I’ve had this sketch of Domon Kasshu sitting around for a while – maybe posting it will hasten my finishing it. Or, maybe this will be the final version of it. Who knows!
I’ve had a number of G Gundam artworks in various stages of completion from over the years, and I hope I can finish some of them soon!
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:
For reference, here’s how large Julius is normally:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. :)
Above is a practice painting of Corveil looking contemplative.
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.
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 Next Generation 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.