Fight to the End

Sometimes, I’m allowed to take a little time off and to do other things apart from my job and my artist’s ambitions. Last weekend was this kind of weekend, so this PaintLog comes with delay – but with a healthy delay.

Plus, it isn’t as if there was nothing going on on the art’s level the past week. The fourth of the main challenges of the Arcryla City Summer Fantasy Festival has been created, submitted and shown. So, here it comes:

A Mayoral Fight

This time, the premise was that our OC that had been stranded in the Fantasy AU realm wished to talk to „Mayor Alexander“, he surely would be able to help you getting back to your steampunk world. But in this realm it is Mage Knight Alexander and our OC’s were dragged into an arena fight facing him, the most powerful knight in the whole kingdom.

This situation had to be put into a dynamic comic or manga („just 1-2 pages“) but without a conclusion of the fight since that is planned as topic for a 5th main challenge. So, sorry folks, it ends with a cliffhanger.

Initially, I actually planned to do „just 2 pages“ but soon I noticed that these won’t suffice. The cover page, for a start, indeed only worked as cover page – no distractions by other panels.

Secondly, the story I had in mind just needed the space. Crissy should learn how to fight the mayor by coincidence, yes, but then she should use what she’d learned by coincidence, so she actually succeeds by using her own brain and mechanic’s skills.

To show this, some extra panels were needed. And then, there is Paula of course (I’ll come back to her later), she too took some extra panels. So, in the end it boiled down to four pages.

However, I didn’t went for a full color four page comic. The cover page is the only fully rendered one. I just didn’t had the time (and the patience) and the black&white style with spare colored parts worked out nicely. Initially, the angled white bars made it easier for me to paint them (I hadn’t to bother with right angles) but this way they also added a nice dynamic to the comic.

As for the fight … Crissy is no fighter. In the fantasy AU realm she owns an arm-mounted crossbow but she is no use in direct confrontation. Therefore, I had to think of something to give her an unexpected advantage – enter the fireworks cannons.

I wasn’t sure about gunpowder in the fantasy realm, so I went for some magic stuff loaded in cannon-like contraptions at the edge of the arena to celebrate whoever (supposedly the mayor) wins the battle in the end. They of course are triggered by fire and so by the magic fireballs the Mayor throws at Crissy.

Crissy running around headless at the beginning of the comic was one of the first pictures that came to my mind. Paula commenting this while sitting in the audience and eating some nuts, was the result of some fun talk in the Arcryla City general chat. This also led to the idea that she comes to help in the end.

Topless Mayor is a recurring theme. Last year, it also came up as fun talk in the Arcryla City chats and my entry to the Mayor’s prompt only could hint at his abs. This time, now, I had the opportunity to go all in.

I gave him a „Mayic Amor“ (of course, you spotted the pun?) and with this a saiyajin-like appearance, inspired by the the calamity forms of the trio in the show Amphibia – those themselves inspired by animes like Dragonball, obviousy. Yes, I exaggerated – a lot! – but I don’t regret it, it is the whole point when creating a comic and it was the most fun.

Crissy shooting his tophat not only shows that his magic powers lay in this hat. I also wanted to make use of this crossbow I gave Crissy in the beginning of the festival but often didn’t even care to draw when depicting her.

Then, there is Vannie. She is one of the Arcryla City council members. In the storyline of the Fantasy Festival, she drags Crissy into the arena. Therefore, I dragged her in my comic as cameo appearance, keeping guard at the door. And if you look close you will spot several items from previous Fantasy Festival entries fixed to Sparrow’s saddle: bags with nuts, a wine bottle, a mangogo, a plush water bear. Don’t ask how she got them …

A last remark to the title „A Mayoral Fight“. This of course is a reminiscence of my last year’s Mayor entry „A Mayoral Wind“:

Digital painting, comic style, the background slightly blurred: The Mayor of Arcryla City wearing a light shirt, a belt, brown pants and gloves, standing in the middle of a wind gust which drives petal through the air, blows off his tophat and lifts his shirt so you can see the abs. He is trying to catch the hat, a violet and a green tent in the background, a light blue afternoon sky with clouds

Side Glances in the Garden

Digital painting, comic style: Crissy (young woman, short purple hair, big round glasses, bellyfree leather armor, braces, cape) and Paula (young woman, short turqoise hair, short turqoise hair, toe nails painted in rainbow colour, finger nails in lesbian Pride flag colour; she's wearing some kind of green leaf-like loincloth that only covers breasts, lap and butt, green braces, turqoise wrist bands, a pink shell band at her left ankle, golden neck band, pointed ears) in a wildly grown garden with an old well in the center and a sign "Wishing Well; 1 Coin)"; Paula is sitting on its edge, tossing a coin on a string over her shoulder, Crissy in the foreground, skeptically looking at a coin; blue day sky with birds and petals in the background.

Secrets in the Garden

Another … well, I don’t want to introduce my PaintLog with „Another week went by“ but I think, you catch the tone. I’m really looking forward to my vacation planned for mid to end of August.

Last week I mentioned another of the Arcryla City Summer Fantasy Festival general prompts that almost was finished. In the beginning of the past week, I finally was able to share it.

Side Glances

However, before I’ll start with that one, I’d like to draw your attention towards the entries to my Moonlight Magic DTIYS challenge.

There already have been some beautiful art pieces. Please go to Instagram to the hasthtag #Kritz200 and give them some love!

Digital painting, comic style: Samandra (left) and Raven (right) in sideview (hip height) back to back in front of a bright full moon; Samandra being a young woman with brown skin and gleaming yellow frackles and spots, neck long red hair, wearing a grey apron-like dress held by some ropes as straps, needles tucked into the of front part; Raven being a young woman with light rosy skin, short white hair in sidecut, combed to her right half of the face, wearing a golden brown dress, tied with a rope in the middle and a necklace with an amulet, the left hand is the hand of a pink frog; there are magical threads coming from Sam's hand, weaving a pattern in the air and gleaming blue circles and runes hovering above Raven's right hand; both are ecompassed by a shiny yellow light; added to the background are flying yellow blossoms; text: "Draw This In Your Style; #Kritz200; Celebrating 200 followers (thank you all so much!); Details see next slides + captions".

Secrets in the Garden

As soon as the general prompts and the setting of the Arcryla Citiy Summer Fantasy Festvial were announced, this image came to my mind with the wishing well and Crissy and Paula approaching it in their respective very own style.

Paula tossing the coin on a string of course is inspired by all those cartoons depicting characters exactly doing this with all kinds of machines, may it be vending machines, gaming machines or just the mechanism of the entry lock to a public bath room.

Althought I don’t know, if this ever worked with any of these machines, I’m sure, it can’t fail when tossing a coin down a well shaft. – Leaving aside the if a wish actually will become true when pulling the coin back on a string afterwards.

Crissy, not believing in superstition or anything supernatural, is sceptical, if a coin actually can fulfill wishes. Of course, she knows that they are in a fantasy realm and she has experienced magic. So, her critical mind is exploring the possibility that it may work. But she is overthinking, whereas Paula doesn’t bother at all, she just goes for it.

The easiest part of this painting at the same time was the one that took the most time. There are enought references to paint Crissy and Paula. I actually took the one from the second main challenge prompt (that itself was taken from the Phone Call painting earlier this year) to paint Crissy and the fantasy version character sheet to draw Paula.

But, you know, the more details the longer the shading process. Therefore, it took several days to render Crissy. Plus: Half way through the lineart process, I noticed that I draw Crissy’s right hand the wrong way around.

Background and foreground were a one to two days work but most of them were last-minute decisions and a lot of experimention. I didn’t have to think about the grass on the floor right from the beginning, it already was in the initial image in my mind. The grass in the foreground also came quite intuitionally, blurred of course.

Still, as I started the rest of the background for a short moment I was lost. Should it take place on the festival ground? As another showplace of the festival? Then I (re-)discovered that I’ve got some nice tree brushes, oh, and brushes for leaves (for bushes), too.

In my first attempt, the trees stood that narrow to the well that it was hard to spot that Crissy is holding a coin in her hand. Trees and bushes already has been blurred but luckily, I was able to shift the ones in the left part of the painting further left without doing any harm.

Next issue was that, now that the place evolved to be „a hidden garden“, I had to get a shadow over Crissy. Normally, I would have done a clipping layer above the Crissy folder and filled it with black with an opacitiy of perhaps 5-10 %.

However, by coincidence I realised that the multiply effect creates an even more shadowy, err, shadow. After noticing this, I experimented with a leaves brush in the same manner to get a nice leaves pattern. Initially, it didn’t work the way I thought (by erasing part of the shadows) but in the end I was quite proud of the result.

The next problem was that the sky looked so empty (sounds familiar, huh?). I didn’t want to dig out the petals in the air again, at least not as only „air filler“ but I rememered a painting that got added some birds in the sky to make look it better. So, I searched for some bird brushes and I found some. I had to choose between flocks of birds and only a few ones. I chose the letter ones since together with the petals, they are not only dividing the sky in handsome bits, they are also leading the eye from Crissy to Paula in the background.

And as last problem, I had to answer the question „Overall blur or no overall blur?“.

I did an overall blur over the painting, but in comparison, the non-blur looked better. Since the foreground already has been blurred and so has the trees and bushed in thebackground, there was no further need for even more blur.

Secrets in the Garden

After entering a hidden garden, they discovered an old wishing well. While Crissy – a strong believer solely in physics and stuff – still being skeptical about whishing wells at all, Paula had her very own approach to it.*

*Artist’s note: For some moments I also considered to put the text into the painting (party to also fill the sky), but after adding the birds and petals, it just didn’t fit anymore and it wasn’t necessary, too.

Moon Dancers

Moonlight Magic (II) | A Familiar Face
(DTIYS Kritz‘ 200) | (Main challenge prompt 3)

Another week went by, another weekend is almost over. On the every day’s life front there is nothing new, I’m just looking forward to my vacation in three weeks.

At least I could host my DTYS by now, finish the third main challenge prompt and I’m almost done with another of the general prompts.

Moonlight Magic (II) – The Background

As promised last week, today I want to take a closer look at the background of the Moonlight Magic DTIYS painting.

The full moon you already know from the „Weaving Magic“ painting should be background again, even bigger, even shinier. I got several full moon brushes but they all are looking like I cut the full moon out of a photo or something alike, whereas I wanted to be painted in my style again.

So, the full moon brush just served as reference layer for a clipping layer on which I followed the colors and shadows to create „my“ moon. To distuingish my OCs better from the bright moon, I added another yellow glow.

Well, the painting was big enough to add the announcement text of the DTIYS, too. However, this led to the problem that without the text there is definitely too much space in the upper half. I tried to fix this a little bit by adding the flying petals.

Although this worked in some way, it’s still a lot of space that isn’t filled and draws the attention from the two protagonists of the painting. Therefore I also did a cut version of the painting.

I like this a lot more and somebody said, it looks like a scene right out of a movie. Tbh, I can’t disagree.

Leaving the background behind, I also added tome text sheets to the DTIYS. The first one describing the terms of the challenge, the other two giving information about Raven and Samandra.

You by now get to know what Sam actually did with Raven’s amulet in the „Weaving magic“ painting. Following this, I also had to update the character descriptions on the subpages and (som e of) the paintings showing Raven in frog form.

A Familiar Face

Yesterday, the third main challenge of the Arcryla Citiy Summer Fantasy Festvial took place. This time we had to do a collab challenge, randomly picked by the admins. I did a collabd together with _ghostbam00zled_, featuring his OC Raven (painted by me) and my OC Crissy (painted by him).

He also did the background whereas I added the people in the foreground since I found a handy brush to do this. Additionally, I laid a blur over the background and added some glitter.

It was nice to be forced to draw an OC I wasn’t familiar with. There were enough refernence pictures around but I struggled a little bit with the colors of the clothes. Plus, I first didn’t really know what to make of this white vesty thing around the taille since the reference pics only show Raven’s upper body. Same applied to the trousers.

Another challenge was to adjust the style so the two OCs don’t look too different. Therefore I had to do the lineart in black, not in the darker tone of the base color as usual.

I also had to shorten the narrative POV text regarding Crissy so both POV text’s lenghts are more or less even. The long version (in comparision to the one you’ll find below) is this one:

„After the encounter with the mangogoes (and after she took the water bear shaped one with her), Crissy arrived at some kind of dancing area. Before she could retreat – and despite her lack of dancing abilities – she felt dragged into the crowd. Suddenly, she realised that the guy she was dancing with was Raven. She’d seen him one time or the other back in Arcryla City and had been fascinated by the mechanism of his mechanical wings. She didn’t dare to tell Paula, though, fearing she’d wanted to try them out by herself. The wings didn’t seem to be around today, instead there was another threat: She had to dance in public!„

A Familiar Face

After the encounter with the mangogoes, Crissy arrives at some kind of dancing area and before she can retreat she feels dragged into the crowd. Suddenly, she realises that the guy she is dancing with is Raven, the merchant with those mechanical wings which Paula surely would love to try out by herself. The wings doesn’t seem to be around today, instead there is another threat: She has to dance in public!

From dealing with customers all day Raven heads out and ends up with a crowd dancing! He is pulled to the center realizing Crissy is right next to him feeling a bit embarrassed. To lighten the mood raven dances and encourages Chrissy to join along!

Enchanting Moonlight

Moonlight Magic
(DTIYS Kritz‘ 200)

Tbh, I miss the home office. We still are allowed to but to a smaller extend. I notice how much less energy I’ve got after one day in the office with all the community travel before and after. This also affects my art creating process, I just can’t keep my planned time schedule anymore because of … zzzzzzz.

Still, I finally finished the painting I created to host the DTIYS I planned to celebrate 200 followers on Instagram. There are still preparations to be done before I can host it, but at least I can give you early access to the painting. It features my two main characters Raven Frogfeet tale.

Moonlight Magic

Perhaps I chose those two to catch two birds with one stone. I created them a short time before this year’s Mermay. I always wanted to continue their tale as soon as possible but every time something else interfered (and I only managed to draw the unicorns for Samandra’s Fabric Journal). So, the 200 followers event is a welcome opportunity to draw them again.

It’s the first time I draw them in sideview. This always feels a little bit weird because it creates an unfamiliar shape that at the same time is supposed to be recognisable as the same person. Regarding Sam, I think, I managed this quite well. Regarding Raven, the sidecut was an additional challenge.

Before I started drawing, I actually thought of switching places to avoid the strands that fall over her right half of the face. However, this is a challenge, to me too. So I kept the first approach.

I placed Samandra’s salamander tail in the center of the foreground because I one more wanted to show her „ability“ to change back into a salamander. Same should apply for Raven who occassionally turns into a frog. But because she cannot do magic in frog form, the hand conjuring the light runes couldn’t have been in frog from. Therefore, I added the second hand.

As for the magic, I finally came up with the light rune magic for Raven. It’s similar to the glyphs and their combinations in The owl House but she can conjure the runes by herself in light illusion form. She still has to combine them and first she has to find them and to learn the combinations. Apart from this, she – in theory – will be able to conjure nearly everything.

Honestly, it tool me a while before I came up with a fitting type of magic for her. And then I noticed, it was right before my eyes all the time, since she already conjured light runes in her very first painting, by accidant, though. I remember at this time I already wanted to paint them gleaming blue but it didn’t fit into the (given) color scheme.

Digital painting, comic style: Raven, a young woman with short white hair in sidecut, barefooted, wearing a simple golden brown dress and a necklace with a raven charme, sitting on the floor (terracotta tiles); in front of her a tipped open jar, pouring a red puddle between her feet, next to it a tipped wooden magical staff, throwing light towards the puddle, creating several circles with magic symbols in the air; more jars and a broom are standing or lying on the floor as well as an open book (pages down); she is in front of a storage rack (left to right, top to bottom: 1st row a small chest with a frog ornament; a jar with something black and one single eye, several tilted scrolls; 2nd row books; 3rd row a wicker box with several magical accessoirs, tarot cards, keys, feathers; a kettle, several jars), the area between Raven's legs and her face is well lit, the background is dark but the details are visible; my Instagram nick in the background of the painting.

This said, it’s no coincidence that the light rune magic also resembles the hex magic (especially the portals) of the show Arcane. Sam’s fabric magic on the other hand are supposed to resemble some threads weaving tissue. Only quite late in the drawing process I noticed tht the threads also form a shape reminding of a heart. Well, I left it that way because it isn’t that wrong, it fits for reasons not to be mentioned yet.

As for the background … I will come back to this one next week – when the DTIYS will be hosted.

Wyrd Food

Digital painting, comic style: Crissy in her fantasy design in the foreground (young woman, short purple hair, big round glasses, bellyfree leather top, blue cape, braces, fingerfree gloves, girdle, bags, knife and pocket watch attached to it), holding a pastry in the right hand and some kind of mango in the left hand, long, thin natural grown sticks attached to it, one resembling a nose, dark spots giving the impression of two eyes, the tip of the "nose" is cut, a drop of yellow juice dropping from it, Crissy is looking at this "mangogo" with disbelief; two more of them in different shapes (some kind of devil and some kind of water brear) standing in front of her on a customer's board of a stall, to her left a whole basket with them, to her right one labelled "TomaToes", containing big tomatoes with tiny red toes; in the background several stalls (1. bakery, 2. "Joe's Wineyard", 3. pottery, 4. "Catch the Frog" game stall, 5. "Hex'R'us") with 1. cake, bread, 2. wine barrels, bottles 3. pottery ware 4. prices 5. magical items; Paula and Sparrow sitting in front ofr "Joe's Wineyard", Paula pointing to the salesman, hiding to bottles behind her back; in front of the game stall two young woman, one brown-red hair, one white hair, the brown haired one catching a wooden frog with a fishing-rod, splashing water; several girlands and pennants on poles and lines above the stalls.

Wyrd’s Fruits and Vegetables

Another busy week ended, although not that busy and the next one hopefully will be more relaxced. The reason that I managed finishing only one artpiece was to an equal part that I got carried away.

The approaching deadline for the second Arcryla City Summer Fantasy Festival main challenge prompt may have been a cause to focus on this one, too.

Wyrd’s Fruits and Vegetables

Yesterday the second of the biweekly showcases of the Arcryla City Summer Fantasy Festival took place. Since I needed such an unusual big amount of time to finish my last week’s painting, I was worried to make it in time for this one. Luckily I made it one day before the deadline. So, yeah, I could relax more on Saturday.

The prompt was „Magical Foodie“. Our OC’s got hungry and were roaming the festival for food that we should put into pictures. Since „mangoes“ have been present in Arcryla City since last Summer Festival, I gave them a magical makeover (and invented the „TomatToes“ at the same time). You can read the narrative text on the text sheet in the next column.

The reason I almost went out of time (see above) was, quite obviously, the background.

Paula should be in there plus a wine salesman and I planned to give my OCs Raven and Samandra a cameo too, right from the beginning. But after putting the characters and the stalls in places, I got carried away with the inventory. More and more ideas popped up in my mind that wanted to include, including Perry the Platypus and his hat.

Things you probably recognised from my OC’s universes or from my fanart: As prices of the Catch the Frog game a „Raven in frog form“ plushy, the water lily blossom she and Samandra exchanged this year’s Mermay and which Swampgirl and Amphimaid exchanged in Mermay 2020, Hooty (The Owl House), Perry (plushy) and his hat, the waterbear plushy in the steampunk Arcryla City realm owned by Crissy* (just without the mechanic’s overall). As sales article at „Hex’R’Us“ a deck of Hexes Hold’em cards (The Owl House) and the Amphibia Calamity Box.

*Apropos: Crissy loves water bears, for sure she took the water bear shaped mangogo with her, although not for eating/drinking – probably.

By the way, it is no coincidence that Raven and Samandra are playing „Catch the Frog“ and that Samandra indeed catches the frog.

If you look close you will see the glitter around the fishing line which is a thread and therefore, technically fabric. I don’t have to remind you that Samandra is a fabric witch, right?

„Hex’R’Us“ of course is a reference to „Toys’R’Us“ but even „Joe’s Wineyard“ is inspired by a real wine seller. I don’t know the situation outside of Germany, but here „Jacques‘ Wein-Depot“ („Jacques‘ wine depot“) is a well-known wine selling company. The name inspired me to „Joe’s Wineyard“ for the Magical Foodie prompt (this by itself being a pun since you only have to change a few characters to change the wineyard into vinegar).

Text sheet to "Wyrd's Fruits & Vegetables", the painting blurred and faded in the background, a narrative text in the foreground: Wyrd's Fruits & Vegetables; Hungrily approaching and strolling over the festival place, Crissy remembered the mangoes back in HER Arcryla City and how much she loved them. She wondered, if this place may have something similar. Discovering "Wyrd's Fruits & Vegetables Stall" she found the so-called "mangogoes". You could cut off the tips of their ... err ... whatever those sticks were ... and drink the sweet juice inside the fruit like with a naturally grown attached drinking straw. Still, looking into those little big mangogo eyes indeed gave her a weird feeling, so she simply stuck with the pastry she bought two stalls earlier.

If you look close, you will be able to spot Paula nicking some bottles (that are missing in the stall). Seems familiar? Just take another look on the Photograph prompt of the Arcryla City Valentine’s event.

And then, there are the pennants and flags, of course. The colors are Pride flags‘ colors honoring the orientations of my OCs. The colours of the Lesbian and the Pan Pride flags are interwoven since Paula and Crissy are a couple but you also will spot the colors of the polysexual Pride flag – although I won’t reveal whom’s flag this one is yet (but remember: None of my OCs is straight). Plus above them all the colors of the Progress Pride flag, the last two colours not unintentionally being the same like in the Bi Pride flag (plus the petal’s colors creating this one too).

Do I have to emphasize how tricky it was to render the background? I put this lot of details in it but I also had to blur it. It’s hard to achieve this without getting all these details beyond recognisation, you still should be able to spot them.

Hot Weeks

Digital painting, comic style: A black unicorn with yellow spots, eyes, horn, mane and tail are made of fire, the hooves are red, fire around them; burning coal falling from its mouth; it's standing above as stream of lava, volcanoes, a castle ruin and a dark blu night sky in the background; sparks in the foreground; in the right upper corner a rock, a frog (labelled "Raven") and a salamander (labelled "Me") doodled on it with pink crayon, the frog is falling from the rock, the salamander is holding it by grabbing it feet; text: "Samandra's Fabric Journal"; "The Pyrocorn"; "Eternal Fire (Horn + mane); Flintstones"; "Fireproof fabric (Fur + skin)"; "Inflammable acid (Salamander spots); Burnt coal dust (Digested coal)".

Digital painting, comic style: 1) Crissy and 2) Paula (fantasy versions) in the saddle of sparrow, a big brown-orange bird with a sharp beak; 1) young woman, short purple hair, big round glasses, bellyfree leather top, leather skirt, purse and quiver with arrows on her girdle, orange-brown striped trousers, toefree boots, blue cape, 2) young woman, short turqoise hair; toe nails painted in rainbow colour, finger nails in lesbian Pride flag colour; she's wearing some kind of green leaf-like loincloth that only covers breasts, lap and butt, green braces, a knife in a sheath of leaf optic, a bag also in leaf optic, turqoise wrist bands, a pink shell band at her left ankle and a golden neck band; Sparrow is nosediving fast into a school of sky lanterns, fending them off with her wings and the beak; 2) is holding her reins with the left hand, raising the right arm into the air, her braces a illuminated green, creating a green shield-like light in front of her wrist, bashing a sky lantern into pieces; 1) is sitting behind her, holding fast on her belly, eyes closed, screaming; more sky lanterns and blossoms in foreground and background, washy in their movements, a likewise washy night sky with stars in the background.

The Pyrocorn – Sparrow on Fire

Not that much in terms of weather (although there were some hot days too), in retrospective it indeed was a hot week in more than one aspect. It was a very busy and exhausting week that prevented me from keeping my drawing time schedule (see below).

On the other hand, I managed to finish two paintings, both more or less under the topic „fire“. Firstly, the last of vitranas_arts‘ Junicorns, secondly my second entry to the Arcryla City Summer Fantasy Festival general prompt list.

The Pyrocorn

The last one. The fourth week of the vitranas_arts Junicorn challenge stood under the topic of the element of Fire. One more time I included it into Samandra’s Fabric journal.

Right from the beginning I got the idea of something resembling a fire salamander, this way honouring Samandra’s very own existence too. Fiery mane and tail and finally the horn also popped into my mind quite soon as well as the background.

Since the prompts for the fire theme also contained „Coal“, the rocks at the lower left edge of the painting were supposed to be coal, but then I got the idea of the Pyrocorn feeding on coal, so some were falling out of its mouth.

I thought of adding flying sparks where the hooves touches the ground but didn’t really manag that. Instead I quite like the small flames in the foreground.

Btw, the scene doodled in the upper right corner is a similar scene I thought of for the very first Junicorn painting, there Raven hanging off a branch, trying to cut some vines from the tail, Samandra holding her.

Both would’ve been in amphibian form, though. You can read my struggle with the first Junicorn painting in the respective paintlog but apart from that, this way is more dramatic, so I kept it for the fire theme.

„In the middle of the now burnt lands the Pyrocorn emerged, bringing fire, flames and fear.“

Not intended, but perhaps you registered a „growing“ of the background in every of the Junicorn pantings, from a minimum of grass and a tree to an image filling background:

Sparrow on Fire

This week I posted my second entry to the Arcryla City Fantasy Festival, my first fully rendered entry. The server community suggested this scene of Paula and Crissy riding Sparrow and Crissy screaming in the back – and I loved the idea. Still, since I plan to serve the general prompt list, I had to think of which prompt would fit best this scene.

It was a great opportunity 1) to paint Sparrow and 2) to show what those protection sigils on Paula’s braces are all about.

1) was a little bit tricky and I sat several days to get the lineart right. Sparrow shouldn’t be that big but big enough to carry them both. But simply drawing the bird looked kind of boring, so I thought of this perspective with the blurry wing in the foreground.

Paula and Crissy being late for a lantern festival and this way getting into a main bunch of sky lanterns while Paula’s braces‘ protection sigils proving that hey didn’t have their name for nothing.

Another challenge was to create the impression of speed. Thanks to whoever is in charge of the universe, CSP comes with a motion blur effect and the by now well known blossom brushes. Together with the Gaussian blur effect I got a nice result.

The lanterns in the foreground, however, were a last minute idea to create more depth, the smaller one even more since I came up with it only after the final blur and everything already had been finished. It also fit in nicely with the other lanterns, beginning with the big one in the lower right corner building kind of a helix.

At some point in time painting this got really frustrating, though. Not because I didn’t love this idea anymore, it just was a rough and exhausting week with appointments every day that lasted from the morning into the afternoon hours. I thought „well, there is a new main challenge going on but I could do this one first, it won’t take longer than 2 or 3 days“ and, well, in the end it took a whole week.

So, it was a relief that it finally turned out so nicely and I loved to write the narrative text again:

Hurrying to the Fantasy AU

Digital Painting, comic style, simple beige background, light shadows: Paula in fantasy version; young woman, short turqoise hair; toe nails painted in rainbow colour, finger nails in lesbian Pride flag colour; she's wearing some kind of green leaf-like loincloth that only covers breasts, lap and butt, green braces, a knive in a sheath of leaf optic, a bag also in leaf optic, turqoise wrist bands, a green leaf band at her right ankle, a pink shell band at her left one and a golden neck band; she is holding a wooden bow and arrow; in the background the outline of a flying big bird with a strong beak; text: "Paula Lûce".

The Hurricorn – Arcryla Citiy Fantasy Festival

It’s been cooler a little bit last week but still quite warm. While I had some time to draw, next week will be packed a lot with job’s busy work, so please be patient with me, if there will not be that much new art (although I already prepared one this weekend). Technically speaking, in the past week there was not much news for you.

I already announced last week the start of the Arcryla City Summer Fantasy Festival last week. Of course there again is a separate subpage for this event, following the same structure like the 2021 event. Likewise, it shouldn’t surprise you that I also created a new unicorn for vitranas_arts‘ Junicorn challenge.

The Hurricorn

Third week vitranas_arts Junicorn challenge has passed and again I did a drawing matching the third week’s Wind theme and accompanying subtopics. Again it’s part of Samandra’s Fabric journal.

Creating a wind based unicorn, a birdlike creature came to my mind. At one point of the design process I even thought of giving it a bird’s beak but it was hard enough to keep the unicorn features in this creature, so I went with the simple snout.

I’ve to admit, I was almost finished as I spotted that the legs were rather tall for a flying bird. To fix this issue, I also made it a running bird, this way also fitting the unicorn theme. Since I right from the beginning thought of giving it the power to create strong wind blows (and with the horn even tornadoes), it worked out nicely in the end.

The name, of course, is a pune on „Hurricane“.

This time it’s Samandra who gets in trouble by being caught of one of these wind blows and she isn’t too proud to admit it (although she also doodled a facepalm into the journal).

„Running faster than a horse, ruling the sky like thunder, the Hurricorn is on the hunt, causing storms and mayhem thereunder.“

PS: After request I also did a smartphone wallpaper of the Hurricorn for supporters on Ko-fi. The size should fit for most smartphone screens but if it’s completely out of the frame, please just tell me.

A Festival in the Fantasy AU

I’m really hyped that there is another Summer Festival again on my beloved Arcryla City Discord server. We had so much fun, last year, participating the showcases, looking at all the great artworks we came up with, the comments, the chitchat.

This year our OC’s have been transferred into a fantasy AU realm, main challenge prompts and general prompts following this topic.

To remind you: The showcases for the main challenge prompts are taking place every two weeks on Saturday evenings Pacific Standard Time (PST), meaning in the Suday morning hours of European time zones.

Since the entries for the main challenges are revealed during the showcases, I’m going to share them only afterwards to keep mine as a surprise. Still, this fits perfectly with publishing my PaintLog.

The first main challenge asked for a fantasy version of our Arcryla City OC’s. I, of course, went with my OC Crissy.

Crissy doing Crissy things, creating, fixing and crippling devices whenever required – but keeping away from people as good as possible.

Digital Painting, comic style, simple beige background, light shadows: Crissy in a fantasy version; young woman, short purple hair, big round glasses, bellyfree leather top, leather skirt, a hook, a bag, a pocket watch, a purse and a quiver with arrows on her girdle, orange-brown striped trousers, toefree boots, blue cape, a small crossbow mounted on her right lower arm, she is putting an arrow in it with her left hand; text: "Cristalya Coraly "Crissy" Fayth".

I slightly changed her name to make it sound more mediaval, but stuck to her usual colors, the boots‘ and trousers‘ design, the skirt and the top resembling the mechanic’s coat of her steampunk design. The glasses are made of a wooden frame, however, and instead of a steam driven driller she’s equipped with a arm-mounted crossbow. This is inspired by the hand-mounted crossbow Marcy Wu in show the Amphibia used to carry around.

Charactersheet, digital Painting, comic style, simple beige background, light shadows: Crissy in a fantasy version; young woman, short purple hair, big round glasses, bellyfree leather top, leather skirt, a hook, a bag, a pocket watch, a purse and a quiver with arrows on her girdle, orange-brown striped trousers, toefree boots, blue cape, a small crossbow mounted on her right lower arm, she is putting an arrow in it with her left hand; descriptive text to her sides: "Cristalya Coraly "Crissy" Fayth; (Rogue); "Gadgetsmith (learned locksmith but using this title only so loosely)"; "Croossbow Hook (for carrying when not in use)"; "Tool Bag"; "Special Skills: Inventing + Repairing; Picking Locks"; "Dismantling traps"; "Crippling things without visible damage"; "Arm-mounted Crossbow"; "Working Knife"; "Weaknesses: Handling people; (Slightly) Afraid of Heights"; "Except for skilled finger's work clumsy and chaotic in almost everything else".

Since there also are DnD game nights going on during the festival and although I won’t going to participate, I wanted to keep the option open, I also gave her a classical DnD class, fitting her finger (and fighting) skills best. The character traits are the same like the Crissy’s ones in the steampunk world.

Almost immediately after reading the first main challenge prompt, also an image of Crissy’s girlfriend Paula in a fantasy outfit popped to my mind. There were green clothes right from the beginning and also a bow, but Initially I had something more Robin Hoodish in mind. I dumped this approach to fit her character better.

Deep in the forest, Paula found herself race swapped into a wood elf. Not that she did mind, after all, cool bow and arrows went with it and she even got a flying mount.

Like Crissy’s I changed her name slightly to sound more mediaval and instead of a jetbike, she now is accompanyed by a big flying mount. I chose her to be a elf because, well, I thought of her as some (gothic) kind of vivid elf or sprite right from the beginning.

I came up with the flying mount quite lately (everyhting else already painted and texted) but since Paula owns a jetbike in the steampunk realm, it only would fit her chraracter (again, I kep all of her character traits she’s got in the steampunk realm).

My first thoughts were revolving around the bird Marcy Wu (yeah, again, and again Amphibia) rides in her show but were wiped away by the chocobo birds you get in Final Fantasy with the addition to be able to fly. Still, the name of Paula’s bird refers to Marcy’s one who was called „Joe Sparrow“.

„Paula, having the attention span not of a young kitten but of a full-grown lioness, reconsidering her day’s target when distracted by her girlfriend Crissy.“

Digital Painting, comic style, simple beige background, light shadows: 1) Crissy and 2) Paula in fantasy versions; 1) young woman, short purple hair, big round glasses, bellyfree leather top, leather skirt, a hook, a bag, a purse and a quiver with arrows on her girdle, orange-brown striped trousers, toefree boots, blue cape, a small crossbow mounted on her right lower arm, she is putting an arrow in it with her left hand; 2) young woman, short turqoise hair; toe nails painted in rainbow colour, finger nails in lesbian Pride flag colour; she's wearing some kind of green leaf-like loincloth that only covers breasts, lap and butt, green braces, a knive in a sheath of leaf optic, a bag also in leaf optic, turqoise wrist bands, a green leaf band at her right ankle, a pink shell band at her left one and a golden neck band; she is holding a wooden bow and arrow; in the background the outline of a flying big bird with a strong beak.

Btw, this is one of the rare occasions that you can spot that she actually is smaller than Crissy since in her steampunk design she always wears those high heel platform shoes.

Floods, Phones and Fires

The Floodycorn – Phone Call – Campfire Queens

Summer is coming. It’s already here and we got some really hot days. Although I tried to keep my flat cool, my brain was baking. Therefore, please excuse if this PaintLog is one day late and won’t be as elaborated as usual, some parts will even contain just the information you perhaps already know from my Instagram postings.

This week I managed to share three new paintings, including the one I announced in last week’s PaintLog. It took us long enough to finish it (see below), so it has all the rights to get a special shoutout.

It’s another Arcryla City Collab with Potato beta from Instagram and a follow-up to the Sleepover and the Zeppelin Night Ride painting. Additionally, I’d like to tell you that 2022 there will be another Arcryla City Summer Festival, this time taking place in a fantasy realm AU.

So, you can look forward to new bi-weekly prompts and another general prompts list. Actually, I’m already working on the first of the bi-weekly prompts. The showcase will take place next Saturday evening / Sunday morning. So, I already will be able to share it in my next PaintLog.

The Floodycorn

My second entry to vitranas_arts Junicorn challenge, featuring the second week’s Water theme and accompanying subtopics and again as part of Samandra’s journal.

Biggest reference to this one was the narwhale, the unicorn of the seas. First I thought of placing it in the icy waters the narwhale lives in, with a horn made of ice, but I got carried away with the background and placed it in more swampy waters.

And besides, I planned to depict a doodle of Raven in frog form right from the beginnung, so icy waters wouldn’t have been fitting at all. This way it also fits into Raven’s witches universe.

„Roaming the flooded forest river’s shores you will find the Floodycorn. Despite its cold appearance it has a hot temper and attacks anything that doesn’t respect its territory.““

Phone Call

We planned and worked on this one since last December/January but as life goes we finished it just now. So, the events took place months ago but technically they actually happen just one day after the Zeppelin Night Ride (shared on 7 December 2021) which itself takes place one day after the Sleepover (shared on 19 September 2021).

We decided to put the narrative part on own text sheets, so it can be easier read. We also created a memory booard to refer to mentioned previous collabs plus some deco stuff. This way we didn’t have to add all the old paintings. Since the memory board would show real items, Potato draw some kind of selfie of the Sleepover, taken after both had one glass of wine or the other (Crissy doesn’t have surveillance cameras in her apartment, of course).

The painting is split in two halves, one showing Crissy and one showing Potato with their respective partners in the background. In the background of Potato’s half you will find pictures of several events her OC faced in the past (and which she depicted in their own paintings).

Likewise you will find several details of past events in my half. There is the interior of the living room, of course, but also the glasses, one the same a from the Zeppelin Night Ride – along the wine bottle Paula nicked that evening (and from which the photographer took a photo that you also can spot in this painting and in the memory board).

As for the designs of the phones (which we called „soundtelegraphe“), we thought of some of those very ancient phones. For Crissy I painted some kind of engine, a whole communication center she built by herself. If you look close you will find a menu how to connect the coloured wires so call the person of your choice. Btw: We both were quite relieved as the Arcryla City admins verye recently confirmed that there are phones around in Arcryla City – pheeewy!

You also will spot that the wires are in the colours of the rainbow, the LGBTIA+ flag, and that there also are three lights in the colours of the pansexual flag, representing Crissy’s orientation. But I thought of Paula too. On the table lies a key with a trinket showing the Lesbian Pride flag.

Campfire Queens

I am a big fan of Carles Dalmau and his amazing art with all those fascinating characters and the situations they get into. Some time ago he designed a card game set that very recently got shipped and arrived just last week.

It is wonderful designed! Please take a look at the artwork.

The decks came in two versions (day and night). When laying both decks next to each other I noticed my two favorite characters being printed on the backs of the wrappings in a way that when you put them together, they kind of merge into a new figure. That inspired me to this painting.

I love the story behind these two characters and the calendar that Carles designed is hanging on my wall showing the November picture because it features exactly them.

Still, this is not the only reason I called the painting „Campfire Queens“ but also because in the card game set they literally are the Queens, too!

I started with painting the night version, a whoole picture, followed by the day version. From the start I tried to draw the lines in a way, that they would match in the end. However, if you support me on Ko-fi, you perhaps may have spotted that the first day version which I shared as wip was slightly different to the one in the finished paintings.

The reason being that not every line matched and I had to correct them before finishing everything. With some parts (the shirt and the trousers) it was quite easy while the face and the foot took some concentration.

Woody Anticipations

The Woodycorn – Anticipations

As you can see the today’s PaintLog is online a little bit later (and perhaps a little bit shorter) than usual. I had to work yesterday morning and just didn’t find the time afterwards.

The Mermay gone on the one hand it felt a little bit like a delight. On the other hand a little bit hollow since I’ll have to orientate myself again on which of my OCs and topics I shoul work next.

Technically, there were a whole weekend plus a holiday last week but I didn’t really find a start into „not drawing mermaids“ again.

At least I managed to do two new drawings in the end and a third one is in the pipeline right now (it will be published on my birthday on Thursday).

The Woodycorn

This painting is an entry to vitranas_arts Junicorn challenge, featuring the first week’s Earth theme and accompanying subtopics. It’s one approach out of three.

The first approach would’ve been a full scale painting I didn’t feel I’d manage at this time and in time. It was similar to this one whereas the 2nd approach would’ve been totally different, just depicting some mini unicorns on the ground level of a forest.

Right at the start I had the idea of a scene with my OCs Raven and Samandra. For this third approach I kept this thought but transferred it towards a journals‘ entry.

„Being a fabric mage means knowing where to get your magic stuff to weave into your clothes. So, Samandra wrote down any bit of information she got to look it up again whenever the need arises.“

Anticipations

Amphibia and The Owl House spoilers ahead

In the last two weeks I did two Amphibia x The Owl House (x Gravity Falls) crossovers. Because of the fun ot it and because there were even more ideas, I created one more crossover shenanigan.

This time a spoiler warning and a CN tag seemed appropriate (although most of the fans probably woulde have watched both shows/seasons finales by now).

I’m following a lot of The Owl House and Amphibia accounts on Instagram and Twitter and it’s always exciting which anticipations the fandom is coming up with. I often don’t know where they are getting those ideas from in the first place but their reasoning always seems logical enough to (almost) follow them.

In these cases there were a wildly spread fan theory that Anne (Amphibia) would lose an arm during her show. At the same time there was one that Luz (The Owl House) would get possessed by The Collector (or rather The Collector in theis physcial form can only exist by possessing somebody (and this being Luz)). So, this painting again is dedicated to all the fans who expected one of those two things happening but got … err … disappointed will be the wrong word … again, it (luckily) just wasn’t meant to be canon (yet).

Animation Crossing

A collage of all Mermay2022 paintings, starting in the upper left corner, each of the 4 paintings coming together + the prompt board; Ocean ("The Return of the Merindiana Jane"): Merindiana Jane and Ceratia ascending from the depths towards a swimming turtle island; River ("A Bridge between Worlds"), Engineeriel and mermaid Crissy working on a steampunk bridge in a river leading to a distant steampunk city, sending a salmon, a mermaid Paula watching them; Lake ("The Heart inside our Caves"): An axolot mermaid cuddling with Nessie in the lake of a cenote, in the background the marriage ceremony of Swampgirl and Amphimaid in a boat; Swamp ("Wytch on Vakation"): The Little Sea Witch sitting in a deckchair in a swamp, conjuring plants to bring her a coconut drink, next to her a floating ghost starfish and her staff and hat holding a sign "Wytch on Vakation", while doing this also summoning giant bone snakes in the background, a frog and a salamander watching; text: "Mermay 2022".

A collage of all Mermay2022 paintings, each of the 4 paintings, left to right, top to bottom: Ocean ("The Return of the Merindiana Jane"): Merindiana Jane and Ceratia ascending from the depths towards a swimming turtle island; River ("A Bridge between Worlds"), Engineeriel and mermaid Crissy working on a steampunk bridge in a river leading to a distant steampunk city, sending a salmon, a mermaid Paula watching them; Lake ("The Heart inside our Caves"): An axolot mermaid cuddling with Nessie in the lake of a cenote, in the background the marriage ceremony of Swampgirl and Amphimaid in a boat; Swamp ("Wytch on Vakation"): The Little Sea Witch sitting in a deckchair in a swamp, conjuring plants to bring her a coconut drink, next to her a floating ghost starfish and her staff and hat holding a sign "Wytch on Vakation", while doing this also summoning giant bone snakes in the background, a frog and a salamander watching.

Mermay recap – Crossovers

As hinted last week, I’m going to bring this year’s Mermay to a close. As much as I love the Mermay as glad am I not to draw only mermaids for a change. Still, although I actually did some new paintings since last Sunday, we are not quite there.

Therefore, for a last time this year this PaintLog (the first half of it) will deal with the Mermay, the recap I promised you.

With the second half we are getting back to fanart again. Amphiba came to an end, so did season 2 of The Owl House. Additionally, I made use of my short vacation by binge watching the show Gravity Falls.

You will find the results of this combination below and on the respective pages, of course.

Mermay Recap

The main thing was: To have fun!

And fun I had. I enjoyed to create the prompt board together with my collab partner Potato, to draw the prompts, to come up with the texts, the ones for the general board as well as the ones for the weekly introductions. Thank you Potato for co-hosting this Mermay!

Goaling four major paintings and sharing one small detail every day turned out to be exactly the right thing. This way I managed to come through the Mermay quite well despite tigh working schedules in May.

Mentioning these … yeah, at some points in time it was stressful. I started around Easter with the first drawing and until the second week I was way ahead of the calendar with my preparations. Still, from week 3 onwards it initially often was a day by day drawing. Only the vacation of the fourth week were able to fix this.

However, it was a delight to finally see the paintings coming together. Which one is your favorite? Tbh, I like „The Heart inside our Caves“ the most. Like in last year’s Linktober, I created some short clips that will show you the drawing progress of each painting and there also is a collage with every painting shared this Mermay.

Looking at the four paintings in retrospective, I come to think that you clearly can spot how my time schedule influenced the work progress. The first two already were quite elaborated before their respective week even started, I just had to hide the details I didn’t want to share on the particular days.

Week 3 is starting with Nessie, the background came quite in the end. Week 4 starts the same way (with the Little Sea Witch) but as soon as I found the time, the whole background was on its way and only needed slight alterations.

Last but not least a shoutout to everony who participated in our 4WeeksMermay. It was the first time we were hosting it and perhaps there will be another one next year.

It was great to see all the other entries, the fantasy and imagination you put into the combinations of the prompts.

Thank you so much!

We would be happy if you’d join next year again!

Mermay 2022 paintings

Crossovers

Amphibia, The Owl House and Gravitiy Falls spoilers ahead

As mentioned above, last week I felt the fanboy vibes again – threefold!

It all started with the finale of The Owl House’s 2nd season finale (but is rooted back to the one of Amphibia too). In the final scene we see a newspaper article featuring a picture of Anne Boonchuy and the question if her being lost in a frog world has been a hoax.

The same moment the image of Camila contacting the Boonchuys jumped to my mind, and this way Luz finally meeting Anne. Luz of course would be enthusiastic about a world with giant snakes in it (the very first episode of her show introduced her by throwing snakes).

For Anne’s part, however, it may be important to know that it felt like half of the fandom shipped her with one or the other of the other two girls who were stuck with her in Amphibia. But it wasn’t meant to be canon up to the end whereas Luz, of course, came back to the human realm with her girlfriend Amity.

Digital painting, comic style: Luz Noceda from the show The Owl House (brown short hair, short ponytail, blue and white hoody) and Anne Boonchuy from Amphibia (brown mop-like hair with leaves and a stick in it, grey shirt with a the coat of arms of her school on it (yellow, pink, blue, purple, the letters S, J, M and S in theses fields), pink skirt) talking to each other; Luz: "Sooo ... you really were stuck in a cute froggy world with giant snakes in it?", Anne: "Wait! You actually came back from your interdimensional travel with a girlfriend?!"

It was the first time I drew Anne. I drew Luz before and even other Amphibia characters, but not Anne. I tried to do this in my own style but to keep the „Disney roundness“. Because in the show the eyes (in her normal form) are just little black dots, I had to search the internet for information about their colour and in the end it turned out that they are brown. The Amphibia Wiki didn’t mention which brown, so I chose a tone of the same brown she has as hair colour.

The same time I came up with this idea, already another one sneaked into my mind but I wanted to share the Amphibia x The Owl House cartoon first.

There are several references to Gravity Falls in The Owl House as well as in Amphibia, Stan and Soos have versions of them in both realms and it’s as good as canon that he ince was married to Eda Clawthorne from The Owl House. So, we can assume, Gravity Falls is part of the same uni/multiverse.

This being a great basis for my second crossover cartoon. Things to know if you don’t know the show: Dippper (the guy to the left) actually never had to leave the human realm. On the other side, almost hte whole show he had a big crush on the girl Wendy (who was 15 at this point in time while he was nearly 13). Of course, he didn’t came back from Gravity Falls with a girlfried.

Digital painting, comic style, an one picture cartoon featuring a crossover of several Disney shows: Luz Noceda (The Owl House) (brown short hair, short ponytail, blue and white hoody) and Anne Boonchuy (Amphibia) (brown mop-like hair with leaves and a stick in it, grey shirt with a the coat of arms of her school on it (yellow, pink, blue, purple, the letters S, J, M and S in theses fields), pink skirt) talking to each other in the background; Luz: "Sooo ... you really were stuck in a cute froggy world with giant snakes in it?", Anne: "Wait! You actually came back from your interdimensional travel with a girlfriend?!"; Dipper (Gravity Falls) (young man, brown hair, red shirt, blue jacket, blue and whit cap with a blue pine tree print): "Amateurs! I didn't even have to leave my realm ...", from the right lower corner his twin sister Mabels: "But you didn't come back with a girlfried either!", additionally a loud "OINK" from a character not in the picture.

Because by now Dipper and Mabel would’ve been almost 23 years old, I tried to paint them a little bit older than in the show. Dipper got some hair on the chin and I shortened Mabels hair. I also abandoned the ribbon. However, she is wearing a pig ear pendant, referring to her pig Waddles, of course and to once more underline her weirdness.

As with Anne I had to investigate on the eye colour. With Dipper (and mabel) it was brown again and this time I chose the same brown that I used as basic hair colour of Anne. I also noticed that Mabel and Dipper have got the same basic skin and hair colour, making things quite easy for me because I already had the whole colour palette at hand.