#first started the sketches in march and finally got around to finishing it

[blakedotpng]

RYMIN MOMENT‼️‼️‼️

[solara-bean]

Hello! I saw you fan fiction of the Wolf and thought it was too cute not to make fanart of. Hope you like this quick little sketch of your art Y/N.

OH MY GOD!!! THAT'S BEAUTIFUL!! I'M GONNA CRY THANK YOU SO MUCH😭💕💕💕💕

This really got me thinking of how Death would react to it so here you go☺️

Y/n's mood improved exponentially after their encounter with Death. Their friends, although still in shocked and horrified that they unknowingly let their pal spend time with such an entity, were happy to see them doing better. Y/n made sure to have more fun and relaxation like the wolf had encouraged. Before they knew it weeks turned to months and still no creation was made. They tried not to let it bother them. ' Let it come naturally', they remembered.

Then in a sudden burst of power they got it! Something fun and simple for them to make and possibly put into a gallery: art pieces for the colors of the rainbow. They loved exploring colors so this was perfect. Now all they had to do was think of a subject for each color. Red was first. It was a no-brainer on what the subject would be since it was always on their mind anyway.

They finished it in two days, taking their time and loving every second of it. It was evening when they'd finished cleaning everything up. They were pondering on what to have for dinner when a knock came at the door. They couldn't help but gawk when they saw who was waiting for them.

" Hello little red."

" It's you!" they exclaimed, pulling Death in for a hug. " I can't believe you're really here."

" I'm here querida," he held them gently, " I'm here. Sorry it took me so long."

" No apology needed. I'm just happy you're back." they guided him inside by the hand. " Come in. I was just about to get dinner ready."

" Ooo, what's on the menu?"

" Not quite sure yet, but I've got a few ideas. I can get you something to drink while you wai-" they came to a halt, " Hm?" looking back at Death, they saw his gaze fixed on something.

The canvas covered by a tarp, resting against the wall amongst closed paint cans.

' Oh no.' Y/n thought.

But it was too late. Death had already been looking at them with an overly amused grin.

" You made something." his voice was full of endearment.

" I did." they let go of his hand to wipe off their sweaty palms on their clothes.

" Well aren't you gonna show me?"

" Uuuhh...no."

The wolf made a mock sound of offense, hand clasped over his chest.

" Why? You aren't going back on our deal are you?" he sighed.

" No! Not at all."

" Then why can't I see it?" he leaned in, eyes curious and ears perked.

" Because..." they sighed." I'm worried you won't like it. I'm still a bit rusty you know and uh," they rubbed the back of their neck and averted his gaze," it's kinda about you."

Death's brows shot up.

" Me?"

" Mhmm"

After a few quiet moments, he carefully took hold of their face and gave them to softest look he could muster.

" I'm sure it's amazing." he got closer and rubbed his fluffy cheek against the side of their face, a low growl similar to a purr was heard. "Please give me the honor of seeing it first."

That's all the encouragement Y/n needed. With shaky steps and sweaty palms, they marched over and ripped off the tarp the same way you'd rip off a bandaid. Then they waited. And waited. And waited some more. Dear god this was torture! They finally mustered the strength to look at him and he was just...standing there. Eyes wide and no tell to what emotion he was feeling.

" S-so uh...what do you think?"

Still nothing. Was he even breathing??!

" It's the start of a series for every color of the rainbow. Red's first and your eyes are the prettiest red I've ever seen so- Oh my god please just tell me you hate it so I can-"

" I love it."

Y/n could've swore their heart stopped.

" What?"

" I..love it." he said again. Then a wide smile spread across his face. " I love it!"

In seconds Y/n was scooped up into the most crushing yet safest hug ever. They both laughed as he spun them around.

" Really? You really like it?"

" Yes of course I do! It's amazing." He pulled back to look them in the eyes. " You're amazing. I'm so proud of you Y/n."

Y/n sniffed and buried their face in his cloak to hide the tears that were forming. They remained like that for awhile, content as ever.

" How long will be staying?" they asked not bothering to move and neither did he.

" A week. Is that enough time for you querida?"

Y/n pulled away to give him a small peck on his nose.

" It's perfect."

[crescencestudio]

๋࣭⭑ Devlog #39 | 3.27.24 ๋࣭⭑

Happy March!!

This devlog is going to be a bit shorter, but...... it's for Exciting Reasons that I will share later in the post. heh.....heh.....HEH.....

Let's jump in ^^

This month, writing was mostly dedicated to Etza's route! We have officially entered the Developmental Editing part of Etza's route, which is super exciting!!!

There were parts of Etza's route I wasn't completely satisfied with, so I spent a lot of this month tinkering, adding, fleshing out, editing, etc. for their route. I'm happier with it now compared to where it was when we entered this month, and especially with Wudgey's help, I'm excited for Etza to get the love they deserve!

I had a small, optional goal for myself to start Kuna'a's route, but honestly, I felt like between work with the Enhanced Demo, Etza's edits, and just generally feeling a bit tired after being Super Productive in January and February, I decided to give myself a break. That being said, I'm relatively confident I'll be getting started with Kuna'a's route next month, and I'm excited to dive into their route (and the Fae routes in general, teehee!).

Vui is on the very last of the BGs I need from him..... So I am in mourning.......

Kidding but not kidding. Vui has done an amazing job of putting the backgrounds for Alaris together! They're absolutely stunning, and by the time we get to the next devlog, he will have finished ALL of the BGs for Alaris! It's been about a year and a half in the making, which is kinda crazy to think we have been together for this long (and working on the full game for this long), but it's definitely A Moment.

In celebration of him reaching this milestone, I wanted to highlight some of the BGs he's made for the game! The theme is early morning; some of these BGs are in the demo, and some are in the full game hehe. You'll have to guess the context of the mysterious full game BGs :')

Sneak Peek: BG Showcase, morning strolls around the world of Alaris

I also thought it's been a while since I showcased a CG here. While I don't play on showcasing many of the full game CGs on public devlogs (I do show them on my Patreon!), I wanted to show a little snippet of this specific CG.

Why, you ask? Well, for the OGs, you might remember I showed a sketch of the CG during the Alaris Kickstarter---whenever the hell THAT THING happened.

I finished rendering it now that I got the BG for it, so I wanted to show a peek of that sketch that I showed oh-so-many-years ago.

Sneak Peek: Kayn Full Route CG I want to lick him

Generally for art progress, I've been working on CGs as well as some promotional materials, which I'll be getting to in the next section \o/

Now for the Exciting News!!!!

I have two bits of exciting news. The first is...

Sneak Peek: Selection Screen for Alpha/Beta Access (OUUUUGGGGGHHHHH)

I STARTED CODING KAYN'S ROUTE!!!! The first act is already "done" and ready for beta access. And I'm hoping to finish the other two acts within the next couple of weeks. It is crazy to finally be able to code some of the full game routes. Even if they're not at the "final version" or early access stage, it is Extremely Rewarding to finally experience the scripts I've been writing in the game!!! With the CGs.... Extended Screens..... Just seeing the script with visual assets and not just a Google Doc is SOOOOO FSEIKLFJSEILE

Sneak Peek: Chapter Character Cards (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA)

The second piece of Exciting News is that I have a release date for the Enhanced Demo. YEEEEAAAAAA. It's finally happening!!! Please stay tuned over the next couple of days...... An Exciting Announcement is on its way...................................

I didn't do much market research this month. If I'm being honest, I actually struggled a little bit this month with like...... burnout and workaholism guilt. I wanted to take a break after getting the demo ready for public release, but I just couldn't bring myself to fully rest. It felt like there was so much to do (not just with Alaris, but also with real world/work obligations) and all these looming deadlines was starting to get to me.

I'm hoping next month because I'll actually be Releasing the demo (oops, sneak peek of general release date teehee!), I'll be able to feel like I can take a break. But it also sucks a bit that I feel like I have to Earn It. I think with Alaris being a Kickstarter project, I want to get the game in your hands as soon as possible, but of course it's not to anyone's benefit if I burn myself out in the process and end up with either a worser project or taking even longer to finish it.

I did...... start Stardew Valley again since it is the ultimate dissociation/break game for me. So far it's been working! But we'll see how it continues <3

LOOK AT MY FARM!!!

Should I marry Sebastian or Elliot.

Anyways, hope you all have a great rest of your month, and I'll talk to you Very Soon with an Exciting Announcement! <3

[chattercap]

Monthly Update (March 2024!)

Hello everyone, happy March!

Karamu Trilogy

February was definitely my Kanau development month! Most of the month was devoted to working on the art assets and setting up the voice acting. I started the casting call in early February and finished it in mid-February. I also received all of the voice files and cleaned and adjusted them/requested retakes. I'll be making casting announcements soon; I'm very excited to be working with so many talented individuals!

I also started and finished all of the art for Kanau. In total, it's 7 backgrounds, 9 CGs, and 21 mini CGs! (Gosh even I'm impressed by how much art I managed to do for this…originally it was just going to be 2 backgrounds and one sprite…)

I also wrote around 6000 words for Hanasu, the Karamu sequel!

The Deepwater Witch

I finished a few of the remaining CGs for The Deepwater Witch, but there are a couple left to go that I want to take my time with. Since March will be devoted to MINDMINDMIND (and coding the Kanau release), I decided to push back the full TDW release to April.

MINDMINDMIND (Nano 2024)

I finalized the designs for Geist and Kalei, and I also finished finalizing the outline. In addition, I decided to start the casting call for this one a little early; I do want to release the voiced version for Nano if possible, and I want to give the VAs as much time as possible to record. As a result, I am DEAD SET on finishing the script within the first ten days of March…fingers crossed!

Other game build related stuff!

I got some reports in January that there were issues with TDW's MacOS build, which is probably because of my engine change (from Unity to Godot). Mac's security systems are notoriously difficult to work with, which is probably what is causing the problems. I decided to bite the bullet and buy an Apple Developer License so I could sign and notarize my Mac builds, but after struggling for around 2 weeks, I concluded: with my current game framework, it is impossible to sign and notarize for Mac. If I want to fix it, then I need to either rewrite all of my code in a different language or go back to Unity.

I did hear that deploying on itch through itch's command line app (butler) and then playing the game through the official itch app can fix some of the issues. I did that for TDW, and hopefully the MacOS game build is working okay now. If you want to play my games on Mac, please download them through the official itch app. That's the best way to make sure that they play without a hitch. Unfortunately, I don't have a good Mac (the only one I own is around 11 years old at this point), and it's difficult for me to do any Mac testing. If you run into problems, please let me know, and I'll try to get them sorted!

As for Android builds, I'm still waiting on an update to the version of Godot that I use, so I don't have a timeline on that. As soon as Android builds are available, I'll work on ports for Kanau and TDW.

What am I planning for March?

Kanau is slated to release on Friday, March 8th, so between now and then I'll be hard at work coding. I'm also going to be in the weeds scripting for MINDMINDMIND so that I can give a script to the VAs as soon as I cast (I'm aiming for around 2k words a day…hopefully…) After Kanau is released, I'll be finalizing the MINDMINDMIND script, and then the rest of the month will be devoted to putting MINDMINDMIND together. It will be finished by the end of March, by hook or by crook!

Thank you to everyone for reading, and I'll see you next month!

If you want to hear from me more often, I post frequently on my Patreon with sketches, writing snippets, sneak peeks, high resolution art, and weekly devlogs.

[spooksverse-asks]

Finally got these guys' official refs done(technically finished this the other day, but didn't have time to upload before work)! :D After first sketching their concepts a few months ago(minus Zaira, who was already made), I finally got around to figuring out everyone's colors and especially in the boys' cases, their personalities and such!

I hope you like them! ^w^ Here is all of their bios again, just-in-case!

================================================

- Zaira Oldest child and daughter of Mai and Callum. She's a kind of awkward and nerdy girl, but she is very passionate with a big heart and energetic nature when she's in her element. She has some slight healing powers as inherited from her dad, Callum, though is nowhere near his level of power. In terms of regular talent though she can play the saxophone, specifically tenor sax, as she's a pretty prominent member of her school's marching, wind ensemble, and jazz bands. Despite her more Chinese heritage, even if she herself is only a 1/4 Chinese, she's actually a huge fan of Japanese culture. She's a bit of an otaku in that aspect, having gone to quite a few anime and cosplay conventions, with her favorite manga/anime being Sailor Moon. Aside from her siblings she is quite close with her cousins too, especially Vera as they have similar interests in magical girl and romance animes and often go to conventions together. - Hannah Second child and daughter of Mai and Callum. She is a kind-hearted and total firecracker of a girl, who always tries to help out with any problems but tends to get in more trouble with her reckless nature and random powers. These powers are inherited from Callum, being luck-based but more random, with her also being able to summon things that can be helpful in whatever situations she is in. She is a very outgoing and honest person, always up for a fun adventure, but she is not without her own insecurities. As a younger child a lot of them were centered around her dyslexia, as she had a lot of reading and learning difficulties that made it hard for her to feel like she was on an even learning field with her peers. Though she has received plenty of tutoring and help since her diagnosis to perform better than she had before, there are still moments where she struggles and feels like she can't measure up to her classmates' levels. - Porter Third child and oldest son of Mai and Callum. The only child seemingly without any sort of powers, but he tries not to dwell on that fact too much. Comes off as the most responsible and "sane" one of his siblings, often acting as the voice of reason that tries to pull them back when they go to far with something. Generally regarded as a good, studious "golden child" by his peers and adults alike, but truth be told he has a quiet wild and rebellious side deep down. Always bottles up his more negative feelings inside, causing him to come off as quite scary when he finally does unleash his emotions. Gets along greatly with his "Aunt" Alana, as she also knows what he goes through is like and often encourages him to just be his own best self. Perpetually exasperated by his cousin Korey's antics, often having to calm himself from starting a fight when all the cousins are hanging out together. - Westley "Wes" Youngest child and son of Mai and Callum. Being the youngest in the family and quite sickly as a child, he was often coddled growing up which has caused him to become quite an anxious young lad. He is more of a people-pleaser and always craves other peoples' approval, becoming so stressed out when things aren't going good and often forgets to advocate for his own interests. He has learned overtime how to relax and take care of himself, primarily getting a lot of his thoughts out through journaling and creative writing. He has inherited his mom's love-sensing abilities, having a fine-tuned and almost psychic ability to know when love is around or notice the slightest of change in someone's love. Often gets roped into shenanigans with his sisters as they try to use their powers together to help people, and his cousin Vera as she finds his useful for her match-making. Ironically for him, despite have love powers he has no interested in romance for himself, identifying as ace. 

[ct-hardcase]

2023 art summary, coming in fashionably late. Director's commentary under the cut:

January: I feel proud of this one, but also feel kind of sad that over the course of a whole year, that January is the artistic highlight. I had a few free days at the beginning of the year where I was alone, and got this wild drive to draw something that I very rarely, if ever, get anymore, especially for a piece that includes a background. Pessimism aside though, I'm really happy with how this came out, barring some aspects of Kanan's facial anatomy I could improve on and Ahsoka's hand (I gave up here, don't look too closely). I've had the scene in my mind for a while, and I'm glad I could finally take it on artistically.

February: Yes, technically this was published in March. As far as I can find, this is possibly the only thing I drew in February, sketches included. I published it on twitter and tumblr in Feburary, fully intending to leave it at the flats, but decided to render a bit on 03/01. On account of my literally having nothing else for the month, I let it slide. I'm also happy to have finished a piece for Seventh/Fifth, and it received pretty decent reception considering it's a bit of a rarepair.

March: I didn't do much, but I did draw Trilla, Eighth, and Reva; and the dynamic has been shamelessly influenced by To Gain The Harbor on Ao3, which has occupied my head rent-free this year.

April: I actually drew two things this month, but I chose Voe, since I always have to have my annual Voe in these, and I'm really happy with how I drew her, here. It's also unpictured due to the formatting constraints, but this one also contained one of my best Kylos. 

May: Work started getting very busy here (and never really stopped), so this is where ~sketch season~ starts. I noticed that I sketched a lot of sitting and kneeling this year, which is a bit of a flex, since I've historically had trouble with that (and am still not perfect, but getting there).

June: Credits to Senshistock for the pose here, but I decided to focus back in on anatomy, which was honestly driven by my beginning to consistently exercise for the first time since college—I got a lot more in tune with the practical aspects of how my own and other bodies could move, and though a lot of my poses are static, I find that it's a pretty big influence on my art this year.

July: It's at this time that my love for Reva also turned a corner—I objectively loved her as a character from the beginning, but around this time or June is when she rocketed herself to my third-favorite (hehe) inquisitor. She really grips me as a character, and she featured pretty prominently in my art this year.

August: Was busy touching grass this month, so didn't do a ton of drawing, but did a quick sketch of a village babushka.

September: I decided to color a drawing of Samantha Trapp and Kilner from We Fix Space Junk, which has carried me through many a hard day, and while the drawing feels just a little off, I think I at least somewhat maintained my ability to color something in.

October: I decided to treat myself and buy some fancy pens, and decided on the Sarasa pens on a whim. While they haven't been the cure-all to my art block, they are so much fun to draw in, and about half my sketches from October-present have been with these. Also, Rey!

November: Reva brainrot feat. The Grand Inquisitor. A friend and I were talking over an AU where the Grand Inquisitor (as a Jedi) takes Reva on as his Padawan, and I had to draw it.

December: I sketched a fair bit this month, but decided to go with Eighth.

[mirum-wonder]

MARCH OF ROBOTS...

MARCH OF SHMOBOOTS...

MARCH OF WHAT EVER... 🤖😱💀

After a week of exhausting day job with overtimes and sometimes even with a lack of time for a lunch break I observed myself being not capable of finding time to work on more robots designs for this years March of robots and seeing that I started to feel very disappointed in myself for not being capable to keep up with the pace of other artists posting robot arts daily or almost daily... while I'm not finding time to finish the so called SHADOW prompt thing (SHADOW - that's a prompt name from their official prompt list, you'll find it below) 😔

As you may notice it's far from finished and many things will change in the final version.

But now then I think about it, if I was doing quick sketches or something more simple looking, perhaps more silly or even cartoony perhaps I would find time to make it daily, but I wanted to do more polished arts for march of robots. I really like to do all those details, cables, joints and pistons trying to make my robots in a specific way thinking about how arms, legs and other parts will bend or turn in the final version, although I'm not an engineer or a mechanic I really find a very vast plain for self improvement in projects like that making all those mechanical parts and thingies detail by detail I'm trying to practice my conceptual skills and evolve in it at least a bit. Mostly I'm trying to make my finalised robots in the way that I could pose or rigg the whole thing later to make them look more dramatic and expressive in final pictures 🤖

But unfortunately it takes more time than I can spend combining it with a social obligations and a day time job... So where things got out of hands? I went to official march of robots instagram to check out the date on the post when they announced the prompt list for this years MOR2023 🤖

Booom! Turned out that I'm a slowpoke... I remembered about the challenge that takes place during March only the day the March started 🤪 No sh*t Im not keeping up with the pace 🙄 If I wanted to make arts the way I intended them to be, then I should start working on arts since day one after they anounced the prompt list, I would had an extra month of time to make some arts before the March starts 😅⌚🤖 But unfrotunetelly that was my first ever try to participate in a online art challenge and now I learend one big lesson... If I want to participate in somethimg like that next time then I shold start doing arts in advance as aerly as possible since the info about the challenge usually gets to be announced some time prior the challange itself... So...yeah... the more you know 😭 but any way... I decided to stop trying to catch up with the March Of Robots 2023 challenge pace, that would be healthy for me since for the scope of work I'm already month late. Sure thing I'll finish this Shadow prompt guy here and make an artwork with it, and perhaps I'll do few more artworks for the prompt list but that's basically it 🤖 Oh... and also there are some old robot artworks of mine that are laying around on my hard drive waiting for a good occasion to be published... So I think I'll post some of them this month... cuz you know...it's march and I have some old robots 😅

But the good news are is that I'm not done with online art challenges. I have made my research on this topic and googled out all the potential dates challenge themes out there to see if I can find something interesting and suitable for me. And yeh... It appears almost all year different art challenges are happening all over the internet and on different platforms. For example apart from all known INKTOBER there is KAIJUNE and KAIJULY (a fun challenges where you make/draw giant Kaiju monsters) 🐲🦖🕷️ cool huh? And many more...

I do not know If I will take part in those 2 particularly but I decided to give a try to join in to another art challenge that is coming soon... it's not started yet but it can/will start any day now (specific date is not announced yet) and yet again I found out about it later then I should have and I'm already risking to run out of time if it will start for example tomorrow, but since the official start of the challenge was not yet announced maybe I have few extra days before the start to make few artworks in advance 😁 At least I'm hoping so since I already started to make something for that challenge... Something BIG... And I hope I'll get better luck posting ~30 artworks for a whole month this time 😁😂😅

I wonder if someone is even reading my stuff? 🤔

[cheer-soli-art]

It was a good year for art

Commentary for each artwork under the cut :D

February - biblically accurate bam - This was back when the jokes of ‘biblically accurate (insert noun here)’ had really hit mainstream, or maybe I just finally got inspiration to do something about this topic. Since Bam is the night, I added the usual night symbols of moons and stars. The waves at the bottom represent how the tides change with the cycle of the moon, and it ties in well with the idea of Bam being a ‘new wave’ in the Tower.

February - biblically accurate bam - This was back when the jokes of ‘biblically accurate (insert noun here)’ had really hit mainstream, or maybe I just finally got inspiration to do something about this topic. Since Bam is the night, I added the usual night symbols of moons and stars. The waves at the bottom represent how the tides change with the cycle of the moon, and it ties in well with the idea of Bam being a ‘new wave’ in the Tower.

March - double city - An artwork that I haven’t released anywhere on the internet until today, as it was part of a school exhibition. The idea behind it was taking the place I grew up in and the city I lived in at the time and merging them into one location, representing how I am influenced by both cultures.

April - Marpril Colors Series - 17 Azure - This was a series of sketches I did over March and April, as a countdown for my return from Tower’s Tale (TT) hiatus. During these months, I was busy with school stuff and working on TT, so I didn’t have much time or desire to make other artworks.

May - Part 1_Page 201 - I started working on this TT page in December of the previous year, as the scene this page is a part of was important for me (oh, and the plot too). I was still practicing a new style, and though I don’t like it as much now, I still think it was worth the experimentation.

June - yanfei.jpg - This one was part of a Six Fanart Challenge that I never finished. Whoops. Anyways, I drew her because she’s the character that I’ve played with the most. I’m really proud of how I was able to capture most of the details, especially that staff, haha.

July - KBWday5.PNG - Ah, yes. The KhunBam month, where I spend 3 weeks thinking about what to post only for me to procrastinate on it until KhunBam Week arrives. I like this artwork because it’s where I finally started using references (lol), as well as understanding more organic backgrounds.

August - glitterandgold_01 - One of the two artworks I made for a WIP Big Bang. This is also the first artwork of the entire year that I finished on my laptop instead of my phone, as I had lost my stylus and only bought a new one around this time. I like that I was able to carry the dramatic mood from the sketch to the final version.

September - Part 1_Page 237 - There wasn’t a lot of artwork activity this month, apart from TT, so here is another page I’m really proud of. I wanted to communicate the overwhelming difference in power between the characters, so the pages before have a lot of open paneling and negative space that progressively build up to this one, which covers nearly the entire background in green. The frame around Goseng and Bam is actually the same proportions as the usual page border, but shrunken, to make it look like the fire was spreading beyond the edges of the page, to really emphasize the probable helplessness Bam is feeling in the situation… Sometimes, a lot of thought goes into these pages.

October - kitsune khun - This is a drawing I made for a raffle winner on Twitter. I included it here because this and the other artworks I made that week felt like they ‘clicked’. They were the ones that all the process from previous artworks were leading up to - finally I had an artwork that I was very satisfied with, where the process was fun and the final result was pretty to look at too. I’m a huge fan of using complementary colors, especially orange lighting and blue shadows..

November - Snow Study (gasp) - I don’t do studies as often as I should, so this one came as a surprise. I save a lot of images from Bing’s daily wallpaper, and since the cold weather was coming, I painted this chilly town with one as a reference. I also wanted to update my blog so it matched my current style, so this was drawn for that reason too.

December - ‘Polaroid’ mini series - “with hyung.png” - This is one of four artworks I made in a ‘polaroid photo’ style. I really like that aesthetic. There is something very nostalgic and deep about it - capturing a moment you deem important. Taking the context of polaroids and film into account, you don’t have the luxury to take various copies of a moment and pick the right one afterwards like we do nowadays, so ideally you’d want everything to be perfectly in place and extremely important before you press the shutter. And yet, in these ‘photos’, the moments captured are not of grandiose events or life-changing moments, but of casual, daily life. I wanted to appreciate the ordinary in this small series. Maybe I’ll revisit it next year.

Bonus round

There were a few artworks that didn’t make the cut, but I still wanted to talk about them. So here they are.

“A summoning ritual (that worked a little too well)” - This is where I started the habit of drawing genshin characters when I wanted them on my team. Though this one is a little rough around the edges, I still like the colors and texture of the artwork.

“met gala hwar” - I was watching a video talking about how the Gilded Gala was a disaster (unsurprisingly), and one of the looks that went by (as examples of what worked) caught my eye. So I drew Hwaryun in it.

“Part 1_Page 216.PNG” - I have a very consistent system for numbering pages - just thought you might wanna know. I didn’t count this one in the final cut because some of the panels here were from pages drawn last year, so I felt that I was cheating a bit. There is a lot of thought behind this particular panel, but I will discuss that one when I release the full cleaned-up version sometime in the next few months.

“a precious jewel” - This artwork means a lot to me. Though it was rather quick (done under an hour, curse my comic panel habits), a lot of ‘feeling’ went into it. I think that out of all of the artworks, this is the one where I’m pouring what I’m actually feeling at the moment - I can’t quite put it into words here (as it is a little awkward, and I’m afraid of things getting lost in translation too), but I’ll try. I think that for that hour, I understood where Khun was getting at with the jewel metaphor, but rather than wanting to hide someone away, it was more of wanting to keep those feelings close to my heart… that kind of thing.

“Bleak December_07” - My entry for Secret Santa this year. Just thought I’d include it. I signed up to an email address sending Edgar Allen Poe’s works, and was floored by The Raven, so the title and tone of this short comic reflect that too.

“fall for you, fall for me” - i like khunbam. and i like autumn, now. i like coloring khun’s hair, ‘cuz its color can look so different under different lightings. it’s a simple and easygoing artwork. i like simple and easygoing things sometimes too.

[marches45art]

Happy New Year 2020 with Diane & Soña

Here’s the backstory behind this: on Christmas Eve night, about a week after watching my friend’s sweater-themed stream, I was spurred, either by said stream or by another post I’d scrolled past, to draw my OCs in Christmas sweaters. I was hoping to try completing the work quickly for once, but while I managed to draw out the initial pose in minutes, the aspiration on the whole wasn’t fated. I hiccuped so much in the creation process- aside from my natural sluggish sketching, I had to redraw Diane’s skull 5+ times. Soña came out more quickly. But by the time I was satisfied enough to move forward from the skull sketch, Christmas was waning. With that being a failed deadline, I pushed it to New Year’s Eve, at which point came the idea to reference that Diane is a musician by including music notation.

I finally got to drawing clean lines over the sketch on Friday. It was the quickest portion of making this.

Then came the rendering phase. Holy shit, I rendered at the pace of a dirge. Base coloring went well enough, but the effects took forever, & not simply because I had various distractions. I got hung all the way up on adding highlights to the girls and kept on redoing that & the shading. Every second I worked, I dreaded more and more that this wouldn’t come out well nor by my personal deadline. When I finally got the rendering just as I wanted, I was pulling an all-nighter into today (Dec 31).

I started drawing the setting while stuck on the girls, so when they were done, finishing up the setting went by kinda fast. All left to do was the music.

I used a fragment of the 1st melody from Victor Herbert’s (Auditorium) Festival March, an orchestral piece with a grandioso/finale which the setting of my artwork fit. Back in high school, before I started putting my music in notation software, I would write it out by hand, trying to imitate the fonts & alignments I would see in published scores. I used that experience here & drew & aligned all the musical symbols myself. It took me all of the daylight hours of this morning, & I even worked into the afternoon, so while it didn’t take as long as sketching & rendering, it was the most tedious part. Only when it was done did I let myself finally go to bed, though I did pass out at one point around 4-5am.

This week of labor is finally complete. The first time drawing Diane & Soña together is my final drawing of 2019 & of the 2010s decade. With that, I wish you all a happy new year.

(2019)

[goldicthehedgefox]

I told myself I'd turn this into a tradition, so here I am throwing all my art in one place again.

All the art featured here is what I had on my art flash drive since that's mainly how I keep track of when I drew what.

Explanations for all the boxes under the cut:

January: Ok, so, turns out I didn't draw shit in January except a fun little doodle of Goldic (the character) fighting one of my friend's ocs. Not gonna throw it down here because it was for a friend. (I also never finished that one thing I was eluding to in the last progression post, big sadge; it would've been so funny if I finished that, or at least enough of it so I could put the other half at the start of this one)

February: Ah yes, playing Uno with Silent Magician and Silent Swordsman. The best way to spend Valentine's Day, tbh. Oh yeah, the GoldicSoulless emote also came into existence.

March: Oops, didn't draw anything. And if I did, I doubt any of it was Tumblr-worthy.

April: Oops, I did it again. I just didn't feel like drawing around that time. It was a nice art break, I guess.

May: Back to drawing and I... didn't draw much, but I did draw a redesign for Moon! ...That I never shared until now:

I also designed regional variants of Riolu and Lucario for fun (and for my fake region, Avnou, that you don't get to hear any infodumps about yet, I'll share that when it's more "complete"; Riolu is Ghost type while Lucario is Ghost/Ground):

and here's the shinies, hehehe (click to see the sparkles better):

June: PRIDE MONTH, WOOOOOOOO- *ahem*, I drew a lot of shit in Pride Month, like: - Me holding my giant af flag made of multiple flags - Note and Symph being cute and gay - Mew and Mewtwo designs for the comic I didn't make yet - A bunch of Pikachu sketches for no reason in particular - and this as a little treat for myself since Sonic's Game Anniversary and my b-day are so close together (literally two days apart):

July: My current profile pic was drawn here, as well as a new (and currently unfinished) ref sheet for Goldic! Here's what is done right now:

though, I'm tempted to just redo it again with all the improvements I've made to my art since drawing this...

August: I just drew a bunch of doodles around this time, tbh. I even colored a couple of them. Also drew Angora again:

Beyond that? Nothing of note.

September: Cyno. Just Cyno. Definitely my best attempt at soft shading in recent memory. Also, you're not tripping, I did design an Ash (and Goh) for that Mewtwo comic I didn't make yet (Ash's design is a mix of his Unova and Journeys designs with some creative freedom mixed in; Goh's ref isn't done yet, but he does have a doodle here!):

Friendly Reminder that Ash has Aura Powers™ and Lucario, the Aura Pokémon, can read people's thoughts (just in case someone wonders why Ash seems to read Goh's thoughts in the above image):

October: I... didn't draw shit in October, but I did draw some all-digital doodles with my mouse! (because no art tablet, lol); I can't share most of it because Angst and NSFW™, but I can share what I haven't shared already:

November: I also didn't draw shit in November, but when I did, I made two whole characters: a catboy (Kitari) and a duelist, yu-gi-oh style, that I didn't share yet (Yune). Fun Fact: Yune is the first Yu-Gi-Oh oc I've ever made, despite loving the series for years, and all I have to show him off is a colored headshot and some messy sketches:

Outfit design isn't final yet, but hey. He exists. Yes, the scarf (and hair) will stay.

December: S Q U A R E - The Puyo Puyo Brainrot returned and so did me drawing Squares. I also drew a bunch of emotes for Kitari (of which only half are done) and another little something that I'll share later~

Overall: - Very productive year in terms of art improvement (mainly anatomy and color choice; character design quality has also improved a lot) - More brainrot fanart than in previous years - Less art overall, but more got shown off - 10/10 quality (compared to older art), hell yeah

[animatedaf]

Another 12 months of animatin', illustratin' and video creatin' in the can! This was another pretty stacked year for freelance work and building up my YouTube channel. Read on for more details on each month!

January:

The year kicked off with the release of What a Waste, which I animated at the end of last year. I created a poster to celebrate it's launch.

I also had some artwork in print via an article in LeftLion magazine!

I also illustrated my OC Drillbot ReV for the year of the rabbit and put out a new animation showreel.

February:

I did a valentines card for CherryT of the pair of us in Mario & Luigi style. I was also commissioned to do an edit of the van animation I did last year, this time with a car and some other minor tweaks.

March:

At the start of this month I hit over 1000 subscribers on YouTube, only took 17 years! To celebrate I put together a quick video talking about the past, present and future of the channel, using it as a test to see how I could start making more fully-edited, scripted videos using my PNGTuber.

The first of these was an almost hour long video exploring my DVD/Blu-Ray collection.

April:

This was the month that I really pushed to get a load different videos out on my channel, with full illustrated thumbnails for each! This mostly consisted of a six-part let's play of the Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, cut down from an April fools day livestream.

I also did an impressions video about the Super Mario Bros movie and a scripted video about Easter eggs I snuck into my animations, just in time for Easter! I also made a speedpaint video for one of the video thumbnails and made a new logo for the speedpaint videos.

There was also a birthday card illustration for CherryT inspired by the Mario movie!

May:

May was a pretty quiet month, mainly consisting of two illustrations: a quick one of an OC for mermay and a piece of fan art of vTuber Asha the Game Genie. Both of these were captured off-stream and turned into speedpaint videos.

I also made a supercut of a Netherlands travel vlog from 2018 with a bunch of additional footage that I never got around to editing before, in time for the 5th anniversary of our friends wedding that we attended that year!

June:

My first big freelance project finally arrived between May and June, an informational film about Credit Unions, done in a similar style to several films I did last year, but with more colour in the mix.

I also did a couple of livestreams this month, namely a reaction stream to a Nintendo Direct and a Sonic anniversary stream, a part of which was edited into a video of me drawing obscure Sonic characters from memory.

July:

With that freelance project done and dusted I dedicated most of this month to some personal animating stuff: mainly giving my PNGTuber a fresh coat of paint by improving all the animations with more frames. I made a scripted video about the process.

I also made big progress on a re-animated collab shot that I finally finished in November.

August:

Browsing my pages you'd think I did absolutely nothing this month, but I was in fact deep in researching for a video series I plan to make for YouTube in the near future when I have more spare time for it. What started as a single short video idea deep-dived into a rabbit hole of fascinating stuff that I can't wait to share with you all!

I also started animating an intro for this video series, which is currently sitting in sketch form and will be returned to next year when I can!

September:

My YouTube planning had to be stuck on hold as another big freelance project landed on my lap: an informational film about community lenders. There is some pretty fun scenes in this, and yet another loan shark character! This took up all of September and was released at the end of October.

October:

Just as I wrapped up the previous project another even bigger one was being cooked up: a sequel to What a Waste! Once the filming of the puppetry and the recording of the voice talent was ready I could get to work on once again animating faces for the returning apple character and the five new characters!

What a Waste was a pretty experimental film but this time around I had a working system in place to jump straight in and assumed I would be able to get this one done in less time. I technically did get it done in less time because the deadline for it was much tighter, but it was a crunch to do so, consisting in total of over 2000 assets!

In the short space between these projects I illustrated Rouge the Bat based on a Twitter trend.

November:

November was mostly taken up by wrapping up production on Apple-y Ever After. In total it took about five weeks, about a week longer than I planned, not helped by me choking on a slice of potato that rendered shallowing anything difficult for weeks! It was a good thing CherryT was around at the time to perform a Heimlich maneuver on me! Absolute life saver!

A teaser trailer was released mid way through the month.

Once that was done with I went back and finally finished this shot for the Wario Ware GOLD re-Animated collab that I had been chipping away at on-and-off for around three years! It's done pretty nicely on both Newgrounds and YouTube. The full collab should be out sometime next year! Speaking of which, I have another shot reserved that I need to crack on with when I'm less busy with freelance work!

December:

I've started another big animation project that will run until the end of January and hopefully be released in Feb. This was the third project in a row with hardly a break in between and that, on top of the film work, left me feeling pretty burnt out, hence this quick doodle.

Digital Eclipse summed up the birthday cake CherryT made for me best!

I spent the spare time I had at the start of the month to make a video about the latest birthday cake CherryT made me. I also took this opportunity to edit remasters of previous cake videos, including one that was never finished. Here's the playlist for all six of them.

Apple-y Ever After finally released near Xmas, which meant I could publish this poster I made for it. Next month there will be a making of video published by Deadline and so far the film has been quite the hit, currently sitting at around 40K views!

Finally, I published an old Xmas animation from 2010 on YouTube, but because the original video had copyrighted music baked into the sound effects, I remade the soundtrack from scratch!

Previous years: 2022 - 2021 - 2020 - 2019

2018 - 2017 - 2016

[kenthenugget]

Adobe Broke Photoshop in 2023 (October Update)

Back in July, I made a post detailing how bad Photoshop has gotten for me this year, which you can read here. But if you want a tldr version of it, following new years Photoshop stability and reliability has taken a nose dive with constant crashes that prevent auto recover from being as effective to glitches that make working in it a nightmare. Its been over 3 months since I made that post and I kinda wanted to do an update on how photoshop has been. Has it actually gotten better? Kind of but not really. In some ways, its gotten better, in others worse but generally not much has changed. I guess two positives that come to mind is that one of the afformention glitches I noted was patched up at some point in July, so I was able to update finally. Though, I didnt experience the backlash from not updating photoshop like I had in March (fuck you Adobe). And I havent been experiencing the left click lock as much, although thats more to do with me not doing certian commands that I found could trigger it than adobe actually being a good company and fixing it. There's a thread on the adobe forums about this issue, and according to one of most recent posts as of the 22nd, they run a photo company and have called Adobe support 5 times about this issue, and it seems that no one at Adobe knows about this glitch. Yes a billion dollar company who sells programs at inflated prices because they're "industry standard" knows nothing about a single bug that has been in the program for 6 months, but will gladly add in new features no one will use.

Now when I say things got worse, crashes started happening more frequently again in late September and Early October. But instead of happening weekly, they happened almost every fucking day. One day I would have a crash, the next day nothing would happen, before a crash happening the following day. And what was more crushing about this was that it happened while I was dealing with selections and flatting comic pages... whats funny about this is that not only can selections not be recovered if you close the file (even if you save), but can only be saved by pressing a seperate save button which has no keyboard commands. Which made these crashes more horrible than if I had been inking or sketching. Once again, I consulted the Adobe forums for help and once again, the solution was to update my gpu driver which was out of date. I don't think its the fact that I had already done this and nor that somehow, the driver I had been using since March was already out of date by September that makes this situation so ridiculous. But its the fact that I've pretty much had to bend over to change my pc just so I could run photoshop within the same year. In contrast to how things were before 2023 where I didn't have to do a single thing and photoshop ran fine. Its only this year that for some divine reason that the program decided to be shit to me.

So why was I still using it if it was so bad? It was because of my first Chapter. Around the time I had that initial post, I was still hard at work on finishing my comic's first Chapter which has taken me 4 years to complete. I had anticipated getting it done around that time, but due to burn out I ended up taking much longer, finishing it on October 13th. During those final few months, I decided that upon finish Chapter 1, I would be done with photoshop and moving onto a different art program for the rest of my comic. And that program ended up being Clip Studio Paint which I got as an early birthday present from my dad, following photoshop crashing on me two times in that day, the latter happening an hour after I took a break to calm myself down after the first crash....I wish I was making that up. I went with CSP due to the fact that most tapas artists I know use it and because of the many good things they've said about it. Its a pretty highly regarded program, and even if my motive for buying it wasn't because of Photoshop's "quirks", it has features that make producing comics much faster in CSP than in photoshop. So with CSP in my hands, you'd think the nightmare would be over, right?

You so, my plan was to use CSP for my comic starting with Chapter 2 but after spending some time in the program, I realized I probably wouldn't be knowledgeable enough or adapted to it enough just in time for me to start drawing Chapter 2 with a release date of early 2024. So in the end, I decided to wait until Chapter 3 to make the switch, while limiting myself to CSP for spur of the moment drawing ideas and illustrations. Yes, Photoshop has been a complete failure to me but I am way more experienced with it than with Clip Studio. I dont want there to be a potential quality drop following the most recent episode and I want to be sure I can use it before jumping into creating comics. This isnt like the switch from traditional to digital for my comic back in 2021, because I had already had more than a years worth of experience with photoshop and digital drawing by that time. Because of that, the switch wasn't as rough as it would've been if I had done it earlier. I was going to save this announcement for one my kofi 'comic corner' blogs (btw if you want to support me on kofi click here: https://ko-fi.com/kenthenugget) but Im making this post now so why the hell not. But for the time being, Im still going to be using photoshop for Chapter 2, and my character sheets of course. Given how long I spent on Chapter 1, you might think Im crazy for wanting to use the program for another 4 years but I don't anticipate this chapter taking as long, due to skill and because its much shorter in comparison.

Im not going to lie, I have mixed feelings on continuing to use Photoshop for my comic. On one hand, Im glad I wont need to worry about a potential quality drop but on the other, I dont know how long I can handle crashes and glitches that only seem to persist as time goes on. I'll just pray to God to give me strength during the drawing of Chapter 2 once I finish thumbnailing. Hopefully, I and photoshop will be able to last.....

[korolife]

Blog No.001    23年4月11日

Drawing Process: Making of “Mini Show of Life” (commissioned illust.)

Hello! This will be my first in-depth journal/blog entry in a very long while after being quiet for 5? years since dA’s fall from grace. But, I hope you can find something of use, or at least get some entertainment out of it. Do take care though; once the talking starts...it’s not going to stop. Please feel free to skip through parts you deem only worthy of your time (or just the pictures really), I won’t take any offense! I will be mostly using these to gush out roughly 5 years-worth of recepientless chattiness directed to anyone willing to sit through walls of text anyhoo.

  However long the stay; thanks for stopping by!  (´• ω •`) /

CONTENTS:

0 - Making (overview)

1 - The Concept

2 - Inspiration

3 - Breakdown

4 - Never Finished

⓪　―　メイキング　―

Start of project (concept pitch): 2022年 February 7

Start of Labor (revisions and onward): 2022年 November 10

            Date of completion: 2023年 March 27 

Total time passed from start (labor) to finish: 

   4 months +17 days?  ( ~3,280 hours / ~137 days )

Very Rough Estimated Labor Duration (*excluding breaks/sleep AND reference hunting + test runs) : 

= ~1,128 hours / ~47 days / ~7 weeks / ~1.67 months in total.

※Very rough estimate indeed, my math may have failed me in a few places-

Although it seems like a lot of time has passed (*also in comparison to the previous one that was arguably much more laborious), it’s worth taking note that the duration of the entire process got hit by two major holidays in a row (Christmas + New Year), then immediately followed by my birthday haha so it had more days of rest than it did labor through all that time.

        ①　―　THE CONCEPT　―

Around 2023年 early February, I was contacted by MissPacthesis (otherwise just known as Pacthesis) on twitter to draw a movie poster/book cover-type of illustration featuring the two main characters of their original webcomic, “Violet Goes To The Beach”. Since there was no specific request for the composition, I made four concept sketches with different themes and moods for their consideration. This was the first one:

The basic idea was to create an artificial dollhouse-like environment that showcased the characters’ daily lives, as depicted in the comic.

I’ve always been fond of miniatures but, for some reason, never really thought about making them as the subject for my drawings? So I thought the whole physical dynamic between Harley and Violet was the perfect opportunity to explore that.

The three other concepts have already been finished by the time it was this one’s turn (despite being the first one to be conceived). 

MissPacthesis was super generous and patient with me when it came down to the deadlines. And so, I wanted to take my time with it and really make sure to end it with a bang for the now-final boss of the bunch!

Following through the requested changes/details after the rough concept sketch was delivered + as well as my own additions, this was how the first set of revisions turned out.

Some of said requests are:

the moooooon

stars hanging on the strings as props

set curtains+lights (to establish a ‘show’ setting)

putting Violet against a less cluttered environment someway

One of the bigger issues was the size difference between the two characters; Violet inevitably can’t be clearly seen with how small she is in comparison to Harley, much less stand out in the composition in the original version. In the other three previously completed commissions, she always remained small and near the environment, while Harley’s ginormous size in comparison unintentionally hogs the spotlight (unless he’s bringing Violet near him).

I was really, really fond of Violet’s outfit design on this one, so I asked if I could make Violet be bigger than Harley for once; even through just an illusion of perspective. I got MissPacthesis’ OK and was feeling pretty OK myself, but immediately screaming and not as OK after realizing I had to draw the female anatomy in close-up view Aiyaaaah

       ②　―　INSPIRATION　―

Each and every external inspiration used as reference is difficult to pin down in retrospect, but I can tell you that throughout the duration of this drawing, it wouldn't stop coming after me anywhere I happened to look. 

The introduction of the fairy tale themes was inspired by its references in the comic, which leads to me connecting it with old fairy tale book covers that are known for being super intricate, magical, and no longer made how they used to be now. Then again, those things were probably super expensive too...

If we’re talking about the overall shape, then it's definitely the magical doorway in the movie “Barbie as Rapunzel”. I didn't remember it at all until I came across a pirat- I mean, a s l i m e  t u t o r i a l on Youtube, that made me realize that it must've made an impact on kid-me; it was just this concept embedded in my subconsciousーraring to get blurted out at a moment’s notice. Just look at the way the flowers circle around the scenery as a border. Heck, even the same type of flowers in thereーpink ‘n blue morning glories. I was near finishing cleaning up my lineart when YT hooked me up and it hit, “oh sht, I copied the homework and I didn’t even know??”

Technique-wise, I’ve been keeping an eye on Art Nouveau styles that I discovered through the anime called “GOSICK”, which then introduced me to the works of Mucha, who is arguably THE poster man of Art Nouveau. I got acquainted with them in my very early teens, which is nice for familiarity. But due to even poorer understanding of fundamentals at the time, all I ever took from it was really:

 '...very thin line on the inside, THICK BOI LINE OUTSIDE'. 

A bit of a silly and insulting understatement to the nuances of the technique, but this simplified understanding did help fixing my shaky, shaky lineart through the years to now, hereーhelping me not go completely nuts over advanced class Art Nouveau complexities I won’t even pretend to understand. 

And from there, inspiration for colors burst out from newly-released movie posters smack dab in the duration of the commission; like

 “Disenchanted”’s, 

and even “Everything Everywhere All At Once”'s. 

And then mid-lineart fixing, I got hit with “RWBY” Volume 9's start with the V9 Opening (”Inside” by Cassie Williams and Martin Gonzales), setting the tone with all the colors and all the madness. 

It was my weekend hype man.

Although what I was working on was quite far from these in overall concepts/tone/themes (which, lowkey recommendations, btw-), they still served as a nice color setter inspiration + something that just made me keep remembering to continue working on my own colorful composition through the distracting days. 

Aaand finally: 

it’s most likely my unrequited love for miniatures that started and shaped this composition from the beginning + stayed after the ungodly amounts of revisions at the top! 

 The fact that the entire premise of Violet Goes to the Beach is pretty much enabling this obsession of mine? makes me feel like it was destined to beeeee (if you believe in that kinda thing anyway). I’ve pined for the concept even before knowing what they were actually called or how to spell and pronounce the damn word. 

And I’m starting to think it’s the reason why I’m super drawn to the tiniest of details, be it in my illustrations or other fields with unnecessary hyper-everything. 

As a lonesome nut in a cramped household, my hobby has always been staring at everyday objects and filling the rest with my imaginationーmaybe tiny plants growing on it? Or turning them into furniture for any and all small-enough creatures; anythingーI'll imagine a whole dang ecosystem growing or interacting with anything I can find, and then put myself in there to imagine what would it be like to just...vibe on top of gigantic everyday objects with all the space I could ever need and more. 

This was essentially my standard as well for finalizing the composition of miscellaneous flowers in the piece: 

"Do whatever you feel like, as long as a mini-you would wanna move in it; swim in it; jump on it? or be a e s t h e t i c c enough to be considered ‘instagramable’ or... or something. ﾍﾙﾌﾟﾐ- ”

The moment something felt off through a closer look, or disagreed somehow with its neighboring details, it got erased and rethought of until the vibes are decidedly pleasant enough for an imaginary miniature village of mini-me’s to live in there. 

I think they’d all be screaming regardless.

      ③　―　BREAKDOWN　―

no, not of the mental variety-

I’m not exactly sure which place this piece goes on the ranking of detailing levels I’ve ever worked on, but it’s definitely one of the most detailed, by far. Took 4 months for goodness’ sake lol

Similarly to what I did to the previous big piece also featuring Harley and Violet (*I’ll write about that next + link it here later!), I deconstructed the parts into multiple parts to make it easier to digest as I went.

I kept previous versions of the color tests/sketches as a reference map of sorts while finalizing certain details, so I don’t keep going “wait, how did I want this to look like again” all over again.

I also made frequent “test runs” for certain techniques I want to/plan to apply in certain areas before finalizing them. Not that I’d really be in big trouble if I didn’t, since I can ctrl+z just fine... but it might just be a traditional illustrator-doing-digital’s habit at this point haha

In a nutshell quickly drawn with a mouse, this is how the layering went down in my poor, overworked, one-too-many overlayered drawing software:

While I absolutely do not recommend layering as extremely as I tend to do, I will say this: 

                  Layers (can) help! 

When it comes to hiding each different sections to focus on something behind or above it, having separated everything into non-intersecting layers make it easier to navigate through a big piece.

If you have a similar approach to linearting similarly to how I do mine as well, layering will help when it gets down to cleaning/refining the details, since no lines belonging to different parts/objects intersect with one another in a single layer.

Tedious and fatigue-inducing as heck, but I personally find parts of the process oddly therapeutic.

    ❹　―　NEVER FINISHED　―

You might’ve noticed that throughout my nonsensical ramblings with occasional pictures, said pictures contained preview of the unfinished drawing enclosed within a square frame when the actual finished product is in some curly...burly...shaped...thing.

That’s because the outer shape has changed multiple times:

When I looked at the first revised shape with the rough color test (square frame), I thought the entire scene looked kind of cluttered? I also wanted to especially put more focus on Violet, so I repositioned things and decided to go the lineart-heavy Art Nouveau route to make the details really stand out from one another and not blend together in a single blur of colors.

And so, on top of everything else, I decided to cut the entire illustration into sections visibly seen and presented to the audience, outside of the actual layered sections of the illustration we broke down from earlier. 

I was satisfied with the shapes overall, except for the very top part. It looked very flat and almost... incomplete? So, I experimented around giving the shape a fashionable tippy top hat.

I liked A, but I disliked how the teardrop-shaped gem at the middle was jutting out compared to the rest of the surface.

B retained the flat top, but this time with an added section cut at the upper-middle part, as an attempt to also draw more focus on the moon.

C is the start of the brainrot for a “fish tail” shape.

D tried to just go with a smoothened semi-circle shape for the top, but was the start of the “now THAT’s a moon!” formation that I definitely preferred than what was originally planned.

E wanted to mix the new moon shape + fish tail shape together. I really liked it, but there was something that felt unnerving when looking at it from a distance together with everything else.

F tried bringing back the flat surface together w/ the new moon shape.

and finally, G saved the day (and my sanity). I went back to A and said “dang it, I still want that gem somehow though”, and figured all it really needed was a bit of trim to slot right in the corners and no longer be jutting out. The addition of the yellow and pink on each of its sides were in honor of the fish tail shape. It looks a lot less like one now, but I hoped the teardrop shape at the middle sliding in between two side-twisted oblongs might resemble a fish? haha

             the plan     vs     the done

And, there you have it. By this point in time I’ve yet to upload the finished illustration here on Tumblr (*I’m still not done migrating my older stuff from dA to my main tumblr blogs orz) but I’ll update with a higher quality of the final version here as soon as everything’s caught up!

Thank you very much for stopping by, and I hope you have a wonderful day ahead!  ヽ(*・ω・)ﾉ I’ll see you in the next one?

 ― AKI SHOURIKAWA・APR 2023 ―

let’s end it on the note of how I discovered two fibonacci spirals kissing is actually a heart

I actually do not understand how to use the fibonacci, was just taking the piss out by making cool shapes

[chattercap]

2024 Roadmap (January Edition!)

As we head into the New Year, here is my to-do list for the first half of the year! Note that if you're interested in the development of Actala, I've included a lengthy writeup regarding that project...and some comments about falling out of love with something that you used to hold dear.

The Deepwater Witch

The script for The Deepwater Witch is 100% complete and finalized, and the only thing left to do is CGs, which have been completely storyboarded. In total I have 10 to do, although I do want to take my time with them.

I won't pinpoint a concrete date for the release as there are a few quality of life features that I would like to include in the full version, such as rollback and save file renaming. However, I expect to release the full version of The Deepwater Witch around February.

And now for the other projects!

Kanau (previously "Tsunagu")

"Kanau" will be the prequel to "Karamu," set 11 years before the events of the previous installment. On his 10th birthday, Rakuo Kumode undergoes his family's initiation ceremony.

Kanau will be a mostly horror game with some romantic elements. Since it is set in the past, it will be kinetic, with switching POV protagonists.

If all goes well, I hope to release it around February/March.

(And, following the release of the prequel, I hope to release the sequel around the summer timeframe. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.)

MINDMINDMIND (previously "The Man Who Follows")

There is a man who watches you. He's been watching you for a long time. He watches, and he whispers.

MINDMINDMIND will be a psychological romance game featuring a creepy, but charming, yandere. There will be two male love interests, optional platonic/romantic endings (for one of them), and a customizable MC. I was tossing around some concept sketches for one of the LIs, Geist, earlier this afternoon.

I hope to release it around the end of March.

And last but not least...

Actala: The Hero's Shadow

This will be a bit long-winded and rambling, so skip to the bottom if you just want to know about the current status of development.

If any of you have been following, Actala was the first game that I released, around February last year. I released the demo for Steam Next Fest. It's my largest project, incorporating 5 different love interests and 6 different routes in an expansive fantasy world.

There are some people who saw Actala, played it, and supported me based on the demo alone, and for that I'm very grateful (your comments live rent-free in my mind). At the time, I was proud of it, and I tried to market it rather aggressively. However, the game didn't gain much traction, and after some bad experiences, I got rather ashamed of looking at it. I thought that it was boring, hideous, and poorly written. "How could I have ever wasted people's time with this trash?" I had once treasured that game preciously, wanting to show it off, and I started wanting to hide it in my closet where it couldn't be seen (I even thought about removing the demo from storefronts).

After that, I started working on other, smaller games. It's easier, working on smaller projects. You don't put as much effort into them, so it doesn't matter as much if they end up not meeting your expectations. (When people tell you to start small, they are correct.) My procrastination ended up being fruitful, at the very least. I think I improved a little bit in every aspect (sprite art, backgrounds, writing, GUI, and coding), and I got faster and more experienced at producing games. At the same time, I mostly put Actala development out of my mind because...I didn't want to think about trying to fix that ugly, broken thing. "I'll fix it when I'm better," I told myself. "I'll come back to it when I'm the best game dev I can be." I told myself that I would go back to it later because that was easier than accepting that I had fallen out of love with something that I had loved so much.

Around the time I was finishing scripting for TDW, I looked through my Actala scripts again to see how different my writing style had become. I was scared. How bad was it? I read it, and I realized something.

I did love it.

I remembered how much time I put into every facet of the characters - their backstories, motivations, goals, dreams, cultural backgrounds, costumes. I remembered how many timelines and lore documents that I made. I remembered how meticulously I planned the themes and messages, incorporating a lot of my own struggles with cultural identity, loss, and self-acceptance into the narrative.

Actala is a project that I care about a lot, and I want it to be perfect, but ultimately it will never be perfect. I just need to try my best with my current skills and hope that they're good enough that people can enjoy the story. So I'm ready to return to Actala's development now. I'm sorry for the delay if anyone has been looking forward to it, and I will do better in the future.

As for the current state of Actala's development, it needs a lot of work. It was originally built in Unity, and it needs to be ported over to Godot. Most of the art from the demo needs to be redrawn, simply because my sprite and background styles are VERY different now. So I'll be working on it in conjunction with my current projects, starting with refining the script, then working on sprites and CGs. I won't guarantee any sort of concrete release date for this simply because of how much work is required, but I hope to release an updated demo (with additional scenes for Rowan, Faye, Hugh, and Sei) in the summer.

Thank you to everyone who looks forward to playing my projects, and thank you again for your patience. I hope to make a lot of games this year!

[clarktooncrossing]

On March 6th of last year I posted a collection of discarded drawings called DUMPSTER DUDELZ on deviantART, my way of making sure abandoned art would be seen. It hadn't been the first time I had compiled all of my leftovers together, 2013's Sketchapalooza ULTIMAtE acting as the original Clarktoon sketch dump before I made Sketch BOOMs a thing. The only difference this time was that all the artwork was original, Sketchapalooza including fan art of Queen La, Mickey Mouse, and Blue's Clues. With all the projects I start then never finished, I figured a compilation like this would be a perfect way to show what all doesn't make the final cut. Now with it being the dawn of a New Year, I decided to bring the idea back with a vengeance! That is until I saw how many scrapped scribbles I actually had. Unlike the previous DUMPSTER DUDELZ, which had amassed years worth of rejected content, this one comes at the end of a single year where most of my ideas managed to make it online. Heck, one of the sketches seen here actually was posted to deviantART before now. You know what I say to all that though? Screw it, let's post it anyway! Hopefully my posting all of this will usher in the beginning of a full, productive year of artwork. If not, I at least got to humiliate my good friend Volts48...

1) SPOOKY SCARY SEXY MASKED MANIAC Halloween is always a rough time for me, artistically. With Christmas taking up all of my focus I'm left unavailable to post anything for the second best Holiday of the year. Not that I ever stop trying, mind you. My goal for 2022 was to post a specially themed Sketch BOOM themed around the month of monsters, even managing to get one of my ideas down on paper. Said idea being my buddy Alec genderbent and dressed in a Virgin-Killer sweater as revenge for all the times he paid other artists to draw me with massive boobs or in frilly outfits. To any artist that has done that, rest assured I don't actually take any offense to it, I appreciate any fan work based of my characters regardless of how ridiculous. Besides, you at least draw she-me with clothes on, so there's that. This was just a silly excuse to put my friend in the exact same situation he puts me through as well the culmination of an old inside joke that even he forgot about. Back when I first started my Discord server I was very strict about what could be posted, so Alec made a big stink when my college buddy Alice2Rose posted a picture of one of these sweaters, my ignorance showing when I didn't even know what it was. Leave it to an anime weeb to detect a virgin killer a mile away. In any case, here's hoping the aftermath of my friend's long forgotten stink brings you some Halloween fun on this New Year's Day.

2) POLKA PUP, DOO DOO DA DOO DA DOO Yet another joke that culminated on my server, this time from my friend Void-Android. All throughout the last year the mechanized man was obsessed with posting comics and GIFs of puppy sharks, their precious lil' faces flooding my server like the world's cutest Sharnado. Seeing as my friend Finjix and I semi-frequently collaborate ideas for our own shark character Polka Shark, I figured it'd be fun to draw the fantastic, frantic fish as one of those peculiar house pets. The end result is an adorable abomination that'll annoy the carp out of his friend Striped Starfish.

Striped Starfish: Just what I needed; Polka with legs. There goes my plans of washing ashore and dying of heat stroke.

For those wanting more of Polka Shark's absurd under-sea antics, go check out SIM-N's gallery on deviantART. For now though I hope you all enjoy Polka Pup more than the Starfish did.

3) The Mummy of 3K, Queen Emoteph Like I said at the beginning, I had completely forgotten about having already posted this sketch of ERN-E's girlfriend and Yas Queen of the year 3000 EMIL-E as a Mummy. The idea comes from my repeated attempts to bring back the Monster 3K Pin Ups that SIM-N and I used to do for Halloween, Emoteph being brought back from our initial run from 2015. Alas, all that came from this was this admittedly awesome sketch. Fingers crossed I get to take this idea to its fullest extent next year, ERN-E opening a tomb to find the hottest Mummy ever found by man or machine.

ERN-E: That is one fresh-looking corpse... EMIL-E: You're not too bad looking yourself, big guy.

4) ERN-E X EMIL-E Speaking of the Clarktooniverse's first couple, here we have ERN-E and EMIL-E in some slightly updated designs. After years of making his eyes one big screen, I finally decided to give ERN-E more human-like eyes for ease of expression. Em herself didn't get much of an upgrade, but a sketch of ERN-E alone felt naked without his best girl by his side. Here's hoping I get to draw more of these two together in the future.

5) LET'S DANCE AT WHIMSYLAND Okay, this one's definitely needs an explanation. 2022 saw me make my fourth pilgrimage to Disney World to meet up with my friend @the-pale-servant / @agathe-the-smol, despite my vow to not visit the park until Bob Chapek was fired. I have made it no secret how much I despised the bald-headed, brain-dead, creatively bankrupt loser in charge of the Disney during his tenure, his treatment of the Disney Parks being a key factor. Whereas most people saw the parks as a magical wonderland always ready to be expanded and improved, Bob saw it as a money-printing machine he could run raged without a break. It was disgusting. This was most evident when Jart and I got stuck on four different rides, often times more than once. Though to be fair, we still had an amazing time while there! Still, my continued cynicism against the state of my favorite place on Earth wasn't getting any healthier, so I decided to express my contempt creatively. Welcome to Whimsyland, a theme park opened in 1962 by Matt Whimsy as a celebration of the human spirit and endless imagination. Here you could meet Fred Fox, the company's cartoon mascot currently exiling himself to the Park in response to how the CEO's handling Matt's business. Fred is my Mickey stand-in, though unlike Mickey he makes it clear he hears fan complaints and hates being depicted as the villain. Dancing the charleston beside him is Fiona Fox, cartoon fashion icon that the current CEO keeps exploiting, though Fiona at least uses this to her advantage by continuing to inspire young girls. Along with the rest of my currently in development cast, Whimsyland might become the most perkiest place on the planet once more. Until then, we can at least enjoy these two characters dancing to this.

In case you're wondering why I never posted this, you can thank my questionable coloring choices for that. The orange coloring on Freddy feels fine, but the same can't be said for Fiona's fur color nor for their attire. Like I said, this idea's still a WIP.

6) SOMETHING IN THE WAY, OWL DUDE IN THE RAIN Poor Owl Dude, I don't draw him nearly as much as I should. Luckily, the new story ideas I have in mind with him should help fix that. And no, SIM-N, none of them involve a stove!

7) SAURA, EXPERIMENTAL SKETCH If any Clarktoons dominated a majority of my thoughts this year it would be Fred Fox and Saura, my teenage heroine with the power of transforming into a hyper-evolved dinosaur warrior. Helping matters was the fact that Alec got interested in the idea, collaborating with me on certain elements of her story while also commissioning our friend @zernna to draw her every chance he got. For the record Zerna, I plan on releasing a colored reference of Ms. Bosewick here sometime this year, so if we pay you to draw her again you'll know exactly what she looks like. But first I decided to experiment a little, adding details to Saura's design that ultimately won't be a part of her end design. A rule with character designs in cartoons is that the more lines and details you add, the older a character looks, which is what I felt was the major problem was here. With any luck, Saura's finalized design will look plenty bad@$$ without making her look like an actual fossil.

8) POST-BUMPER: ORIGINS Earlier this year I decided to make myself some mailing labels with Bumper on them, quickly drawing Crocie's adorable little ghost buddy as a mailman. The end result looked mighty cute, ignoring how the post officer used another mailing label to cover up mine. Turns out there's somebody in the world who doesn't find the floating marshmallow cute after all. Weird, right?

And for those of you wishing to see what the end product looked like:

9) FRED FOX Surprising as it sounds, it took me a few tries before settling on Fred Fox as the Whimsyland mascot. My goal was to create a rubberhose character in the same vein as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Felix the Cat, Bendy, and the Cupheads, while also making it unmistakably my own. So at first I tried a turtle, only to quickly realize that wouldn't be as cute or charming as intended. Next I tried an elephant, which admittedly looked better, but for whatever reason that didn't work with me either. Finally I settled on a fox with a Boston accent named after a running joke from the Angry Video Game Nerd and the rest was history. 

10) CHIBIZOWA What you're currently looking at is not the Clarktooniverse's answer to King Ghidora. At least, not at the moment, anyway. All throughout 2022 I had intended on drawing birthday pictures for my friends online, including Zerna, someone who has very kindly drawn a lot of my characters over the last few years. What I had planned for her birthday was a sketch of her girlfriend murd3r3r being dragged to the mall by my mechanized mercenary Candy Banger to find the ultimate birthday present, Coco not being accustomed to the violence Candy brings to any situation. In the end, thanks to some advice I got from Alec, a worn-out Coco gets Zerna a three-headed dragon plushtoy named Chibizowa with Candy giving a thumbs up from the window so the two could have a cute moment together. Now for all of you wondering why I didn't end up making this adorable-sounding gift pic, there's a lot of factors that went into it. The first being time, something I am terrible at managing. The second was not knowing enough about Coco, having to go off what I saw in the pics posted in Zerna's gallery. I didn't want to assume what her personality was like, I'm terribly shy by nature, and matters weren't helped by her own lack of art depicting her aliensona. It's why I'm jumping on Zerna's band wagon by telling you gremlins to hound her for sona designs/more art!! >:'0 For now though, I hope you all enjoy this sketch. Who knows, maybe on day I'll end up making the planned present a reality.

11) ONE LAST FRED FOX And that's all she wrote.... OR IS IT!?

Not included with the DUMPSTER DUDELZ were these two random sketches based on the musical Twisted, which my friend Alec finally convinced me to check out this year. I enjoyed it immensely, even buying the soundtrack and digital recording of the show before drawing their Jafar in the same style as the original Aladdin. Turns out you can make this character look sympathetic. No doubt he'll have a good 2023 as will all of you! That is if you keep dreaming a little harder...

[mirukimary-artarchive]

"Mary's 2021 Summary of Art" - Published: Dec 31, 2021

(Warning: This is going to be a wall of text.)

January in January i was asked by a friend "Hey, i wanna learn how to make Live2D models. Wanna join?" At first i thought i couldn't do it, but in the end decided "Why not?". That's the mindset i wanted to carry through the year. Pictured is the result. I've been asked to try and complete said model, so next January will be fun! This month i also took part in a FFXIV tag on twitter, where we made fake screenshots for a dating sim. That's where i decided i wanted to try and work on a visual novel, at least once. It has always been one of my dreams after all!

February ...And so i jumped on the lemmasoft forums to look for work. Found a person making a cute little self-love tale for the Valentines Jam and figured it was a good idea to give it a try. It was so much fun. Took the challenge as far as i could, and i'm still really proud of being part of this! Still not sure if game art is for me, but felt great to finally give my dream a try. If you take anything from this text wall, let it be "Wanna do something new with your art? Try it out!"

March I think it's around this time we started playing our TTRPG game (Asera)? Ok i forget when we started, but this was the month i sat down and designed my little thief (Layla) and my boyfriend's fighter (Daimyorus). Also made designs for Layla's family. It was a rather busy month (character design is time consuming!), but nothing really 'wow' to show off for it.

April This month i drew some memes for Asera, and sketched a bunch of illustration ideas... That are still sitting there, unfinished. You see, this same month i got accepted into my first zine ever, as a merch artist! Trying new things continued to pay off~ I got stickers done from sketch to flat colors around this time.

May Finished the sticker sheet for the zine (pictured), then proceeded to take...around a week on the phone wallpapers. I restarted it so many times before... When the idea finally clicked i stayed up till 4am drawing >>;;; I was terrified I'd miss the deadline, and had an apology letter on the back of my mind the whole time LOL Thankfully, it worked out and they were delivered in time. Sadly had to skip Mermay because i was busy with miscellaneous projects (only drew 1 mermaid for it, which I wanna redraw someday). Started making little chibi faces for my OCs so i could have a catalog... Which is an idea I wanna revisit later. Having a good reference of everyone would be really nice! (...even if i never do anything with them lol)

June Asera bug bit me again, and i spent a while making chibis for our characters. Also made chibis for NPCs. Designed more NPCs. Designed some of our weapons. For work, got commissioned by a VTuber to draw them and their pet (pictured). Technically finished on July3, but worked on it most in this month so eh LOL

July I made an off-hand comment about working on commissions a month or two before, then on July my friend approached me like "Hey, so you said you're doing comms... Can I get one too?" I had! So much fun! This is also the first time i recorded my drawing process (i do have plans on making a youtube channel eventually). It made me realize i... Take a bit too long. This one was 36hs. That's a bit much LOL But hey, i'm proud of it and both friend&his girlfriend like it, so 100% worth!

August Another busy month, drew some twitch screens for a friend, updated an old drawing (xmas chibis), filled some ff14 memes, experimented with a more sketchy style so i can have a faster type of drawing (...why didn't i post it?) Pictured is the bday gift i made for my boyfriend. Still haven't posted it here, but it's on my stash somewhere >>; It's filled with love!! Maybe that's why I'm still proud of it.

September Made the final twitch screen (pictured), and designed more outfits for Asera (fashion design is indeed my passion). Cleaned up twitter and started working on a TOS so i can maybe open commissions soon... Speaking of commissions, this is when i drew the Dauntless illustration. Nature BGs are my favorite thing ever!

October A very busy month. Worked on commissions (all 6 of the characters O_O) + bunny boy for the EW countdown. The original sketch for the commissions was.....interesting....idk how that got approved LOL But the final result is something I'm very proud of! For the rest, drew more sketches and outfit designs for Asera, plus a chibi sketch to commemorate EW's release (bf's wol and mine ON THE MOON)... Having no idea it would be delayed very soon LOL

November Got into a bit of an art block, which was broken by... Asera characters as Animal Crossing villagers!! Why are drawing memes/challenges the best thing ever?? After that, i managed to start working on a commission my sister asked. Drew all of her students and their favorite toys. They're all so friggin adorable ;_; Was stressful, yes, but also a great experience. Also i think this was my first time drawing real people? Well, my first time doing that for a commission at least!

December Sadly another art-block month. Made yet another Asera sketch (bc i don't have enough of these!), and twitch badges/emotes for ADigitalKing (pictured, also sorry for the hideous watermark, but they paid for it ok TT). Currently working on twitch emotes for my friend, but struggling to have them on a quality level i'm comfortable releasing.

---

Phew, what a year! My journey for a year where i have finished art to post on every month continues, but i'm proud of how much closer i got this time. Also got to try so many new things too! Overall, a good year.

Onwards to 2022!