I went from pinning my PaintLog entry from 27 February to pinning the link to the List of Support I started shortly after the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine. This list includes links how to support Ukrainian artists and LGBTQIA* folks. Please follow the links and donate if you are able to.
(K)Nights and Days on the Beach
It’s only two weeks since the February recap, but I already got four new art pieces, so let’s do a mid-March recap!
First of all, Witchphibians series got a new character, Kimeira Wartribe. I actually created here already in February but saved her for the March’s PaintLog.
Creating this character and the accompanying text sheet also made it necessary (or to it felt) to write down all the Witchphibians lore I came up so far in one single work.
At the same time I changed the subpage’s web address from „Raven-Frogfeet“ to „Witchphibians„. The old page still is available, so older links won’t lead into nothingness, but now you will get directly on a page that bears the series name.
Before doing this I also participated in another DTIYS and afterwards I wanted to draw a new Crissy&Paula piece so badly. It turned out not to be done that fast as hoped for (as usual), but I’m quite proud of it (and there again is a not so safe for work version on my special Patreon account*).
*If you are new here:You will get access via a tip in my jar on Ko-fi.
Witchphibians: Kimeira Wartribe
It took me almost a whole year to add another character to the Witchphibians series.
I had this idea of a battle witch riding an axe instead of a broom some time ago. Doing so, I could have stopped by drawing her on an empty canvas, but as usual I got carried away and thought „What if she is some kind of guardian of Witchwood?*“.
I also was struggling a little bit with here name. Initially, I thought of something like „Chimeira“, but this would’ve been shortened to „Chi“ and this name already is taken by another character (in a completely different context) who is really dear to me.
So I got to the „K“ and this way I was able to shorten her name to „Kim“. I also wasn’t sure if she is going to be spelled „Kimeira“ or „Kimera“ but in the end, I kept the „ei“. Additionally, I wanted to call her „Yasha ‚Kimeira‘ Wartribe“.
At the point of time I was drawing her, I read a book about Star Trek: The Next Generation. So, „Yasha“ would’ve been a blending of the name of the security officer „Tasha Yar“. Plus, it resembled the name „Sasha Waybright“ from Disney’s Amphibia series. It wasn’t intended but she even got a scar in her face.
Still, I abandoned „Yasha“ for now since it wouldn’t have fit into the witches name system that I established so far (on the other hand this leading to writing the Almanac (see below) to explain the handling of the witches names (among other things)).
However, you can be asured, the name „Yasha“ connected with Kimeira will pop up again in the future.
Another issue I was struggling with was if she is going to be called a „Battle Witch“ or a „Warrior Mage“. Again, the fist one wouldn’t have fit into the nomenclature system of my witches world where witches with a magical profession are called „mages“ and, well, nobodys stops her (or others) to call „Battle Witch“ in day to day live.
*The not yet mentioned region where the Witchphibians series is taking place.
With this piece I took the opportunity to playing around with blurs again. Sadly, many of the background details I worked on for hours go blurred too and there was no way to de-blur them without crushing the whole painting. But, well it, it wasn’t that of a problem.
A problem was, however, that I added a leafy shadow overlay but I forgot to blur it first round. Therefore, it looked more like Kimeira was covered in mud. The (now) final piece, though, is the corrected version.
Sidenote: Not long after I finished Kimeira, the anime show „Izetta“ on Crunchyroll caught my eye (and I loved to watch it). Seems like there already have been other people around with the idea of a fighting witch riding on a weapon through the air – Izetta even has the same hair colour like Kimeira.
DTIYS: Cactus Knight
I don’t do a lot of DTIYS. Like with fanart, ideas regarding my own OCs are too many and time is rare. Still, this DTIYS of Greenfinch.Garden (Instagram) caught my idea right from the beginning and I wanted to participate. However, it took me until a few days before the deadline before I got any idea how to approach it.
I got the idea of an armor resembling an organic grown plant and its leaves with spikes, like a cactus. Same applies to the sword. Hence the title of my drawing. I even thought of giving her a green skin colour but then I thought brown also will be fit for a cactus.
The armor in the original painting is more silver but to get the cactus, it had to be changed towards green. This had the disadvantage that I had to struggle with the sword not standing out enough. Both had the same colour tone, the one the original painting provided for the plants. So I painted the blade way brighter and the hilt way darker.
I also changed the pose and this resulted in an exercise in shading because now one side of her body lies in shadows, the other one is lightened by the moon. Actually, I’m quiete proud how I managed this.
Witchphibians: The Witches Almanac
As hinted above, when creating Kimeira I noticed there were so many details I until now only kept in my head or hinted at in past posts you would have to search first to get this information. It also may become handy to have something you actually can look minor details up, if they slipped your mind (even as creator of the series).
So, the idea of an almanac to collect all the lore of Witchphibians was born.
I put it in the design of an actual Almanac, using the paper texture as background which I used since the Mermay 2020 entries as background for things written down on pages (may it be Samandra’s Fabric Journal, the Mermaid Squad’s character sheets or the letter Sam received on „Pragmatic Alien Day“).
Right from the beginning I wanted to decorate it with (newly drawn) tiny sketches but it also came handy to just insert old drawings in black & white (or rather a deep purple & transparent parts).
So far I shared three postings on Instagram, feauturing the introduction, a disclaimer, the terminology and some chapters of the main part.
The first part is some kind of introduction and terminology to tell you what the Almanac is talking about when using certain terms. And since there were space left, I also included a disclaimer with copyright information and information about what influenced to this series.
The more interesting information is to be found in the main part which gives an overview over the witches community, social structury, some traditions and general behaviours. It will be continued in the future whenever new information comes to my mind and feels consistent enough to be put into words and sentences.
Arcryla City: Kiss on the Beach
Since my last Crissy painting (as Aquarius) was from January, my last Arcryla City painting (Secret Santa to Eun Bee, depicting her OC) and the last Crissy Arcryla City painting even from end of October (the Midnight Gala piece), I felt the urge to draw a Crissy Paula Arcryla City painting again.
„One advantage of living in a floating city was that you were able to go places. Sandy, warm and splashy places.“ (NSFW version: „One advantage of living in a floating city was that you were able to go places. Sandy, hot and wet places.“)
I felt, they needed some „us“ time and also wanted to took the opportunity to practice anatomy and anatomy poses again (at the same time adding more content to my Patreon account for more explicite poses).
First I thought of depicting them making out under the shower. To get a SFW piece I would’ve tucked them into one big blanket. But this wouldn’t have taken away the N in NSFW at all (even more so, because it would’ve fired the fantasy and got you an even more imaginative picture in you head of what they might be doing there under the blanket).
So, I tried to skip the blanket and just give them swimsuits* for the SFW version and it worked in every way I could imagine. The shower head remained, though, because there are showers on public beaches. The hardest part of this drawing was to draw the kiss, though. If you don’t want to get a nose boop, the heads had to be tilted. Therefore, I looked up references and drew my way pixel for pixel towards the kiss you are able to see now.
The first approach of beach scene already contained Acrcryla City floating in the sky in the background. There were two reasons why I additionally put some leaves in the upper right corner.
1. Because I planned a NSFW version it would’ve looked strange seeing them enjoying each other when a whole city in the background is able to watch them doing so.
2. The city alone won’t have the same effect as the other object in the edges of the painting. There would’ve been some kind of big space, leading the eye away from the important part towards the floating city.
So, I added an extra object to frame the painting properly. In a first attempt, now the city wasn’t to be seen anymore at all, but I erased some of the leaves. Therefore, you now are able to spot the city again (after giving attention to anything else).
*Perhaps you noticed, Crissy’s swimsuit resembles the colours of the Pansexual Pride flag, Paula’s fingers and toes nail polish together with the bikini the one of the Lesbian Pride flag.
From Snow to Space
February is a short month, 3/4 are already gone. I managed to draw five paintings in three weeks. Surprisingly, two of them were fanart or kind of fanart. Still, I only will show you four today to keep the fifth for the next time.
The first one is another tale from the Witchphibians series, not only telling a story but also adding to the lore.The second one is fanart of the Netflix series „Trinkets“.
There won’t be any (heavy) spoilers, although in theory the painting as such may be considered a spoiler (despite not really being one).
Another fanart is the Valentins piece I drew of Sam Uggler, the OC of the Instagram artist AlienPrideArt and last but not least, we entered Pisces season. So, enjoy the addition of two fishy OCs to my ZodiOCs series.
Witchphibians: Warming Thoughts
This piece was inspired by an exchange of thoughts on a Discord server about how Raven and Sam would manage winterly tempertures. While feeling cold easily but managing quite well in their human forms, it could get quite freezily when changing into their amphibian forms at the wrong moment.
So, this image popped up in my mind and it was rather convenient since I regretted that I couldn’t show all the character design changes of Raven in the SFW version of the Witchphibian painting before. Now you will be able to spot the freckles on the shoulder region, the arms, the legs, regions that usually would’de have been covered by her dress (on Instagram and Ko-fi at least, for the NSFW version see Patreon).
There were a lot of things I practiced this time when drawing it: Perspective, pose, anatomy, water in it’s various forms, but it turned out the actually new thing I tried out was the overall lighting of each section of the painting (left, right, front / main characters) to give each of them a specific feeling.
To this purpose I used overlays and colour gradients. The left side got a blue overlay to give it a cold, wet, muddy feeling, the right one an orange overlay for a warm, dry and clean impression. Finally, I laid a red overlay over the front to make it rosy, cosy, comfortable.
Finally, there is the Spongehole Magic you can read about in slide two. This is an idea I came up with when adding Samandra’s glow to her spots. They glow when she is excited or when she’s doing magic. So, the spongehole magic theory was a handy device to provide her with as much fresh, hot, clean water as she needs to thaw Raven out.
It is inspired by wormholes, of course. When wormholes are holes in space adn time that are connected by tunnels, why shouldn’t the same apply to sponge holes? You would have to have magic abilities to use them, but since sponge tissue technically is nothing different from any other natural fabric materials (animal or plant based), it would be an easy match for Samandra the Fabric Mage to get hold of them.
For everyone who is interested in the drawing process I also created a short video clip made from the drawing steps which I shared earlier with my supporters on Ko-fi.
Ride with Sally
The Netflix show „Trinkets“ is one of my guilty pleasures. I can watch the show again and again and again (and actually, I’m doing this). It’s one of my comfort shows with a great cast, great music, lovely relationships and teenage High School drama with a lot up and downs (most of the time simultanously). It’s already a few years old but Elodie and Jill still make a cute couple.
Is this a spoiler? Not really, not if you already saw the painting. And even regarding the show it’s no real spoiler since the he depicted scene only is inspired, not an actual scene of the show. If you know the show, you surely will recognize the scene, though. If not, see here (Spoiler alert!).
You will notice that I changed Jill’s costume slightly by adding the badge (which also has a special meaning within the show).
It says „I ride with Sally“, hence the title of this piece.
Pragmatic Alien Day
AlienPrideArt‘s drawing and dialogues with his OC Sam Uggler are hilarious. They made me want to draw Sam in my own style and in the forefront of Valentines Day inspiration struck me after seeing this post.
Sam may be a very pragmatic alien, but she asked for Tequilla, so she will get Tequilla and a good old-fashioned Valentines letter.
Happy Pragmatic Alien Day, Sam!
ZodiOC: Pisces
Admittedly, this was an easy one. I remembered Arrivals comic strips that featured two fish last year. Therefore, meet Eusthy and Eusthwo again!
I kept the drawing style of the comics and (of course) the mood of their personalities. In the background you may notice Lilly’s (the dragonfly), Miles (the millipede) and Silvies (the silver fish) accompanying them as constellations in the sky.
Above & Below
Time for the January recap (January already is almost over! O.O). Tbh, I’m quite satisfied with my January work. As usual there were a lot of work to do in my bread and butter job, but at least I was able to paint one new painting per week. Additionally to the Capricorn piece (see last PaintLog), I mean.
In the course of January I also changed the title of my Witch Apprentices subpage.
I finally came up with a title for this series, so it’s now Witchphibians – A Tale of Frog and Salamander. I’m mentioning this because I actually did another piece following Raven’s and Samandra’s adventures.
But before this one, I painted another fairy and of course, it’s Aquarius season now, of course.
Therefore, we got a new ZodiOC.
Skatie Skysurfer
Clip Studio Paint, the company from which is the drawing software that I’m using, launched a drawing contest that ended in the first week of January. The topic of this contest was „Fairies“.
Although I don’t think I will win anything and although I wasn’t even sure if I would make it in time, I therefore created Skatie Skysurfer. I actually made it in time, the winners are announced on 2 February 2023, though, so I still have to wait.
Initially I thought of drawing one of my Bicker Fairies (see below) but then I got the idea of a fairy who isn’t able to fly – the usual way, to be precise. So she would have to built her own wings and even a surfboard to surf the skies.
Perhaps you remember this fairy from almost two years ago? I once draw her in the frame of a DTIYS, originally depicting a skateboard girl but altered to a fairy by me. I remembered her only after the concept was clear, or even after the painting process. Still, it’s a nice coincidence.
The goal with this painting was to practice perspective and pose as well as creating an impression of speed. At the same time I had to get the shadows right with the sun right in her back but under a light flooded sky amidst green tree leaves.
Additionally, the POV had to be tilted. With finally leaves all around this was a little bit hard to achieve. There is a landscape, a green field or something, with a horizon but I think the birds in the sky are giving it away a lot better.
ZodiOCs: Aquarius
With January came the next Zodiac sign and so came Aquarius.
To represent this sign, I chose my Arcryla City OC Crissy refilling her waterbearbot in which she keeps her favorite animals and loyal pets you already know from earlier paintings.
An obvious choice for The Water Bearer.
Or so you would think. Truth is, I frist thought of Navarra, my Breath of the Wild Zora OC. Aquarius regularly is depicted as some merperson with trident, too (usually a man with beard but most of my OCs are female and so will be my ZodiOC). Therefore, initially she came to my mind.
But soon I remembered Crissy and her pets. I not only loved the pun, it was also an opportunity to include Crissy in the ZodiOCs. Most ZodiOCs are already settled (not drawn, though) and a ZodiOC series without my favorite OC Crissy? Never!
Before I started drawing, I searched the internet for poses typically related with Aquarius. You will find the one I used as reference – although changing it a little bit – here.
Again, I was practicing poses and anatomy, an additional challenge was the water pouring into the aquarium. Both of them are semi-transparent and some parts of them cover each other and others don’t. What now looks like being one piece actually is a cut out aquarium glass wall that is pasted under the water layer which itself is located under the aquarium glass layer.
Finally, I would like to add that in the first lineart Crissy’s skirt has been a tad too short. Therefore, I changed it for the sake of dignity.
Witchphibians: Secrets
A new painting of my Witchphibian series featuring my OCs Raven and Samandra. It’s set some time before the „Weaving Magic“ painting from March 2022. As it’s regularly he case, I had this one in my mind for some time.
I not only wanted to practice pose and anatomy, I also wanted to recreate a scene from the Netflix show Arcane (and changed it slightly). If you watched the show, you hopefully will recognize the scene (if not, see this screenshot on the internet). Additionally, I was influenced by some beautiful The Witcher fanart of Greenfinch.garden on Instagram.
As mentioned above, I practiced anatomy and poses. Especially Raven was really hard to draw because she isn’t simply lying on her side, she is lying (partly) on her belly. Additionally I did a small design change. I added freckles to her face and the shoulder region.
Sadly, you won’t see a lot of it (and a bunch of Samandra’s body spots) because I had to keep it SFW for sharing publicly and her dress covers a lot of her anatomy and the freckles. However, I there luckily is my Patreon account for anatomy studies and poses. You will find the link together with the WIPs for supporters on my Ko-fi account (yes, there is a full nu.dity version that doesn’t reveal much but enough to better be safe than sorry).
New Year’s Xmashup
Although I wanted change to a monthly rhythm, it felt like I should publish this PaintLog quite early after Christmas and New Year’s eve.
I already mentioned that there are two more paintings in the queue last time. But they also still fit thematically to the year’s end holidays.
The first one is antoher Secret Santa. This time it’s one we did on the Arcryla City Discord server. Of course, there also is one I got from another artist of this community.
The second painting of the queue is another ZodiOC. We are in the middle of the Capricorn season, so Capricorn it is now.
Secret Santa:
EunXMas
ZodiOCs:
Capricorn
In December 2022 we held a Secret Santa event on the Arcryla City Discord server. I was chosen to draw a painting for catdotbun. We were allowed to announce up to three characters to be drawn*..
I decided to go for her Arcryly City OC Eun, former secretary of the council and aspiring children’s book author. Additionally, I included her other ones, Olive and Rochelle into the painting, as angel on top of the Christmas cactus and as drawing in the opened book and on the back of another one.
The cactus is a reference to a pet showcase we had in September 2021 on the server. Eun’s „pet“ has been a cactus. Therefore, I thought a Christmas Cactus would fit into this piece. There also are other Easter eggs in the painting, on some I hinted already.
This piece was another excercise in shading and lighting, I tried to archieve a warm, cosy Christmas feeling.
*Speaking of: The piece I got from my Secret Santa SketchyGirl perfectly matched my OCs Chrissie and Paula. The Mistletoe headband would be a thing Paula totally would do!
The new Years starts in the middle of the Capricorn season and I’m happy that I finished the referring ZodiOC piece in time..
It wasn’t that easy to decide what OC will fit to represent thsi sign. A long time I thought of Orphelya, my gargoyle OC, but she lacks horns. There are OCs with antlers or rods that could resemble horns, like Cosmothra, one of the bicker fairies, or my mermaid OC Ceratia, even Merdusa’s snake may have met this purpose. I even thought of Nema wearing a coral crown or something (but refrained because she won’t hurt a coral reef deliberately). Long story short: They all didn’t really fit into the picture.
Only the day I actually started drawing this piece I came up with this idea. A mermaid seemed approbriate since Capricorn usually is depicted with a fish tail.
Then this picture of Merindiana finding an emerald capricorn skull mask on the bottom of the sea during one of her treasure hunts struck me.
Fly Catcher
More than one month has passed since my last PaintLog entry. This year was the first one I wasn’t able to maintain my weekly pace. Still, I would like to provide you with a regular PaintLog.
Therefore, I thought of changing the pace to a monthly PaintLog, maybe sometimes more often if motivation, time and content allow. It’s the end of the year now. To this occasion, I did several recaps and I will summarize the year in this month’s PaintLog.
But before I’ll come to this, I’ll present you the art pieces I did since the last PaintLog. They actually were quite a handful:
I did another ZodiOC and one The Owl House fanart Secret Santa as well as another piece showing my OCs Raven and Samandra from my Witch Apprentices universe.
Two more paintings are in the queue which I didn’t find the time to prepare it to show it here (but, as said before, it’s always good to have some paintings as backlog).
Sagittarius
Brewing Magic
Last month I started my Zodiac sign series represented by my own OCs. After Scorpio Sagittarius added to the series. This sign is represented by Raven, my witch apprentice OC, and her ability of using light glyph magic.
Every so often she or parts of her turn into frog unintentionally. So does her tongue in this painting. Catching the fly is based on a detail in an early concept of a drawing that I abandoned.
I just felt, it would’ve been too much and saved it for a future painting. Little I knew back then that I would use this concept for the ZodiOCs but it fits perfectly „the Archer“.
I was playing around with light and shadow effects and since the last time I painted Raven I got some nice new brushes to include magic circles and symbols. In the background you also can spot her friend’s Samandra’s amphibian form as star constellation (the meaning is yours to guess).
The next part of Raven’s and Samandra’s story. I feel like this piece I wanted to draw since ever (since I created Sam as companion to Raven at least). Still, the Weaving Magic piece (see slide show slide 3) hat to be done first because Sam had to enchant Raven’s amulet so it won’t be lost in their magic soup. Then Mermay hit and several other assignments that kept me busy for the rest of the year.
All in all this painting took me two weeks to finish. It was an exercise in lighting, dynamic poses and perspective, trying to leave my comfort zone some tiny steps more.
As usual I hid several Easter eggs in this painting which you can spot in the background. Perhaps you even recognise them from past paintings. If not directly, just swipe to slides 4 and further.
However, one Easter egg I have to point out separately. A week before I finished this work, nick.burgoyne.art (Instagram) asked for book titles in the background of one of his paintings. In April of this year I read his novel „The Deepest Shore“. It featured a blob creature called „Bob“ that met a gruesome fate. Back in April I even did a fanart about it titled „Remember Bob“ and now I suggested this title for Nick’s background bookshelf (where you actually will find it).
At the same time it inspired me to put another edition of the book on Samandra’s secret potion brewing shack’s shelf. We can’t remember Bob enough!
I hope you can spot it in the background together with the other references.
Don’t Ask
This is a Secret Santa I did for another Discord server. I drew it for apricotmayzel (Instagram). It refers to a comic she drew in which – purely by coincidence – Raine’s violin got smashed. Since The Owl House was one of the topics I was allowed to draw for her, I decided to refer to this special comic.
It was the first time I drew Raine (or, speaking of, Eda). If you know the show, you will recognize several details I put into the painting. The wrapping of the present has Hootie stickers, the mittens are made by Blight Textiles and the cushion Eda puts under her Santa costume has Luz‘ hoodie colour.
Furthermore, you will recognise the fur part of Eda’s hat from episodes playing in the colder parts of the Boiling Isles and the hair combed forward to show the face of an old man Santa, of course, is taken from „Eclipse Lake“.
Within a few hours after sharing on Instagram this painting almost passed the „Reaching Out“ fanart from April as new top post (current score 120 likes vs. 107).
2022 Recap
As every year I do a recap of my art that I drew throughout the year. I summarise them in collages separated by topics. In the following slides you will find the collages
Summary of Art
Kritz‘ Choice (aka Best of 2022)
Best of Fanart 2022
Face Your Art
Face Your Art Mermaid Edition
In 2022 my job kept me even busier than 2021, so I had to do some compromised and I couldn’t nearly as much as I intended. A lot of projects just didn’t were to be in this time, including the weekly pace of this PaintLog.
Still, I had a lot of fund and I still have on the Arcryla City Discord server and the people there. I also joined some more Discord servers to get into contact with even more other artists.
I also shifted from Patreon to Ko-fi. Patreon is merely an archive and the space for paintings Ko-fi or wordpress wouldn’t allow to share publicy or at all, including artistic nudity or pose studies (see my Ko-fi account, for a tip in my jar you will find the link).
This said, I also got my first supporter. Thank you! This means a lot to me and helpf me to keep this website and to share my art for free.
On the artistic level I tried some new things, new poses, new techniques but also stuck to old ways and even more to my OCs.
Raven and Samandra were an addition to these. Raven was an output of the this year’s School of Games Moodboard Challenge in March. This one takes place every year and it was my second participation. This time I not only drew Raven, I added Samandra to this new OC universe later, I started to develop a lore and I put them as cameos into other paintings. There even were challenges that I concepted as spin-off of this duo‘ doings.
The Mermay was the next highlight, this year hosted together with Potato_Beta (Instagram) with whom I already did other collab projects. Soon after this the Arcryla City Discord server again hosted a Summer Festival, this time in form of a Fantasy Festival, and in October a Halloween event when at the same time I followed a weekly inky October challenge with my Heartbroken Goddess.
To my surprise (that shouldn’t have been much of a surprise at all), the most liked paintinsg were The Owl House fanart. I’m still very proud of the „Reaching Out“ piece, so it certainly deserves this much love. I’m also happy that I obviously met Raine and Eda this good that they almost got the same amounf of love within a few hours.
Well … Love is a good final word:
I wish you all a Happy New Year, thank you for staying around, have a wonderful year 2023!
See you next year!
Stinging
Let’s prepare another PaintLog entry. With luck it will be finished in 2-3 weeks again.* Perhaps I can call myself lucky because two weeks ago I did my latest piece and then I didn’t find the motivation to do another one. This means that I can present you those 1-2 weeks old pieces today, though.
Both are somewhat unusual compared to my other pieces. The first one (Scorpio) is an attempt of transferring OCs (Paula in this case) into alternative environments, the second one an DTIYS that I joined.
*It actually took only 2 days this time.
ZodiOCs: Scorpio
Every so often I see artwork from brilliant artists depicting the Zodiac signs in one way or the other. Whereas I don’t believe in astrology, star signs, esoterism or similar stuff, I still appreciate a good story or a good motif (like fairy tales or religious stories: You know it’s made-up, but it“s fascinating stuff nontheless).
So, I got inspired to my very own series of depicting the Zodiac signs. To this purpose I’m going to put Original Characters (OCs) into drawing showing the respective Zodiac sign of the year. However, the OCs may not necessarily be born under the sign they depict.
Since I started in the beginning of November, the first sign was Scorpio and my OC Paula from Arcryla City perfectly fit into it. Or rather the other way around: Imaging her as a Zodiac sign created this idea in the first place. The next one (Sagittarius) is already finished and can be found as early access on my Ko-fi account for a tip in my jar.
Her hair already roughly has the shape of a scorpion’s sting and in steampunk version she is known for wearing high heeled boots, so the image of a sharp and thin, sting-like boot’s heel also jumped to my mind, legs and feet being positioned over head.
I also added minor details that aren’t part of her normal design like the tattoos and the ear jewellery. I wasn’t sure if to add the vines, though, but she her hobby is growing carnivorous plants (which have to be trimmed) and this way the scissor gauntlets actually make sense.
DTIYS: Heart Goldwing
Some time ago Instagram user Pocket Andrew started hosting a DTIYS. Although I don’t do DTIYS that regularly (my OCs have got priority), this time I wanted to participate.
Seeing the original painting, I got the idea of a magical girl in a Sailor Moon like pose. With stars and glitter and all. Since 3/4 body made the best impression, the boot and the roller skates weren’t in the picture in the sense the original one shows them.
Therefore I had to change one trinket of the ear jewellery of each ear, so you now find them there. The petals in the foreground are supposed to not only add to the Sailor Moon like scene, they also are suppossed to add depth.
Statues of the Midnight Lights
It’s been a while since my last PaintLog. I just didn’t feel motivated enough in the last few week and whenever I tried, other obligations kicked in and well – if something that is supposed to be fun feels like duty … take a break.
This said, I was writing this PaintLog entry for around three weeks now, the artpieces that I’m sharing today are from the end of October. There are even more, but I will share them with you next time.
The main piece that occupied me three weeks of October was the entry to the Arcryla City Midnight Gala that took place some days before Halloween. As usual, our entries were supposed to be revealed during the showcase. It was a Halloween event with costumes and all.
However, I also finished the Inktober piece, keeping up adding prompts to the Heartbroken Goddess. Those were the prompts „Statue“ and „Light“.
Heartbroken Goddess: Statue + Light
With October Kalisamiii’s Inktober challenge came to an end. I already planted the statue part when drawing the goddess in the first place. I only added some cracks and the smaller statue inside the heart, telling the reason why she is heartbroken.
But this isn’t the end, because where’s light there’s hope:
Initilly, the rays weren’t planned but I figured, this way it makes a greater impression, showing what’s going on.
Demons, No Angels
The Arcryla City Midnight Gala again was a great spectacle. There were so many amazing entries.
We got our assignment, our „theme“ beforehand and weren’t supposed to tell anyone which costume our OCs got. To everybody’s surprise it turned out that everyone got the same costume: Demon.
There is an additional sheet to my entry with a narrative text and a tiny doodle to explain how Crissy and Paula managed to create all those special effects you can see on the painting. This happens by the technical capabilities of the steampunk world they are living in. In some cases, like the colored contact lenses, I figured that contact lenses would’ve been around although they were made of glass and not that comfortable (but this wouldn’t have stopped them from wearing them). Moreover, the colored version only came into existence after the need for them arised by the movie industry. Still, this won’t stop Crissy and Paula either to ask one of the ingenius opticians of Arcryla City.
If you look close, you will see several popcultural references from TV shows and video games and of course there are the little statues of the Arcryla City’s Mayor Alexander and Lynette, his assistant.
Last but not least: The Gala also was a drawing contest and guess what? My painting was one of the two winner paintings!!
I was so happy when this was announced!
There even was a price: I could choose one of my OCs to be drawn as an emote for the Discord server (and for any other purpose I’d like to use it for). When I got sent it to me, I will share it here too in my next PaintLog!
The Dragon Flower of Milk and Honey
It’s been a while since my last PaintLog. I just didn’t feel motivated enough in the last week and whenever I tried, other obligations kicked in and well – if something that is supposed to be fun feels like duty … take a break.
Tbh, there wasn’t a lot of art so far in October. Not that I was able to share, I mean. The past three weeks I was working on an entry to the Arcryla City Midnight Gala that takes place next Friday evening / Saturday morning. As usual, our entries are supposed to be revealed during the showcase. It’s going to be a Halloween event with costumes and all. So stay tuned!
What I was able to share were the second and third Inktober piece, keeping up adding prompts to the Heartbroken Goddess. As mentioned before, I was working on the Halloween piece and after finishing this, I just wanted to do some low-key just for fun piece. Therefore, I again went back to Eusthy.
However, I will not do an elaborated description and explanations into the drawing process of these pieces this time, but I’ll leave it with short thoughts and comments.
Heartbroken Goddess:
White Flower + Dragon Skull
The continuation of Kalisamiii’s Inktober challenge. As mentioned before, I added the next two prompts.
While the Flower actually was a new-drawn piece, I already prepared the Dragon Skull when creating the basic painting. Admittedly, I was a little bit lazy and it perhaps wasn’t the initial purpose of the prompt, but I still was tempted to try it this way.
Arrivals:
Milk & Honey
This Arrivals comic was actually one of the first I came up with. Originally, I intended to make it the second episode, but somehow, the other attempts to crawl onto land were fitting better into order.
Meet Silvie the silverfish-like apterygota (again). This time, she got a bigger role. Most fun, of course, was to think of the plot twist with the point in the end.
The Goddess Next Door
Neighbours – Heartbroken Goddess: Love
October has arrived and with it several Inktober challenges. Ever since I started digital drawing seriously, I participated. Last year I did the Linktober challenge and I thought to take part again this year. However, I was without inspiration, I wasn’t in the mood and I probably won’t have the time to do daily drawings, so I skipped.
Instead I found inspiration in another (a weekly challenge) that I will present you below.
Before doing this, you also will find episode 2 of my primeval fish comic, this time dealing with its neighbours – and some old friends.
Neighbours
Last week I started the Arrivals comic series. Right from the beginning I had some comic ideas in my mind (and I still have). The initial ideas often sounded funnier in my head than the actual carrying out.
Not only that I had to find different words for „neighbours“, „friend“, „fellows“ etc., originally the comic lacked a real final punch line. There even wasn’t Lil’Scor raspberrying on the table in this point of time and Eusthy just would say something like „Perhaps I should crawl back into the sea“.
Then the picture of the extra panel popped up in my mind. Because Eusthy’s mood didn’t get damped until panel 4, I had to draw a panel different to the one originally intended to get him crawl back into the sea.
Enter Eusthwo:
If you look close, you also will see that I now added the names of my animal protagonists and as for the sea creatures … all but for the guy in the right bottom corner were in my mind right from the beginning. Initially I thought of some kind of big jellyfish, but I wanted to have something typical devonian.
Therefore, I roamed paintings of the devonian seas. Since I already draw a fish, I didn’t want to draw another one like an early shark, but finally, I found those … devonian sea things with those petal like arms and included it into the comic.
Heartbroken Goddess: Love
As explained above, this year I got inspired by a weekly Inktober challenge. This year it’s Kalisamiii’s Heartbroken Goddess prompt list.
So far I did the „basis“ painting with this week’s prompt „Love“. I plan to add the other prompts in the course of the next week, so the painting will change step by step.
As usual, I drew the inktober painting with „inky“ brushes and in inky colours. This time, I started with a blue tone. After „finishing“ the heart, I did the outlines of the hands but then switched to the body (body, head + hair) of the goddess herself.
Because I only had a vague image of her in my mind, I started with my usual non-inky brushes to get the lines right. Only when those seemed right, I started the inky brush on a new layer. Initially, I imagined her pose / the perspective a little bit different but the good thing with something this new, I can adjust it as I go along and this way I liked it even better.
I drew the heart with a hatching and as I now started „colouring“ the body and the head, I wanted to do likewise, but processing showed that the hatching would be too rough. However, I noticed two things. About the first one I will tell you in a few weeks (it has something to do with one of the other prompts), the second thing was the colour of the hair. Originally, I planned her to be dark haired but then I noticed how well the white hair suits her.
Finally, as I went to render her, I switched from the initial blue to a bluish black tone. Furthermore, I changed the center of the heart to black, indicating the broken and therefore darkened heart.
Before I could colour in the hands, I had to draw their lines anew. I resized them to better fit to the body and I mirrored the right hand before drawing the body to get be able to adjust it correctly. Now I had to fix this so they would look naturally.
Regarding the arms, I admittedly cheated a little bit. Since I planned to get them hidden in the shadows, I went lazy and didn’t do them at all. Apropos shadows, the stars in them were another last-minute idea and even more to put some of them into the foreground with a more intense blur than the ones in the rest of the shadows.
To go where no Eusthenopteron (V2.0) has gone before
After the last weeks‘ fully colored and fully rendered paintings I wanted to do something simple. Luckily, just two weeks ago an idea popped up in my mind that I thought I could do in not time (of course it took me another week …).
Because it didn’t really fit into one of the other pages and because I plan to do more of them, I added another subpage to my website:
First!
I don’t know how I exactly came up with this idea, I think I saw an artwork with a fish and only a few days ago I read one of the comics going around on Instagram.
In my head this comic changed a few times before I did the final version. Furthermore, I wasn’t sure about if doing this comic first or another one (that presumably now will become the second).
Until panel 4, this comic initially was the same in every version. However, I originally just wanted to drop the „EUSTHENOPTERON!“ shout in the end of the comic in panel 4, not showing any other fish. I was struggling with showing it in an extra panel, though, asking „You called?“. I thought this would’ve been a rather lame joke, tought. Therefore I almost skipped it.
In this point of time I still had to look up the name of the fish that first crawled onto land but as I did so, I learned that the only fish with a suitable name and a suitable shape nowadays is considered to have lived strictly aquatic.
Therefore, I thought of Eusthwo answering Eusthy in panel for by adding „thingy“ to his claim being the first Eusthenopteron on land and Eusthy reoeating a resigned „thingy“, accompanyed by the explanatory text in the last panel.
Still, I noticed that this joke won’t work, if you don’t know about the things only explained in the last panel. But a joke that’s explained afterwards isn’t a joke anymore. Therefore, I deleted the „thingy“ thing but only dropping the „EUSTHENOPTERON!“ shout wouldn’t work either (although I initially thought otherwise).
So, I sortof combined both ideas, exchanging the „Your called?“ for a „Hey! What’s up?“ and rubbing Eusthy inte its nose that he technically isn’t even an Eusthenopteron able to walk on land. To be honest … Eusthwo initially said „Hi!“. Since Silvi, the silverfish in panel 3, already greeted with this word, I had to think of something else. This again took me some time because it should be quite collogial and quick to say.
I hope you’ll enjoy this comic as I enjoyed drawing it:
Zum Kritzeleck 