Lay Of The Lads + Inktober Talk

Before we get on to the art, I thought it necessary to announce that I will be posting daily throughout October as I participate in this year's Inktober! Prepare for the return of Madge and Silverside as they introduce you to all of their spooky friends!

I was listening to a song that I hadn't heard in a long time, it's called 'Begging' by Midnight Beast, wouldn't recommend the younger audience members listening to it. Anyway, this song sparked a funny idea that I wanted to try. All this time I haven't done much at all where the male characters are banded together. At last I thought to myself, it's time to do just that.

And so here are five of the boys, Droey, John, Ichirou, Jirou and Gary. You may notice their designs have been simplified, no I am not changing my style, this is a possibility for a third style. I think my art has a Panty and Stocking vibe in which there are three animated styles, the realistic style, the normal style and the cute style. Given that I wanted to fit several people on this piece and make easy work of it, this cute style would work well but another reason that came into play later was my experimental method of colouring the illustration.

I experimented with this piece. I was never really good at watercolours so I regularly use watercolour pencils instead, but sometimes and more recently the results have come across looking rather streaky. I wanted to aim for a smoother result and so what I did was apply pencil to the wet brush and then to paper, like the watercolours we used to get in school. For the most part this worked beautifully though there were some points where I didn't wet the brush enough. But most of the colours are much smoother than before, though I was worried that it wouldn't do the pencils any good. They appear to be alright though and I've used them since. The background was an attempt at blending colours and it worked better on the right side of the illustration though I don't mind it being desaturated in this piece. I shall have to either practice this method more or get myself some actual water colours. Maybe I'm finally ready to return to water colours!

Are you developing skills with a particular medium or going to learn a new one? Share your stories and we'll travel this journey together, fellow artists!

Star's Got Legs! ... oh yeah, and a Genie

This is an idea I've held off for too long.At last I am illustrating the genie mermaid, which I originally sketched back in Mermay. And as I promised, Star's got tails and she's showing them!

Either Star has woken the genie from her slumber or the genie has already been woken and is just having a stretch, either way Star is very impressed. The pose was a reference I found on Google and I had to alter the tail slightly so that the genie could be gracefully swimming out from the lamp. The colour scheme for the genie was a case of 'Must have green' and then it was a matter of working around that. The skin colour is actually the skin colour For Ida Noe, though I have never used that combination of pencils before so I ought to remember it so as to finally give Ida the colours she deserves. The pony tail is a bit thin but other than that I love how the genie has turned out.

Star's twin tails was something I decided on when drawing her friends, since three of the other mermaids had single tails. I gave Star a pleated texture to separate her body from the tail, I think it suits her quite nicely. What I like about twin tail mermaids is that they are better at impersonating human characteristics, while it may take away from the challenge we are supposed to overcome when drawing mermaids. All I can say is blame it on the person who discovered or invented twin tail mermaids!

Of course I discovered that Kasey Golden made a mermaid with starfish style legs, maybe I should've done that for Star! Oh well, maybe another design. Here's a prompt for you, how would you or one of your characters react to meeting a genie? Have fun!

Return of the Mermageddon Warrior

Last year I put little effort into an illustration that was never finished, and to this day have had my doubts about it. But now the warrior returns with a much better look in an actually finished artwork!

What you see above is the original Mermageddon Warrior, with a few fishes and a sea monster of some kind, a design which looking back I detest. Both the warrior and the monster have returned with completely new designs and are ready to fight!

I gave the warrior some better warrior sequel clothing, such as a coconut bra and an actual sea diver's helmet, though I did like the original goggles this was a decision for the greater good. Shells were used to create a bit of armour as well as an old blade and I burnt a bit of the tail to show this is not the Mermageddon warrior's first fight. I love the burn effect on the tail, I used maroon and black, though if this was to be applied to a different colour of the spectrum, it might be worth using a mahogany or brown instead.

The sea monster is definitley much better and I did quite literally cut corners by cutting off one of it's tentacles. I kept the devil horns to make this monster more individual but gave it two eyes and a rather eerie mouth. The tentacles were a great difficulty to illustrate but all of them combined have paid off.

I am glad that the Mermageddon warrior piece has finally seen justice through this Draw Again style challenge, though wether or not I try it again next year will remain a mystery. Though there is a possibility you may see the warrior make a return in the future, now they have an image that compares to everyone else.

Creations From The Clouds

Some people make a hobby of cloud watching, the fun part being what the clouds can resemble. I'm not the first person to do this excersise but today you will see what happened when I got a few pictures of some clouds and decided I would create the images the clouds drew.

What you see here is my collection of clouds and the shapes they have created. I actually only used one of the pictures I had taken in the end, since the clouds in the picture went together so well! I was looking at one of them and thinking it looked like a dinosaur creature but after turning it to a different angle, I saw something else. The other cloud looked like a person, one of which shape I had never really thought to work with and it looked like it would be capable of holding the other cloud. So behold the art piece that the clouds gave us!

A woman eating a chicken drumstick! Never would have thought to do this but I'm glad that I did and was certainly amused as I went about this. I didn't really depart from the outline provided by the clouds which is good of course, the only changes being made as what I suppose you'd call the clean up. The colour scheme was taken from a picture of a chicken drumstick, again resulting in a decent colour scheme; though I think the gem is a bit bright compared to the rest of the piece, becoming an attention seeker. I made use of the gradient tool to shade this illustration, something I hadn't done in a while.

Have you tried this art challenge yet? I suppose now the summer's over there'll be plenty of clouds to work with if you want to give it a shot! You don't need Photoshop to do this, it would just be easier that way. There's still those cloud outline I haven't used or perhaps you'd refer to take other natural sources for shapes to illustrate, it's time to get out and get creative!

Costume Design For Doctor Who

I like to design characters, and with that there is an amount of costume designing that needs to be done. Though I don't have a habit of designing costumes outside of a cartoony fashion. Today you will see my first serious attempt to design a costume. Today I have a design for Doctor Who, if only it were official!

Two thoughts were in my mind when designing this costume, two elements I wanted to make this costume stand out. The first was a tie which would have a timeline pattern printed along it, this I have titled the timeline tie. The other was to bring back the question marks; throughout the 80's the costumes made use of question marks, more so during the days of Sylvester McCoy. While I did not intend to bring back the question marks in the same style, I loved how question marks were made a part of The Doctor in their quirky costumes.

The Doctor now has his own hat again, this one is inspired by one of the Nelvana costume designs, though alternatively I would give this Doctor a flat cap much like what was worn in the Victorian days, thoug I'm not sure if this cap is another variant of flat cap or not.

Sketches towards the final design seen above

The blazer is an Italian cut suit with galaxy lining on the inside and a giant question mark on the back, I think this makes the rear view of the costume more interesting, I think only Collin Baker's costume has looked interesting at all angles. As for the galaxy lining, I've incorporated elements of time into this costume so why not space? The Galaxy pattern is also used for the high waisted trousers which are supported by braces and worn over the shirt and jumper. I didn't want this Doctor wearing laced shoes, but I know of and have worn a nice type of shoes without laces that I have given to The Doctor.

This costume doesn't really need adding to, though certain accessories like glasses would be compatible so long as painted in black.

Brace For A Race

Jirou's got a really fast car and John likes to go quick on his rollerblades when he's delivering his pizza. Jirou and John also like to outdo each other, so unfortunately for Ichirou, it's time for a race!

This idea came about after I was given a lift back home recently, in a particularly fast car. It was fast enough for me to know that wearing a hat would not be advised for the journey, as a result I was originally going to illustrate myself in a speedy car but I decided it was necesary to give Ichirou and Jirou some attention.

I don't often draw cars, but when I do, it's a fairly adequate job I think. While slightly bulkier looking than the prototype I chose (I couldn't for the life of me tell you what this car is) it suited to the proportions of the characters. I never added any lettering to the lisence plate I realise now, I guess I couldn't come up with anything.

John's inclusion would be because it was the first oppurtunity to express his speedy use of rollerblades, which he uses when he goes about delivering pizza. I've always said how he likes to hurry about when delivering so getting him to try and race Jirou sounded like a fun idea, even if at Ichirou's expense! While it's highly unlikely that John will win the race, I'm sure he's having fun trying to outdo Jirou and his bright pink car.

You'll notice that this piece has pink line art, I have been encouraging myself to be a little more diverse with my outline colours. While I will always primarily use black, it's nice to see how my art looks lined by every other colour of the spectrum! What experiments have you been getting up to with your art lately? Be sure to show what new tricks you've been learning!

Return Of The Mermay Group

Back when I was doing my best to keep up with Mermay, I illustrated five mermaids following a prompt I found on Pinterest. It was a fun prompt but there was barely any sign of mermaid features, given that anything below the hips was exempt from the sketch.  So now I have gone back to give them all their tales and redesign the group of five to suit for the Droeyverse! From left to right, it's a welcome back to Flo, Kyle, Sandy, Star and Julia.

This piece again was inspired by a prompt found on Pinterest and I made sure it was a full body piece. Granted the one character to remain without a full body design is Sandy but I'll be sure to make up for that by giving her a full body if I haven't already by this point. This is also the first time any of them have had colour schemes and I intend for Sandy to have a pink tail to match her eyes.

I did a search for and was delighted to find such a thing as twin tailed mermaid and so our merman of the group, Kyle was able to stay true to the prompt and sticks his tails out like the legs in the picture. Sandy will also be a twin tailed mermaid, though as already explained you couldn't have known.

Which mermaid design do you like best, and how did they manage to get a perfectly good sofa? Be sure to let me know, and we might even solve the sofa mystery!

I Don't Feel So Good...

Oh that Pete! He's definitley seen Infinity War, and has no remorse.

He's been doing it all over, as soon as he finds a Marvel comic fan, he runs up to them and starts spilling sand while doing his dying swan act. Then he'll reveal the pouch he's been hiding and laugh at his victim's face.

So today marks the return of Pete's teacher, clearly looking young for his age but looking hurt as ever as he realises it was a mistake to wear his Iron Man shirt. Pete is probably even more satisfied having gotten to prank and laugh at his old teacher.

Has anyone been making any Infinity War jokes at you, or have you been making the jokes? Admittedly by illustrating and presenting this I am one of the latter; sorry everyone but because I knew Pete, it was inevitable that I'd catch him trying something like this!

Doki Doki Mermaid Club

No, summer's over! Don't worry, let me take you back to before the summer started with one of my Mermay pieces! And yes you read the title right, Doki Doki Mermaid Club!

Doki Doki Literature Club, which I doubt actually needs any introductions, is a psychological horror dating simulation game featuring three potential girls and just Monika. This piece contains spoilers for the game but I'm assuming by now that everyone knows how the game goes and if you don't and wouldn't like the ending to be spoilt, then please look into the game or play it before you go any further!

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These four little pieces are illustating the darker sides to each of the Doki Doki girls. It all started while I was sketching some Mermay stuff and I had Doki Doki on the brain while doing this. I thought to myself how Sayori, if she were a mermaid, would have great difficulty in hanging herself, given that she is underwater. I then was inspired to create a mermaid Sayori who just couldn't hang. After that I wondered how I could turn the other girls into mermaids and relate to the game. I was able to come up with ideas for all four of them and so set about making this beauty.

Yuri was the second one I brainstormed. The idea of testing my illustrative abilities by for the first time, illustrating a bloody corpse in water. Firstly I had to think what Yuri would be stabbed with, and sticking with mermaid culture, decided to make a trident much like Neptune's and have it not only stab but remain stuck once the damage was done. I could see this one working equally as well out of context.

Natsuki was the hardest one to brainstorm, given that her fate was a snapped neck. I would be treading dangerously close to a piece much like Yuri's if I stuck with the broken neck concept and so moved away from it. It took me probably too long to realise that Natsuki is believed to have an abusive dad, at least that's how Monika seems to interpret it. So I made a little cave for Natsuki to go hide in while a mermaid daddy would look around for his daughter menacingly.

Monika's idea works better than I believed it would. Monika is the one who communicates with those beyond their reality and so I made Monika a siren, looking for someone to spent an eternity with. Metaphorically this turns the sea into the digital reality that is their game. The sea level acting as the to screen while the sea below becomes more like a dark void. I was going to have Monika sat on a rock, singing to her prey but a rock would cover up so much space underwater that a mermaid tail would barely be seen. This was fixed by a piece of drift wood, taking the idea from Titanic, the film. This allowed me to replicate the pose from the stage in the game where Monika has completely taken over.

My colouring method was to use my Tombow markers as a base coat and then apply watercolour pencils on top, the same way I did with my Batgirl and Supergirl piece some months back. Now last time this happened, there was an accident with Batgirl's face that almost ruined whole piece! I knew I was treading dangerous waters here and that I would have to be super careful to complete with piece without ruining any of the four mermaids. Luckily this was not the case, but I feel I may not have applied enough water since there are still visible pencil streaks in various areas.

Have you played Doki Doki Literature Club yet? If you're not much of a game player or would rather just watch the game, there are videos on YouTube where you are able to watch parts of or even the entire game being played, don't miss out on the Doki Doki madness! But if you don't have any interest in Doki Doki at all, then why not try converting some characters of your own interest into mermaids, see what you can come up with!