This Is Who I'm Gay For!

As pride month comes to an end, it was only to be expected that I'd do something for Mac and Quaid. And let's introduce you to a member of the family while we're at it, here's Quaid's dad!

Quaid got a message one morning from his dad, saying he wanted to meet. They hadn't spoken in a long time, they never really got on well. Henry Burt did care for his son growing up but disagreed with his ideals such as his taste in women and wanting to become a dancer. Eventually Quaid had walked out to live with some friends and gradually the two lost touch with each other. Quaid mentioned a few times to Mac how he missed his dad but had never felt like he would be accepted for who he was, hence his leaving in the first place.

If not for Mac's encouragement, Quaid would have probably shied away instead of going to meet his dad. He still lived in the same house from just over a decade ago. Henry came to the door and greeted the couple warmly. After entering the lounge, Henry made a mistake.

'I see you packed up that queer malarkey.' and then Henry smiled at Mac who's jaw dropped in shocked. Henry realized he had said the wrong thing. 'Sorry, did she know?' he asked Quaid.

'He does!' Quaid sternly replied as he grabbed Mac by the hand.

'Honestly,' Mac sassed. 'Who the muffin sparkles could mistake me for a girl?'

'Oh, sorry I thought this was who you married!'

'He is!' Quaid replied. Then he grabbed Mac by the arms and held him up in the air, Mac made a show of himself while he was in the air. 'This is who I'm gay for!' Quaid exclaimed. Naturally, Henry was surprised at this. When Mac was put down he approached Henry and shook him by the hand.

'Hello, darling. I'm Mac, by the way.' Henry smiled awkwardly.

It was an awkward time to start with, but gradually Henry warmed up to Mac and realized he was happy for Quaid. By the end of their chat, Henry even offered Mac and Quaid a spare bedroom if they ever wanted to stay! Quaid was happy that at last he felt accepted and Henry was happy that he was in touch with his son again. What about Mac? He was happy for the both of them. Maybe one day we'll get to see more of Mac's family as well!

Quinman's Crush

You may know Quinman for his cosplaying videos on my YouTube channel, but he's often wearing all sorts of disguises of his own design to hide himself from the locals. While in one of these disguises, Quinman takes the chance to bask in the glory of his dream girl.

I think the panel tells it's story pretty well, I doubt you need me to clear anything up. So for today I'll be talking about the process of making this illustration.

I knew I wanted something like one of those sequences in TV shows when you get this sparkly, beauty shot of the love interest and then there's the lover starting helplessly at them. For Quinman's first appearance alongside Droey and Co, I felt it fitting that I did this sort of piece for him. I looked for images that could help inspire me and I found a girl sitting at a table with a book and a drink so I placed Anne in this situation and decided this would take place at a coffee shop where Quinman would be disguised as one of the staff.

For someone who doesn't have a face, it was going to be difficult to make it look like Quinman was helplessly in love. I did everything I could to make sure this was obvious. For one thing, I've made him replicate Anne's pose, partly because he might be able to stand up straight and secondly because replicating movements can be a sign of attraction. But it this wasn't enough, I added the sparkly background from Anne's pannel in the reflection of Quinman's glasses lenses and then added a customer who would be waiting for him to take an order. Recognize this guy? He's from one of Lavendertowne's YouTube videos! I thought of just bringing in a completely random background character to await their order but then decided why not put an easter egg in there?

Something that stands out in this piece, and what I love it for, is it's colour scheme. I used a strict set of colours, throwing accuracy to character colour schemes out the window! There was this image of a beautiful sunset and I took all of the colours from there, including the blues used as line art and background. I refused to use any white amongst these colours, replacing it with a pale pink from the image and would then continue to use colours from this sky to create what is one of the most beautifully coloured pieces to date (in my opinion)!

Now having explained the colour choices, you'll probably realize that Anne is using her official colour scheme instead of blending in like the others. Anne herself is was made exempt from this strict colouring style, to further help her stand out. Her panel is the only one to use the light blue (Quinman's reflection from his glasses excluded) and using a white pen to add sparkles and a little glow. This allows the Anne panel to feel less connected with the reality that Quinman is surrounded by.

While there was some compromise in this illustration, I have never kept myself to such a strict colour palette before! This of course excludes designs with limited colours but refers to illustrations, particularly those of which include already established character designs. I feel quite proud of this accomplishment and encourage you to try creating a piece using only a small set of colours, it might help to pick them from a photograph. Or maybe you have your own art challenge to conquer, if you're up to it then I bid you good luck in achieving your goal!

Smooth Criminal

Michow Mooble has been kidnapped, but who would do such a thing? Wait, that isn't? No, it couldn't be- but it is... Plottie's returned!

Plottie Swine is back after her debut is wasting no time with reintroductions, she's getting straight on with business! This isn't so fortunate for Michow Mooble, who was last seen leaving one of his concerts. It turns out that the limo ride home has been hijacked by Plottie and she escorted him to a secret location where Michow could only assume the worst was to come. But to his slight relief and surprise, Michow wasn't intended as a ransom. Plottie wasn't after his fortune either.

It turns out this elaborately wicked scheme was just a way to get Michow's undivided attention! After making sure there was no way Michow could escape, Plottie's revealed her intentions. Plottie simply had a chat with Michow, it was a casual chat. Kindapping aside it seemed like a perfectly normal social occasion, a blind date perhaps! Michow was nervous to start, naturally but gained enough confidence to work his charm again. Unfortunatley he couldn't convince Plottie to release him, but it was fortunate for him that Lottie never intended on keeping her guest imprisoned.

After their chat, Plottie gave Michow a simple gesture, one that made it clear how interested she was in him. Then Michow was released and escorted to his proper home. On the way Michow was given a warning not to spread the word about their chat so to this day only the two of them actually know what happened!

I think by this appearance alone Plottie might have become the most dangerous character on the blog, Gorf the Frogman aside! How does your OC show their affection for someone; are they creepy like Plottie was or do they behave more appropriately? Try shipping them with a character to see what answer you conclude with!

That's The Way To Do It!

Agrius is with his nephew again but Agrius has decided it's time to educate him on some villainy and so have gone outside to cause mayhem!

It's not very often that I illustrate Agrius actually doing something that can be considered evil so I decided it was time to do that again. I also wanted to bring Albiona and Redd back onto the scene since they've never actually done anything. So the three of them have been brought together for this illustration and there's even a minor appearance from Agrius' nephew!

When I mention Agrius doing something evil, in all honesty it's rarely anything effective. So his minor offence today was stealing Albiona's bag, though he didn't take into consideration the fact that Redd would be around to beat the daylight out of him! The nephew has decided to 'observe' from a safe distance while using his phone. Perhaps he'll even call an ambulance for Agrius! It seems the lesson of evil is going to backfire, with only the lesson of avoid Redd when thieving.

I'm thinking of doing some more of these illustrations in which Droey and Co characters you haven't seen together interact. Are there any character pairings you'd be interested in seeing and what might they get up to?

Party 'Till You Drop

There's a party going on, let's see who's on the scene! Can you remember any of these characters?

In this illustration are (from left to right) Lacy Rembrandt, Martin Vincent and the Weirdo With No Name. The Weirdo was one of the invited guests at the party, before everything got out of hand. After an hour the party was big news for party goers and so Lacy found out about it. Not wanting to go alone, she insisted on Martin coming with her. Martin had been hoping to get on with more of his art work but Lacy wouldn't have any of it and so he ended up partying 'till the lack of sleep got to him.

After Martin's passing out and making sure he was still alive, she and Lacy were sent on their way and had to call it an early night. A couple of coffees later and Martin was back to work, against the rare but good advice of Lacy. She just called it quits and went home for the night, most probably to sleep in late throughout the next morning. As for the Weirdo with no name, she left with only a torn tight to complain about. Even her friend Lexi doesn't know what happened to her; she would've gone herself if not for her suspicions that Gary would get up to no good in her absence!

Which of these characters do you dance like, or do you/your character have their own style of dance? Perhaps it's worth finding out if you're looking for something to put on your paper!

I Never Liked The Rain Until I Walked Through It With You

The title you read is my prompt, and with that I turn to the two characters who seem to always fit any random prompt. These two characters were created by a prompt challenge, it's Mac and Quaid!

Reading the prompt, it was clear that this prompt was made for Mac and Quaid, a couple who've always made each other's lives better. The last time we saw these two on the blog, Quaid came to make Mac's life better, so this time we're going for vice versa.

Having grown up in a rural area, Mac is used to the rain and while he'd prefer a sunny day, he's perfectly fine with walking through it. Quaid however, didn't like to get wet. He'd wash in warm water of course, but besides that he kept himself dry. Mac and Quaid had only met each other in the past few months and were still getting to know each other. It was on a very rainy day that Mac discovered how Quaid had a problem with the rain. Mac can still remember the story Quaid told him about how this problem seemed to run in the family.

'My old man was a brickie for about a month. Got the sack after his first rainfall; only went and bricked himself a shelter to hide from it! No one in our family's had it as bad as he did; it took them hours after the rain stopped to get him out of there. He was well and truly stuck; he and the bloke what helped him with the cement got sacked the day after.'

A few months later, Mac and Quaid were out in the town and in view of the sea. The clouds were dark enough to unleash a storm and sure enough, heavy rain would fall. Quaid was uncomfortable about this and so hid beneath the shelter of an umbrella. Mac wasn't fed up with Quaid's problem, but urged Quaid to walk through the rain with him. It started as a walk and gradually became singing followed by dancing. The rain continued to pour but Mac and Quaid were singing merrily without the protection of an umbrella!

Looking back on this day, Quaid considers it the day when the spark between him and Mac ignited. It is a story the two love to share with friends and each other, and now it's been shared with you! What do your OCs get up to in the rain, I'd be interested to see!

Blobby Beefcake?

Another digital illustration is due, so here you go. However I'm also going to serve you some nightmare fuel, potentially sexy nightmare fuel.

If Natsuki from DDLC can be made buff then so can Mr. Blobby, hence my doing so. This was the most hilarious and terrifying thing I have done on this blog. This is partially inspired by Baylee Jae's hot guy series  but I don't think Mr. Blobby can be made attractive, no matter how hard I try! If anything I think it would be scarier to see this beefcake running up to you, would it not?

If you thought I was only going to shock you with this illustration, you're wrong. I'm also going to give you a photoshop tip. The spots and the pink skin are the same layer, but I only shaded the pink skin. I created a new layer in which I drew the spots and then selected the pixels used on that layer. I would then change back to the skin layer without deselecting my pixels and I would activate the hue and saturation tool/layer. Using this I could change the spots from pink to yellow without having to shade on the yellow spots again. This saved me a great deal of difficulty and hopefully knowing this will help save you some difficulty as well; that is if you find this tip easier than using mask layers.

I hope you aren't too scarred by this unconventional piece, you'll get to see some less terrifying art next week I assure you! And some reassurance for you, Mr. blobby is still going as a YouTube star now but hasn't been working out to this extent, the world is safe for now...

Smile For The Lexi

Gary went to hang out with Ichirou and Jirou one day, but Lexi insisted on coming along to make sure he behaved! What an awkward day that was...

This was just a fun idea I had one day. I could easily picture Lexi doing this on a few occasions and I can imagine Gary would put up with it. Did you know this is the first time I've illustrated Lexi smiling other than one edited picture of her? If you want to see me draw Gary smiling (besides his website promo), you're going to have to wait a bit longer! Speaking of faces, I love the expressions overall in this picture, especially Jirou's. I've drawn him with this frown before but it's so suiting to him that I'm making it his frown.

Something that has probably caught your attention is Lexi's dress. The truth is I messed up doing the line art, forgetting her dress goes around both arms! Rather than hope for the best I took advantage of the mistake by making it a completely different dress. I'm not sure if this variation of dress design is real but I like the design. It uses the yellow from her normal dress and two shades of green, one of which matches her eyes. You might also notice Lexi is a fan of Adventure Time if you look at her phone case, something for those who are still mourning the end of Adventure Time.

That's it for this illustration, but on a serious note, try not to behave the way Lexi did today. Relationships like Gary and Lexi's don't work out well, but one's like Mac and Quaid seem to be going fine! Come back within a fortnight to see how they're doing!

Droey and Gym

It's a comic strip, with more than one panel! Here are Droey, Tenvad and Lottie in 'Droey and Gym'.

This comic strip is the result of my attempt at the Predictive Text challenge. If you'd like to try this challenge out, you just type into predictive text, try starting with 'Draw a' and then keep adding any of the three words available until you've written a sentence. My prompt was written as 'Draw a picture with me to the gym today', not a very well structured sentence but it's something to work with.

So from that I knew I was going to the gym, first time for everything! This was going to be a single panel strip but I couldn't fit all that I wanted to, so I turned it into two panels, but then the panels themselves couldn't fit without being poorly arranged. For the second and final time I upped the panels and so we come to the final result of three panels!

This was perfect because now each character could get a line of dialogue in their own panel. I didn't intend on giving Droey any dialogue, but then I wasn't sure how clear it was that he was going to the gym, so it was up to Droey to confirm it. But there is no way that Droey would sanely go to the gym, so he needed a gym companion to accompany him. I hadn't drawn Lottie in a while so I thought I'd give her a moment to shine and the same went for Tenvad, though she wouldn't actually go into the gym, it was her job to deliver the humour.

Speaking on humour, if you got the TV show reference in this strip before my mentioning it now, well done! If you didn't, I'm not spoiling it, sorry!