Aurelle with a comically-large version of her Rosy Boa pet/familiar, which is her favorite species of snake.
Happy Year of the Snake! I’ve had a sketch of Aurelle with her pet snake or familiar I did a while ago, and today seemed an opportune time to try and add to it.
This is how the sketch looked when I opened it up earlier today:
Initial sketch of the idea.
For reference, here’s how large Julius is normally:
Aurelle putting a tiny party hat on a tiny Julius, the name of her little long friend.
I think Julius lost a bit of cluelessness through being painted, but it was fun to go back to it again. I remember I felt stuck, at the time, for how to take the idea forward. I was debating which style I wanted to paint it in. I don’t think I’d take it much further than this, but I hope it works as a small, silly painting.
I’ve been looking at some of my older art, and it made me nostalgic for a type of painting style I used to do more often. The style is more controlled than what I’ve been experimenting with in recent years, which is more loose and expressive. This previous style is also easier for me to do, plus I think it tends to turn out better, or more clear/easier to read, to a viewer. I enjoy both styles, and want to try and incorporate both more this year.
Here’s a fun fact about snakes: Contrary to their common perception as vicious predators, many snakes are quite timid and docile – even friendly. In captivity, if respected and treated gently, many may never show signs of aggression toward their keeper. They key is to learn and understand their natural instincts and behavior, and gain the snake’s trust over time. Though they do not show affection the same way mammalian pets do, it is generally accepted that the highest compliment a snake can show you is trusting you to not harm it. In this sense, this trust might be the most equivalent form of love or affection a snake can show to such a drastically different creature as ourselves.
I did the original line sketch a while ago, but I believe the above paragraph captures part of my thought process when sketching it. I wanted to try and show a calm and friendly snake, more similar to my real-world interactions with them, to contrast with how they are generally portrayed as being vicious and deadly in entertainment media. When I first found this out about them, I was very surprised by how inaccurately they tend to be portrayed. I never knew they were such misunderstood animals, and almost always unfairly maligned.
I also wanted to show that relationship between human-and-reptile, where while the reptile might not not understand “love” in the same way a human might, there can still exist a friendly bond between two species who do not fully understand each other. :)
Aurelle’s long friend is based on the Rosy Boa, one of only two boa species native to the United States (I still think this fact is so cool!). They are primarily found in the states of California, New Mexico, and Arizona, as well as the northern part of Mexico. Real Rosy Boas are quite small snakes, growing to only around 3-4 feet in length (about 1 meter). They are known for their calm and sweet dispositions, and are also considered the slowest snake in the world – clocking in at a respectable 1 mile per hour (~1.6 km/hr).
The Rosy Boa is also my favorite species of snake – in addition to their calm dispositions, I was also initially drawn by their beautiful, yet perpetually confused, faces. The combination is very adorable to me. :)
I’ll put the full painting in the full post (below) – I might touch this up in the future, and I’ll keep it limited to the full post until then.
I’ve been making some small UI tweaks to this blog and my main site that I wanted to document for myself somewhere – and this blog seems the perfect place to do so!
Name change
The first change, which is both the most and least obvious, is I changed the address for this blog.
However, if you happened to click on both links, you’ll see that they both work! I was really happy to discover a way to do this. I’m going to start using the Landy domain for the sketchblog, but the original address for the blog (including all past posts) will continue to work indefinitely, even for new blog posts! While the old URL (“Liz”) will show if you manually browse to one or click an old link on one of my socials, once you click to another place within the blog (such as another post, or the recent posts link in the menu), it will then show the new (Landy) link. This is incredibly helpful, because I’ve been thinking about how I want to use the Landy domain, but I was not 100% certain I wanted to move the sketchblog over to it entirely. Now, I can sort of have it both ways.
I’ve actually had the Landy domain for several years, mainly for identity reasons, but I never got around to using it for anything (other than the base URL – without the “sketchblog” part – redirecting to my portfolio site). The base domain still redirects to my portfolio site as of this post, but I have plans for it soon for it to become its own thing, separate from my portfolio.
Along these lines, I also changed the blog’s name to “Landy’s Sketchblog,” whereas before it was “Liz’s Sketchblog.”
I’ll go into why I wanted to consider this change later on in the post, after showing the layout changes. But I wanted to note down this name change at the top, because it is an important change for the clarity of this blog.
Layout Changes
While looking through my files, I unfortunately realized I didn’t save as many screenshots of the layout changes as I thought I had. But that’s okay, I’ll just post what I do have.
Desktop Layout (Sketchblog)
Let’s start with the changes to this blog! Here’s how it looks now:
Current sketchblog layout, main page with off-white background. Link color also adjusted to slightly more green.
The latest change I made was switching the background color for the main content area from white to an off-white – I’m not sure this will be the final color, but I’ve been leaning toward using more of a variety of colors for my Landy/non-“Liz” pages recently. It’s more fun!
Here’s how it looked before deciding to change the content area background color:
Sketchblog layout, main page with white background.
Here’s how it looked before I decided to change the blog’s name (also apologies for the misalignment of these screenshots, they were taken on-the-fly while making the site updates):
Slightly before the current layout, main page.
In the above, the main change with the current layout is decreasing the size of the blog title and description, as well as lowering the opacity for both, as well as the nav links and social icons. This is to emphasize what should be the main draw for this blog – the content of the posts themselves.
And here’s how it looked before I made the small tweaks earlier this week (showing the archive page, though without the categories I added later – this screenshot is from a while back):
Before the main changes from earlier this week, blog archive (without categories showing).
Mobile Layout (Sketchblog)
Mobile version of the sketchblog upon open.
When the “menu” button is pressed.
Menu expands when a category with sub-items is clicked and expands,
Here’s how the sketchblog should now look on mobile – before, the top bar was much wider by default. It still isn’t as small as I’d like (the leftmost image), but it should be a much better viewing experience now compared to before. The menu also expands, and reveals the sidebar image when the nested items are expanded. This isn’t fully to my preference (see below), but I am okay with it for now.
Mobile Layout (Portfolio Site)
I also wanted to jot down a change I did last year – I finally created a mobile-friendly layout for my main portfolio website. I know I took screenshots of how it looked before, but I couldn’t find it among the cacophony of photos on my phone – so I have only the current layout to show (I’ll edit the “before” screenshots in the future, if I end up finding them again):
Portfolio site, mobile layout, default view.
Menu expands upon clicking the topbar button.
For a sense of the previous layout, imagine that topbar covering about 30% of the screen (with an art graphic on it) with the navigation bar on it, instead of the thin bar that’s there now that appears when tapped.
With the sketchblog changes, I was actually trying to have it look closer to how I changed it for my portfolio site – but because I use WordPress for the sketchblog, I don’t have as much flexibility or control as I do for my portfolio site. I’m sure there is a way to have the topbar as slim as my portfolio site, but the time investment for me to figure that out doesn’t make it feasible, for now, as I’m not a web developer by trade. The sketchblog’s mobile layout should be functional, as well as a more pleasant browsing experience now, which was my aim.
I am pleased that I was able to figure out a way to have the menu bar on my portfolio site look more elegant than using a content managing system like WordPress! I always created the sketchblog with WordPress as a kind of “testing ground,” as I like using WordPress, but I also love the control manually writing your site gives you. I think both work well for different purposes – for something like a blog, it would probably be too inflexible if I tried to do that manually (as well as take up too much time, most likely, in terms of maintenance).
Why the changes?
So, why these updates? Well, the mobile changes are obvious – I’ve long preferred browsing via desktop over mobile. This caused me, probably unwisely, to prioritize the desktop experience over the mobile one for many years – long after mobile eclipsed desktop use. This was partially because I find the mobile browsing experience personally vaguely unpleasant – the physical act of looking down at this tiny screen has always been sort of uncomfortable or unpleasant. I think I became used to the sitting-up posture growing up with desktop computers. I never wanted to spend longer looking down at this ridiculously tiny phone screen longer than I had to.
But I understand that I am not the main demographic, and that the majority of the browsing experience nowadays is through mobile. I have to admit I partially was spurred to fix my layout after some friends mentioned they were looking at my portfolio website, which I assumed was through their phones, and was mildly horrified as I knew I had been neglecting the mobile layout. So I have them to thank for spurring me to improve it, which I should have done earlier than this/last year – but! Now it’s done (or functional).
Additional changes & thoughts
Another change I did spur-of-the-moment earlier this week, while working on the blog, was changing the title from “Liz’s Sketchblog” to “Landy’s Sketchblog,” A small change, but something I wanted to note down for myself here.
The reason is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and that I’ve decided to begin implementing this year. I have always had a bit of a disconnect between my name and my art versus my pseudonym and my art. For a long time I only used my pseudonym (“Landylachs”), and avoided actively associating my name with my art. A few years ago, I decided to try using my name with my art, in addition to my alias, as it felt right at the time. I don’t think that was the “wrong” decision, but I do think it has created this underlying tension I always have between my work as “Liz” versus my work as “Landy.” I suspect this makes little difference outwardly, and it is likely entirely an internal perception thing I am overthinking. I’ve tried to ignore that discrepancy ever since, but it never truly went away.
The main cause of the tension in this discrepancy is I am always conflicted about how I wish to present myself under these names. I feel I should maintain a certain level of distance and professionalism with “Liz,” but there are times when I wish to be more of a hobbyist, more casual and whimsical (and, let’s be honest – feel allowed to show more excitement about whichever fandoms I’m into at the moment) – which I don’t feel comfortable doing when I am “Liz.” Because even though I do art professionally, at heart, one of my favorite things about art is how it helps you discover people who share genuine love over the things you’re passionate about too – whether that is fandom or original art and stories. Since I use both names interchangeably, I think my accounts have been trying to present both ways, and not fully succeeding at either.
So! This year, after thinking about it for too long (and a wholehearted thank-you-and-apologies to friends and fellow artists I’ve reached out to ramble about this and seek out their advice and opinions – which have all been incredibly helpful!) – after thinking about it, I’ve finally settled on what I want to do about this, I’ll continue calling it, “discrepancy.”
The portfolio site (“LizLiu.com”) won’t be going anywhere, but I’m going to start using it more for my more fully-polished art. For my more hobbyist art and personal projects, I’m going to start doing them under “Landylachs.com” – thought that leaves the question of my social accounts, which are all under the Landy identity. I’m not fully certain what, if anything, I’ll change with those – right now, I’m leaning toward slowly transitioning them to being more casual, maybe, and I might gradually move all the socials from my portfolio site to the future Landy site, and have the portfolio site exist as its own, mainly self-contained thing.
Part of the reason for using this blog again, is I think writing this out helps me decide what I want to do, so this is part of that process. I’m trying to implement more things this year, instead of overly ruminating or overthinking it to myself. I think the rapid pace of social media adds to this rumination, causing me to constantly second-guess whether I want to even share anything at all, and then I end up keeping everything I’m excited by offline and not sharing anything online at all. This blog has been helping me slow down a bit, and decide which things I do want to share, and which things need more time to percolate and keep to myself until they’re ready. I’m excited so far!
Add-on Update: January 29, 2025
Adjusted navigation menu. Reduced the number of links for conciseness. (In preparation for future links, hopefully soon :) )
Add-on Update: January 30, 2025
Adjusted caption text to improve legibility. (Decreased letter-spacing and line-height)
Changed the “Recent Posts” layout to a list-style one for improved legibility.
Changed “Recent Posts” and “Blog Archive” pagination style to be more consistent with the main blog’s pagination style. (Note: Hover text is still incorrect, showing the blue-green link color instead of #fff as intended. Aim for fix in the future.)
Warm-up sketch from yesterday, touched-up a bit today. I liked it yesterday, but don’t like it looking at it again today. Ah well.
It’s a concept for a potentially new character. He’d be related to Arquel in some way (not necessarily in terms of blood relation – he might only be a similar species, for instance). I’m not quite sure why I often tend to default to this perspective of the face – though I suspect it’s likely because I’m short of stature, and am used to looking up toward people during conversations, haha.
I also made some small adjustments to the blog’s mobile layout – tried making the topbar smaller and less intrusive. It isn’t as thin as I’d like, but hopefully it should make mobile browsing a more pleasant experience than before. I also decreased the letter-spacing and line-height for the font a little – changed it to the Duskbirds comic’s blog’s font, which I didn’t realize I didn’t carryover to this blog. Should make reading a little easier than before!
Recently finished this GW2 commission for Rafael! His character, Lilly, who is a bloodstone-themed elementalist!
Initial sketch ideas! I had several ideas come to mind based on Rafael’s description for Lilly, as he had a specific mood and personality in mind for her portrait. I always love working from a written description. It’s very satisfying to imagine what a character’s personality is like, and then try and reflect that outward in their visual portrayal.
Kurt, one of the characters from my unnamed project.
Happy New Year! Wow, it’s been a bit since I last updated here. I’ve been meaning to start updating my sketchblog again for a while, and the new year seems like a prime time to start. My plan is to start using this blog as an additional archive for posts I make on social media. Which is sort of funny, as when this blog was first created, it was intended as the main archive, and social media was the secondary avenue – how it switched during the heyday of social media during the 2010’s!
Now, with how turbulent social media has become post-2020 (which I largely think began during the NFT-fiasco, and the nail in the coffin was generative AI images – though BlueSky is now sort of a tentative phoenix rising from the ashes), it’s lead me to pursue keeping this blog updated more seriously than I have in the past.
To start, I’ll post a few of my favorite personal artworks from within the past few months, in no particular order. Mostly of my original characters, and two fan pieces.
The first one above is a painting of Kurt with his original blue hair design, instead of the pale brown/blond he’s had for most of his design. I was practicing some painting techniques with this one, something more smooth than what I usually do. It was a fun experiment, and I’m happy with what I learned from it.
“Corveil,” from the same project as Kurt.
Above is a sketch of Corveil, in a looser style I’m more drawn toward. I really like the looseness, though I suspect it might be a little more difficult to read as a viewer. Though I haven’t posted more anywhere yet, I’ve been developing more about these characters over the past few months. I would really love to create a little story involving them, just small ones to explore their characters. I’ve done several small one-shot comic pages involving them, which are in various stages of thumbnails to flats. I’m not sure which of those I’ll finish – their quality varies immensely – but they’ve felt really rewarding to do just for myself over the last year.
One thing I seem to be forever struggling with is coming up with a name I like for the project involving these characters. I’ve tried several last year, and I still am not enamored with any of them. I really want to have some kind of name to unify them with, instead of a vague “my characters,” though I’m leaning toward this not being very important right now and that I’m overthinking it.
Trahearne and Malyck from Guild Wars 2 | With support from ArenaNet.
Above is an in-progress crop of Trahearne and Malyck from Guild Wars 2. I really love painting this characters, and I have so much I want to explore with them – which I have plans for later this year. :)
Corveil
Above is a practice painting of Corveil looking contemplative.
Corveil again.
Here’s a sketch of Corveil looking a little malicious. I’m personally fond of this one, though I also suspect this one doesn’t read very clearly.
“Gul Dukat” from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
And above we have a Cardassian (from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) study, which I just did today as a warm-up painting. Though I first watched DS9 three years ago – and I even did a small painting of Garak afterward, which I had completely forgotten about (it’s not my favorite drawing, otherwise I would post it here) – but that first watch was as background material I had on while I was working. I had the random urge to rewatch the series recently, and upon a rewatch (I’m in the sixth season now), I realized I had missed so much during my initial rewatch.
There is so much that is lost if you are primarily watching the show while not actively viewing it, as I had – so much wonderful physical and non-verbal acting by the performers which adds incredible layers and depth to their characters. I went into my second watch with The NextGeneration as still my favorite Trek (DS9 was the last series of the pre-modern Treks I watched), and by very early on during this rewatch (by season 2 or 3), knew that DS9 had overtaken TNG for me. It is now my favorite Trek, by a long shot (incidentally, TNG is probably now my second-favorite, followed by The Original Series, then Enterprise, and then finally Voyager).
This study is based on the quintessential Cardassian, pioneered by Marc Alaimo – none other than Gul Dukat, of course! After I read how the makeup artist (Michael Westmore) largely based the Cardassian design on Alaimo’s “unusually long” neck, I knew that if I decided to learn how to draw Cardassians, I would start by studying Alaimo’s Gul Dukat appearance.
I really love Alaimo’s portrayal of the Gul Dukat character – there is so much subtlety and nuance to his performance, and his voice has this ASMR-quality to my ears that makes him intoxicating for me to listen to.
I love Alaimo’s/Westmore’s physical representation of a Cardassian so much, that I didn’t want any drawings I do of the character to be a replica. We have seven wonderful seasons to admire their work on the character for that. I knew from the beginning I wanted to try some kind of merger between Alaimo’s physical appearance, and an artistic interpretation of the character. I’ve done a number of “Gul Dukat” sketch studies before this one to try and figure one out – I’m sure this won’t be the end version, but this is probably my favorite result so far.
I don’t think I quite captured his charming malevolence, though I am pleased with how knobby his Cardassian neck turned out.
