Although the Arcryla City Summer Fantasy Festival ended, the prompt „Song/Music“ inspired me to the painting below. There is actually another prompt that inspired me to explain how Paula got the harp in the first place, but I decided to paint the painting that takes less time first (I won’t be able to paint it until next week, though, because I’m preparing another, more important one, at the moment).

Paula playing the harp was an easy decision. As mentioned in the story, it is not much more than a bow with a lot of more strings and I totally can see the Steampunk Paula playing the guitare. However, I wasn’t sure about her surroundings first.

Initially I thought of some nymphs or dryads that Crissy had to fight off and/or to tie up. Then the pune with the harpy came to my mind and I thought of a harpy tied to a tree.

Little is known that Paula was a passionate harpist (well, string instrument player to be honest – but a harp isn’t little more than a bow with a few more strings after all, so it has its very own appeal). However, she didn’t bother to read manuals. So, she didn’t know that this one was supposed to summon a love-crazed and very hungry harpy woman Crissy had to deal with to prevent greater damage.

Still I wasn’t convinced and I didn’t like the sketches. Suddenly the idea struck me to just show the harpy’s shadow.

I still had to show how Crissy steps in, though, but soon remembered the crossbow arrow shot of the comic main challenge of the festival. But I didn’t only wanted to tell the background of what is going on in the painting, I also wanted to show it. So I added the case with the „Instructions“ scroll that Paula only bothered to read the topic (if anything at all).

The last struggle I had was with the foreground and the background. First I didn’t want any at all but I tried out some features like a meadow and plants in the foreground and trees and clouds an birds in the background. It didn’t work, mainly because of the shadows which weren’t clearly visible.

After some try and error with gradient color layers, I tried a subtle and diffuse yellow and orange background. Because of the surely lovely music I wanted to give it a rosy, shimmery and soft look too. Therefore I added a foreground too but with a pinker tone than in the finished piece.

I changed the tone when I got the inspiration to make the dangercoming from the harpy visible in colors. Therefore, I made them more reddish, resembling blood in the corners of the eyes of an approaching harpy.

This piece again was an exercise in practising in poses and anatomy. I saw a reference pic and thought this pose would be great and as for the anatomy … last week I announced my Patreon channel for artistical anatomy and poses. You again will find Paula full frontal there. You can get access by a tiny tip in my jar on Ko-fi and then following the links in the supporters only posts.

In the end of the Summer Festival, our OCs were sent home to their own realm. They woke up again in their rooms in steampunk Arcryla City and didn’t remember what happened in the fantasy world. And, of course, Paula wasn’t able to take Sparrow with her (or to keep the elf’s ears).

All that was left were vague, dreamlike feelings, dejavues at the most. Still, I got this idea to connect Sparrow with the steampunk world. There are no big bird mounts in the steampunk realm, of course, but there is the African secretary bird, a bird that comes next in appearance to Sparrow.

With this piece, I wanted to try out some new things. Again, I managed to do Paula’s updated haircut (although ruffled by the night) but I also found a new way to draw abs. I always wanted her to have visible abs but wasn’t able to sufficiently. I think, I will stick to them the way I did here.

The second goal was to practise anatomy, going into the very details, including full frontal nudity. Yes, in one version of this painting you can see her boobs and then, there is a version in which I cut out one of the plants pots, so you can spot her genital piercing (she always had one, but, well, no nudity on this site, you know). Both are among the paintings you can see on above-mentioned Patreon channel.

But let’s keep speaking about creating the SFW versions of this painting. The original, the most genuine version, the one that I had in mind when drawing the painting, is the one featuring the big plant leaves. It depends on your point of view, if it just doesn’t tell if Paula is wearing anything or if the leaf covers her up.

My intention was, yes, it implies nudity (therefore you won’t find it on Ko-fi) and with „most genuine“ I mean that it fits Paula’s „I don’t give a fucking shit about what other peoples think“ attitude most. So, in the real universe, she is standing in full nuditiy on her balcony, „So what?!“.

First I thought of covering it up by adding another big plant right in front of her but as it came to painting this part, I was too proud of my newly drawn abs and they would’ve been covered as well along with a big part of Paula’s upper body. Besides, it would’ve been to obvious what I was going to hide. Still, I had to add some vines covering her hips, so nobody would be able to tell if she wears some kind of panties.

„Chirp, chirp, chirp …“, the birds outside the windows awakened Paula.

Still dozy she left the bed to look after her plants on the balcony. She felt like she’d had a weird dreams but couldn’t recall anything. She stepped on the balcony and gave herself a good stretch when she heard some flapping sounds.

Opening one eye, the second one still half closed, sleep in the eyes, behind a wall of blurry dream dust, she noticed a big, long-legged, talon-armed and sharp-beaked grey and white bird. She immediately got the feeling of familiarity, although she couldn’t say where this came from and the bird appeared to be docile enough.

Paula didn’t read a lot – in fact she didn’t read at all -, so she didn’t know what a secretary bird is or where they usually live, so she didn’t question it. She also didn’t remember the adventures in some weird fantasy realm, but she knew that she got a new but somehow familiar friend.

She called her „Sparrow“.

This became important with the full SFW version in which she wears a shirt. Still no hint of panties (and being Paula there won’t be any) but by looking at the painting, you may imagine some. To keep this version SFW, I had to shade Paula’s boobs a little bit darker, so there won’t be any visible nipples.

If you look close, you can see that there is the head of a waterbear on the shirt, indicating that it’s one of Crissy’s. If you look even closer, you will spot her in the background, lying in the bed, there is even a part of her leg sticking out of the blankets. I even put her waterbear plushy into the painting, but this one is fully covered by the bed curtain, I fear. Another detail that details got missed due to the background blur are the two pictures on the wall.

One of them you still may recognzige as the photo taken on the Zeppelin Ride that I presented as Valentine’s entry in the beginning of this year. The second one is a photo taken by a speed trap as they both were riding Paula’s jetbike during last year’s Summer Festival. Since it turned out a nice picture, Paula decided to put it on her wall.

In my first approach to the background, I didn’t want to bother with it a lot. Therefore, I tried some lineless airbrush … well … you have to call it „diffuse airbrush blobs“. It didn’t really work out without lineart, so I skipped the seemingly „fast and easy“ attempt and drew the lines.

I often got asked, if it’s Crissy’s appartment or Paula’s. Admittedly, it’s not that obvious. Still, I already mentioned Paula’s carnivorous plants and here they are. I exaggerated a lot and played arount with my fantasy rather than taking references of real carnivorous plants in their actual form or sizes.

They are taken from several popcultural sources like Little Shop of Horror (the small Audrey like plants) or Pokémon (there is a Victreebel-like plant hanging around), inspired by real plants (like the sundew or the „cactus“) or just made up as I went along (the big one on the balcony’s railing). And as often this days I also hid a tiny but happy frog in this painting.

Another detail that got invisible are the reflections in the door’s glass. I actually did some, I really did. I didn’t want to bother with them a lot, but I did. They basically were parts of the painting put on an extra (clipping) layer above the door’s glass and lowering the opacitiy really low.

Because this way it never would’ve been an accurate way of reflecting this was an advantage on my side and well, I just wanted to to hint at them, not get them recognizable. However, the other background details are covering most of them anyways, not to speak of the reflection of the morning sun (and the whole morning sky) in one of the glass tiles.

Btw, I’m really proud that I managed to get this bright morning feeling and the dizziness after waking up after deep dreams, when there still is sleep in your eyes and a blur in the corners of your field of vision.

Rise of the Mamangogo
(The Mother of all Mangogoes)

Some weeks ago, Crissy discovered in one of the festival stalls some weird fruits called „Mangogoes„. After sharing this painting, I joked around with my best friend via Whatsapp about scary mangoes and „Mama Mango“.

This led to the idea of Paula and Crissy fleeing from a giant mamangogo.

Here the potions prompt of the general prompt list came in handy and for the general scene I remembered an approach that came to my mind when I planned the Lanterns prompt but that I abandoned back then.

Now it seemed to be perfect to my purpose. At the same time, the intended perspective was an excercise in its own right. Furthermore, Crisssy should be looking scaryfied backwards. This meant there had to be an unfamiliar pose, too.

The hardest part was to get her legs right, though. While Paula’s ones were directed forward, representing her wild ride attitude, Crissy’s should be clinged to the mount, representing her need for security. But this meant to draw them seen from front and above – you easily can get this wrong.

The attempt for lineart saw Paula looking straight forward, concentrated on the flight. However, at one point in time I thought it would be a good idea to also visualize the magic potion that brought us the Mamangogo in the first place. Enter a second unfamiliar pose, the upper body turned back, the arm stretched out to the flying potion flask.

To get all those things right took 2-3 days just for the lineart and even more problems occured during the coloring process. Sparrow’s saddle has a pommel and a hook up front. But since I colored the saddle red, initially the colored pommel and the colored saddle looked like something you got to see only in movies for adults above 18 years old. Therefore, I had to change the lineart to keep it SFW.

Also, I didn’t plan to draw Paula’s bow but the space in front of the saddle appeared to be quite empty and, well, although I always painted this hook, even in the one painting he came to its purpose, it wasn’t this visible that the hook is there to hold the bow.

So, I finally got an opportunity to make it clear. Luckily, I happily could skip many of the other details due to the perspective. Still, I again had a hard time to achieve an impression of movement but motion blur saved the day (again).

The last struggle I had was to get the painting in suitable proportions. I actually wanted to focus more on Crissy and Paula, to have them bigger in size but I already made the Mamangogo too big, so I stayed with the one you can see below in the end.

Rise of the Mamangogo
(The Mother of all Mangogoes)

– General prompt No. 1: Potions –

To tend her carnivorous plants back home more effectively, Paula bought a growth potion at one of the stalls of the ongoing Summer Festival (she would’ve nicked one, but … well … never mess with someone who creates potions). She didn’t waste time and tried it out with one of the Mangogoes that she has nicked from „Wyrd’s Fruits and Vegetables“ stall.

It actually worked.

Well, she must have remembered the dose wrong, but it worked …

Rider’s Talk

As the end of the festival came near, the main challenge for the last showcase emphasized again that we can draw other artist’s OCs and/or Sir Alexander and/or Lynette into our paintings. Therefore, I asked vitranas_art (Instagram) if I could take her Archie for a painting corresponding to one she was working on.

She depicted a scene showing Archie with my OCs Crissy and Paula in a tavern that inspired me to the painting below.

There were only a few days left and I managed just in time – except that I didn’t bother with a detailed background. Still, I like the lights giving this dim tavern atmosphere. To be perfect I perhaps shpuld’ve added some tavern sign (the tavern is called „The Golden Hoof“), but I think it’s good as it is.

Paula by default is an extroverted and Archie also always curious and eager to get to know new people while Crissy is an introverted and her social batteries will come to an end quick. Plus, Archie is a Wyvern Rider and Paula got to love her giant bird mount Sparrow. So they naturally had a common topic.

This automatically led to the following scene: Paula and Archie still talking while Crissy slumbering away. However, I wanted to show that Paula cares about her girlfried. Therefore, she is holding her in her arm, the arm lying around her shoulders with a hint of leaving with her any moment now.

I also wanted to include one of the mangogoes (the waterbear shaped) to indeed appearing to have gotten drunk. Originally, I draw a toppled wine bottle to this purpose but since it would’ve been somewhat in front of Crissy too this would’ve looked as if Crissy had too much wine and got drunk. Well, she had too much, but it was only the wine in her actual cup (she doesn’t tolerate that much alcohol before getting tipsy).

Therefore, instead of a toppled wine bottle I just drew an additional toppled cup. To fill up the space and to indicate that there also were other guests around at some point in time and it is not one of Crissy’s cup toppled on the counter, I also draw a second cup in front of Archie.

Perhaps you also see the difference of the volume of wine already consumed in the two opened bottles. Here I wanted to show that Paula could drink (and tolerate) a good amount of alcohol. Apropos wine bottles – you also can spot that Paula nicked one again.

And perhaps you can see that I changed her hairstyle, too. Well, not really changed, I finally managed to paint it the way I always wanted to. I’ll elaborate this further in my future drawings (in the one I already did I, well, I already did).

Regarding Archie, I fear I drew him a little bit too bulky. I think he was supposed (and is depicted by others) to be more slender. This way he reminds me a tiny bit too much of Mario (Mario Brothers). The ponytail is too shot, too. But may it as it be, they indeed have a good time.

If you look close, you perhaps will spot the two details I took kind of a shortcut. The waterbear shaped mangogo is taken from the first mangogo painting, I just added the „X X“ as eyes and the red nose. The second one is the counter. It’s the same counter like in the above-mentioned piece, more shadows added and a little bit of structure in the front side.

Last but not least, I wasn’t that unlucky that because of the setting I didn’t have to draw too many of the details of Crissy’s (and Archie’s and Paula’s) clothes. Because they were inside, I even could skip Crissy’s cape.

Rider’s Talk

– General Prompt No. 10: Tavern –

After an exhausting day at the Summer Festival in this weird fantasy realm, Paula found a tavern and talked Crissy into stopping by to finish the day. They both got something to drink and they met Archibald Featherstone, a Wyvern Rider of the Kingdom’s Wyvern Riders Guild. Paula asked a lot about Fortuna and in turn was eager to talk about Sparrow. However, as the evening continued, Crissy slowly dozed off.

The admins of the Arcryla City Discord server announced another, a fifth main challenge added to the initially four ones. In the end it narrowed down to hand in all the other prompts we still were working on but there was a story to conclude the festival, too.

In the end of the fight Lynette, the kingdom’s princess in the fantasy realm, intervened and sent our OCs back to their own world.

I took the opportunity to paint an entry for the general prompt Spell. At the same time it concludes the comic from two weeks before. It’s the final page of the comic, if you’d like to say. To this purpose I even kept the exact size of the comic pages.

But, as you easily can spot, I also took the silhouette of Crissy that’s in the foreground (and added a silhouette of Paula). To hint at the cover page of the comic I even took the same background, the same clouds minus the cannons and plus some more clouds to fill the gap in the bottom right corner.

Lynette’s design and color palette is derived from the general prompt list and the Fantasy Festival announcement sheets. As those were published, the fantasy AU design of Lynette wasn’t finished yet but we got the information about the fairy wings on the Discord server, so I added them too.

The candied apple is depicted in both of above-mentioned announcement sheets. Therefore, I included it into this painting and even made it a magical artefact. Right from the beginning I thought of something like a Sailor Moon like pose and the apple even looks like the stick she changes with into Sailor Moon.

A running gag on the Discord server is the phrase „With the power of friendship“. Candied apples in Germany are called, literally translated, „Love apples“ (not to be confused with the old term for „tomatoes“). Now, it’s „the power of friendship“ and not „the power of love“ but „it’s“apple of friendship“ still is near enough to be a reference to this local name for candied apples.

Still, something else was missing. The rays are reference back to the ones of the cover page of the comic. Then I remembered that I love to add glitter and blossoms to my paintings. In this case I painted the latter one spiralling through the air towards the apple, this way giving the apple a moving look.

Last but not least I added those „chirp“ sound words. The narration of the summer event started and ended with birds chirping outside the window, the first time when our OC awakes in the fantasy realm, the second time when they awake back home.

You could say, we now have come full chirple.