan should get to go for a ride. As a treat.

Second is part of a comic update (I have like. Rooooughly four pages left? Yaaaay) that I probably won’t talk a lot about until I finish the new part

And the third one is mostly sexuality takes on my favorite Warcraft characters djdjdjjdjd (that’s what most of my WIPs actually look like! The other three just so happen to have actual sketches to go with them this time :>) (also ignore that I spelled Kel’thazad wrong, I only recently found out that there is no r in his name. Which is dumb by the way, there definitely should be)

As far as tagging goes, whoever wants to do this is more than welcome to ^^

[xoniarainforest]

Got tagged by @kiki-shortsnout and this seems fun, so let’s do it!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Great question! None! Mainly because I started using AO3 last year and I have natural anxiety towards the publish button.

(You may not understand, but that button… that button scares me.)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

I have a very prideful zero. My goal this year is to try publish at least a 1k word count fic? I think it’s a fair step towards conquering my fear with that publish button.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Various Minecraft YouTubers (MCYT). I’ve been in this fandom for years, wrote about lots of peeps, but my current obsession is GeminiTay o/ (and maybe a little bit of Ethoslab. I never watch the guy before and I’m finally discovering his charm whoops)

DanganRonpa. As in writing OCs in the killing game aspect. I barely written anything about the characters other than my top 5 favourites though.

Undertale and its AUs. Especially the AUs, I remember being so crazy about it. Still do, but a bit more tone down in these past years. I write them during my need of comfort days. I have this one incomplete story from the fandom that I intend to finish it one day.

Marvel. This is my current biggest obsession. Specifically FrostIronStrange, following up with the Avengers.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I’m gonna answer this based on other websites that I’ve published since my AO3 page is empty. I don’t normally publish my fics cuz I’m a bit awkward in sharing, but amongst the ones I do share to public (they are mostly taken down at this point):

Méng Yǒu

Five Nights at Team Crafted

Three Peaks Castle

Colours

Dream. Glitch. World.

5. Do you respond to comments?

Most of my comments are from my friends so yes!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably that one Marvel series about an immortal child entity who travels through the multiverse determined to help solve the universal problems/threats in every universe/dimensions that they visits. It’s a series of never ending one shots because she never stops travelling. Obviously there are bound to have some very angsty endings where they fail to save the whole universe. Or she saved the universe, but she had to make hard decisions that affects them deeply.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Uhm… the world is saved from not being converted into a coded game? If you don’t consider fluff fics about typical daily life. Now that I think about it, there’s never a ‘true’ happy ending with my fics. I usually write the ‘to achieve the ultimate win, you lose something along the way’.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nope. My fics typically don’t get discovered by people. Let alone by haters.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

When I’m feeling horny. I write very questionable porn with plot fics. Don’t ask. I swore to never share them.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Yes! I love writing crossovers between two of my favourite fandoms! I think the craziest would be MCYT x FNAF. Cuz it’s my first ever crossover fic and it holds a special place in my heart.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope. I think people prefer stealing works that are both great and completed. Sadly I’m neither great nor have I ever publish a complete fic to the public.

12. Does not exist apparently

Like my works? I have a ton that I have completed but never share to anyone.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Does co-writing a comic counts? I’ve co-written a short comic series with an irl friend before. It was only shared amongst my group of friends.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

FrostIronStrange is definitely at the top. It’s one of the very few romance shippings that I do since I normally do platonic or familial ships like Gemtho, SansxToriel, CharaxFriskxAsriel, Grian and Pearl etc.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Most of my long fics. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of them and I’m not abandoning them, but I have this problem where once I finish outlining the plot of my fics, my brain automatically files them as completed and places them at the easily forgotten corner even though I didn’t finish writing them. Plus I have a habit of jumping around between different stories… listen, I write for fun okay? I enjoy writing for the sake of writing so I don’t really care if it gets complete or not. Thinking about ‘must complete’ gives me stress and I don’t think it’s worth carrying that pressure when life itself is already stressful.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Worldbuilding, plot making, character backgrounds.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Grammar, dialogue writings, endings.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I constantly writes in both English and Chinese, so that’s not an issue for me.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Team Crafted from the very old MCYT fandom

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

I like all of my fic. Case closed.

(You are never gonna force me to pick one. NEVER)

Who to tag next for the game?

I’m tagging everyone who has seen this post and hasn’t done the answers yet. So TAG, YOU’RE IT!

[crownleys]

WIP Title Ask Game

Thank you for the tag @her-devils-advocate! It was so much fun seeing everyone's, I'm delighted to do my own.

Rules: Reveal the titles of the documents in your WIP folder and tag as many people as there are documents. Let others ask questions about the ones that interest them and post snippets or explain the contents as you see fit!

My names for things can vary a ton depending on if I'm working on my ipad or on my computer so if something's named 'untitled ###', that's an ipad doc ahaha. AvaGetsaSword-Recovered -- Recovered because Photoshop crashed on me, lmao. AKA The Ava WIP that's haunting my thoughts, the rest of the title is self explanatory! FarahAva -- I have a little compilation I want to do of these two, I just think they're really cute together...

swoon -- this is the Nat-kissing-Kira's-throat WIP I posted for WIP Wednesday a little while back! I want to go at it with my lineless style, which always takes a bit longer than my lineart style, so I've yet to find time to tackle it yet. PoolBums -- A very rough piece which was supposed to be a big summery illustration that probably won't get finished now, because I did the beach one

mirror-ghost -- in which I poke Rebecca and Kira's relationship with a stick

Untitled 274 -- Regency era/AU doodles. I really wanted to do an exploration of what Nat and Ava might wear during that time period! Untitled 279 -- aka that three-page Book 2 Kira/Nat comic I want to try to do.

I technically also do have two fic wips floating around, Begin (An AU where Nat meets Kira pre-Book 1 and Rebecca gets to experience the awful realization one of her agents is dating her daughter) and Hungover (an Ava-route!Kira reaction immediately post Book 3) that will probably be foreverWIPs because I really do not have the endurance that writing takes, ahaha.

Also I will tag @delucadarling because I love her WIPs and I love it when she writes about them <3

[cheeto-flavoured-pasta]

APS Book One Excerpt (1)

Taken from "Chapter One: The Pub and the Peril."

If you wish to see the WIP intro for more information, you may find it here.

I exhaled slowly. "For the last time, Caster, that guy insisted on us coming to this place, and he wasn't gonna give up. There was no choice, okay? I promised him thirty minutes here, and then we'd leave." Lifting up my wristwatch, I checked the time. 1:20 A.M. "We have ten minutes left anyway, so don't worry. We'll get outta here soon, and I promise I'll pass you the aux cord when we get in the car to make up for it. Deal?"

Caster paused for one, two… three moments. "Fair enough. But can you please remove that book from the table and do something other than read?" He shot a pointed glance at the comic near my half-full glass of tequila. "I'm afraid you'll spill your drink and soil the pages."

"Oh, come on, I'm not that clumsy! It won't spill!" I replied.

Silence dropped on us like a weighted blanket, and Caster simply raised a brow that clearly said, Are you sure about that? 

Two seconds passed and I bit my lip, backtracking to all the moments I'd soaked pages with water or coffee (plus the time when I had to ban myself from having paper and liquid near each other for a couple weeks…).

"Okay, I take it back," I muttered, pulling the book off the desk and slipping it into my bag. "So what do you wanna do?”

He shrugged. “Say, do you have any homework to finish?”

“Um…” I paused. “I don't know why I'd do homework now of all times, but yeah, I do. It’s just one art assignment that’s due in…” I checked my watch. “Negative two hours.”

Caster clicked his tongue in disappointment, shaking his head. “You procrastinated again, didn’t you?”

Glancing away, I fidgeted uncomfortably in my seat. “Yes… and I knew I was probably gonna miss the deadline… Look, I don’t even know why I chose this art major, okay?” 

I didn’t even want to. Not because I hated art, but because I’d probably fail at it — just like always. 

“You did so because you knew what you wanted,” Caster replied (also, no I didn't Caster; you're wrong). “But now… it seems like you’re wasting it, no offense. However, at least you had your desires in mind. I still don’t, and therefore that puts me at a level lower than you.”

Yeah, of course I was wasting it. Because I wasn’t any good at it, and therefore lost all the passion for it. Where was the reason in wanting to do something if I just messed it up? Exactly. No reason at all.

But of course, I didn’t mention that — because it would be horribly unhelpful — so I just raised a brow and said, "I mean, at least you aren't forcing yourself to go down your family's path. I don't think anyone wants to support the government. Give yourself some credit, man."

And at least he was actually getting straight A's in his law and business course. Saying that wouldn’t help, though, so I kept my mouth shut.

"Very true, but what I do now still doesn't please me.” Caster bit his lip. “I… could try something else, but…”

“Well, if you were to disregard your position in life right now, what would you wanna be?”

Just as I finished speaking, the fancy glass doors to the bar suddenly swung open, and in came three people wearing dark clothing. But they were strolling around casually, so I disregarded it. Why bother with other people's business? I wasn't like Desmond.

"If I could choose anything… a vigilante, I suppose." Caster tapped his chin. "Both of us have super abilities, so is it not best to make the most of them?"

... Even if that was impossible, he still wanted something to do in his life. (It made me realize how I didn't want to do anything at all.)

I sighed, pushing away my irrelevant, personal thoughts. "Okay, I didn't say, 'throw logic out the window,' but… alrighty then. That's not feasible though, and you know why. Or rather, it's not smart. Like, I'm not exposing my hydrokinesis just to do that."

"Firstly, you said, 'disregard your position in life right now,'" Caster argued. "So therefore, my answer is still valid."

"I meant, 'disregard the fact that you're a uni student who doesn't exactly know what he's doing.' Not 'disregard the fact that superpowers" — I lowered my voice, even if nobody could hear — "are supposed to be kept secret.'"

Pushing his long ponytail over his shoulder, Caster sighed. "Well, I've still been pondering the idea. Vigilantes are bound to exist with inefficient police forces plaguing Codex. So there must be some superhumans out there who take matters into their own hands."

"Well, sure, but if they did, they'd get caught. It's kinda easy to expose your abilities when you're battling criminals."

"If you think about it, however, Codex has been dealing with the issue of magic powers since 9050, so perhaps it’s not so — wait, wait, I should take that back…" Caster shook his head. 

"Yeah, not the best point to make. When Codex was dealing with Exelonians… You know, it wasn't pleasant, with prisons and torture and war and all. Adding superhumans — who have an even wider range of abilities Exelonians— to the mix is only gonna cause more trouble," I replied. "So, to sum it up: the idea of vigilantes is great, but I hate the reality of it."

My friend paused. "I admit, you raise a fair point. But really, don't you think that life is so dull…"

"Ack! Hey, stop! What are you doing?"

The shout came from across the room, forcing me to flinch.

I knew it was bad manners to look away when someone was talking, but what was going on at the front of the bar? 

My eyes widened when my gaze landed on the scene playing out in front of me.

The three people who entered earlier had cleared the way of the dance floor, and the largest one in the trio… was holding Desmond in a chokehold.

What. The. Hell. 

If you want to be added to the taglist for this story, let me know in a reply or reblog.

CURRENT TAGLIST: @writeblr-of-my-own, @yesireadbooks

[luci3skydi]

I repurposed the text for this from an a/b/o fic wip that I’ll probably never post, but it really goes to show how much space comics require: all three of these pages were one written paragraph originally. Which is below:

(I changed the text a little.)

Meta rant under the cut (not necessary to understand the comic):

So there’s this quick moment where Daniel offers a handshake to Johnny right after the sucker punch in the beach fight. He says, “Okay, man, now we’re even, huh?” angling for some sort of truce, but he keeps his right hand raised in a fist, protecting his face. It’s quick, but this moment says a lot about how Daniel and Johnny function within and react to the world around them. 

Daniel offers the handshake, but is that only because he’s losing? He knows the fight’s inevitable as much as Johnny: he’s got the fist up. The fist is sincere. But is the handshake? As far as Johnny’s concerned, there’s only one path forward that makes sense: they finish the fight. But Daniel offers nonviolence, equilibrium as an alternative. It’s a baffling move.

Does Daniel actually believe they can end this here? Right after he landed the first real hit? Is he dumb? Or is this just plausible deniability in front of Ali (‘see, I offered him an out! I’m the good guy!’) Is it a taunt, like Johnny probably sees it?

It reads like an ill-fated attempt to save his skin, doomed to fail, but he tries it anyway. He’s got his pride and his world view (“well, it wasn’t his, was it?”) and someone to defend, so he doesn’t back down, but he can also try to turn this around (and maintain the moral high ground) by letting Johnny decide: the hand of friendship, or the way of the fist. If Johnny chooses peace, well hallelujah! But if he chooses violence, hey, Daniel’s still a good guy. The guy who got beat on, yeah, but for standing up for what is right. Daniel has moral clarity in spades and the strength and spunk to defend it. 

Johnny really doesn’t have that same strength in identity and purpose that allows Daniel to adapt and prosper (when he’s not beset on by enemy forces) in life. Johnny’s plans at the beginning of this movie are so heartfelt and good and simple: he’s got one year to make it work, and that’s what he’s going to do, make it work. But the second he’s faced with Ali snubbing him and Daniel standing up to him, he throws all that out thoughtlessly. Because what he does and who he is are not the same in his brain. He molds himself into a Kreese clone to get friends, success, and a girlfriend. And that’s worked until recently. But his life is built on shaky foundations. (Enter Daniel “Bull in a Bonsai Shop” LaRusso.)

I think the difference between Johnny and Daniel is that Johnny only ever sees one path forward, he’s rigid. And Daniel’s flexible, he can see outside of what is supposed to happen, to what he really wants to happen. How he thinks the world could work, if people weren’t so hung up on pride and selfishness and how they’re supposed to be doing things. I think that’s why Johnny and him clash so badly in Karate Kid: Daniel is a disturbance to the natural order. He is a destabilizing element to the balance of Johnny’s universe (he questions Kreese!). He is another way to live and be happy outside of the narrow confines of masculinity and ‘might is right’ that Johnny has built himself up around. He thinks outside the box. And that makes him a freak and a twerp and an enemy. It makes him something dangerous to be crushed. 

This choice between the open hand (‘open hand’ = karate, and in this metaphor; Miyagi’s karate, violence as a last resort) and the fist (‘the way of the fist’ = Kreese’s karate, violence as first response) is really a choice between Johnny’s plans to better himself, and his need to assert his dominance and win. And he chooses violence, (self) destruction, and essentially to lose everything (and for what? Pride? Kreese and the Cobras’ approval? Somehow winning Ali back by doing exactly what she doesn’t want him to do?) 

In Cobra Kai Johnny’s a ‘I’m just giving it to you straight, this is how the real world works’ kind of guy, and one of his big character growth things is realizing that it doesn’t have to be that way, he has the power to make it different. Kreese’s Cobra Kai doesn’t have to be his Cobra Kai. He can let things go. He can fight for Robby (I mean, he doesn’t, but he could.) He can move forward and improve and even lose without it killing him. Karate Kid Johnny doesn’t have that awareness, he only has one view (Kreese’s view) and that is ‘if a man confronts you, you strike first, strike hard, no mercy, sir.” So that’s what he does. And he doesn’t think twice about it. 

So when faced with this choice he chooses poorly, and he doesn't even see it as a choice in the first place. He takes less than a second to consider it. He fails at the first hurdle, and he doesn’t even realize it. 

[aerialworms]

Please vote! I need external motivation! (I'm still posting Watching Over You, I just need to choose something to finish writing as well)

Summaries:

All of these are endgame Destiel!

Star Trek Fusion AU: I have two fics in this 'verse written but i need to do the prequel first. Castiel, a half-Vulcan Starfleet officer, is appointed as the new Captain of the USS Impala after Bobby retires, keeping Dean as First Officer. Dean does not take well to that. Enemies to FWB to lovers, spread out over at least three different fics! I also made a post rambling about this universe here

Dragon!Cas fic: Set during s9ish when Cas' grace is low - he can regenerate it by spending time in his true form and shutting down most higher brain functions. He essentially turns into a little dragon who gets real clingy around Dean, who is half-annoyed, half-endeared by it. Pretty much just fluff and shenanigans :3

Demon!Dean: Set during the demon dean arc in s10 while Cas is still stealing grace. Crowley captures him and offers him to Dean as a present, and Cas tries to convince Dean to come home while Dean pretends like he's definitely a big bad demon who could easily kill Cas if he wanted, he just. doesn't want to. Angst and smut with a hopeful ending.

Cat!Cas fic: Might end up as a comic, actually - I've got the first four pages sketched out but I don't know where i'm going with it :/ Cas gets turned into a cat by a witch and Dean comes to find him, not realising the injured cat he's been caring for and venting to about Cas *is* Cas. Pining!Dean and hurt/comfort for Cas!

Interactive time loop confession fix it: An interactive fic, made using Twine. You play as Dean, stuck in a time loop of the confession until you find a way to save Cas and break free

Cas Swap: (post-confession fix it) In two seperate universes, at the same time, two versions of Dean perform a spell to resurrect their own Cas from the Empty. Canon!Cas is brought back into a world with a Dean his counterpart has been in a relationship with since Tombstone. Canon!Dean gets that AU!Cas, who is unafraid of showing his love for Dean, but also won't put up with any of Dean's bullshit. Each set of Dean-and-Cas-es have to work together to get Cas back to his own universe, and deal with their issues along the way.

The Wrong Avalon: A BBC Merlin/SPN crossover, with endgame Destiel and Merthur! Set vaguely pre-s12 of SPN and post s5 of Merlin. The British Men of Letters have been trying to raise the mythical King Arthur from the dead for some time. When they finally succeed, however, he does not come up in the UK. Instead, he surfaces in Lake Avalon, Michigan, where two hunters and a put-upon angel discover him. Since he can only speak Old English, he becomes fast friends with Cas, which totally doesn't make Dean jealous at all, but he still mourns for his old life and family. When he discovers that Merlin may still be alive, he dedicates himself to finding him, but when the BMoL close in, intent on using Arthur for their own gain, Arthur must rely on his new friends, as well as his oldest one, to gain his freedom and his happiness.

Btw if you wanna know when I post these, you can follow me on AO3 (same username as tumblr) and/or ask to be tagged!

[sabrinatvband]

Fat Evil Women #1 devlog 1

I'm working on a new comic and I thought it would be good to share some notes on its production. I think this will be the only devlog I share publically for this comic; I'll probably include a start-to-finish log with all of the concept art and layout roughs as a tier bonus when I sell this on itch.io later. But, here's a very generous taste.

This comic is eventually going to be sold as a CBR file on itch, but I'm also doing to try printing it on A3 paper [which will be folded] and making a small batch of physical copies to give away. It will probably be 32 pages long. It's going to be an anthology [with one particularly long story]. In other words, it's going to be a complete comic, like one you might buy in a comic shop, rather than something more "informal" in shape. In the future, I plan on making enough of these to collect them in trade paperback form, perhaps as a print on demand book?

So far I've done a couple of layouts and compiled a ton of notes. Work on this project began with a simple two-page layout for a bimbo sequence.

I did all the pencilling, inking, and coloring in between two and four hours I think. The first panel on the second page uses an old drawing of the bimbo character I'd drawn several months ago.

I then made a sequence using a Goblin Queen character I'd created around a year ago. Here's the sequence and the original illustration I'd done. The second incomplete panel is from an old drawing I started but never finished.

Yes, the Goblin Queen who looks nothing like a goblin is meant to be a reference of sorts to the Goblin King from Labyrinth, if you were wondering. Except my Goblin Queen mostly hangs out with dark elves.

These sequences are only meant to be rough guides for the final drawings, but I put way more efforts into my layouts than I actually need to. After making these two page sequences, I decided to do something a little more ambitious.

I illustrated a woman wearing a shiny black dress, and she reminded me of an old indie porno producer character I'd created a while ago named Demonia [please ignore how terrible the old three part sequence looks; I didn't know how to draw fat women yet].

When I started plotting this sequence out in my notebook, it was only four pages long. But I added a bunch of extra panels in later and brought it up to six pages [The numbers are original panels, and the letters are ones I added in after making the first complete rough layout.]

I made some concept art for characters I'd mentioned in the script that didn't have designs yet, as well as a few locations. I then compiled all of that into a CBR file I can refer to while working on the final art [the blacked out bits in the thumbnails are photo references].

I then started work on another sequence that quickly grew beyond the six pages I was initially planning on doing.

A few years ago, when I first started using my Wacom, I illustrated an androgynous spider creature. Much more recently, I started moving overseas and started designing new characters in my sketchbook that I was planning on making digital pieces with later, and I revisited my spider concept. If you overlay the rough spider drawing from the sketchbook page with the digital WIP below, you'll notice I did a whole bunch of warping and stuff to the individual limbs to make it look better.

This WIP will appear in finished form in the spider comic somewhere; look out for it.

Anyways, I decided this spider would be perfect for a weight gain sequence, and so I started making concept art.

This is just a fraction of the concept art I created. I've done at least 15 pages of work for this comic, and a lot of it is exploratory work. In the beginning, I had basically no idea what the plot of the sequence would be, and designing new characters and illustrating scenarios gave shape to the story.

After making maybe three or four pages of sketches, and writing a list of elements I wanted to be in the story in my notebook, I made this rough synopsis of the plot. I then started working on a CBR file for the spider sequence that includes photo references, sketches, old designs I want to repurpose, scans of my notebook, etc.

Work was slowing down in my notebook, and so eventually I made a text document and started writing down panel-by-panel bullet points. Of course this all needs to be adapted into rough visuals, but I covered a lot of ground with this after building my foundation.

You might be wondering what the point of all this pre-production work is. The problem with comics as a medium is that it's extremely time intensive, and so you have to get all of the iterative stuff done long before you put pencil to bristol board for the first time [assuming you only use bristol board during the very last stage of your process].

[Old comic artists were sometimes drawing upwards of 40 pages a month, and they didn't have time to think things out so thoroughly. But for people who aren't drawing multiple books a month, it's been common to do multiple waves of layouts for decades, and this pre-production stuff has only gotten more common. Which is good; quality > quantity. The video on layouts below is a great overview.]

[Note: Apparently Ed Piskor is a massive creep. This was not public knowledge when I wrote this post, and so apologies for the Cartoonist Kayfabe embed.]

While I was doing layouts in my notebook for this spider sequence, I started working out a page that ended up not hitting all of the notes it needed to. If I'd been drawing by the seat of my pants, it would've been a big problem, but when you're doing layouts with illustrations only two or three steps above stick figure drawings, re-doing a page is not a hassle.

You might be wondering what my actual workflow is for producing finished art. Once I got very used to the feeling of using an Intuos Wacom, I told myself I was going to draw comics entirely digitally. It made a lot of sense; I could use layers, perspective work is a lot easier digitally, and I can fix mistakes and/or warp things a lot more easily.

Over time, I realized I hated doing everything digitally. There are many things that are better digital, like coloring. I prefer drawing pin-ups digitally. But I really don't like drawing an entire page digitally, and I realized my previous serious comic attempts had all petered out when it was time to start doing the final work in the computer, after the layouts and stuff had already been completed.

Of course, I'd tried making professional quality work without computers before. But it's nearly impossible to do that inside of a sketchbook [although I'd drawn many joke comics in highschool using a sketchbook], and using only bristol board I had problems with things like perspective; I have a lot of respect for older artists who couldn't use any digital tools.

So, I've resolved to buy a scanner and printer. I'm going to make final layouts in my art programs that have skeletons laid out where I want them, perspective grids, panel layouts, etc, and then I'll print them onto bristol board using light blue ink [which doesn't get picked up by a scanner]. I'll then do the final pencilling and inking on bristol board, scan those pages, and do any touch-ups and coloring in the computer.

I forgot to mention that none of these comics have words. Perhaps future issues of Fat Evil Women will have dialogue and stuff, but as a conceptual thing this first issue is basically completely silent. When I was making panel grids digitally to start working on some final layouts, I noticed that, when you don't have any speech bubbles, a traditional six panel grid looks way too square and vertical. So, I've decided to make my spider sequence on a four-tier grid, which shouldn't be a massive change. The entire story uses uniform rows, and so it just means moving stuff back. There are no dramatic page-turn moments that will be compromised by this change.

I might have to alter the Demonia sequence as well, but probably not. Since the height of the panels in the two page sequences are variable, I think I'll leave them exactly as they are.

I was planning on including a giantess sequence in this first issue as well, but if I reach 32 pages without it then I'll have to push it to a later issue. But since I'm moving to four-tier layouts, I might end up with a lot fewer pages than expected.

[enigmalea]

2021 Fandom Recap

I’ve been putting it off because I keep thinking “I haven’t done much this year”, and yet, that is categorically untrue. It’s uh... been a lot more productive than I realized.

IN 2021 I...

☆ Consumed every piece of non-game Dragon Age media in (roughly) chronological order. Last week, I managed to finish up with the 2021 DA Day short stories, even. That’s every web series, comic, novel, and short story, including the anime. I’m considering reading the WOT and Art books next year.

☆ Launched a Discord bot, Archivist, which is currently in 1070+ servers. It’s a simple AO3 scraper that grabs the info for an AO3 fic, user, or series and post it in a rich embed in Discord. It really should say, I learned my first programming language and made the bot, but, you know, technicalities. I have some updates planned for 2022! ☆ Participated in two exchanges:

wrote three fics (two short fics, and one drabble) for @black-emporium-exchange.

ran the first Dragon Age Poly Exchange, and wrote one longer fic for it.

☆ Hosted @dapolyshipping Day monthly

☆ Modded, created layouts, and wrote for @dragonageannual

☆ Completed various other small fandom coding projects. A couple of page layouts, a tutorial on getting AO3 fics delivered to your discord server, etc

I also managed to hit my writing goal!

TOTAL WORDS WRITTEN:  47,001 / TOTAL WORDS PUBLISHED: 44,438

Stay Back From the Edge Cullen/Solas, rated E, (4068 words)

Getting Used To It Cullen/Dorian/Iron Bull, rated E, (23617 words)

Darkest Alleys of Kirkwall Anders/Male Hawke, rated E, (2765 words)

Any Dream Will Do Solas/Male Lavellan, rated G, (644 words)

Booty-ful Assets Alistair/Male Tabris, rated G, (528 words)

I'd Love You To Love Me Varric/Male Hawke, rated T, (2243 words)

In Another Cup Anders/Solas, rated T, (4058 words)

Wait For Me Abelas/Female Lavellan, rated G, (100 words)

Home Anders/Cullen/Dorian/Solas, rated G, (100 words)

Tea-vinter for Two Cullen & Cassandra, rated G, (1948 words)

Fix These Broken Things Anders/Dorian, rated M, (2648 words)

As you can see, I wrote quite a bit more than I published - I’ve been plugging away at a few WIPS for a while that I’d like to make progress and publish next year.

I’m still trying to decide exactly how I want to goal track/plan for next year and what my focuses will be. I’ve been sick for about a month, so as much as I’d love to get those posted by tomorrow I don’t know if that’s realistic.

Either way, I hope everyone has a Happy New Year, and I’ll see you all next year!

[rajinedgeofdarkness]

UPDATE 5/10/22

Been a while since a gave a breakdown update. While it sometimes doesn’t seem like it for myself, REOD has come a long way and is much closer to becoming an official webcomic and physical book as I type this. In high school back in 2006 ish, I knew one of my major goals as an artist is to do a comic. One about good vs evil, one with a huge focus on character development and flashbacks, one whose characters are diverse in more than one way, and one about a girl with powers and a dragon because that’s how I always wanted to envision myself in a fantasy setting. I tried to start this comic and got three pages in until I realized how I had no real plan or drawing skills to tackle it yet. Scrapped and tossed it.

Fast forward to college and spending every walk to class and back daydreaming and talking into the wide open sky and the quiet of the smaller more remote campus. I spent this time brainstorming the general storyline getting inspired by my dreams too. Finally in 2016, I wrote my first rough story excerpt, than sketched my first character design image (Eldoron), and wrote out summaries of each major event in Part 1 (this eventually evolving into the full script). Writing took up the majority of my focus from 2017 to 2020. During COVID I was able to split that focus between that and concept art. For the past year I have been more art driven. Finalizing character and setting designs now.

General Story: 100%

Script (Outline of Events and Dialogue): 90% (Book 1) and 20-80% (for Book 2-8)

Storyboarding (Rough Page Sketches): 50% for Book 1 only

Concept Art: Character design (80%) and Setting design (20%) for Book 1 only

Miscellaneous: Logo~FINALIZED, Teaser Poster~FINALIZED, Cover Art~FINALIZED, Rough animated teaser~DONE

Website…***

*** The official website will be a WIP as it gets updated info with each new Book release so that the supplemental information remains up to date. Though working on the final foundational website which will include basic information (characters, story, updates, release dates). I want to try for Webtoons or a similar platform for the initial upload. Looking for one with high chance of submission acceptance and support for emerging not well known artists. Otherwise I will try for Patreon and/or my personal website (eventually the pages will get archived on my main website). The series will also be available in eBook and physical form if I can find a great publisher or can manage to self publish with crowd funding help.

Anyway, right now I am working on finishing up my general character design sheets for the main 6, Brimebet villagers, and the GenCRYPT team. Once these are done it is off to settings and props for Brimebet, parts of Rajin, and GenCRYPT. Than finalizing my script for Book 1 and my storyboards. Finally I should be able to sit down and start on the official page illustration process. I want to avoid gaps in page uploads, streamline the planning processes for the rest of the books so that part goes by a lot faster, and work on the next book while uploading pages for the finished one. The ultimate goal is to retain enough time and energy for this project, my art business in general, and a possible part time gig or schooling in my other career goals whether they are still art related or in science or both! I have been blessed with a bit of time now where I can just focus on this so trying to take advantage of that so that maybe this will get off the ground by early next year.

It will take me a couple of years at minimum to complete Book 1. I am going to consider many short cuts and resources as well as hiring other artists to help speed this help for future installments especially with the art and world getting a whole lot bigger and more complicated after the first book. I want to get some 3D models that can be quickly painted over for faster backgrounds just to name one example if said short cuts.

[allhailthemightyquattro]

Laura’s Deckerstar Fic Recs (Part 18)

You can find the complete list (minus rec notes) at my Ao3 Bookmark page.

Disclaimer: These recs have no real ranking and are simply being shared in the order in which I bookmarked them. And just because I say more about some than I do others, does not mean that those fics are “better” or that I like them more.

Red-Handed by Storycat9

Rating: Not Rated Status: Complete Word Count: 3,495 (1 chapter) Author’s Summary: The Devil is not in the habit of forgiveness. Returning to the LAPD is not the same as forgiving the Detective. While he wouldn’t admit it to himself or Dr. Linda, Lucifer knows that working with the Detective also allows him to see to her punishment.

Rec Notes: This is one of my favourite examples of season 4 angst. It has a very in-character Lucifer trying to “punish” Chloe by flaunting his relationship with Eve and it fits into canon perfectly. And despite all the angst, the author still manages to effortlessly slip in a family fun day with Lucifer, Chloe and Trixie which highlights the fact that Lucifer very much still loves Chloe and is punishing himself just as much as he is her.

P.S. Although this fic is part of a series, it can easily be read as a stand alone as there aren’t any direct references to its prequel at all.

To All The Griefs I Left Behind by Pokimoko

Rating: Teen Status: Complete Word Count: 44,300 (10 chapters) Author’s Summary: It's been weeks since Lucifer returned from Hell, and Chloe couldn't be happier. They are together and—after so many years of ups and downs—everything is finally perfect. Even if the world seems a bit weirder than usual. Even if the ghosts of Lucifer's past are coming back to haunt him. Even if Chloe feels like she's losing her mind. But it's fine. It's all fine.

Rec Notes: Another angsty one. And I mean really angsty. This is a good one if you are in the mood to cry. It is also highly underrated so I implore you to give it a go and show the author some love.

The Royal Treatment by elleflies

Rating: Mature Status: WIP (last update: 3 March 2021) Word Count: 40,812 (6/9 chapters) Author’s Summary: Chloe and Lucifer aren’t married, but try telling that to the supernatural community of Los Angeles and the infernal plane full of demons ecstatic to see their boss finally tied down, literally or otherwise.

Rec Notes: This is a fake married fic unlike any other. For a start, it’s set when Lucifer is back in Hell after the season 4 finale, so he and Chloe don’t even interact (or at least, they haven’t yet). The fake marriage is the result of a prank by Maze in which she fakes documents, making it seem that Chloe and Lucifer are legally married. Word gets around and before Chloe has a chance to sort things out, the supernatural community starts calling her the Queen of Hell and she sorta has to roll with it. And down in Hell, the demons also learn of the “marriage” and are very eager to throw Lucifer bachelor parties and create gifts for their new Queen, so he too goes along with the rumour. Both Chloe and Lucifer are unaware of what the other is dealing with, and it creates some great parallels.

As hinted at in the summary, this fic has heaps of different mythical creatures (including vampires, pixies and Fae) but they don’t eclipse the story - it’s still very much Deckerstar centric - so don’t worry if you aren’t too into that sort of thing.

Time’s Up by HiroMyStory

Rating: Teen Status: Complete Word Count: 2,025 (1 chapter) Author’s Summary: Lucifer is dying. Chloe will do anything to save him.

Rec Notes: This one isn’t actually in the "Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar” tag... but it’s close enough so I’m still including it in my rec list. It is an alternate take on the season 4 episode “Expire Erect” and it has all the angst and whump you would expect. But its most unique feature is its open-ended ending. It’s so good that I simultaneously want to read a sequel and leave the fic exactly how it is. (Though I actually have started writing a sequel to it which, if I finish it, I might ask the author for permission to post.)

Believer by JCBeckett

Rating: Not Rated Status: WIP (last update: 2 March 2021) Word Count: 129,783 (17/? chapters) Author’s Summary: There are three things Chloe Decker knows: One, she is in love with the Devil. Two, the Devil loves her back (even if he hasn’t said it yet). And three, “celestial craziness” doesn’t even begin to cover what she’s gotten herself into.

Picks up right after the cliffhanger in 5A. Fluff, angst, and shameless amounts of Deckerstar within.

Rec Notes: This is a post-season 5a fic and it incorporates the few behind the scenes details we have been given about season 5b and then carries on to its own action-packed story. It’s super-angsty but balances it out by giving us small break with fluff and humour. I also love the focus on Chloe and Lucifer’s relationship and how they are still dealing with insecurities but ultimately know that they are better together.

P.S. This fic does have ties with the comics but you don’t have to have read them to understand the story (I haven’t read them, and it hasn't affected my enjoyment of the fic in the slightest).

[crow-meander]

your art is so cute I love you so much

what projects are you working on (if you have any ongoing)?

Thank youuuuuu!!!!! ^w^ ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

I've currently got a few WIPs (most of which I will probably never finish ^^")

The "The Price of Living Again" rewrite has kinda been put on the side for now in favour of other projects. I realized it was gonna much, much longer than the original, so I wanted to get something else done first.

That little Ojiro, Kaibara and Honenuki comic is about three pages in and going super slowly, but I'm hoping to get it done. That was born purely out of my need for Ojiro to be friends with absolutely everyone including 1-B. X33

After finishing Spiritfarer I started planning a Spiritfarer/MHA AU. Currently all I have are a few notes on the characters and a few ideas on how the story's gonna be handled.

I've got a Shinoji Soulmates AU in the works - I'd like to note that Shinsou and Ojiro are not the soulmates, but Ojiro's soulmates with a guy who turns out not to be so great, so the story's about escaping someone you're tied to by fate. This is basically me expressing how terrifying soulmate AUs are to me. X33

I've had an idea for a Traitor!Ojiro AU for a while, and the only thing stopping me from writing it is that I don't know how to end it-

I'm also working on a colab with someone, which'll be fun. I'm sure you guys will find that story very interesting and entertaining :3

Aaaaand besides a few smaller ideas that will probably never be used, I'm trying to figure out some kind of personal project to do. Either something more on the slice-of-life side or something kinda actiony and fantasy like. Haven't decided yet.

[toastedbuckwheat]

Hello! May I ask how you draw? I'm currently learning how to myself and would be highly interested into a step to step process by you! Like from sketch to the done thing (no color necessary)

Hello there!

I dunno how I feel about showing how I work/giving advice to someone who’s learning (and I say it as a pro artist who went through years of traditional art education) because when I do the illustrations you see here on my tumblr I BREAK THE RULES you’d learn though life drawing routine, and give in to bad habits, and my methods are rather unplanned and chaotic which makes it difficult to pinpoint significant stages. But I used my portable potato to take some photos during working on my last piece, so I’ll throw it here with a bit of an explanation of what’s going on.

Before I begin - and because you’re about to look at a mess of a WIP - I’d like to give you some general advice that generally makes life easier when you draw (again, things that I learned in traditional arts education - another artist might advise you the complete opposite, dunno!)

Work holistically. Forget them satisfying-to-look-at clips on instagram showing someone produce a hyperrealistic portrait starting from an eye, with each and every element emerging being finished before they proceed to another part. It takes a lot of talent, yes, but these are ppl redrawing a photo in a kind of a mechanical manner. Most artists don’t work this way. Especially if you’re working without a reference, or if you’re doing a life drawing - your process will be layering and changing and finding what works best to give an impression of what you’re drawing rather than reproduce the exact image, and your artwork is likely to look messy most of the time.That said: don’t start with the details. Don’t spend too much time on a particular part while neglecting others. Your goal is to keep the whole piece at the same level of ‘finished’ (even though it’s unfinished - do I make sense?) before you’re confident that everything is where it should be and proceed to the details. So sketch out the composition first. See how things fit, what’s the dynamics. You’ll save yourself from limbs sticking out from the frame, odd proportions etc etc.

Because it’s a game of relationships between different parts of the picture/scene. I ask you not to worry about finishing a single element before laying out the rest because you’ll find that said element will look different once the other part appears! For instance - you might think that the colour you picked for a character’s hair is already very dark. But once you’re done with the night sky background, you’ll find that it’s in fact too light, and doesn’t work well with the cold palette. You’ll have to revisit different parts of the image as you go to balance these relationships and make the picture work as a whole.

Give an impression of something being there without actually drawing it ‘properly’- because details are hard, mate. You’ll see that my lineart usually has hardly any, and my colouring is large unrefined stains, but the finished thing looks convincing. Like, fuck, I can never focus on how Crowley’s eyes are really shaped. So I just turn them into large glowing yellow ellipses crossed by a line, and heard no protests so far.

Don’t panic if you messed up (you probably didn’t anyway). It might turn out to be a completely unnoticeable mistake - because, remember, things work together to balance each other, so another finished off prominent element will probably drown that badly placed line that looked so visible and out of place a second ago. 

It might not look good before it’s finished. I’m mostly immune to it after years of drawing, and my recent illustrations all follow a specific method (ykno, my sunset glow effects and all that) so I can kinda predict the next stage. But I do my linearts on a specially picked crap paper, I don’t bother erasing the smudged graphite, and it looks messy af until I make the background white in Photoshop. Conclusion: you might have a moment of doubt as you work through a piece, but try to break through it - I often suddenly start to like what I cursed a minute before! - and try to finish it even if it’s meant to be bad. This way, looking through your past pieces, you’ll see the progress. And trust me, I can’t even look at my art from literally three months ago. It’s normal.

Now, pics! The sketches are paler in real life, but I increased the contrast a little so you can see something.

1. Laying out the composition! 

I wanted to just show them kissing, but I got carried away due to some Art Nouveau inspiration. As you might have noticed, most of my illustrations are quite self-contained (ykno - they look like a sticker on a plain background). So I wanted a tight swirl bordered by Aziraphale’s wings creating a sort of rounded, yin-yang like bubble around them. Consequently I made the whole composition revolve around their heads. 

2. Adding more details to the sketch. It’s messy af. It will be messy until I’m done. It’s fine.

3. These are the fineliners I use for the linearts! They are made by Uni-ball and come in light and dark grey. I also sometimes use the guy on the left - ‘Touch’ sign pen by Pentel, when I want more brush-like, wider strokes. I work in grey because when I scan it and do my usual boring trick with sunlight highlights - which is an Overlay mode layer in Photoshop - the highlights ‘burn out’ the lines too and make them vanish a little, and the lighting effect gets more striking. I also like to use the light grey ones to make something look pencil-y without actually using pencil, because pencil fucking smudges.

4. It smudges! So because I am right handed, I start inking from the right hand side, no matter how tempted I am to do their faces first.

5. You can see the composition directions here. I made it intuitively, but ofc some ppl actually use grids etc to lay out their drawings.

6. See how pale ans thin the lineart was at first? I kept adjusting it as new inked parts were appearing. It starts to look nice and consistent now! 

7. Finished lineart? There are some mistakes which I later corrected in PS. Notice that Aziraphale’s face has hardly any details on it - I tried to make the drawing suggest his expression rather than risk overdoing it. 

8. Photoshop time!! You can totally do what I did here even if you don’t have a graphic tablet. I used Curves tool to enhance the lineart, then Quick Selection Tool to select the background around around my sticker-like piece and filled it white (on a new layer ofc). I keep this white layer on top of the layer order so it works as a mask as I colour. I decided I did not like the hatching shading underneath Aziraphale’s halo, so I erased it with a Stamp tool (because I wanna keep the textured grey fill my crap paper naturally gives me!). It’s done roughly but won’t be visible once the thing is coloured. 

9. And the reason why I keep the grey shade instead of easily getting rid of it by using Curves/Levels is because when I set this layer to Multiply mode and colour underneath, it gives me this nice desaturated look like from an old cheap paper comic page. It works as a natural filter! But of course I can’t do bright colours this way, so all my glowing highlights happen ABOVE the lineart layer - on a separate layer in Overlay mode! 

Finished thing here!

_____

Commission infoBuy Me a Coffee - help me with my transitioning expenses!Prints and stickers and things on my Redbubble!