(K)Nights and Days on the Beach

Witchphibians:
Kimeira Wartribe

DTIYS:
Cactus Knight

Witchphibians:
The Witches Almanac

Arcryla City:
Kiss on the Beach

It’s only two weeks since the February recap, but I already got four new art pieces, so let’s do a mid-March recap!

First of all, Witchphibians series got a new character, Kimeira Wartribe. I actually created here already in February but saved her for the March’s PaintLog.

Creating this character and the accompanying text sheet also made it necessary (or to it felt) to write down all the Witchphibians lore I came up so far in one single work.

At the same time I changed the subpage’s web address from „Raven-Frogfeet“ to „Witchphibians„. The old page still is available, so older links won’t lead into nothingness, but now you will get directly on a page that bears the series name.

Before doing this I also participated in another DTIYS and afterwards I wanted to draw a new Crissy&Paula piece so badly. It turned out not to be done that fast as hoped for (as usual), but I’m quite proud of it (and there again is a not so safe for work version on my special Patreon account*).

*If you are new here:You will get access via a tip in my jar on Ko-fi.

Witchphibians: Kimeira Wartribe

It took me almost a whole year to add another character to the Witchphibians series.

I had this idea of a battle witch riding an axe instead of a broom some time ago. Doing so, I could have stopped by drawing her on an empty canvas, but as usual I got carried away and thought „What if she is some kind of guardian of Witchwood?*“.

I also was struggling a little bit with here name. Initially, I thought of something like „Chimeira“, but this would’ve been shortened to „Chi“ and this name already is taken by another character (in a completely different context) who is really dear to me.

So I got to the „K“ and this way I was able to shorten her name to „Kim“. I also wasn’t sure if she is going to be spelled „Kimeira“ or „Kimera“ but in the end, I kept the „ei“. Additionally, I wanted to call her „Yasha ‚Kimeira‘ Wartribe“.

At the point of time I was drawing her, I read a book about Star Trek: The Next Generation. So, „Yasha“ would’ve been a blending of the name of the security officer „Tasha Yar“. Plus, it resembled the name „Sasha Waybright“ from Disney’s Amphibia series. It wasn’t intended but she even got a scar in her face.

Still, I abandoned „Yasha“ for now since it wouldn’t have fit into the witches name system that I established so far (on the other hand this leading to writing the Almanac (see below) to explain the handling of the witches names (among other things)).

However, you can be asured, the name „Yasha“ connected with Kimeira will pop up again in the future.

Another issue I was struggling with was if she is going to be called a „Battle Witch“ or a „Warrior Mage“. Again, the fist one wouldn’t have fit into the nomenclature system of my witches world where witches with a magical profession are called „mages“ and, well, nobodys stops her (or others) to call „Battle Witch“ in day to day live.

*The not yet mentioned region where the Witchphibians series is taking place.

With this piece I took the opportunity to playing around with blurs again. Sadly, many of the background details I worked on for hours go blurred too and there was no way to de-blur them without crushing the whole painting. But, well it, it wasn’t that of a problem.

A problem was, however, that I added a leafy shadow overlay but I forgot to blur it first round. Therefore, it looked more like Kimeira was covered in mud. The (now) final piece, though, is the corrected version.

Sidenote: Not long after I finished Kimeira, the anime show „Izetta“ on Crunchyroll caught my eye (and I loved to watch it). Seems like there already have been other people around with the idea of a fighting witch riding on a weapon through the air – Izetta even has the same hair colour like Kimeira.

DTIYS: Cactus Knight

I don’t do a lot of DTIYS. Like with fanart, ideas regarding my own OCs are too many and time is rare. Still, this DTIYS of Greenfinch.Garden (Instagram) caught my idea right from the beginning and I wanted to participate. However, it took me until a few days before the deadline before I got any idea how to approach it.

I got the idea of an armor resembling an organic grown plant and its leaves with spikes, like a cactus. Same applies to the sword. Hence the title of my drawing. I even thought of giving her a green skin colour but then I thought brown also will be fit for a cactus.

The armor in the original painting is more silver but to get the cactus, it had to be changed towards green. This had the disadvantage that I had to struggle with the sword not standing out enough. Both had the same colour tone, the one the original painting provided for the plants. So I painted the blade way brighter and the hilt way darker.

I also changed the pose and this resulted in an exercise in shading because now one side of her body lies in shadows, the other one is lightened by the moon. Actually, I’m quiete proud how I managed this.

Witchphibians: The Witches Almanac

As hinted above, when creating Kimeira I noticed there were so many details I until now only kept in my head or hinted at in past posts you would have to search first to get this information. It also may become handy to have something you actually can look minor details up, if they slipped your mind (even as creator of the series).

So, the idea of an almanac to collect all the lore of Witchphibians was born.

I put it in the design of an actual Almanac, using the paper texture as background which I used since the Mermay 2020 entries as background for things written down on pages (may it be Samandra’s Fabric Journal, the Mermaid Squad’s character sheets or the letter Sam received on „Pragmatic Alien Day“).

Right from the beginning I wanted to decorate it with (newly drawn) tiny sketches but it also came handy to just insert old drawings in black & white (or rather a deep purple & transparent parts).

So far I shared three postings on Instagram, feauturing the introduction, a disclaimer, the terminology and some chapters of the main part.

The first part is some kind of introduction and terminology to tell you what the Almanac is talking about when using certain terms. And since there were space left, I also included a disclaimer with copyright information and information about what influenced to this series.

The more interesting information is to be found in the main part which gives an overview over the witches community, social structury, some traditions and general behaviours. It will be continued in the future whenever new information comes to my mind and feels consistent enough to be put into words and sentences.

Arcryla City: Kiss on the Beach

Since my last Crissy painting (as Aquarius) was from January, my last Arcryla City painting (Secret Santa to Eun Bee, depicting her OC) and the last Crissy Arcryla City painting even from end of October (the Midnight Gala piece), I felt the urge to draw a Crissy Paula Arcryla City painting again.

„One advantage of living in a floating city was that you were able to go places. Sandy, warm and splashy places.“ (NSFW version: „One advantage of living in a floating city was that you were able to go places. Sandy, hot and wet places.“)

I felt, they needed some „us“ time and also wanted to took the opportunity to practice anatomy and anatomy poses again (at the same time adding more content to my Patreon account for more explicite poses).

First I thought of depicting them making out under the shower. To get a SFW piece I would’ve tucked them into one big blanket. But this wouldn’t have taken away the N in NSFW at all (even more so, because it would’ve fired the fantasy and got you an even more imaginative picture in you head of what they might be doing there under the blanket).

So, I tried to skip the blanket and just give them swimsuits* for the SFW version and it worked in every way I could imagine. The shower head remained, though, because there are showers on public beaches. The hardest part of this drawing was to draw the kiss, though. If you don’t want to get a nose boop, the heads had to be tilted. Therefore, I looked up references and drew my way pixel for pixel towards the kiss you are able to see now.

The first approach of beach scene already contained Acrcryla City floating in the sky in the background. There were two reasons why I additionally put some leaves in the upper right corner.

1. Because I planned a NSFW version it would’ve looked strange seeing them enjoying each other when a whole city in the background is able to watch them doing so.

2. The city alone won’t have the same effect as the other object in the edges of the painting. There would’ve been some kind of big space, leading the eye away from the important part towards the floating city.

So, I added an extra object to frame the painting properly. In a first attempt, now the city wasn’t to be seen anymore at all, but I erased some of the leaves. Therefore, you now are able to spot the city again (after giving attention to anything else).

*Perhaps you noticed, Crissy’s swimsuit resembles the colours of the Pansexual Pride flag, Paula’s fingers and toes nail polish together with the bikini the one of the Lesbian Pride flag.

Stinging

ZodiOCs: Scorpio

Digital painting, comic style: A young girl in front view, brown skin, blue hair, blus nail polish, blue lipstick, blue eyes with heartshaped pupils, the wrists are crossed above the position of her heart, she's wearing gloves with sparkling heartspaded diamonds, there is a heartshaped boob windows in her top, she is wearing blue skirts, blue leggings and a semi-transparant blue cape, golden pendands hanging from ear piercings, two golden hearts on ech leg of the leggings; blue background, a big white empty heart with a smaller white empty heart in it behind her, sparkles building a track from her fingertips along the outer heart; blue and white petals in the foreground.

DTIYS: Heart Goldwing

Let’s prepare another PaintLog entry. With luck it will be finished in 2-3 weeks again.* Perhaps I can call myself lucky because two weeks ago I did my latest piece and then I didn’t find the motivation to do another one. This means that I can present you those 1-2 weeks old pieces today, though.

Both are somewhat unusual compared to my other pieces. The first one (Scorpio) is an attempt of transferring OCs (Paula in this case) into alternative environments, the second one an DTIYS that I joined.

*It actually took only 2 days this time.

ZodiOCs: Scorpio

Every so often I see artwork from brilliant artists depicting the Zodiac signs in one way or the other. Whereas I don’t believe in astrology, star signs, esoterism or similar stuff, I still appreciate a good story or a good motif (like fairy tales or religious stories: You know it’s made-up, but it“s fascinating stuff nontheless).

So, I got inspired to my very own series of depicting the Zodiac signs. To this purpose I’m going to put Original Characters (OCs) into drawing showing the respective Zodiac sign of the year. However, the OCs may not necessarily be born under the sign they depict.

Since I started in the beginning of November, the first sign was Scorpio and my OC Paula from Arcryla City perfectly fit into it. Or rather the other way around: Imaging her as a Zodiac sign created this idea in the first place. The next one (Sagittarius) is already finished and can be found as early access on my Ko-fi account for a tip in my jar.

Her hair already roughly has the shape of a scorpion’s sting and in steampunk version she is known for wearing high heeled boots, so the image of a sharp and thin, sting-like boot’s heel also jumped to my mind, legs and feet being positioned over head.

I also added minor details that aren’t part of her normal design like the tattoos and the ear jewellery. I wasn’t sure if to add the vines, though, but she her hobby is growing carnivorous plants (which have to be trimmed) and this way the scissor gauntlets actually make sense.

DTIYS: Heart Goldwing

Some time ago Instagram user Pocket Andrew started hosting a DTIYS. Although I don’t do DTIYS that regularly (my OCs have got priority), this time I wanted to participate.

Seeing the original painting, I got the idea of a magical girl in a Sailor Moon like pose. With stars and glitter and all. Since 3/4 body made the best impression, the boot and the roller skates weren’t in the picture in the sense the original one shows them.

Therefore I had to change one trinket of the ear jewellery of each ear, so you now find them there. The petals in the foreground are supposed to not only add to the Sailor Moon like scene, they also are suppossed to add depth.

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.

Challenging

A prompt board for the 4 Weeks Mermay 2022 Mermay challenge; a landscape characterized by four bodies of water (from top to bottom): The ocean with its beaches, a river flowing through the landscape, coming from a lake which transforms into a Swamp, the prompts a drawn into the landscape, the names of the prompts of each category coloured in the same colour; each category is attached to a week; Week 1 Ocean (1th-8th), Deep Sea, Beach, Coral, Seal, Star Wars, Octopus/Kraken, Island; Week 2 River (9th-15th), Fork, Steampunk City, Bridge, Salmon, Waterfall, Swing, Guardian; Week 3 Lake (16th-23rd), Night Sky, Nessie, Love, Axolotl, Cenote; Week 4 Swamp (24rd-31st), Snake, Frog, Water Plants, Spa, Witch, (Un)Dead.

Comic, 2 panels, digital painting: In the upper panel a balloon made of purple adomination goo in front of a dark purple night sky, some pink flowers are tied to the balloon, pink blossoms flying through the bottom rigt corner of the painting, start of the text: " 'Probaly doesn't work that way. "; bottom panel: a purple vase with a single white flower in front of a dark blue night sky (the positions of the stars are inverted in comparison to the first panel), in the bottom left corner some fading blossoms.

Digital painting, comic style: Young woman with firey middle-short red-brown hair leaning on a railing, the left arm rised into the air, the right hand holding the railing, the left feet, barefoot, behind her in the air, the wind is blowing through her hair and playing with a thin red shirt with white dots, she is wearing light beige trousers, there is a ear ring in her ear; pale yellow, orange and red sunset background.

4 Weeks Mermay 2022 – Reaching Out – Melis 300

Some weeks are more challenging, some are less. On the private field, last week was quite since I was on leave and didn’t have to bother with my bread and butter job and similar stuff.

This gave room and energy for doing work in the creative field. So, I got time to finish three works I’m not shy to say that I’m quite proud of, each one standing out in its own rights.

4 Weeks Mermay

I hinted at it before and althoug strictly speaking it was the last of mentioned projects, I am so happy to announce it first!

Mermay is coming and as announced earlier, again I was planning something. No, we were planning something. This year I teamed up again with Potato Beta (Instagram). You remember our Arcryla City collabs? Yes, it’s her again.

Together we came up with our own Mermay Prompt Board. Although I somehow always managed to draw every day during the last 3 Mermays, it can be really tiresome and a lot of pressure.

Therefore we created a Mermay which gives prompts for weeks, not for days. Of course you can paint every day but you also can do only one painting for a couple of days with as many prompts as you like.

Of course you can paint every day but you also can do only one painting for a couple of days with as many prompts as you like.

Plus: There is a Joker prompt which allows you to turn any (non-mermaid) character into a mermaid version. And yes, there is a reason why a „Steampunk City“ also is on the Prompt Board. Speaking of … since it’s Easter, there are 3-4 Easter eggs hidden in the drawing. Some of them can be found by knowing earlier paintings of Potato and me (hint: Arcryla City), other ones are not that easy to find but knowing about us and Zelda games may help.

I again adjusted my website and now you not only will find a countdown but also an own 4Weeks Mermay subpage. There you will find the Prompt Board, the guide we wrote and finally my own entries as soon as Mermay starts.

We’d love to welcome you to our Mermay!

Prompt Board + Guide

Reaching Out

Strictly speaking I should have shared this one in this PaintLog already last Sunday. However, I was too short of time to do this and you know what I’m saying „It’s always good to have another painting up you sleeves for the next PaintLog“.

The Saturday before, another amazing episode of The Owl House aired. This led to a new painting of mine depicting the most intense scene of this episode.

I didn’t expect this painting to become my new top posting on Instagram (>70 likes currently), but here we go …

The painting refers to the last few minutes of mentioned episode. You will find a full review on my The OwlLog pages. which of course is spoilery. However, I don not consider the painting itself spoilery, if you know, you know, if not you don’t. Still, please be aware that I will referring to details of the episode while sharing the thoughts I had when painting this art piece.

„Probably doesn’t work that way“, well, doesn’t it? I immediately noticed how the colours of Amity’s adomination goo balloon and Camila’s vase matches each others and there are even the same kind of flowers (but for the colour, obviously).

In a symbolic, metaphorically way it does work, althought not in a strict physical sense, of course.

In my painting I intended to emphasize this symbolism even more. I not only put balloon and vase with the flowers straight one above the other, I also drew the vase’s neck thinner than in the episode, even more, the whole form of the vase basically is just a copied and mirrored form of the balloon.

Apropos mirrored … same applies for the stars in the background. They are exactly the same stars, just seen from the other side, symbolizing that Luz as well as Camila still are walking under the same (mental) sky though divided by dimensions.

But not only balloon, flowers, vase and stars show there connection despite division, I also painted in a band of flying blossoms. They are the blossoms of the Grom tree Luz and Amity created together in season 1 and the scene shows them flying away with the balloon.

At first, I only wanted to paint them into the top panel but then I thought „What if …?“ and this „What if …?“ turned out to create said band connecting both realms.

Honestly, I’m glad that I met the mood of this scene so well.

„Probably doesn’t work that way.
But it’s a nice thought, right?“

Melis 300

Last but not least, one of my mutuals on Instagram, Et_Meli, reached the milestone of 300 followers. Therefore, she hosted a DTIYS I participated.

So first of all: Congratulations to 300 followers, Meli! They are well deserved. Ever since I first saw your art, I loved how cute and how adorable it is. Watching your paintings and your progress makes me happy every time.

In this painting I saw life, I saw vitality, joy and fire, I saw ladybugs and fly agaric. I tried to put all of this into my version.

Along the way I wondered why I saw ladybugs despite white dots (not black ones). Still, I kept this impression but at the same time mentioned fly agaric came up, so there were both.

If you know me, you know that I always try to do something unique with a DTIYS original. This time, I changed the pose slightly. Not only to emphasize the vitality but also to practice painting feet in perspecives I am not used to yet.

I also changed the hair, I shortened it (what could I say? I simply like short hair) and gave it the fire of the sunset.

Because of mentioned impressions, I changed the earring too. First I thought of an earring in the form of a ladybugs but the black dots didn’t show well in this small scale. So, it became a fly agaric, matching the white dots of the shirt.

I had struggles with the baqckground, though. Sunsets usually are fruitful backgrounds, easy to paint, great lighting to gain, you cannot do much wrong with sunsets, especially if you use a gradient layer.

However, I had problems to find the right colours. They had to be as pale as in the original but then they lacked contrast. You wouldn’t have sees the woman this sharp, if I’d stuck to the original colours. So I divided the background colour scheme in two halves with an orange part in the middle and I added a rim light et voila – perfection!

The Adventures of Linktober

🇩🇪 Der Oktober ist morgen offiziell zu Ende.

Erst kürzlich habe ich erfahren, dass der Oktober auch Dysautonomia Awareness Month ist. Bis dahin kannte ich dies selber nicht, nun hat jedoch Potato_Beta auf Instagram ein DTIYS zu dem Thema ausgerichtet, an dem ich ebenfalls teilgenommen habe.

Wenn ihr selber gerne an DTIYS teilnehmt oder auch wenn nicht, empfehle ich euch, ihre Challenge einmal anzuschauen.

🇬🇧 Tomorrow October officially will come to an end.

Only recently I learned that October also is Dysautonomia Awareness Month. I didn’t know it until then but now Potato_Beta on Instagram announced a D T IYS about this topic in which I participated.

If you like to join DTIYS’s or even if not, I’d like to recommend to check out her challenge.

Mit dem Oktober steuert auch der Linktober nun auf seinen Showdown zu. In der letzten Woche hat Navarra Winter Island aus den Fängen der Frost Fairy befreien können.

Doch die größte Herausforderung wartet noch: Ganon!

With October coming to an end Linktober does likewise. Navarra was able to free Winter Island from the clutches of the Frost Fairy.

But the biggest challenge still is waiting for her: Ganon!

Horror’s Awakening

🇩🇪 Zur Abwechslung beginne ich diesen Oktobersonntag mal nicht mit der Oktober-Challenge, sondern mit einem DTIYS, das ich diese noch schnell dazwischenschieben konnte. Ausgerichtet wurde es von Et_Meli auf Instagram, der ich auch hier noch einmal zu 100 Followern gratulieren und ganz offiziell eine Folgeempfehlung aussprechen möchte!

🇬🇧 For a change, I’m not starting this October Sunday with the October Challenge, but with a DTIYS that I was able to quickly squeeze in. It was hosted by Et_Meli on Instagram, who I would like to congratulate once again on 100 followers and officially recommend to follow her!

Digital painting, comic style: Bust shot of a young woman with white hair long hair and brown eyes, she is wearing a coat with a fur rim, under every eye there are tattoos of three blue triangles, you also can see on open hand, over this hand the number 100 in light green is floating in the air, in the background a winterly scheme of snow and trees, northern lights above her

Auf Navarras Linktoberreise hat diese inzwischen das herbstliche Horrorhouse durchgequert, ist der Herbstreckin Gworria begegnet und hat die Puppetmaster Fairy besiegt. Nun gilt es, den Weg nach Winter Island zu überbrücken.

In the meantime, Navarra’s Linktober journey has taken her through the Fall Horror House, where she encountered the Fall Champion Gworria and defeated the Puppetmaster Fairy. Now it’s time to bridge the way to Winter Island.

Day 24 - Digital Painting, blue monochrome ink style, all text Breath of the Wild Font: "Linktober 2021", upper left corner showing stats: 6 filled hearts, 36 rupees; upper right corner a symbol of a woman with two swords and two showing a penguin and a young woman, these two with parts circles around them showing up, in the lower left corner the text "Quest Calendar", in the left edge the topic "Winter Armor"; the picture showing Navarra, a single Zora holding a fiery spear and wearing a warm winter coat as well as a fairy based on a flying fish seen from the side; they are standing at the beginning of a bridge over the sea, to the left Fall Island with wind, leaves and buildings formed like pumpkins (in one of them carved ijn the word "shop") under a fall wind, Epzora, a fish with feetlike fins is standing on the land; to the right sheets of ice under a winter wind and snow flakes

Another year gone

🇩🇪 Diesen Absatz wollte ich eigentlich letzte Woche bereits schreiben, doch wäre es wahrscheinlich der Crissy (🇬🇧)-Overload geworden.

Mein DTIYS (🇬🇧) auf Instagram läuft nun schon ca. ein Monat lange. In dieser Zeit sind auch schon ein paar Beiträge eingegangen, auf die ich an dieser Stelle – mit einem kleinen Kommentar dazu – verlinken möchte. Vielen lieben Dank an alle bisherigen Teilnehmer!

🇬🇧 Actually, I planned to write this paragraph already last week but this would’ve meant to be a Crissy overload.

My DTIYS on Instagram now is going for ca. one month. In this time there already has been some entries which I’d like to link you to – with some short comments. Many thanks to all of the participants so far!

General overview.

A cute first entry by Et_Meli, I was enchanted by the single screw an Crissy’s expression.

I love how xeunbeex included Crissy‘s stuffed Water Bear!

And the design of the glasses, the pendants and the haircut drawn by xoxotoki.

Perfectly depicted by Pocket_Andrew: Crissy is ready to work!

Digital Painting, comic style: Crissy Faith, A young woman who has got short purple hair and is wearing big round glasses. She is also wearing a grey short-legged overall, green and purple striped leggins and toe free boots. She is leaning with her back against the technical equipment encircling a carousel. In her right hand she is holding candy floss. There is also a small wall on which is attached a poster saying "Arcryla City Summer Festival" with drawings of balloons, rings, masks, candyfloss and carousel horses on it. In the inner part of the carousel you can see three horses or parts thereof, glitter, pennants, flowers and flying blossoms. Crissy's eyes are catching an open hatch in the encompassing machine covering with view on the cogweehls within and a screw lying outside in the grass; text in pink letters: #DTIYS; Use #Kritz1y100; Details in captions

🎶 „Und wieder geht ein Jahr“ 🎶

(„Another year gone“)

Mit unter anderem diesem Lied haben wir Anfan der Woche den Geburtstag eines meiner Lieblings-Streamer, dem Moep0r, gefeiert. Zu diesem Anlass hatte schnell noch mein Bearthbound-Bild von Anfang des Jahres aktualisiert. Ihr fragt euch, was die Zitronenrollen und die 40 % zu bedeuten haben? Dann kommt zu ihm in den Stream!

With this song among others we celebrated the birthday of one of my favourite streamers, Moep0r, in the beginning of last week. Thereofre I updated my Bearthbound painting from the beginning of this year a little bit. You are asking what the lemon rolls and the 40 % mean? Join his stream to find out!

Coming soon!

Celebrations

🇩🇪 Gestern endete die Frist zur Einreichung der Beiträge für die general prompts des Arcryla City Summer Festival (🇬🇧). Unglaublich, dass das doch ganze 9 Wochen waren, in denen ich fast durchgehend für diese Festivität gezeichnet hatte.

Als einen letzten Beitrag hatte ich kurz vor dem Ende der Frist noch einen Beitrag zum Stichwort „Fairy Floss“ eingereicht. Die Geschichte ist jedoch noch nicht zu Ende geschrieben und es werden sicherlich noch weitere Bilder folgen, seien es weitere Prompts, seien sie von diesen unabhängig.

🇬🇧 Yesterday, was the deadline to submit the entries for the Arcryla City Summer Festival’s general prompts. Amazingly, full 9 weeks of painting almost permanently for these festivities.

As last entry before the deadline I submitted one for the prompt „Fairy Floss“. Still, the story didn’t come to an end, there will be more paintings in the future, prompt related or of an independent nature.

„Fairy Tale“

Whenever Crissy gets used to the thought to forget about her crush she turns up at unexpected times in unexpected places and does things to raise hope again.

Digital painting, comic style: Crissy Faith, a young woman with short, purple hair and big, round glasses, wearing a brown overall and purple and lavender stripes leggings sitting on a bench with candy floss in her right hand, the her right side, another young woman seen from from the side with short ruffled blue-green hair. She is wearing a deep violette coursage with a plaid pattern over a semitransparent shirt, both bellyfree, a skirt of the same colour and style, three golden chains around her hips and black bracelets and wristband on wrists and neck. Finger nails and toenails are painted with nail polish in the colours of the lesbian pride flag, she is looking to Crissy (who is blushing) and taking a bit of the candy floss with the right hand

Einige befinden sich schon in Planung, doch auch darüber hinaus gehen meine selbige weiter:

Mindestens ein Arcryla-City-Bild (🇬🇧) wird noch folgen
Die Arbeit am nächsten Teil Cedrakon kann fortgesetzt werden
Ebenso jene am Comic (🇬🇧)
Eine Redraw-Version eines Cedrakon-Charakters ist bereits in Arbeit
Es wird Zeit, das Jack’Hill’n’Haid-Comic (🇬🇧) anzugehen
Weitere Teile des #MeetMyOCs-Charaktersheets (🇬🇧)

Bevor ich diese jedoch angehe, habe ich auf Instagram ein DTIYS gestartet, um dort sowohl 100 Follower wie auch mein Einjähriges zu begehen. Hierzu habe ich extra eine Unterseite (🇬🇧) angelegt, auf der ihr, solltet ihr nicht auf Instagram sein, die Details ebenfalls nachlesen könnt. Gerne dürft ihr ebenso teilnehmen, am einfachsten auf Instagram oder Twitter, prinzipiell jedoch über jede Plattform eurer Wahl, über die ihr mich erreichen könnt. Auch hier noch einmal mein Dank an alle 100 Follower!

Some already are in the making but there will be other ones too:

At least one Arcryla City painting will be released
The work on the next part of the Tale of Cedrakon (🇩🇪) will continue
Likewise the comic
I’m already doing a redraw of one of the Cedrakon’s characters (🇩🇪)
Time to start the Jack’Hill’n’Haid comic
More of the #MeetMyOCs charactersheets

Before doing all of this I started an own DTIYS on Instagram to celebrate 100 followers as well as my first Instagram anniversary. You will find the details on the page I created for this occasion. You are invited to participate, of course. The easiest way being via Instagram or Twitter but in general, via any platform I am available at. Thank you again to all of my 100 followers!