#first sketch vs final piece

[potato-with-a-pencil]

[alicenpai]

two lonely rabbits, two hearts beating as one 🐇🖤🤍 (animated gif) now on inprnt !

old sketch from march I decided to finish <3 usually when one of my sketches (intending to become a completed drawing) gets put on the backburner, it never surfaces. I usually have to prioritize other drawings and then months or years pass and once I have time, I lose interest and start other drawings in their place... but I'm glad I mustered up the energy to finish this one, ESPECIALLY since I strongly felt I needed more gothic pieces in my gallery hehe

the relationships between characters in this series are so interesting, because there are so many character parallels. I actually had to change the personality of white alice from the sketch to the final, since I .. think I misinterpreted her story! (so I think it turned out less gothic horror than desired but you know what I'll take this <3) I first read this story when I was 14 and I 1000% BET I'll still be finding nuances and new details in the writing years into the future...

I had a lot of fun with the animation albeit just being a blink animation 😩👍 but blinks can be animated in a variety of ways! in terms of my animation skills, I do consider myself on the weaker side. so if i can integrate more animation frames into my illustrations, it'll help me become more familiar and comfortable with the medium. I especially like the difference in how many frames it takes for dark Alice vs white Alice to blink. I think the blinks came out fluidly and I'm quite satisfied with how this drawing came out!

[vetyr]

Client sketch vs. final illustration

When someone commissions me, I absolutely love getting a rough sketch/doodle of their concept—it makes the first steps of an illustration (composition/posing) so much easier.

I'll never ever judge a client for a messy sketch!! (And also, no pressure to send something like this if you'd like the artist to take the creative reins on your piece.)

[nn-ee-zz]

I don’t really have a lot to ask I just want to say I love your art style! It kind of reminds me of like Eldritch Horror meets Celestial Divinity type of thing so with that said I was wondering on how you came to this type of art style you do and how long did it take you to experiment until you found the style that you wanted? Sorry if that sounds kinda confusing 😅 thanks for taking the time to read this and have a good rest of your day!

Thank you! I did not found my artstyle, my artstyle found me. Here is a timeline of my digital art/illustration journey

2014 - The beginning

I finally took my tablet and bit the bullet that was digital art. I remember specifically forcing myself to draw (because it was not fun) because I wanted to learn digital art no matter what it took.

2016 - Experimental

Boldness seems to have dominated this phase, not because of the themes but because I rendered without any under sketch (example above of how the first draft looked like vs the end)

2017 - The breakthrough

It was only from here that digital art began feeling RIGHT. The most important things I've learned were how to render texture variation (especially softer things like hair and fur) and how to color a drawing from greyscale. I was slowly settling onto my desired artstyle

2019 - Happy accident

We were tasked to design characters based on chess pieces during college. 1 week deadline. With the mindset that no one will see my designs except my teacher and I, I did things boldly and rendered them (trad ink plus digital shading) to emphasize shape and design, rather than texture variation.

I began mixing traditional lineart with digital rendering.

2020 - Fallen from heaven

My friend and I decided to attempt to design angels based on widely popular tumblr emoji mashups. It was the first time I colored one of my character design drawings, using similar methods to the ones I've learned in 2017.

2017 - 2024

I cannot name nor describe my artstyle nowadays. I haven't seen many people with something similar either. I use what I've learned in all my phases; the spontaneous boldness of 2016, the texture variation of 2017, the sharp shapes and design mindset of 2019, the mix of traditional and digital from 2020. It all melted together and keeps evolving.

The way I approached art changed too. I was so worried about making things beautiful and technically outstanding when today I only worry about making things interesting and readable.

[rockethorse]

Stocking Stuffer 1/5: A Bajillion Random Painting Recolours

Happy Holidays to all! While I'm proud that last year I finally managed to achieve a longtime goal of sharing a full TS2 Advent Calendar, I'm simply not gonna be able to pull it off this year. Nonetheless, the holidlay spirit has encouraged me to finish up and share a couple of things before the end of the year! I'll be sharing five little gifts over the next few arbitrary days. First up: A BUNCH of Maxis painting recolours.

One recolour each of A/B/C Stroke (yes, I still enjoy playing with these as three separate paintings) using vintage matchbook covers designed by Saul Bass for The Ohio Match Company.

Two recolours +frames for Abstrutionism; "Poppy Cake" by Adolf Fényes (1910), and then this edit of Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth (1948) to include Bella Goth (the original Tumblr poster has deactivated).

A recolour of Anonymous Masterpiece with these two digital paintings by user chestnutroan featuring their farmer Sim and his two alien daughters.

One recolour of the Arghist Soldier with "Friday Nights" by Deborah DeWit (2006), perfect for your novel-enthusiast Sims' reading nook.

One recolour of City Skyline with a fruit & veg painting by Twitter user snail_soup (you can buy a real print of this too if you like it!)

One recolour of the Fourth Element wall scroll with "From Stardust to Stardust - Raccoon" by user ArtOfMienda.

Four Vegetables recoloured with four deliciously juicy tomato paintings by artist Leah Gardner.

Geometry 101 recoloured with a beautiful palette knife painting by Lynn Boggess.

Two recolours of Grilled Cheese (you all know what Grilled Cheese looks like, c'mon); one vintage ad for Hollywood Diet bread which I cleaned/redrew to remove text/graphics, and then "Cloud Rows" by Ivan Eyre (2004).

In The Beginning (+frame) recoloured with "Little Thief" by Courtney / Trash Kitty Art (also available as an affordable IRL print).

Kitten vs. Yarn (+frame) recoloured with this goache painting by user ieafy.

"Until Tonight" by Mark Grantham (2019) slapped on Lady On Red.

Two recolours of Living Room; "Midwestern Summer Fun" by user ink-the-artist (you may wanna zoom in for a surprise), then "Girl On A Swing" (2000) by Andrew Macara.

One recolour of Marketing Print with the Beatles as drawn by other Beatles. I don't remember who drew who because I'm actually not much of a Beatles fan but I thought these sketches were really darling.

In Memory of Johnny Gnome (+frame) recoloured with a piece by Emma Roulette.

A recolour of My First Holiday with art from Twitter user heikala_art.

On Pointed Toes (+frame) recoloured with this digital painting by Twitter user catwheezie.

I fell in love with this Guinness ad so I tweaked it from the photo to fit on the Route 66 poster, then made an accompanying Simlish option.

A single Scruffles recolour (+frame) with this adorable cow illustration by Twitter user poodlewool.

Four recolours of the Sim Noir pop art print; three pieces by Al Parker I found through this Tweet (with some English removed) and then an edit of the original painting to look passingly familiar...

Two recolours (+frames) of Snoozing Enemies; "The Cat on the Pillow" by Adolf von Becker, and "Sleeping Sasha" by Lena Rivo.

Stiller Life (+frame) recoloured with this oil painting of McDonalds by artist Noah Verrier.

Two recolours (+frames) of Stumped Hound; "Shadow" by Tianyi Zhou and "cat falling off table" by user anasauruss.

The Muse recoloured with this Juxtapoz magazine cover by artist Josh Courlas.

And lastly, three recolours of Untitled (the Bella Goth pop art painting) with works by Hiroshi Nagai.

Download All Paintings @ SFS

[bluginkgo]

"Nice Corpse House My Guy" Remastered Behind Scenes!

The most glaring and obviously annoying thing that's evident in this comic- if you even wanna call it that- are the god forsaken BACKGROUNDS. There was a lot of experimentation going on for backgrounds here. Because the first couple pictures, THAT is what I used to draw backgrounds as. Trees are sticks and grass is flat. I realized that wasn't gonna cut it. I didn't like it at all. So I started experimenting and boy was it messy. It finally sorta settled on the style by the end of the comic. I'm still unhappy with it, but it'll have to do for now.

Here's a small comparison

One thing that I ran into was how I was gonna show that N was in his "killer mode." I could have placed the X's over the pupils, but found it unnatural looking in my style. So instead, it was settled to a concentrated light in the pupils.

Best seen between these two. The second N snaps out of it, the X/light in his pupils disappears, and the normal light returns to his eyes, which is similar to Uzi's.

Another thing I started slowly including was Uzi's little tooth on her beak.

The jutting out portion on her beak is a personal touch. Although it doesn't really matter, I included it to separate her from the rest of the "worker drones." Seen as she's an absolute solver host and has a solver form, something was going to creep up in her crow design, hence the little teeth. Doll would have them too, given I draw her in the form I've been thinking about.

Another thing I ran into, was WHAT WAS UZI GONNA TAKE N DOWN WITH?! This is a bird vs. a dog! No way was a bird gonna decommission a whole dog! Then this scene came up in my recent rewatch of Murder Drones.

And it clicked. Loooong long time ago, I had a very specific hyperfixation: birds. One thing I learned that some pigeons do, was they're capable of doing a somersault. And in mid-air, too!

I was finally set. The SICK AS HELL RAILGUN was downgraded to a simple piece of shiny glass/pebble that attracted Uzi- and crows love shiny things. And the same pebble will be used to launch at N's sensor that made him trip over. Because I was also not going to draw N doggo losing his head. I love gorey and bloody shows and art- hence why I watched Murder Drones- but I honestly had no idea how to recreate that, and I suck at drawing gore in general, I mean, did you SEE the crow N was chewing on? That was my best try honestly.

Here are some progress shots and how the layers worked in the scene where N is bonked with a stick.

As per usual, start with a sketch, this is actually 2nd sketch. The first is much rougher, just some circles and random shapes to outline his body form.

Then, this is all outlined and rendered. Along with some additions like the stick and the little rock.

The background was the hardest, aside from some weird angles I picked to draw Uzi and N at. I suck at backgrounds, like I've mentioned many times before. So, this needed a lot of testing and experimenting. Most of this works because I found some cool brushes to use. But aside from that, I honestly still don't like how it looks. It's slightly better than my stick trees and flat grass though, I guess.

Put it all together, add a black layer to simulate nighttime, put some lights to show moonlight through trees and voila, you've got an N doggo that got bonked by a stick! I see this project/comic mostly as practice and testing. Background testing mostly, and some brushes. The background/brush testing actually spilled over into another post of the solver Uzi I made a bit back. I'd say I was pretty happy how it turned out, but brush wise, I was going to test around a little more.

NUzi comic 'Sleep' is my next project. Uhhh, don't ask me when I'm gonna have it out, I have no idea. I'm guessing sometime end of Jan and beginning of Feb. But that might be delayed seeing as Murder Drones ep7 should be out sometime soon too, so I'll need to go crazy about that for a bit and then I'll go back to my usual thing ^_^ 'Sleep' will take place still between the Pilot and Heartbeat.

P.S. I have all 26 pages story boarded... good god what happened to the 'mini' part of the comic 😭

Anyways, why are you still here?! Have a cookie ^_^ you made it! Have a nice day now, bye bye <3

[desi-lgbt-fest]

Hello Gaysis!!!

I see you all waiting with bated breath!! Never fear, the prompts are finally here!!!!

It is our pleasure to bring to you the 30 day prompts for the Desi LGBT Fest 2023!!!

Feel free to draw, write, sing, dance, anything you want, anyhow the inspiration strikes you with the prompts! It can be a simple sketch, elaborate painting, a nonfiction piece, a sweet story, a poem, a cherished memory. Create and share and become a part of this small place online we're carving for ourselves...

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

The over all theme of this year's Fest is:

"Queer As In Defying Conventions: What Does It Mean To Be Convention Defying In South Asian Contexts"

This means describing what queer defiance means to you and how you navigate your world within it. However, the prompt theme is merely a suggestion and not a requirement, so feel free to use the prompts as you wish! And if you do not want to use specific prompts, you can share something based on the overall theme with us.

Throughout the event, we will be signal boosting charaties, organizations, marches, as well as reblogging some of our favorite highlights from last year!

Head over to this post for rules and guidelines for posting the prompts. The image description is under the cut.

Image description: A flyer with a rainbow background. The title states Desi LGBT Fest 2023 Prompt List. The subtitle and theme states "Queer as in defying convention: What does it mean to be 'Queer' in South Asian Contexts of being unconventional?" Below, the 30-day prompts are given as follows:

Prompt List 

Theme: "Queer as in defying convention: What does it mean to be 'Queer' in South Asian contexts of being unconventional?" 

Dream Gay Aesthetic 

Legacy 

Fear/Guilt 

Ten Steps Forward, Two Steps Back 

A Little Freedom is All I Need

5+1 Things 

Faith/Rituals of Love 

The acceptance you hoped for vs. the acceptance you got 

Perseverance 

“They bring me flowers” 

One Fine Sunday…

The First in Your Family to: 

Once upon a time in _____

Public Transport 

Top 5 Desi Ways to Come Out 

Raat ki Roshni (Nightlife) 

Rainbow Sparkles 

The Box of Pictures in Ma’s Attic 

Sketching Life 

A Song That Fits Us 

Joy Yet to be Found 

Phati (torn) Shirt, Stitch It Up For Me 

Disconnect 

A Folksong/Folklore 

Saptiya? (Did you eat?)

Retro Desi Gays 

Kotha (talk, speak) 

Walk of Pride 

Defiance: of gender, of expectations

“We are who we choose to be”

[raposabranca]

Okay, I'm going to talk about this on my main art account because I haven't seen this being addressed yet (there are obviously other pressing matters) but I believe it deserves to be acknowledged both by art appreciators and artists alike:

ANIMATIC ISN'T WHAT YOU MAY THINK IT IS. "Fan animation" IS NOT called "Animatic".

This is not me being a snob, it's what the words were created for, and using them wrong may be misleading at best and upsetting/unrealistic at worst. Allow me to explain in as much detail as I can right now, so watch out for a long post:

ANIMATION, ANIMATIC, AND WHY IT MATTERS: THE LONG POST

First of all, remember that every animation is a film or video. Even if it's an animation that is composed by mostly static images and it may few weird to call it "animation", it's still a realized video or film (or MV - music video -, student film, etc)

Very roughly put and with many caveats as every studio/person is different, once the pre-production stage of an animation moves into production the process goes like this:

STORYBOARD: A storyboard is a graphic portrayal of a narrative, concept, or script, divided into sequential scenes (panels). Usually, it is done based on a written or roughly drawn script, and it serves to translate the story visually so placement, movement, timing, and camera angles are better understood or articulated. It's often done even for live-action movies.

They can be as detailed or as general, as clean and shaded or as scribbly as they can. Their point is being a visual sequential reference to the script.

Examples (more here):

Batman: The Animated Series opening

This Batman storyboard puts a lot of effort in making the images very clean and readable and in high contrast, which is useful in a noir series.

Super Mario Odyssey cinematic sequence

Mario is a lively series where depth, character silhouette, and fluidity are favored, so it's okay if the storyboard is scribbled if it's coherent to the movement and characters.

ANIMATIC: An animatic is a string of storyboard images edited together with sound to illustrate how a sequence will flow in motion. (...) [It] is basically an animated storyboard. The same images you’ve already created as a storyboard are now put into a video and can include dialogue, sound effects, and music. 

TL;DR it's a storyboard, that is, those static panels that can be as detailed or as rough as they must, put into motion and with added sound.

Animatics are useful to keep track of timing, placement, acting, etc, which you can't do very well with static images. They may contain placeholder images, stock photos, live-action acting frames, and even fully animated sequences that were previously done - whatever it's needed to help. Technically, some are animation. But they are, by definition, unfinished animation.

Examples:

Coco - "Un Poco Loco" finished animation vs animatic:

This is Pixar here and the animatic is scribbles. There is fluid, expressive animation there in order to communicate the livelihood of the sequence, but no more.

This wonderful thing:

Dan Harmon recorded a real court order discussion and drew the animatic on top of it, but he didn't intend to do a finished animation from this. Therefore, those are cleaned-up simple static drawings that still convey the absurdity of the video so it can be presented to the audience, like a sketch.

Mari Flexion's "Epiphany" , from the eponymous "fluff" extra from The Magnus Archives:

Like Harmon, Flexion never intended to fully animate this piece, but unlike Harmon - whose style is simpler and more cartoony - Flexion did this with time and in an elaborated style. There are moving parts and even simple animations in there, shadows and fully conveyed details like clothes and freckles. However, by the nature of being a sketch of an animation, it's an animatic.

ANIMATION: Once you have the storyboard and (if necessary) the animatic fully realized, the "animation" stage can start - this is the refining and production of what will become the final film. This stage is composed of many other stages that characterize how close to the final product something is. Stages will vary depending on the type of film you're doing, but Ill use some of my work to show some of the most common ones in 2D animation. (you'll notice that the timing changes from one place to another; that's because I'm only one person doing that on my pace and not a studio, and also I'm a gremlin)

Rough animation: The closest to animatic; some animatic can be considered rough animations:

Cleaned-up: Rough animation that has the final lineart/style that will be used in the end (sometimes static elements are already finished; animation can be weird)

Flat colors (or flats): Where the colors without effects/shadows/lights are added.

Final: With everything else (and here, because it's a video, it contains the music I timed everything on)

Originally posted here (final video) and here (work in progress gifs)

AND THEREIN THE ISSUES BEGIN

I've been observing in the last years that a lot of people are calling near-finalized, very-into-production animations "animatics". Not only fans are saying that, but sometimes artists themselves seem to consider stuff such as the following as animatics:

Shandzii's "It's tough to be a god" (original characters)

It could be argued this is a very elaborated animatic, but the amount of finished animation, detail and cleanness would put it at rough/almost clean-up animation.

@twinkle-art 's and @worldformula `s "The Magnus Archives - villain(빌런)"

This is a finished video, despite the lack of "animation" mostly.

SprectroliteAAA's "Death by Glamour - Mettaton vs. Frisk Fight"

This one has been bothering me for years now - it's a fantastic, almost fully realized rendition of this sequence, it's called "rough animation" in the opening, but it's called "animatic" on the title hhh

"But Branca," I can almost hear you say, "why does it matter?"

Well... it's not something that is urgent, or pressing, like I said before. AI- generated stuff and N/F/T/s are actual problems, but that's beside the point. Still, it's a trend that is becoming stronger, and the immediate issues I see are:

For artists: you'll look like a fool: No one is born knowing stuff, but that's inadequate vocabulary in artistic circles - especially in animation ones. If you call an animation "animatic" because it's digital, fanart, or a music video, it may sit wrong with people in the industry. You want to know which words mean what.

For art appreciators: it may sound derogatory: If someone posts their finalized film and you call it an animatic, it may rub the artist the wrong way. What if you wrote a whole fiction book and someone called it "your notes"? It's finalized work - call it for what it is.

For people who make/hire artwork: "But that's not what I/you asked for": The idea that animatics are "supposed" to get to more and more polished levels cause potential conflict between art professionals and costumers. The terms are laid out for clarity, and if "animatic" has a double meaning, people can be upset for getting "less" of what they wanted to get. Worse, calling animation/film "animatic" creates unrealistic market expectations. "Well X artist did that kind of animatic, can't you do that?" is a very hard situation to be in, as an artist. We may sell our work for crumbs just so we get the job, being exploited to do work we're not really supposed to due to a fiction.

For everyone: it can generate confusion and conflict: "Animatic" a term from the film industry. Some terms from some places may be redefined into something better or more appropriate, but this one creates miscommunication for the reasons mentioned about. Worse, it can create miscommunication between groups of people, particularly in fandom. Knowing the right words is the most conducive course of action.

Anyway, I hope this long ramble helped! Go spread the love for animatics and animations and videos all around!

[sullyfortress]

Na’vi Commission Process:

Step 1: Reach out to me if you have a commission you want. 

Tell me the character/s, give me the details(I WANT THE GOODS) and I will give you a price(based on the chart above.) 

Other useful things to send me are:

-Reference photos (poses, hairstyles, jewelry, color scheme?)

-Na’vi skin tone(because they vary based on region! As we see with the Metkayina vs. Omaticaya).

I am good at improvising but the more info given, the better!!!

I’m pretty flexible so just let me know what you want and I’ll let you know if I can do it. Once we decide we good to go, I will sketch out a draft and won’t proceed until you are happy!!I One I get the greenlight - it's go time.

Right now I am not doing backgrounds because I HATE DRAWING BACKGROUNDS(honestly who does?)

Things I will do:

Na’vi OC’s

Na’vi-Sonas

OC's /you with Canon characters

Multiple Characters (Take single character price x the number of extra characters and subtract $10)

Model sheet for your character (Basic Full Body + $10 for each additional head expression)

I also totally can include text and any character info you want, such as name and bio. We can talk about layout.

Again I'M FLEXIBLE

What I will not do:

Sully family-specific portraits

NSFW (thats personal :P)

Extreme Gore

Nastiness

Timeline:

I will be sure to give you an estimated completion time so that I don’t leave you hanging, but please also be patient as I am juggling this obsessive hobby and my real job.

I am limiting myself to 10 commissions a month right now. First come first serve! I will let you know when this months full and let me know if you want to be put on the waiting list!

Feel free to share your commission!!!! And tag me because *exposure*. With your permission when all is finished I’d love to post your commission with a watermark and tag you as well! BECAUSE WE LOVE CREATIVE CREDIT PEOPLE AND IT’S YOUR VISION THAT I’M JUST MAKING REALITY.

Payment:

I will be taking payment through venmo, which I give once we connect.

I take half of the payment up front(as a security for my time) and half when the final piece is complete!

How will you get your art?

I will send your art as a high-resolution pdf and jpeg through my email: sullyfortress.gmail.com once I get the final payment.

[cochineal-leviat]

Sketch Dump Pokemon 24 January

The sketch dump I made for the beginning of the year. There's even more from January that did not fit the format but are on my drawing file. Those are for later though. (It's not much but I don't want to crowd this post too much)

From left to right, top and bottom we have:

The rough sketch for vs champion Kieran silhouette and the final render version I made. It all started because I loved the pose here with that down perspective. If you know anything about framing and cinematography, you know that this perspective is used when a character is looking down at you/or has power over you/is more powerful. It works perfectly well, as that piece was about how Kieran's peers felt about him after his rise to Blueberry Champion. (and Hydrapple, so goofy and yet intimidating)

A rough shading I did for the applin render. I adored the simplimism and kept a copy of it before I started adding the shadows it would get from its surroundings.

The sketch from Kieran with his applin on his head! I love how the final came out but my favourite will always be the sketch version. I really don't know why I do, but my guess is that I just really like seeing the build-up. Sketch Kieran has my heart.

A sketch of Flore I did for an ask not that long ago. And Frosmoth! They came out really well.

A sketch of Lacey and her Plusle and Minun cheering her on. I sketched the idea on my pocket-sized sketchbook first and then sketched this version. I like it and the energy, but the lineart is not turning out so well. I will have to redo it. Not sure if I should stick with this pose (it's very direct) since, aside from a few moments, Lacey is not that confrontational unless she is annoyed or thinks something is not right. (I Love Lacey, too; I need to draw her more. The DLC really had so many good characters)

A Shinx. Just a Shinx. One of my favourite Pokemon. Whenever I play a Gen 4 game, I always put it on my team. It was one of my childhood Pokemon (fucking love them so much. I even spend weeks hatching Shinx eggs for a shiny one. Her name is Enne (^∇^*))

[snowwhite-andtheknight]

Obiyuki Trope Madness 2024: The Championship!

We have reached the final stage of madness: The Championship Round! Our contenders are:

Bodyguard Crush vs. Undercover as Lovers

Post Date: April 7th

Whichever trope wins their day by having the most content will win Trope Madness 2024!

Tag: #obiyukimadness24

Medias: Fic, art, edits or playlists

[PLEASE READ ALL GUIDELINES BEFORE POSTING YOUR WORKS]

Guidelines:

All work must be your own (eg. no plagiarizing other sources, tracing, pose stealing, AI art/writing etc)

The main pairing is Obi x Shirayuki

Fics, art, edits, and playlists are all valid works for this challenge

(If you create other forms of works please contact the comm and we will be happy to work out eligibility)

Must contain one trope from the day’s match up

Must be tagged #obiyukimadness24 within the first five tags

With tumblr’s history of breaking the tag, however, we also encourage you to @ the comm with your submissions

You may submit more than one entry for each day! Entries are capped at 3 fanworks per player for each

You may submit entries for both teams (a single entry can ONLY be counted for a single prompt, not both)

No works entered through the submission box will be accepted for this challenge

Works must be posted to tumblr to be eligible as fills! The post may redirect elsewhere (AO3, ffnet, deviant art, youtube, etc) but we need a tumblr post to reblog your progress!

Submissions must be complete; ie. one complete chapter, one complete sketch, one complete playlist

Fics must be over 500 words to count as a fill

Art does not have to be a full colored finished piece, but at least a finished sketch

Playlists must be over 8 songs.

All NSFW content must be tagged and under a Read More!

Please label with your chosen trope! (It will probably be obvious, BUT just in case)

Be nice

Play hard

[signor-signor]

Trending 27th - March 2024

Talking to Craig McCracken

If you had a chance to talk to Craig McCracken, what would you say to him that not only complements him on the work he’s done in the past 30+ years, but also reassures him that there’s still interest in the plans he made for S3?

As someone who grew up watching Cartoon Network in the ‘90s, I would tell him…

“Hi, Craig-o, pleased to meet you! I’ve known your work since the early-mid nineties. I believe you were involved in 2 Stupid Dogs and Dexter’s Laboratory. It must have been a real treat getting to know some history behind Hanna-Barbera. I know it was for me. When I first saw a piece of your own work, it was on the side of a box of Fruity Pebbles promoting World Premiere Toons - one of the characters was Bubbles of the PPG. I gotta say, you’ve been one of my inspirations growing up.”

When it gets to the point where I talk about WOY, I would say this to him…

“I remember when I got into Wander Over Yonder. When I first saw your early sketches of him, I thought of Cantus the Minstrel from Fraggle Rock. And what can I say? I’m a sucker for anything related to Muppets. How about Jack McBrayer? He’s the perfect choice for the character’s voice! WOY marks the first time I got to hear Jack sing. It’s the show that provided the springboard for shows Disney apparently loves best, specifically Star vs. the Forces of Evil and Big City Greens - those shows wouldn’t have been picked up if it wasn’t for Daron Nefcy and the Houghton Bros.’ involvement in the first season. It’s also the first show where Andy Bean provided music for a TV series and where people like Noël Wells got to try their hand at voice acting. The show has made a lot more history than you can possibly imagine, so please don’t take it too lightly.”

Now comes the part where I talk about the elephant in the room, or rather, the ape in the space capsule…

“To be honest, I really looked forward to watching episodes of the show during its run. When I looked at your announcement about the premature cancellation and the plans you’d made for that third and final season, I was totally perplexed. Disney let Fish Hooks go on for three seasons regardless of content - was that because no one turned deaf ears or blind eyes to it? I always assumed they’d treat WOY the same way they treated FH.”

“Somehow it just doesn’t feel right to let your show bite the dust just because the “higher up bosses of bosses of bosses” didn’t see the need to make more, especially not after you made most fans aware of the existence of the plans for S3 and led them to believe it was guaranteed to be amazing. Why do you think I haven’t given up on WOY? And why else would I have Kid encourage viewers to watch the show (Kid Cosmic was great, by the way, one that definitely ended in victory)? I cannot think of any other show that was canceled one week before S2’s premiere, seven months after the S1 finale, five months after writing on S2 wrapped up, five months after your pitch for S3. You, Craig, are one of the most experienced cartoonists in the business and you don’t deserve to be treated like this.”

“To let you know just how determined I am to right this wrong, I worked four months on an Illustrator piece featuring over 140 individuals, built a LEGO Star Nomad (when I showed it to Dave Thomas (@owner-of-wendys), he said, “Dude… that Star Nomad is incredible. Well done!”), and wrote a pre-S3 shorts idea where Andy the Watchdog interviews refugees on the ex-secret planet. Heck, I even had to figure out what Star Force Enforcement Force look like and how the plot of S3 might play out.”

“@peepsqueak started the SaveWOY campaign, and I’m seeing to it that it shan’t be in vain. I know you’re busy with your other projects, but there is still a show waiting to be completed on your own terms. Until the time comes, keep making people smile! Darkest times call for sunniest of smiles!”

[chrissy-n-eddie]

ok au where chrissy is an up-and-coming interior designer and eddie is a reclusive carpenter. she commissions one-of-a-kind pieces from him for every project she works on. they've never met but they spend hours on the phone together dreaming up new furniture forms. they mail each other sketches (chrissy's detailed and precisely inked room dimensions accompained by pages of notes vs. eddie's sketches bound with twine that unfurl to the floor in smudged, overlapping charcoal flourishes). maybe chrissy attaches a recipe that they talked about over the phone. maybe eddie is slowly furnishing her kitchen with gifts of hand-carved spoons and a salt-pot and whittled portraits of her oversized mop of a dog mid-stretch. maybe chrissy commissions something more personal from him, a dining table for her new place, the place she's bought with her own money and she invites eddie to come and see it in the space when it's done. maybe she cooks the meal from that first recipe she sent him and he's cooked it so many times by now over his own small gas stove that it smells like home to him. and maybe when they finally kiss he climbs onto the table to get closer to her and she laughs into his mouth but her elbow knocks her red wine all over it and the stain is there when they christen it together that night, and it's still there years later when they move some place bigger and airier for the two of them (and the dogs, and the cat, and a kid on the way).

[toonabby]

Happy December everyone! As this year is coming to a close I just want to share a few pieces of fan art/memes that I didn't have a chance to upload this or last year.

The first one is a meme I made back in August of 2022 when I was still a Mr. Men's fan (I've largely lost interest in the show sometime between late 2022 to early 2023). Here, I took a screen shot from the TV Tropes article I Call Him "Mister Happy", used a png of The Mr Men Show's incarnation of Mr. Happy, and edited the two images together on Krita. This was made when the "Name Soundalikes" meme, which I used the basis of this image, was still popular.

The second was my attempt at one of those crossover memes where characters from separate IPs react in horror/sadness at the news, complete with one of the characters saying their iconic line/catchphrase in a different tone to correspond with the event. For a little bit of context: Stadia, Google's cloud gaming service, was scheduled to shut down on January 18 of this year, and I made this only one day before the service's end of support.

The characters used in this pic are (clockwise from top to bottom) the stick figure from xkcd, GoAnimate Caillou, Karate Jone from Rhythm Heaven, Dan from Dan Vs. (who is ironically the only one in-character, angrily shouting "GOOGLE!"), RED(-chan) from the Hyperdimension Neptunia series, Wesley from Wandering Wenda, and Phred from Phred on Your Head Show and The URL with Phred Show (the last two I doubt people would know). I also used the late Gilbert Gottfried on the pic (which I admit wasn't the best idea).

Oh, and about the image used at the bottom right: that was "Friendship ended with [blanc]" template with Google (displayed there as Chrome since I couldn't find the Google logo) agreeing with Nvidia to use their own CG service Geforce Now. Here's a better quality version of the image.

And for my last batch of unpublished arts, these are sketchs I made for the characters in my upcoming project "NoitaVision" (still a working title) I made back when it was known as Rebineru, which I realized was a crappy title. Since these are concept arts I drew early on this year, the designs used in this pic may look different from their finalized designs once I publish them. The descriptions of the characters will be indicated in the alt text.

And there you go, a college of unpublished arts! I hope by next year I'll make more drawings and publish them online!

[fly-sky-high-bug-games]

Nosk Party Collab: Work progress!

Flame and I thought it would be fun to showcase the some process screenshots we had while making the collab piece so have brief tidbits of our work!

Flame's first VS final layout sketches for the background:

Part of the base layout of the background I did, followed Flame's sketches:

Main background finished, followed by the addition of Midwife and foreground while missing the extras:

The work was then passed back to Flame. No highlights VS highlights on Nosk~

Extras added. No fog VS The Fog Machine is ON!

Tweaks before the final additions and finalized image:

And that's all!

You can find the final image HERE ON THE MAIN POST! :D

[characcoon]

MORE discarded concepts!

On the 1st anniversary of "Change of Perspective", I asked you guys what you'd like too see as extra content, and you chose discarded concepts. And now on the 2nd anniversary, MORE discarded concepts, mostly from chapter 14 to 20.

So let's get right into it!

1. The Puppeteer phase 2

Most of the concept sketches I released prior to the chapter, had Mikey as the center piece. (Yes it's the same Mikey sketch shhhh)

In the final chapter, he only got controlled Once. But the plan was for it to be much more important than one final horrifying blow. His fear at that moment, of being put against his brothers, would've been 100% thrown back at him at full force.

2. Leo VS Donnie

The resolution to That Whole Ordeal with Leo and Donnie, was going to be sort of like Raph planned in chapter 19.

It was going to be a Physical Fight. The first instance I thought of was during a sparring/training session that Leo, blind and lost in another hurricane of horrible thoughts, pulled Donnie aside, gave him a wooden sword, got another one for himself, and didnt even explain stuff before attacking him.

It was about the sword fighting specifically. Leo was in fear that he was losing his abilities, because of the muscle memory, and that he wasnt as good at it as he usually is. And the evil side of the thoughts were telling him that now Donnie was taking over his role completely in every way.

So he would fight Donnie, both with wooden swords, and Donnie would win, without even putting that much effort (because Leo was honestly too stressed to fight well). And Leo would not give up, would not stop, until he finally whacked Donnie in the hand and disarmed him, winning the fight. And once Leo won, the dam would break, and their talk would happen right there.

It would end well, as well, but it would be much uglier and raw than the final chapter. It would be less about Leo's effort to change being validated, and more about his fear of losing what makes him, him.

I think the reason I changed this approach was, the different tone it would set on the work. I think the final product has a much better message, and a much better resolution, than having the twins go at it in a fist fight, because Donnie's pain would be pushed aside in favor of that action show. Leo's acknowledge that, "hey, that guy wearing my face, the guy I'm cursing and yelling at? That's my brother and I am hurting him", is SO much better than "I am hurt and I'll make everyone know that."

It's not just about him, ya know.

3. Flare and Sparkles

One of these guys is not like the other.

So, Flare is the fireball in Mikey's old weapon that went "I ain't dying yet chump" and hopped into Mikey when the Shredder destroyed their weapon vessel. We got that.

Sparkles... wasn't supposed to exist. There is no demon in the Odachi. It makes no sense.

Y'see, I have another AU, "Sentient Ninpos", that has another Flare that is NOT the kusarifundo fireball. And uuuhhh I kinda mixed both of them. Sparkles was already a thing in the AU, and as I was in the initial stages of creating the AU at the same time I was writing that chapter of Leo meeting Flare, and then Sparkles.

I just mixed both concepts and put Sparkles in CoP by accident.

Awkward, I know, but hey, congrats on CoP Sparkles for being something completely new created by mistake that now I gotta think hard about to make it make sense.

4. Sparkles' name was going to be Sparky

Sparkles' name was going to be Sparky.

5. More of VS Puppeteer

That entire fight went through multiple reworks.

First, Donnie was going to be awake, and as said before, Mikey would be prominently controlled. DONNIE would be the one to "break the sky" and get Leo's ability to teleport for a while (which I'm sure would've worked wonders with what I had planned for Leo's self-worth issues /s). There would be no phase 3, they would've exploded the Puppeteer in a much more dramatic and tense way, and that would be it.

I wrote that phase 2 chapter practically in one sitting, so whatever happened there, it was due to the flow and being on the zone and letting the vibes drive the writing. It went that way, and I said well okay then I'm not rewriting 9k words of nonstop fighting and action scenes, and left it as that.

6. Ending of chapter 20

I had that chapter ready for a week or so. Now, if ya know me, I post stuff as soon as it's done, I dont keep things to wait to post. So that week of waiting I spent constantly poking around chapter 20, and I changed the entire ending of it one day before posting.

Donnie would make no deal to stop talking about personal issues and focus on the artifact. He would've bounced right the fuck out of there and go "I'm not processing that entire emotional show, I'm gonna go out and kick people in the face to avoid thinking about what just happened". And that would've gone as well as it sounds: horribly.

Leo and Mikey would have an extra segment of talk about Sparkles and Flare, Leo going "ok we dont know if my Odachi had a demon, but I can ask Magnus because he has the twin of the sword to make sure that there is really no demon" vine boom sound effect, Mikey goes HUH WHU PARDON ME WHAT and credits roll.

I am once again pushing Magnus reveal further and further away. No regrets, it's great to look at how they all know the same thing but they dont know the others know.

----

And that's... basically it! ONCE AGAIN, ty for all the support! Hope you enjoyed taking a glimpse at the inner workings of my brain, and how I think over stuff. It's fun over here.

See you guys next chapter!