Fun_RealMoonSuzuki

Again, striving not to draw water, but stumbling into the similar sparkle trap, I did a little night scene, starring the moon.

I am always frantically scrawling for ideas when I start these "single layer" runs, so I superimposed an early, abandoned sketch over this finished picture and it made for a neat, guardian angel sort of figure, really transforming the piece.

But the beginnings of this illustration were simply that I wanted a couple to be falling apart in a grassy field at night; the guy was fading away.

I ended up deleting the guy entirely, leaving just the girl to stare up at the sky alone. It felt more dramatic and more widely interpretive.

Painting stars is fast becoming one of my favorite parts of night drawings.

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Fun_Looza

I wanted to draw my dudes in Fourth of July-inspired outfits every day in July until the holiday, so this was Alexis Blight's run. I've always wanted to do themed outfits, but I recently saw an ad with some neat US flag style stuff, and the month/holiday felt like good prompting anyway.

I was eager to draw specifically Alexis Blight because it's been a while, and the last one wasn't so great.

Since she's a bit on the meaner side, I thought she might be a little more antagonistic in her shoot, like even when everyone's having a good time, she still just has to make a little dig. They're on the same team, but she's gotta be a slight jerk about it.

But another reason for this series is because I also wanted to reclaim my patriotism. Things have tanked since the election--even before, during the campaign--and it's made me feel even shame of being from the US. But I love my country and am proud of what it is, should be, and represents.

It's been hard to be proud of my country lately, but we're going to get through this monstrosity and I do suspect we'll all be better for it, and banish those evil beings and forces strangling our national identity at long last.

I'm writing this as of 7/28/17, the day the Senate's "Skinny Repeal" bill died, meaning the Affordable Care Act is seemingly safe for now. The deciding votes were from rank-breaking Republican Sens. Collins, Murkowski, and McCain. A happy, proud ending to a horrifying story.

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Fun_Snowbody

This is like our Spritely Going piece, in that we started with a landscape, but felt compelled to put a supernatural figure in there, too.

I wanted to draw a glacier, but in the end, it felt a little too unexciting, so I thought some kind of spirit-like figure that could have any range of good-evil morality would be cool. Might have been subtly inspired by when Aang goes into the Avatar State at the Northern Water Tribe, I'll bet--I recently spotted my copies of Rufftoon's old Water Tribe volumes, so that could have been why water spirits were on my mind.

For added punch, I wanted a decoy figure to contrast focus, so I added a moose-ish guy. I believe this (and the icy theme overall) was driven by my coming across a band called Pup literally day-of or prior to this drawing--not to mention, my disdain for summer and love of cold/winter weather probably played a key inspirational role here, too.

Yes! In fact, I remember--they kept coming up on the Youtube recommended list while listening to other music, and "pup" is one of my favorite words, so I finally decided to give this video game-styled video a try--was thrilled--and explored a few more of their videos.

Notably their song, "Dark Days," was incredible. They were so great I actually watched those and their kid adventure videos, too (usually I just listen and don't actually watch music videos!). Anyway, they are apparently Canadian, hence moose.

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Fun_SpritelyGoing

This one came about because, again, I strive not to fall back into drawing water, so rather than a desert, I tried for a forest with a spritely figure.

While wanting to do more than a landscape here, I wanted to avoid using a straight-up figure, so rather than a firm character, I tried something more abstract, perhaps inspired subconsciously by Eidolon of Blossoms.

This also entailed using my texture brush alone to sculpt the figure, just swipes of color, no actual linework. This was quite a change of pace.

Once we had a forest elemental duder, I wanted to see if I could lend some storytelling by having its feet spur flower growth. To contrast this, I pulled color away from areas it hadn't stepped on, which also had the benefit of darkening the values around the figure so it could contrast more.

I suspect I'm falling into a new "water" trap of adding sparkles a bit too liberally to scenes, but whatever, this piece was pretty much all experimental.

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FanArt_JamesAndTheGiantBeach

Since Wile E. Coyote, I've basically always rooted for the villains in shows, and Team Rocket was one of the legends, hence Jamezu.

Wasn't sure which Poke to put in place perched upon his personage, but I went with Chimecho since that's the last main I recall him with before I moved to Japan and lost touch with the show.

I remember how charming Chimecho was with him, so I wanted it to sorta be cuddling with him.

This actually started with the background as a separate piece, but halfway through that, I thought I'd love to draw a summery Vicky/Fred over top.

But realizing people only care about fan art, I started thinking who I could "cast" to star in the piece in lieu of my guys.

I've always loved James and casual fan art pieces showing characters more on their off hours than in more usual circumstances, so that's why we went with Jamezu.

I do feel in the end, the background didn't quite go with the figures, but I'm happy with it independently, though I added the trees after it looked a little bare when combined with the figures included.

There was the issue of worrying about making James look too white, since I'd be default lean him vaguely Asian since he's a JP IP, but meh, it's whatever you want.

The background was a thrill, though, because at random intervals I'd drastically warp it from its more uninspiring origins as a straight-on beach.

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FanArt_28

Revamping the old 27 piece. Completely re-inked it digitally, even.

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Fun_Deserto

Ok, here's an experimental one. Originally there was going to be a giant dragony creature in there with like a house/factory on or built into its back, but then, curveball, I thought to try alieny/sci-fi-y text. You can see some of its shadow in the center there, that darker brown.

This started as just an effort again, to avoid using water, as I feel it's a crutch I lean on when drawing landscapes. The total opposite of the ocean might be a desert, so I went with something sandy.

The text was originally going to be some sci-fi-ish light-based structure come from the sands, and then, again, to spur innovation, I rotated the structures, it looked like text, so I went from there. The structures made of light might have been inspired by Lost in Arcadia, a book I was reading by my old classmate, which opens early on with a similar concept.

The smaller text is just more manipulations of the larger text, chopped up and rearranged. Since the image was going to be a bit overshadowed by the text, I got to experiment with some different layer styles, like a radial motion layer set to overlay or something like that.

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Fun_CliffaB

This was another improvised, single-layerer under a tight deadline that relied on random colors to guide me more than anything.

I did know I wanted to paint a red or otherwise unconventionally colored sky, ideally using a lot of heavy pinks.

The train/monorail was inspired by the monorail ride I took during one of my very first days after moving to Japan.

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Fun_ToxicityToo

I wanted to try an experimental quick-painting over some old lines.

Again, I love the Oakland A's color scheme, so I am always happy to incorporate green and yellow (and white) into costumes.

This was just an exercise, but I'd say I came away with some more understanding, so...worth?

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FanArt_BaddestKid

Man, Ben10 was one of my biggest early influences, so I was amped to do a Ben10 piece, seeing as my last full-fledged effort was seven years ago!

In fact, Ben's transformation into Ghostfreak was what inspired Deadboy's look, which surely helped inform Z's vibe. I definitely remember pausing the DVR frame by frame during the morph so I could get Deadboy's eyes to look just as rusted out.

To be more accurate I probably should have used Ghostfreak's wild form, not his post-capture look. And while I was at it, I should have gone for a different villain. My favorite is actually the Shaman dude. I remember hating Dr. Animo, though. He was so gross and his debut episode always seemed to give me a headache--I associate it with a hot, sapping summer day.

Anyway, since I've been in Japan, it seems there's been a million spin-offs, but that first series will always be special to me. The writing, the acting, the animation, the stories, it all just fired me up, particularly before they started getting to the universe-sprawling stuff. Just a kid on a summer adventure where weird, vaguely-interconnected stuff starts happening.

I do feel a little bummed cuz I copped out with this smokey, impressionistic background. I just wanted it to feel Sci-Fi-y and mysterious, with the focus on the characters and the moody atmosphere. I also tried to use more value control, as per KNKL's constant lauding of this.

Bonus round. I did try going for a fully-painted look, but scrapped it for more usual cel-shades. This is one of the better painted drafts in progress, but it just kept feeling more creepy/uncanny-valley than cool or anything, so I cut it.

Here's the initial, super-rough sketch. It was all about Ghostfreak stalking Ben, and only later in the coloring process did I realize it'd look a little cooler and creepier if Ghostfreak were bigger and almost cradling Ben's skull, while still pushed further into the background.

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SLS_Helicopter

Float off into nothing, it's Sick Little Suicide #33, "Helicopter," in which we witness actual, global evil.
This image was inspired by the lyrics from Motion City Soundtrack's "Hello Helicopter," believe it or not, but the main theme was the "US" withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. I was thinking specifically of these lyrics:

In several years no one will care
They'll be rich and dead
So let somebody else devise a cure for it

The withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is nothing short of an evil, global act of spite. And for what? For the personal flight of fancy or vendetta of a vicious minority that either refuses to heed wiser heads, or is simply that bent on being as foul to as many Others as possible.

Assume nobody knows if climate change is real. Why would you gamble everyone away on the stubborn (or ignorant) assertion that you are right and cannot possibly be wrong despite your track record of being grossly, perniciously wrong on just about everything hitherto? What if you're wrong? If you take precautions and are wrong, what's the penalty? You get to lead the world in a new movement anyway. Isn't that good for a power fix? Why not excel in and lead the new industries that open up? Let's also assume you make less money from taking climate change seriously. You'd make slightly less money indefinitely into the future and command prestige and leadership versus make slightly more money for a finite period and experience deteriorating living conditions, prestige, and leadership. It's like the schoolyard hypothetical where a guy comes by every day to offer you a choice between a nickel and a dime. He laughs when you choose the less valuable nickel, but comes back every day with the same offer to see if you've learned your lesson; when you finally choose the more valuable dime he no longer comes around. Make a dime once or infinite nickels?

Let's assume all the experts are right. That makes this even more of an obvious choice: follow the advice of people who know what they're talking about. It's not any more complicated than that. In the same way you listen to what the doctor says without yourself having gone to medical school, or the electrician without having studied electrical systems, or the IT guy, or the skydiving instructor.

Fun Facts: With the Paris withdrawal in mind, I started this image by just throwing down slabs of color on a single layer since I only had about 40 minutes to work on this, but fortunately this illustration sorta emerged on its own. It was originally going to be a skeleton drowning in a flood of water, reaching futilely to the empty sky, but when putting on a final yellow-orange layer for more warmth (it was a little too arctic/blue) and toggling through layer styles, I got this neat, radical neony version that I thought looked pretty striking.

Easter Eggs: The skeleton is basically us eroded away into bare nothing and begging for mercy while being overwhelmed with the ocean. I imagined more literally in the scene that the skeleton's reaching for a helicopter to pull him up to safety, but not even that is there.

Full disclosure, I don't actually particularly care about climate change, but I have sense enough to understand the sheer magnitude of the consensus of scientists warning of danger. Not to mention the presented evidence is simply unassailable. I would not presume to know more than them, and that they're all warning of the same thing means any reasonable person should take the precaution and listen to them. Plus, it makes no sense to doom future generations if we have the chance to preclude their ruin now at no real detriment to us in the present and with the possibility of simultaneously opening new industries (and leadership opportunities) as we phase out the old, destructive ones. I see it like recycling: does my individual recycling actually benefit anyone or make a dent in any environmental problems? Who actually knows. But why not? If it's meant to be good and be part of a greater mission to help others and future others, why not do it?

And at the most gut level of rationale, if that Orange Fraud is staunchly anti-climate-change, that should be compelling reason enough to think the opposite--supporting the Paris Agreement--is the more humane, rational, and just position.

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