FanArt_ink.Drive

MTGinktober merges onto Day 18, "Drive," starring Kari Zev, Skyship Raider; Toluz, Clever Conductor; Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer; and Dodgy Jalopy!

The tough part was deciding which Toriyama illustration to mimic here, but I also borrowed the framing from a second one.  I had a concept of a younger character learning how to drive, and since the composition called for a monkey-like character holding on for dear life, Kari Zev and Ragavan were natural picks.  The teacher had to be someone wearing a hat with a bill, so Toluz got the role here. 

Fun Facts:  This is Kari Zev's fifth MTGinktober appearance, and I'm sure this time she'll break the curse of doing absolutely nothing each time--she never seems to be in a winning illustration, unfortunately, but as a glutton for punishment, the Kari Zev drawings will continue until morale improves.  She's also fun to draw, which is nice.  Ragavan makes his fifth MTGinktober appearance--three of which are with Kari Z.--and interestingly, last year he was also in a DBZ spoof.

Easter Eggs:  For added flavor, I wanted to have another character getting bumped off the road by the reckless student driver, and since I've always wanted to draw Toriyama-style turtles and rabbits, I went with Steady Tortoise, who has it all.  Flying Nimbus in the upper left and my signature is on the turtle shell.

Reuxben

FanArt_ink.Massive

MTGinktober goes big on Day 29, "Massive," starring (inhales deeply) Nahiri, the Harbinger; Sorin, Solemn Visitor; Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger Ugin, the Spirit Dragon; Emrakul, the Promised End; and Kozilek, the Great Distortion.

For this prompt, and since we're into the last few days, I wanted to do something a little special and draw the biggest illustration I've drawn yet for MTGinktober, using the whole of my artboard paper.  I was inspired to draw tiny Eldrazi as the gag by John Avon's tiny Emrakul, but then I considered scale differences, which lead me to my one of my absolute favorite images--that staredown between Frieza and Goku that contrasts their sizes so dramatically--but who could play those roles?  The Erikskids? Radha Radha?   The Three.

Fun Facts: This is over double the size of my regular Inktober sketchbook--at most, I'd divide this artboard in half when I used sheets from it a few years ago (it's a dream to draw on, though can bleed near the edges). The scan's so big, it chopped off Ulamog, so I had to scan it in parts and stitch it!  The last time these PWs came together was also a DBZ spoof, oddly enough, but personal favorite Nahiri makes her sixth MTGinktober appearance, as she is always fun to draw.  Sori and Ugin are two-timers, but surprisingly Emrakul has shown up three and a half times now.

Special note--sadly, I cut my other super sweet idea--a send up of For Whom Doth the Game be Good, Sir, I Ask You This?, which woulda been perfect--crazily niche, involving a recently previewed card and even the streamer's name is huge.

Easter Eggs: Beyond the size difference between the main two, we had to goof further by having tiny Eldrazi titans in the background, plus Ugin to complete the callback.  Ugin is prepping a kamehameha and Ulamog is playing all three moves in Janken.  Cheater.  There's also Flying Nimbus in the upper right corner since we're drawing DBZ clouds.

Reuxben

FanArt_ink.Path

 MTGinktober is streets ahead on Day 3, "Path," starring Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer (Zoltan Boros version) and Koma, Cosmos Serpent!

 I was on the fence on what to do with this prompt, maybe Nissa reenacting the clueless pathfinder of Goblin Guide, but I thought of the famous scenario of Goku running on Snake Way and these two seemed like a great cast, so I went with that concept.  Thankfully it was a bit light, so plenty of time to help the cat get adjusted to the wide, open spaces of anywhere but under the bed.

 Fun Facts: This is Ragavan's third MTGinktober appearance, and Koma's debut.

 Easter Eggs: My sig is hidden near the far-shot of Ragavan.  Plus the whole image is an homage to Dragon Ball Z, of course.

Reuxben

FanArt_ink.LoopFear

MTGinktober infinites and intimidates Day 19, "Loop Fear," starring Saheeli Rai and Felidar Guardian!

There were a couple directions I was thinking for this one, like Saheeli doing a playful cat claw gesture with Felidar Guardian, or even a Melira jam that ultimately felt too similar composition-wise to a piece from a few days ago, but a DBZ spoof won the day.

Fun Facts: This is Saheeli's second MTGinktober appearance, both times have been with a cuddly counterpart, though this one more so. This is also our second DBZ spoof.  Notice I almost forgot Felidar Guardian's jewelry and pattern.

Easter Eggs: This was inspired by DBZ of course.  Our dyamic duo is doing the fusion dance, which creates a loop with their limbs, and I based Felidar Guardian's face on Korin, and Saheeli is based on Bulma and the background comes from Saheeli, the Gifted.  Researching this piece was a joy, as it reconnected me with one of the reasons I started in comics...that early inspiration was/is so dear.

Reuxben

FanArt_ink.Dragon

MTGinktober kamehamehas into Day 12, "Dragon," starring Sorin, Nahiri, and Ugin!

This was such a sweet one to prep for and execute. After quickly abandoning plans to draw Brian Kibler and a draconic Shiro since I missed my alarm and only had a limited amount of time to draw this, I frantically scoured classic Dragon Ball art to get the composition right for this spoof. I had initially thought I might cast rando Khans characters, like Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest as Goku and Narset as Bulma, but at the last minute, I remembered a guy and a girl who had a direct association with a dragon character--the original Eldrazi-sealing team--perfect.

Fun Facts: The page I cleared for today's illustration was drawn on heavily enough that there are still lots of remnants of the old contents on the final illustration in person (I cleared them as best I could for the scan). Previously this page housed a bunch of shirt designs for a pitch that went nowhere. This is Nahiri's third MTGinktober appearance, and it's kind of a mix of her previous roles--first she was herself, then she was costumed as another character, and now she's herself in the role of another character.

Easter Eggs: I hid some famous Tetris shapes in the upper hedron. The little clouds in the background are modeled after the ones from Dragon Ball (Z)'s ending theme, and the cloud nearest Sorin is based on Goku's actual Nimbus. The labeling is modeled directly after the classic format aside from the Zs, which I added to balance the lopsided text (time was tight, so I couldn't get the text quite centered).

Not normal,

Reuxben

FanArt_ink.Ship

MTGinktober meetcutes Day 25, "Ship," starring Precinct Captain and its corresponding token! That sounds kinda racist or something but it isn't! Magic vocab!

I knew when getting this prompt I wanted to do the narrative definition of ship--or "shipping," to be more accurate--but definitely not do any of the conventional MTG shipping of like the main five or whatever. I thought about doing a sequel for Tibor and Lumia, but we already established they were getting a divorce and they were already officially together anyway, so that's kind of against the spirit of shipping. Shipping, I feel, has to be speculative, not official. So at some point it struck me that there's this connection between Precinct Captain and his token, so that felt like a great relationship to explore.

Granted, it would probably be highly frowned upon for a captain to be involved with even a peer, let alone a subordinate (which I presume is the case here, since he's specifically a statted-out captain, and the vibe is he's summoning a less capable vanilla creature, which means it's presumably not as accomplished, so we reasonably deduce it's a lower-ranked soldier). But, since this is shipping, it's all about speculation, so we're just going to pretend they are of equal rank.

With that, my story is that they meet at the Ravnica 254th Precinct Corps orientation party. Dressed up in his formal cadet uniform, he's nervous since he doesn't know anybody, but she's outgoing and takes the initiative to strike up a fast friendship, after which they snap that photo. Yes, they have photos...just go with it.

Next, off at training at camp, she gets caught in a sudden downpour unprepared. He had packed an umbrella for that training session just in case because of that morning's weather intel, so she has to implore him (not really, he'd do anything for her) to share shelter under his umbrella. This photo is her apologizing profusely for inconveniencing him and thanking him for the help. He sheepishly brushes off all credit to the umbrella, with a gentle advisory to heed the weather intel next time. She gives him a hug and inadvertently gets him all wet, too, but he doesn't really mind.

On Rec Day, a recreational festival marking the half-way point of camp, they naturally hang out and find their way to the festival's photobooth, where they take the obligatory series of buddy pics.

Lastly is a photo of them at the Corps graduation ceremony, where they are in their full uniforms at long last!

Under the photos is at top is a to-do list, including notes to buy milk and eggs, but the other document, at bottom, is a letter that says:

[Just] wanted to let you know that they transferred me to Kamig[awa. I] don't know how long I'll hav[e to] be stationed out there, but may[be] it would be best if we kind[a] went our own ways. It wouldn['t make] sense living in the past[, right?] Love, Thanks,

A keen eye will see some splotches above the letter where tears recently were, but have since evaporated into nothing but the impression of a permanent mark.

Fun Facts: After completing one of my sketchbooks, I was scrambling for a new (old) volume to clear of useless old drawings so I could finish the Inktober run on "nice" paper. I found this old, completed sketchbook, counted out how many remaining illustrations I needed to make, and erased out that many pages. Then when inking this piece, I noticed the G-Pen would randomly bleed, even aside from the edges, where I expected it to, based on old memories from when I first dove into this sketchbook. So after finishing the first panel in the upper left, I completed everything else in Sakura Microns, which I usually reserve for straight lines and touch-ups. This made for a nostalgic trip to my Herald days, where I only had microns to work with and my lines felt so much chunkier. Anyway, since I couldn't use the G-Pen in this book safely, I decided to abandon it, so this is the only MTGinktober '17 drawing in that sketchbook, and I erased all those other pages for nothing! Granted they were my six weakest pages, but still, such needless destruction. I will have to go back and refill them with lower-stakes drawings.

More trivia, I included snaps of an alternate thumbnail take I was considering, since I wasn't sure I'd be able to do the nostalgia-trip treatment in time. This would have starred likely Wee Dragonauts, since I was eager to give them their own proper illustration. I say "likely" because I wasn't 100% convinced it'd be ok to repeat a card in the same year...I was thinking maybe this would be a good spot for Vendilion Clique, another bucket-lister. This composition was focused on a third character slyly inquiring into the situation between a bashful couple of close friends in full denial mode. It woulda been a cute/charming piece. I have this image of two Dragonaut partners who are kinda like Jessie and James from Team Rocket, where they're super comfortable with each other and there's all kinds of questions and speculation flying about. Or I guess Ash and Misty, only less antagonistic.

In the thumbnail, you can also see I had some notes for possible sources to study for the photobooth poses, including "Colbert," meaning Stephen Colbert, specifically the excellent trove of expressions from his acting exercise with Emily Blunt, which I've referenced before in this very year's "Furious," in fact. The thumbnail also shows a panel I scrapped where she gives him a kiss, which felt too on the nose--again, the idea of shipping (at its best) is when you can make reasonable arguments for and against the plausibility of it happening. Even in the final, "Love" is scratched out, so if you can read it you can hinge an argument on that, but at the same time, it could have been a slip up or even just a more platonic love, since they've been training together and have been tight for so long.

Easter Eggs: The middle pose in the photoroll is of course that famous Calvin and Hobbes cover, and the pose below that is the fusion dance from Dragon Ball Z. The 254 is a reference to the great Maro254.

Not normal,

Reuxben

FanArt_ink.Filthy

MTGinktober creeps into Day 18, "Filthy," starring Hazoret the...Fervent...giddily exploring the back section of a local Blockbuster, but you know, just the section they curtain off. That part.

I was dreading having to draw that complicated head ring apparatus, so many ways to mess up, and drawing circles--concentric circles to boot--was going to be tough. Plus I keep meaning to sit down and study drawing metal in ink, but on the bright side we ended up doing a lot of on the job training during MTGinktober, since so there's so much armor and sword stuff to deal with.

So here she is kinda coyly dancing around her favorite part of her fav video shack, a little too antsy to walk in while another person's in there. I figure she plays with her headdress flowy things when she's nervous or hatching unbecoming ideas. But here she's kinda giggling that the same old coot is in there again. To be fair, he's always milling around in there, so this isn't the first time she's had to wait for him to wrap it up so she can swoop in.

Fun Facts: As a personal rule, I keep all my stuff generally PG or so, but I wanted to make a bit of a risque joke here--though quite understated and left up to the viewer to decipher--based on the horrendous typography they chose for the Amonkhet Masterpieces. The special font they used gave old Hazoret here an unfortunate nickname based on what word it looks like they named her on her Invocation version, so I wanted to run with it and make a drawing of her living the dirtbag life.

Easter Eggs: The guy in the room is none other than Master Roshi from Dragon Ball Z. The steamy coverboy spoofing Combustible Gearhulk is Enthralling Victor, whose full name is Victor Damo da Roja, which is a play on Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, one of the longest names in Magic and a really interesting dude.

Not normal,

Reuxben

Fun_Boolama

Anyway, I wanted to draw something reminiscent of Bulma from DBZ, somewhat stemming from that "in the spirit of" movement Eric Canete did for a while, where he'd draw fan art-ish original pieces, thus I present Boolama.

The background is a photo from a nearby station in Tokyo. I noticed they all kinda seem to look alike...if you look closely enough.

This was the initial concept, with that caption, こんな感じか？, meaning like, well, "like this?" which captures my feelings lately, or at least when I made this, which was a while ago...

I should be in Kyoto at the moment, but ever since we've started pre-loading posts, there shouldn't be a noticeable difference in the update schedule. Hashtag meaninglessness.

Reuxben

Hare_Des.Under9000

A little ad I made inspired by Dragon Ball Z, text-free version.
Printed version has JP up top and Angloos on bottom.

It occurs to me this looks pretty (extra) ridiculous without the text.

4/18/16

Reuxben

Hare_Fear.Wingmate

The file says this is our seventh Fear, but pretty sure this is actually the sixth since the first one was just internal. I posted the previous one out of order here.

Fun Facts: This comic came from the story that multiple people did proposals at PT Khans of Tarkir, in Honolulu. Also discovered Brian Kibler used to go to the same LCS I did, but only while I was across the country at college.

Easter Eggs: Yolo in dude's hair; red mana in girl's hair; Black Lotus on the table; Luffy, Goku, Astro Boy, and Bart Simpson playing in the background. Sol Ring ambiguously in the air. Also, I believe the judge here was inspired by a judge I saw on coverage--Irish maybe?--I imagine she has red (literal, not orange) hair.

1/30/16

Reuxben

Fun_OneGoku

I drew a quick little Goku for a jKid, coloring only with Staedtler and Zebra pens. It's Goku, but with a twist.  The twist is that he's about to don Luffy's hat.Clever, I know.  Reuxben

Fun_SouperBuuper

After runch I thought I'd put on a show for the kids, sketching with the soupy remnants of my miso. Up first was Luffy from One Piece, a monster hit in Japan, but you've probably never heard of it/him.

If you have heard of One Piece at all, you might only be know this character, Chopper, but again, prolly not. Isn't that funny how something could matter so very much to an entire country, but be pretty darn irrelevant to another, aside from some loserish, clingy group stuck in the vast minority?

Buut enough about soccer.

Keep your Majin, nation!

Reuxben

AV_Sonny

This is another postcard in my postcard series. Past combatants have been a girl in red, a boy in blue, a man in black, and a thing in almost nothing. This is actually a gift to an enthusiastic fan I met, but I'm going to double dip and use it in class before I deliver it...yeah.

These are the pencils. I drew it at my desk, but I inked it on top of a mountain, in the snow. I was going to marker it up, but I tested out erasing the underlying pencils and coloring over the inks but both led to horrendous smearing, so I just went heavier on the details in ink to compensate. Hope she likes it!

Also, I'm not Canadian. I just found Canadian postcards in my desk one day.

Reuxben

Fun_Animezcla

I once drew a freakish scribble on the board during one of my elementary school Super Happy Fun Time Visit days. And ya know, it was a kinda super happy fun time, man.

It started as No Face. Then I added Chopper's hat, to roaring laughter and applause. It quickly developed into a game of seeing how much they could identify what I was adding. Such fun. Language barrier be gone!

Who we added, in order:
No Face, Chopper, Sanji, Zolo, Nico Robin, Piccolo, Majin Buu, Sailor Moon, Doraemon, and Pikachu.

Reuxben

Fun_hws.ChuChuLovely

Some more Homework Sketches. This first one was a full-pager for a kid who finished his workbook. To celebrate such a momentous feat, I draw in the back inside cover and this is what that seito got. Does it make sense? No. Must it? No. The opposite of yes? No.

But here are some more HWSs ripped straight from actual homework sheets. We've got a pig in a suit, inspired by the pig transformations in Spirited Away. And then a Christmas elf of some sort to kick off December.

Then a kappa for reasons of haste, and a personal favorite: Majin Buu--not cuz I particularly like the character, but because he's pretty easy and fast to draw but widely recognized and beloved by the kids.

Speaking of easily recognized, fast to draw, and beloved, we've also got a monster ball, or a "pokeball" for non-Japanese lame-os out there.

And speaking of speaking of easily recognized, fast to draw, and beloved subject matter, we close it off with a pikachu getting thunderdrunk. The idea was to make a simple drawing dramatic, so I used some hatching, a novel pose/angle combination, and histrionic background effects. I like how it turned out. If only they could all be that fast and snappy, though.

Reuxben

Fun_hws.ReadingComics

We've got some more homework sketches, plucked relatively fresh from the flaps of teenybopper Japanese kids' homework. Up first is a sinister take on Sanji, the mighty cook. Lookin' intense, yo!

And to top you off, we've got a surefire jam of what and how you know you do, ya know?

We gotcher Death Notes, your Batmens, your Majin Buus, too. We gotcher subtle responses to the kids' homework (a kid who doesn't like reading comics?! Not on my watch! A kid who likes magazines, comics and video games? Noice!). And we even gotcher creepy video game-playing kid and yer multi-media sticker-riffing.

What more couldja want?

Dat dere Death Note came from a kid writing "it is good not to kill my family." Oh, those Japanese!

Reuxben