May the June be with You

The Owl House Fanart:
Amity Strikes

ZodiOCs:
Taurus

Mermay 2023
Gemini and more

Arcryla City:
Arrested

As early the last PaintLog came, as late is this one. I hope you all had a great May.

However, now it’s June, Pride month!

So, first of all: Happy Pride month to you all!

I didn’t do any special Pride piece (yet), but as you perhaps know, proud characters are a recurring topic in my art work, may it be fanrt, may it be OCS. So it was in May too (see below).

May was, of course, Mermay month.

May was, of course, Mermay month. As I did in the past five years, I again participated and provided a mermaid art piece for every day of the month. But let me start with the correct order:

The final episode of The Owl House dropped on Easter Monday and after watching it, I couldn’t help doing some more fanart about future Amity’s design. ZodiOC season also went forward and not only provided us with Taurus but also with Gemini. Last but not least I participated in a current Instagram trend with my Arcryla City OCs Crissy and Paula.

Amity Strikes

The show that I loved for so long and that I will keep loving even longer is over. The final episode of the final season aired on Easter Monday. I’m still holding a grudge that Disney shortened season 3 to three extended episodes of ca. 45 minutes each. I loved season 3 too, but I feel robbed of what could have been. Plus, unluckily, the shortening shows in the episodes at some point or the other. However, this won’t lessen my admiration for the season, for the show, for Dana and Co and everything they had achieved.

And especially the ending sequence of the final episode is everything we fans could’ve wished for. In particular I love Amity’s design in the end of the episode (I don’t consider it a spoiler anymore). The hairstyle, the clothes, everything is amazing. Therefore, I had to draw her doing what she does best: Hovering around abomination goo.

First, I drew an overall painting of her, the goo in full size. Then, I realized, it put away the focus from Amity, it weakened the impression I’d liked to create with this painting. So, I cropped the painting, zoomed in, if you like, focussing on Amity, only parts of the goo in the frame of the picture and made it the main version (you will find the other version in the second slide).

Taurus
aka Luca facing the Demise of a Kingdom

Before Mermay started, Taurus season begun. Perhaps, I should start with telling the fact that I planned most ZodiOC pieces’s protagonists right at the beginning when I started this series (only a few ideas showed up quite late to the party or I am not that sure about yet).

So, it was clear that the protagonists of the Cedrakon Tale would be part of the series. Cedrakon is the illustrated Tale that I initially started this website for. I abandoned it a little bit since June 2021, but I still keep the protagonists deep in my heart.

Luca the Princess Guard’s woman initially was thought to represent Cancer, but some months ago another candidate turned up for that one and I shifted her to my second idea, towards Taurus. However, it was quite a challenge to figure out how exactly to do this.

In the end it turned out to become kind of redraw of a scene in the very start of the tale.

It doesn’t depict the exact scene but its quintessence and also gives a tiny foreshadowing – or rather backshadowing – to what exactly happened to the kingdom Luca and The Princess had to flee from when the castle has been attacked.

Mermay 2023

Mermay is one of my favorite challenges. This year it happened that I participated for the fifht time in a row. Therefore, I not only shared the day by day entries but also created collages of the same day’s past year’s entries.

This year I went with the official Mermay prompt list. You also will find the single entries on the this year’s Mermay page.

By coincidence, I noticed that one of the prompts was the prompt „Zodiac“. It was an even bigger coincidence that I actually planned a mermaid OC for my ZodiOC piece „Gemini“ (as mentioned before, most OCs are already set).

And this again was a redraw of an earlier painting, a Mermay entry from 2019. Engineeriel (but the robot too) underwent a slight design change in the meantime, though:

As usual, there were several stories and traditions which I continued during this year’s Mermay. There was the mandatory Spongebob reference:

There were this couple on their honeymoon:

And you were able to see what happened in the sunken shipwreck Engineriel and Founder dived down to (and before they came back to the surface again to work on „A Bridge between Worlds“).

Arrested

Recently, a redraw challenge based on the newest Barbie movie trailer was going round on Instagram. I immediately got the idea to participate by drawing my Arcryla City OCs Crissy and Paula.

I don’t know what they were charged with (probably wine theft or overspeeding – probably both), but at least Paula seems to have fun.

When I first shared this painting, there was a mistake that I only noticed afterwards. Having the height scale in the background, I wanted to show their height difference once more. Crissy is taller than Paula although Paula often wears high heels and/or platform boots. Assuming, she was told to take them of for the shot, the scale was supposed to show the correct height difference.

Unluckily, I drew Crissy one inch too small. Therefore I edited it and now it’s really finalized.

Btw, mentioning wine theft or overspeeding wasn’t a joke. There has been several occasions in the past when Paula indeed nicked wine bottles:

And perhaps you remember this painting from 2021 Summer Festival?

Digital Painting, comic style: My OC Crissy Faith (young woman, short, purpley hair, big round glasses, blue overall, green and yellow striped leggings, a pocket watch dangling from one pocket, toe-free boots) sitting on a flying steam and jet propulsed bike behind a young woman (short, light green hair, safety glasses, black neckband, black wristbands, brown belly free leather top, brown tigh leather trousers, brown toe free laced boots) who is laughing and stretching the arms to the sides. In the left bottom corner is a gloved hand which tries to grab a tophat, in the foreground petals which are blown up by the slipstream, a sheet of paper likewise flying in the wind, text: "Arcryla City Summer Festival"

They indeed got caught. It showed up again as framed police photograph in Paula’s appartment in the background (although not that easily recognizable):

Digital paintin, comic style: The setting is a warm and bright morning, Paula (young woman, short turqoise hair in sidecut, toe polish in rainbow colors, nail polish in Lesbian Pride colors), standing on her balcony, stretching, one eye closed, the other one opening, the hair messy, she doesn't wear any visible clothes, hips and pelvis are covered by the railing and the pots and plants attached to it, her breast by a big leave of one of the several carnivorous plants of different types around, their twines winding the railing; at the right edge of the painting a big secretary bird is landing, looking towards Paula; in the background an open balcony door with windows, curtains flapping outwards, behind the door a room with a canopy bed, someone with purple hair lying in it, one leg peeking out from under the blanket, pictures on the wall; in the foreground tow blurred birds and flying blossoms; the look is a little bit washy, blurred at the edges.

Oh … alright, lack of decency could’ve been one of the charges, too …

Salamander³ + Titans = Happy Easter!

Digital painting, comic style: A scene on a forest clearing; in the center a big bonfire, dancing in front of it Raven (young woman, rosy skin, short white hair as sidecut, wearing a simple brown dress) and Samandra (young woman, brown skin, red, shoulder long hair, wearing a grey apron and brown leather trousers), they are holding hands, blue light runes (Raven) and yellow polar lights (Samandra) following the curves the bare feet are drawing on the ground; light runes resp. polar lights also are covering both, taking the forms of dresses, shoes and gloves; they also cover the connected hands and are flying through the air like fountains; in the background four other witches, a red haired riding a big floating battle axe, a tall purple dressed rolling eyes, a small chunky one looking towards the tall one, one white haired dancing with someone who is hidden by the fire; in the air in front ot the moon the pure black silhouette of another person spreading their arms; there are more silhouettes of people dancing or talking to each other in the further background and the tops of conifers; in the foreground shadows of three other people (two of them standing very close to each other) and blurred vegetation; blurred yellow blossoms flying through the foreground.

ZodiOCs:
Aries

Witchphibians:
Changing Tides

Witchphibians:
Enchanting Moonlight

Attack on Titan fanart:
The Only Regret

Happy Easter everyone! May you have some relaxing and calm holidays!

When starting writing the this month‘ PaintLog I thought it would turn out to be a end of March recap about only two art pieces. How wrong I was! I finished a third one and then, within one day, even a fourth one. The first three of them are Witchphibians Art.

Because we are in the next Zodiac season by now, Aries season, the first one is a new ZodiOC piece. The second one introduces a new character plus Samandra’s origin story and the third one depicts a scene I was working on for two weeks (and far longer in my mind).

And finally, there is my debut in Attack on Titan fanart.

ZodiOCs: Aries

So, Aries it is. Aries is the ram, the male sheep. With sheep I associate wool and with wool (or any other fabric) I associate Samandra Elvennewt from the Witchphibians series. Moreover, mythologically, Aries honours the ram that provided the Golden Fleece. So, it was an easy choice to show her bewitching threads of wool forming into aforesaid fleece (and again, there is a version that would be too risky for WordPress on you know where or how to get there) .

This time I drew her without the salamander’s tail and showing her from behind, looking over the right shoulder. I not only wanted to practice this particular pose but also to show the trousers mechanic.

As mentioned before, Sam or parts of her every so often turn back into salamander parts unintentionally – the tail being the most prominent one. Therefore, Sam tailored trousers which’s back part would flip open by the force of the growing tail without revealing her buttocks when it isn’t around.

In a previous painting you also could spot the threads at her hips heigth which she can pull to get this mechanism back in form once the tail is gone again.

Another detail in the background is the star constellation in form of a frog. Perhaps you remember that I already included a constellation in form of a salamander in the Sagittarius ZodiOC piece (featuring Samandra’s friend and main protagonist Raven). This should’ve been a hint in which direction their relationship is going to go.

It wasn’t intentionelly but when drawing the Aries piece, I noticed that this very salamander already had this „looking back over the shoulder pose“ just like Samandra now. So, my first attempt of drawing the frog constellation was to recreate Raven’s pose.

However, these attempts resulted in a way too fat and confused frog instead one who is looking forward to see her friend.

Witchphibians: Changing Tides

After drawing some of the younger witches and witch apprentices of the Witchphibians series, I wanted to show the older witches for a change, beginning with Mirro, Samandra’s master. It turned out to also show Sam’s origin story.

It took me a while to figure out how to manage this, on the one hand showing Mirro in full body size, on the other hand the transformation of Samandra into a human being. Both should’ve been recognizable but except for drawing them in side view it only could’ve been managed for one of them. Because we already know Samandra since I have drawn her several times, I chose to show Mirro full frontal and Samandra from behind.

I initially thought of a rather quiet scene at a small pond, but this may have gone being rather lame and boring. Then I got the idea to make it more dynamic. However, I didn’t abandon the peaceful pond scene completely. You still can see the plants on its shore and the one or other inrecognizable blurred dot through the roaring waters where one of the salamanders or tadpoles is swimming around.

The choice to do it the aforementioned way led to practice perspective. So far I am not very familiar with figures looming above other figures, of a POV way below the looming character. I had to look up references to get Mirro right but to enlarge her arms and hands to give the impression of depth (I’m still not 100 % satisfied with them but I think it’s okay for my first try).

Sidenote: The role of mirrors in the world of magic is heavily inspired by Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Novel „Witches Abroad“. (In general, I highly recommend to read the Discworld Witches series for a better understanding of the Witchphibians universe).

Witchphibians: Enchanting Moonlight

This piece felt like it had taken me way too long. It was two weeks of work with several edits to get the composition right.

The initial idea of the moonlight rite already originated in my last year’s 200 followers celebration DTIYS. It basically shows the same scenario, although in the meantime I underwent Raven and Sam some small design changes.

$Digital painting, comic style, cut out of the DTIYS announcing painting, focussing on the main characters: Samandra (left) and Raven (right) in sideview (hip height) back to back in front of a bright full moon; Samandra being a young woman with brown skin and gleaming yellow frackles and spots, neck long red hair, wearing a grey apron-like dress held by some ropes as straps, needles tucked into the of front part; Raven being a young woman with light rosy skin, short white hair in sidecut, combed to her right half of the face, wearing a golden brown dress, tied with a rope in the middle and a necklace with an amulet, the left hand is the hand of a pink frog; there are magical threads coming from Sam's hand, weaving a pattern in the air and gleaming blue circles and runes hovering above Raven's right hand; both are ecompassed by a shiny yellow light; added to the background are flying yellow blossoms.$

The dance is new, though. I wanted to show Raven dancing with Samandra like Luz Noceda and Amity Blight did in the Disney show „The Owl House“ in the amazing Grom dance scene (especially the drawing circles part). I didn’t even had to think about this happening during the moonlight right and even the title is a reference to the related episode „Enchanting Grom Fright“.

I even gave them similar „clothing“. Their magic forming festive clothes was another new idea I got when thinking about this piece. However, I swapped them, added gloves for Raven and gave her another kind of „shoes“. Like the witches in the background (you may recognize some of them) they still are in their „standard“ dresses because even behold the importance of the fiest, witches usually aren’t rich, they stick to what they have until it falls apart.

Only Kimeira showed up without parts of her armour and weaponry (aka I was too lazy to draw this too). However, if you look close, you will spot green lights in the background. This is her gear patrouilling the dancing ground to make sure nothing unintended will disturb the fiest.

It is no coincidence that I drew Mirro before I drew this art piece. When drawing Mirro I already had the idea to this one, but I wanted to introduce at least her before starting „the big one“.

All the other characters in the background who are not mere silhouettes are characters who already are living in my mind rentfree, though. Some of the m already for quite a while (the one floating in front of the moon since aforementioned DTIYS, for example). They will be introduced to a later point in time.

Speaking in technically terms of drawing, there were two, well, three challenges:

1. I had to get the pose of the dancers right. Interacting characters are a challenge as such, not only the touch of body parts like hands and fingers but also the directions of their eyes etc. But you also have to get the pose right, the anatomy. The lineart toll me several days before every leg, every feet, every knee felt right.

2. The size of the background characters and their composition. The farther away, the smaller in size a character appears. Kimeira should be more in the foreground than the two older witches and the white haired dancing witch behind the fire further in the background. Mirro is a tall woman, her companion a small and crouched one. It wasn’t that easy to avoid Kimeira looking like a giant in comparision.

3. Color scheme, lighting and shading. The night has a blue overall scheme and of course it has shadows, it is one big shadow. And yet, there is moonlight and there is the bonfire, of course. I added several gradient layers (most on multiply), added dark blue, yellow and dark green or erased parts of it to get all these right.

Attack om Titan fanart: The Only Regret

There are few shows that are as intense and thrilling as the anime Attack on Titan with an amount of loss of characters you are relating to that I never saw before.

It was time to do fanart about it.

Because I hate to get spoiled on social media and the Attack on Titan fandom is notoriously spoilering all the time (yes, Karon, I know you read the Manga, you don’t have to give away the death of a beloved character, though!), I tried to be careful to not doing this. Therefore, I did two versions. The first one only contains mild spoilers, things that have been quite obvious right from the beginning. The second version, however, gives away season 2 character developments and fates.

Therefore, please only read further if you are prepared for this.

Perhaps, there also should be a content warning: Grief, Loss, a romance without happy ending.

Ymir is somewhat like one of my secret favorite characters. She and Historia are no main characters and their subplot is only a small one among others. Still, their story, their characters, their relationship intriguited me, intriguited the part inside of me that responses to romance, to romantic tragedy, to drama.

It was hard for me to understand why Ymir made the decision she made. Then I realized, she perhaps figured that in the life in which Historia is going to be who she really is, there simply won’t be a place for her at her side. (Disclaimer: This doesn’t mean that she would’ve been right with this conclusion, but it may have been enough to let her act the way she did.)

I know, the Ymir we know wouldn’t show tears in public, but I wanted to show that she (supposedly) has a softer side, though, I wanted her to show emotions, grief, well, this The Only Regret.

Surprisingly, this piece only took me one afternoon and the evening, I learned that I am very much able to draw something in less than two days. I also think I met her design quite well in my style. And again it was a welcome exercise in lighting and shading.

At first I though of showing her in her final scene, her words to Historia from earlier episodes and her final words of the letter hovering in the background. Then I thought it would’ve been more impressive and more tragic to show whole passages of the letter and then to show the whole letter.

Another decision I had to make was if to show or not to show a writing utensil – and what kind of writing utensil. On trial I added a quill in some point of the drawing process. When searching for the look of the letter’s paper (which format, how many times folded etc.), I stumbled over a screenshot of Ymir writing this very letter. There was no quill, there only was a pen. So I changed it to a pen.

My initial idea didn’t contain any writing utensils. So I tried out to switch it off. But in this case it may have looked as if the letter was addressed to her. Fans of the show would’ve known (but perhaps they could’ve been confused), people unfamiliar with it would get the wrong impression. Therefore, I switched it on again and kept it this way.

From Snow to Space

Witchphibians: Warming Thoughts

Ride with Sally

Pragmatic Alien Day

ZodiOCs: Pisces

February is a short month, 3/4 are already gone. I managed to draw five paintings in three weeks. Surprisingly, two of them were fanart or kind of fanart. Still, I only will show you four today to keep the fifth for the next time.

The first one is another tale from the Witchphibians series, not only telling a story but also adding to the lore.The second one is fanart of the Netflix series „Trinkets“.

There won’t be any (heavy) spoilers, although in theory the painting as such may be considered a spoiler (despite not really being one).

Another fanart is the Valentins piece I drew of Sam Uggler, the OC of the Instagram artist AlienPrideArt and last but not least, we entered Pisces season. So, enjoy the addition of two fishy OCs to my ZodiOCs series.

Witchphibians: Warming Thoughts

This piece was inspired by an exchange of thoughts on a Discord server about how Raven and Sam would manage winterly tempertures. While feeling cold easily but managing quite well in their human forms, it could get quite freezily when changing into their amphibian forms at the wrong moment.

So, this image popped up in my mind and it was rather convenient since I regretted that I couldn’t show all the character design changes of Raven in the SFW version of the Witchphibian painting before. Now you will be able to spot the freckles on the shoulder region, the arms, the legs, regions that usually would’de have been covered by her dress (on Instagram and Ko-fi at least, for the NSFW version see Patreon).

There were a lot of things I practiced this time when drawing it: Perspective, pose, anatomy, water in it’s various forms, but it turned out the actually new thing I tried out was the overall lighting of each section of the painting (left, right, front / main characters) to give each of them a specific feeling.

To this purpose I used overlays and colour gradients. The left side got a blue overlay to give it a cold, wet, muddy feeling, the right one an orange overlay for a warm, dry and clean impression. Finally, I laid a red overlay over the front to make it rosy, cosy, comfortable.

Finally, there is the Spongehole Magic you can read about in slide two. This is an idea I came up with when adding Samandra’s glow to her spots. They glow when she is excited or when she’s doing magic. So, the spongehole magic theory was a handy device to provide her with as much fresh, hot, clean water as she needs to thaw Raven out.

It is inspired by wormholes, of course. When wormholes are holes in space adn time that are connected by tunnels, why shouldn’t the same apply to sponge holes? You would have to have magic abilities to use them, but since sponge tissue technically is nothing different from any other natural fabric materials (animal or plant based), it would be an easy match for Samandra the Fabric Mage to get hold of them.

For everyone who is interested in the drawing process I also created a short video clip made from the drawing steps which I shared earlier with my supporters on Ko-fi.

Ride with Sally

The Netflix show „Trinkets“ is one of my guilty pleasures. I can watch the show again and again and again (and actually, I’m doing this). It’s one of my comfort shows with a great cast, great music, lovely relationships and teenage High School drama with a lot up and downs (most of the time simultanously). It’s already a few years old but Elodie and Jill still make a cute couple.

Is this a spoiler? Not really, not if you already saw the painting. And even regarding the show it’s no real spoiler since the he depicted scene only is inspired, not an actual scene of the show. If you know the show, you surely will recognize the scene, though. If not, see here (Spoiler alert!).

You will notice that I changed Jill’s costume slightly by adding the badge (which also has a special meaning within the show).

It says „I ride with Sally“, hence the title of this piece.

Pragmatic Alien Day

AlienPrideArt‘s drawing and dialogues with his OC Sam Uggler are hilarious. They made me want to draw Sam in my own style and in the forefront of Valentines Day inspiration struck me after seeing this post.

Sam may be a very pragmatic alien, but she asked for Tequilla, so she will get Tequilla and a good old-fashioned Valentines letter.

Happy Pragmatic Alien Day, Sam!

ZodiOC: Pisces

Admittedly, this was an easy one. I remembered Arrivals comic strips that featured two fish last year. Therefore, meet Eusthy and Eusthwo again!

I kept the drawing style of the comics and (of course) the mood of their personalities. In the background you may notice Lilly’s (the dragonfly), Miles (the millipede) and Silvies (the silver fish) accompanying them as constellations in the sky.

Above & Below

Digital painting, comic style: A fairy with pink hair and pink freckles but small wings standing on a leave like on a surfboard, two more leaves are attached to her arms which she spread wide open, she wears a leaflike skirt,d a bellyfree top made by crossing stripes of leaflike fabric and a belt with hooks at the hips; sky with clouds, birds and bright sun flares in the background, leaves and blossoms in the foreground, a radial motion blur effect laid over them, speedlines directing to Skatie.

Skatie Skysurfer

ZodiOCs: Aquarius

Witchphibians: Secrets

Time for the January recap (January already is almost over! O.O). Tbh, I’m quite satisfied with my January work. As usual there were a lot of work to do in my bread and butter job, but at least I was able to paint one new painting per week. Additionally to the Capricorn piece (see last PaintLog), I mean.

In the course of January I also changed the title of my Witch Apprentices subpage.

I finally came up with a title for this series, so it’s now Witchphibians – A Tale of Frog and Salamander. I’m mentioning this because I actually did another piece following Raven’s and Samandra’s adventures.

But before this one, I painted another fairy and of course, it’s Aquarius season now, of course.

Therefore, we got a new ZodiOC.

Skatie Skysurfer

Clip Studio Paint, the company from which is the drawing software that I’m using, launched a drawing contest that ended in the first week of January. The topic of this contest was „Fairies“.

Although I don’t think I will win anything and although I wasn’t even sure if I would make it in time, I therefore created Skatie Skysurfer. I actually made it in time, the winners are announced on 2 February 2023, though, so I still have to wait.

Initially I thought of drawing one of my Bicker Fairies (see below) but then I got the idea of a fairy who isn’t able to fly – the usual way, to be precise. So she would have to built her own wings and even a surfboard to surf the skies.

Perhaps you remember this fairy from almost two years ago? I once draw her in the frame of a DTIYS, originally depicting a skateboard girl but altered to a fairy by me. I remembered her only after the concept was clear, or even after the painting process. Still, it’s a nice coincidence.

Digitalzeichnung, Comicstil: Nahaufnahme (bis halbe Oberschenkelhöhe) einer jungen, weibliche Feen mit goldbrownem Haar im Seitenschnitt. Sie trägt ein bauchfreies Top und darunter ein Netzshirt, dessen Ärmel ihre Arme entlangreichen, sowie eine hellviolette Zweidrittelhose. Auf der Hose sind Pfirsichflicken, sowie ein Pfirsichaufdruck auf dem Top. Sie hat den linken Arm zum Schutz vor der Sonne gehoben, mit dem rechten Arm hält sie ein großes, rotes Blatt, das an ein Skatebord erinnert, hinter hinter dem Rücken. Ihre Flügel sind leuchtend-violett und ebenso wie das Blatt schimmernd vor Feenstaub. In Netzshirt und Hose sind Löcher, sie hat einige Schürfwunden an den Beinen und ein Pflaster auf der rechten Wange. Der hintergrund sind verwaschene Grüntöne vor einem hellen Beige.

Digitalzeichnung, Comicstil: Eine junge, weibliche Fee mit goldbrownem Haar im Seitenschnitt. Sie trägt ein bauchfreies Top und darunter ein Netzshirt, dessen Ärmel ihre Arme entlangreichen, sowie eine hellviolette Zweidrittelhose. Auf der Hose sind Pfirsichflicken, sowie ein Pfirsichaufdruck auf dem Top. Sie hat den linken Arm zum Schutz vor der Sonne gehoben, mit dem rechten Arm hält sie ein großes, rotes Blatt, das an ein Skatebord erinnert, hinter hinter dem Rücken. Ihre Flügel sind leuchtend-violett und ebenso wie das Blatt schimmernd vor Feenstaub. In Netzshirt und Hose sind Löcker, sie hat einige Schürfwunden an den Beinen und ein Pflaster auf der rechten Wange. Der hintergrund sind verwaschene Grüntöne vor einem hellen Beige.

The goal with this painting was to practice perspective and pose as well as creating an impression of speed. At the same time I had to get the shadows right with the sun right in her back but under a light flooded sky amidst green tree leaves.

Additionally, the POV had to be tilted. With finally leaves all around this was a little bit hard to achieve. There is a landscape, a green field or something, with a horizon but I think the birds in the sky are giving it away a lot better.

ZodiOCs: Aquarius

With January came the next Zodiac sign and so came Aquarius.

To represent this sign, I chose my Arcryla City OC Crissy refilling her waterbearbot in which she keeps her favorite animals and loyal pets you already know from earlier paintings.

An obvious choice for The Water Bearer.

Or so you would think. Truth is, I frist thought of Navarra, my Breath of the Wild Zora OC. Aquarius regularly is depicted as some merperson with trident, too (usually a man with beard but most of my OCs are female and so will be my ZodiOC). Therefore, initially she came to my mind.

But soon I remembered Crissy and her pets. I not only loved the pun, it was also an opportunity to include Crissy in the ZodiOCs. Most ZodiOCs are already settled (not drawn, though) and a ZodiOC series without my favorite OC Crissy? Never!

Before I started drawing, I searched the internet for poses typically related with Aquarius. You will find the one I used as reference – although changing it a little bit – here.

Again, I was practicing poses and anatomy, an additional challenge was the water pouring into the aquarium. Both of them are semi-transparent and some parts of them cover each other and others don’t. What now looks like being one piece actually is a cut out aquarium glass wall that is pasted under the water layer which itself is located under the aquarium glass layer.

Finally, I would like to add that in the first lineart Crissy’s skirt has been a tad too short. Therefore, I changed it for the sake of dignity.

Witchphibians: Secrets

A new painting of my Witchphibian series featuring my OCs Raven and Samandra. It’s set some time before the „Weaving Magic“ painting from March 2022. As it’s regularly he case, I had this one in my mind for some time.

I not only wanted to practice pose and anatomy, I also wanted to recreate a scene from the Netflix show Arcane (and changed it slightly). If you watched the show, you hopefully will recognize the scene (if not, see this screenshot on the internet). Additionally, I was influenced by some beautiful The Witcher fanart of Greenfinch.garden on Instagram.

As mentioned above, I practiced anatomy and poses. Especially Raven was really hard to draw because she isn’t simply lying on her side, she is lying (partly) on her belly. Additionally I did a small design change. I added freckles to her face and the shoulder region.

Sadly, you won’t see a lot of it (and a bunch of Samandra’s body spots) because I had to keep it SFW for sharing publicly and her dress covers a lot of her anatomy and the freckles. However, I there luckily is my Patreon account for anatomy studies and poses. You will find the link together with the WIPs for supporters on my Ko-fi account (yes, there is a full nu.dity version that doesn’t reveal much but enough to better be safe than sorry).

Since I elaborated the story a little bit more with this piece, I also had to edit the story accompanying the „Weaving Magic“ painting for the sake of coherent reading:

New Year’s Xmashup

Secret Santa: EunXMas

Digital painting, comic style: Merindiana Jane, a mermaid resembling Indiana Jones, light brown skin, a green gleaming tattoo of the Capricorn symbol as well as the sign's constellation on her right cheek, black long hair, brown fish tail with a golden tail fin, bellyfree tanktop, a belt across her hips with a light blue whip at her left hip; a ray as hat on her head; side view, holding an emerald green gleaming capricorn skull mask in the air; stars on the night sky in the background as well as the astronomic sign and the letters "Capricorn".

ZodiOCs: Capricorn

Although I wanted change to a monthly rhythm, it felt like I should publish this PaintLog quite early after Christmas and New Year’s eve.

I already mentioned that there are two more paintings in the queue last time. But they also still fit thematically to the year’s end holidays.

The first one is antoher Secret Santa. This time it’s one we did on the Arcryla City Discord server. Of course, there also is one I got from another artist of this community.

The second painting of the queue is another ZodiOC. We are in the middle of the Capricorn season, so Capricorn it is now.

Secret Santa:
EunXMas

ZodiOCs:
Capricorn

In December 2022 we held a Secret Santa event on the Arcryla City Discord server. I was chosen to draw a painting for catdotbun. We were allowed to announce up to three characters to be drawn*..

I decided to go for her Arcryly City OC Eun, former secretary of the council and aspiring children’s book author. Additionally, I included her other ones, Olive and Rochelle into the painting, as angel on top of the Christmas cactus and as drawing in the opened book and on the back of another one.

The cactus is a reference to a pet showcase we had in September 2021 on the server. Eun’s „pet“ has been a cactus. Therefore, I thought a Christmas Cactus would fit into this piece. There also are other Easter eggs in the painting, on some I hinted already.

This piece was another excercise in shading and lighting, I tried to archieve a warm, cosy Christmas feeling.

*Speaking of: The piece I got from my Secret Santa SketchyGirl perfectly matched my OCs Chrissie and Paula. The Mistletoe headband would be a thing Paula totally would do!

The new Years starts in the middle of the Capricorn season and I’m happy that I finished the referring ZodiOC piece in time..

It wasn’t that easy to decide what OC will fit to represent thsi sign. A long time I thought of Orphelya, my gargoyle OC, but she lacks horns. There are OCs with antlers or rods that could resemble horns, like Cosmothra, one of the bicker fairies, or my mermaid OC Ceratia, even Merdusa’s snake may have met this purpose. I even thought of Nema wearing a coral crown or something (but refrained because she won’t hurt a coral reef deliberately). Long story short: They all didn’t really fit into the picture.

Only the day I actually started drawing this piece I came up with this idea. A mermaid seemed approbriate since Capricorn usually is depicted with a fish tail.

Then this picture of Merindiana finding an emerald capricorn skull mask on the bottom of the sea during one of her treasure hunts struck me.

Fly Catcher

ZodiOCs: Sagittarius

Brewing Magic

Don’t Ask

2022 Recap

More than one month has passed since my last PaintLog entry. This year was the first one I wasn’t able to maintain my weekly pace. Still, I would like to provide you with a regular PaintLog.

Therefore, I thought of changing the pace to a monthly PaintLog, maybe sometimes more often if motivation, time and content allow. It’s the end of the year now. To this occasion, I did several recaps and I will summarize the year in this month’s PaintLog.

But before I’ll come to this, I’ll present you the art pieces I did since the last PaintLog. They actually were quite a handful:

I did another ZodiOC and one The Owl House fanart Secret Santa as well as another piece showing my OCs Raven and Samandra from my Witch Apprentices universe.

Two more paintings are in the queue which I didn’t find the time to prepare it to show it here (but, as said before, it’s always good to have some paintings as backlog).

Sagittarius

Brewing Magic

Last month I started my Zodiac sign series represented by my own OCs. After Scorpio Sagittarius added to the series. This sign is represented by Raven, my witch apprentice OC, and her ability of using light glyph magic.

Every so often she or parts of her turn into frog unintentionally. So does her tongue in this painting. Catching the fly is based on a detail in an early concept of a drawing that I abandoned.

I just felt, it would’ve been too much and saved it for a future painting. Little I knew back then that I would use this concept for the ZodiOCs but it fits perfectly „the Archer“.

I was playing around with light and shadow effects and since the last time I painted Raven I got some nice new brushes to include magic circles and symbols. In the background you also can spot her friend’s Samandra’s amphibian form as star constellation (the meaning is yours to guess).

The next part of Raven’s and Samandra’s story. I feel like this piece I wanted to draw since ever (since I created Sam as companion to Raven at least). Still, the Weaving Magic piece (see slide show slide 3) hat to be done first because Sam had to enchant Raven’s amulet so it won’t be lost in their magic soup. Then Mermay hit and several other assignments that kept me busy for the rest of the year.

All in all this painting took me two weeks to finish. It was an exercise in lighting, dynamic poses and perspective, trying to leave my comfort zone some tiny steps more.

As usual I hid several Easter eggs in this painting which you can spot in the background. Perhaps you even recognise them from past paintings. If not directly, just swipe to slides 4 and further.

However, one Easter egg I have to point out separately. A week before I finished this work, nick.burgoyne.art (Instagram) asked for book titles in the background of one of his paintings. In April of this year I read his novel „The Deepest Shore“. It featured a blob creature called „Bob“ that met a gruesome fate. Back in April I even did a fanart about it titled „Remember Bob“ and now I suggested this title for Nick’s background bookshelf (where you actually will find it).

At the same time it inspired me to put another edition of the book on Samandra’s secret potion brewing shack’s shelf. We can’t remember Bob enough!

I hope you can spot it in the background together with the other references.

Don’t Ask

This is a Secret Santa I did for another Discord server. I drew it for apricotmayzel (Instagram). It refers to a comic she drew in which – purely by coincidence – Raine’s violin got smashed. Since The Owl House was one of the topics I was allowed to draw for her, I decided to refer to this special comic.

It was the first time I drew Raine (or, speaking of, Eda). If you know the show, you will recognize several details I put into the painting. The wrapping of the present has Hootie stickers, the mittens are made by Blight Textiles and the cushion Eda puts under her Santa costume has Luz‘ hoodie colour.

Furthermore, you will recognise the fur part of Eda’s hat from episodes playing in the colder parts of the Boiling Isles and the hair combed forward to show the face of an old man Santa, of course, is taken from „Eclipse Lake“.

Within a few hours after sharing on Instagram this painting almost passed the „Reaching Out“ fanart from April as new top post (current score 120 likes vs. 107).

2022 Recap

As every year I do a recap of my art that I drew throughout the year. I summarise them in collages separated by topics. In the following slides you will find the collages

Summary of Art
Kritz‘ Choice (aka Best of 2022)
Best of Fanart 2022
Face Your Art
Face Your Art Mermaid Edition

In 2022 my job kept me even busier than 2021, so I had to do some compromised and I couldn’t nearly as much as I intended. A lot of projects just didn’t were to be in this time, including the weekly pace of this PaintLog.

Still, I had a lot of fund and I still have on the Arcryla City Discord server and the people there. I also joined some more Discord servers to get into contact with even more other artists.

I also shifted from Patreon to Ko-fi. Patreon is merely an archive and the space for paintings Ko-fi or wordpress wouldn’t allow to share publicy or at all, including artistic nudity or pose studies (see my Ko-fi account, for a tip in my jar you will find the link).

This said, I also got my first supporter. Thank you! This means a lot to me and helpf me to keep this website and to share my art for free.

On the artistic level I tried some new things, new poses, new techniques but also stuck to old ways and even more to my OCs.

Raven and Samandra were an addition to these. Raven was an output of the this year’s School of Games Moodboard Challenge in March. This one takes place every year and it was my second participation. This time I not only drew Raven, I added Samandra to this new OC universe later, I started to develop a lore and I put them as cameos into other paintings. There even were challenges that I concepted as spin-off of this duo‘ doings.

The Mermay was the next highlight, this year hosted together with Potato_Beta (Instagram) with whom I already did other collab projects. Soon after this the Arcryla City Discord server again hosted a Summer Festival, this time in form of a Fantasy Festival, and in October a Halloween event when at the same time I followed a weekly inky October challenge with my Heartbroken Goddess.

To my surprise (that shouldn’t have been much of a surprise at all), the most liked paintinsg were The Owl House fanart. I’m still very proud of the „Reaching Out“ piece, so it certainly deserves this much love. I’m also happy that I obviously met Raine and Eda this good that they almost got the same amounf of love within a few hours.

Well … Love is a good final word:

I wish you all a Happy New Year, thank you for staying around, have a wonderful year 2023!

See you next year!

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.