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.