Main Challenge – Zum Kritzeleck

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

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!