Neither Here Nor There

Sombakarta (Somba) and Octalabrous (Otto) -- some simple sketch tests for a project I’m working on. Their normal colors are on the left, while they’re colored using a palette I’ll be using on the right!

I wanted to try something a little different! I just chose a simple color palette, practiced some simple two point perspective, and scribbled this into being. It’s college-age Vera, living through what I think everyone who’s ever gone to college has felt at some point -- that early-morning, almost weirdly tranquil anxiety of trying to sort out all the things you’ve gotta get to work on. Inspired by the song it’s titled after!

(This is a simple little comic I made as a way to decompress and just have fun practicing exaggerated expressions. It’s also an excuse to draw some Blik and Vera -- I love these guys. In the last comic he was in, Blik smiled maybe once, so this is a nice change of pace.)

I don’t think that there’s any possible way to give enough context for this to make sense or be funny without monologuing for paragraphs and paragraphs, so I’m just gonna post it as is. Have Nobles getting kicked in the face by Alka -- not as something that happens in cannon, but as more of a metaphor for something that actually does. Even if it doesn’t have much humor value by itself, I’m proud of the poses!

(A tip for anyone else who likes to play Novakids and wishes that there was more brand variety -- you can just make your own by choosing no brand on character creation and then just making a brand as a custom hat using Hatter. Though then there’s the downside of not being able to wear an actual hat, I ‘spose... But you could add it into the sprite if there was one in particular you really wanted.)

So have Jayfeather, Hollyleaf, and Lionblaze, the wonder triplets! Drawn, like their foster mother before them, on MS Paint. I have no idea how Jayfeather got his scar so nicely angular or how Hollyleaf found some heavy-duty adhesive to stick those holly berries onto her head with, but hey, sometimes you just have to make sacrifices for aesthetic value.

A quick Vera I made while playing with my style. I usually use her to test out more realistic stuff (well, “realistic”, I suppose -- this obviously isn’t photo-realistic or anything), since I have a pretty clear image of her face in my mind. This time, there’s really only a few small changes from my normal style, but I’m a fan of the way she looks here! I’m not sure if the tweaks will stick around in the long term, but either way, it was fun to do!

The fact that it’s a picture of her, as well as her expression, was probably because I was looking through lots of people’s renditions of the fire scene before I drew this. It’s neat to see how different people interpret the same scene!

(Sorry for the re-upload -- I never realized how close the “edit” button is to the “delete” one... Whoops!)

A simple Blik. This guy is fun to draw (being that suits and sharp teeth are two of my favorite design elements, and he has them both).

She’s pretty over-exposed in this picture, but I hope her lizardy beauty comes through! She’s such a cutie! Has quite the attitude, though... But we love her anyway, huffs and all!

Have a happy Halloween, and a good November, too!

Inktober #30! Electric magic! It could be anybody’s hand, I suppose, if you ignore the claws, but here it’s meat to be Ashley’s.

Inktober #29! Young Blik and his grandma Ruby, bonding over their extra fingers (starks normally only have four on each hand). It’s a familial trait!