Cameron Makes Stuff

The Trouble with Diglett

Memory Issues

Bird-Bullying Dog

There’s a moment in the fourth segment of Korone’s Elden Ring playthrough where she first finds the beach down in the Weeping Peninsula and notices the guillemots, and immediately dismounts Torrent, one-shots one of the swimming ones, and remarks, “weak, huh” (“弱いね~”). I found this really funny since they’re literally just birds, they’re clearly not meant to be enemies in any meaningful sense. I kept imagining Korone doing the PATHETIC meme over a bird and had to draw this. The perspective isn’t really the same as the meme in question but I’ve never drawn Korone before so I wasn’t sure I could get the distorted perspective to work while keeping her remotely on-model.

Simon Doodle

Brush Test #1

I was trying to get some actual work done on my current project and the lines just werent flowing, and I thought it best not to force it, so I decided to horse around with brushes I haven’t used. I got fascinated by this splotchy dip-pen looking one and made whatever this is. It’s sort of Noita and sort of Yume Nikki, though I suppose rather Elden Ring too since I put so much emphasis on the fingerprint motif. I’m not sure if I learned anything useful from this, so maybe it’s not practice of any sort and is just goofing off, but oh well.

Sometimes it’s fine to just go with the flow I suppose.

Flammela Berentz

A student of Rhoan College, and one of the many scions of House Berentz, a clan of minor nobility whose heads quite resent that a modifier is attached to the description of their stature. Flammela’s parents bore many children in the hopes that at least some might make a name for themselves and elevate their house, and Flammela herself has borne a great deal of this burden. House Berentz has never produced much in the way of notable magicians, and Flammela’s talent in this arena made her the focus of particularly harsh expectations. 

As a result of her upbringing Flammela is pathologically results-driven, pushing herself to excel at all times, and scorning those who she sees as lesser; For Flammela, every waking moment of life is a test. It is no surprise that she has a burning dislike of Makoto, whom she deems worthless as a magician, while also viciously envious that her master is a person of great stature. That the two exist together in Makoto is a contradiction Flammela cannot reconcile, as it flies in the face of her worldview. 

Flammela sees Eleonora as a sort of rival, as the former has never bested the latter in a duel, to her enormous consternation, though for her part Eleonora thinks little of it, only seeing Flammela as an enviable peer for her tenacious talent, strident boldness, and adorably tiny stature. 

Omake:

The action shot looks really cool with different layers turned off.

Maribel Quickbeam

Makoto’s master, and associate of the college of Rhoan. A woman whose name looms large in the city of Rhoan; a prominent master magician and one of the very founders of the college. Debonaire and poised, she has a flair for stylishness and tends to leave an impression. She uses magic to alter her hair length, and styles it in a different manner nearly every day.

She took Makoto as a student when likely no one else would have, not out of pity, but with a unique eye for her potential. Maribel saw in Makoto a drive and zest for magic which endows her with a potential exceeding the scores of talented but listless nobility. Maribel loves Makoto like a daughter, and guides her in lessons with a coy, gentle hand, and in affairs of life with the air of an indulgent aunt.

Branwyn: Baker’s Daughter

A townie Makoto regularly sees, and thus became friends with. Branwyn is a classic people person and took to Makoto quickly, as she respects her as a magician (and has no frame of reference for whether or not she’s skilled), and likes that Makoto isn’t haughty about her station. She strongly dislikes conceited types, but can get along with virtually anyone else.

To the children of her neighborhood she’s a bossy big sis type who’s quick to dole out admonishments for bad behavior and gentle praise for the good. To peers she’s a nosy aunt type, always interested in the gossip surrounding who is romancing whom, and with strong opinions about who OUGHT to be romancing whom (which is to say, she’s a shipper). Her plump, full figure and easy-going charm attracts her own share of suitors, with whom she tends to be harshly critical, as though there is a particular type she’s secretly holding out for.

It’s a foregone conclusion that she’ll take over her family’s business, but this isn’t a source of anxiety, she sees it as entirely natural. She likes the work of being a baker, especially socializing with clientele, and her personable, down to earth attitude is good at securing repeat customers.

Morning Breeze

Eleonora: College Archivist

A tall, nervous woman several years Makoto’s senior, who works as an archivist in the college’s library, which Makoto sometimes haunts.

Initially she was quite frightened of Makoto due to her master’s societal stature, but came to find her pleasant company, as although Makoto is exuberant, she has an unassuming and friendly demeanor. 

Eleonora herself has a gentle but furtive personality. As a result of being both tall and socially anxious her posture is terrible, and in most settings she seeks to minimize herself and avoid notice. She loves romance, reads associated literature, and delights in hearing tales of her peers’ love lives, though for her part she has none to speak of.

Though normally meek, her drive to succeed academically supersedes her social anxiety, and in occasions where she is called to demonstrate her knowledge and skill she can act without the hindrance of her foibles. This is most stark in sparring duels, where she has made a name for herself around the college as a frightening opponent. Her style is marked by shocking aggression, but rather than being guided by exploitable wrath, she moves with cold precision and a sharp analytical acumen. Many peers who expected to notch an easy victory against a shrinking violet found themselves quickly overwhelmed by her ferocious press. 

For her part she’s not especially fond of the reputation, particularly the nicknames likening her to an ambush predator or carnivorous plant. 

She specializes in earth magic, which offers outstanding offense and defense for those with strong enough will to command it to the fullest. She has a special knack for crystal magic, which requires a mind as orderly as crystal lattice, and is thus a relatively rare talent. 

Omake:

At one point I took a little break and fiddled with her mouth in this shot, which I found really fun

Fransheska: Witch Apprentice

I’ve been thinking a bunch about the people who populate Makoto’s world, and wanted to draw her close friends and other important figures in her life, and so I’ve started with her best friend.

A short thin girl roughly Makoto’s age, training under a forest witch. She lives in the nearby forest and really leans into the witch vibes, as she thinks witches are cool. She wears a wreath of leaves on her hat and changes her cloak to match when fall arrives, then in winter switches to a crown of twigs adorned with berries; intertwining with nature is a hallmark of witch tradition that marks it apart from mainstream academic magic.

She likes Makoto’s slime magic, doesn’t see it as a weakness, and encourages her to focus on it by choice as she believes it’s good to emphasize your natural aptitudes. She very much admires Makoto’s drive and studious focus, while Makoto admires Fransheska’s talent and whimsy. The two have a dynamic marked by strong mutual respect and a playful affection. Carries a wooden flute, as sound is a part of her master’s tradition, which is used to entreat spirits rather than directly command phenomena (though they can also do more mainstream magic). Very talented, but very guided by her whims and not typically studious in areas she isn’t directly interested in, a classic art-student type. 

Omake: I spent like fifteen minutes just playing with her eyebrows, as her face shape makes them very easy to have a big effect and it was really fun.

Makoto: Alternate Outfits

I wanted to try drawing Makoto in a series of alternate outfits she might wear in different occasions, and ended up doing these three.

Top left: Festival outfit. A nice dress of finer make for festival days, worn with her everyday boots, but without the uniform chaps. Worn with a capelet on colder nights. I imagine Makoto is a lively type of person who likes to dance, and so gets pretty jazzed about festivals. It was fun to draw her with her hair down for once, I imagine festivals are one of the rare times she properly brushes her hair out and wears it down, instead of braiding it out of the way.

Top right: Formal occasion robes. Extremely fine robes replete with gold embellishments. Furnished by her master, who has an association with birds, and the outfit was meant to have an avian motif. The attached cape is designed to resemble two swallow’s tail-feathers. I imagine Makoto is not accustomed to formal occasions and dislikes heavy, restrictive clothing, and is quite out of her element in this outfit.

Bottom: Nightgown. A simple outfit that doesn’t need much explanation, I mostly just did this one because I wanted to draw a sleepy bed-headed Makoto. I think of her as a very deep sleeper whose energy and zeal are only waning in the mornings, before her brain has caught back up.

Slimes: And of course, a slime for every occasion.

Omake:

I thought the slimes look really interesting and a little sinister with their linework hidden.

From Fire, Water

I wanted to start making little Makoto comics now that I’ve redesigned the character, and decided to start with a more serious one since it can just be in my normal style, while I hash out what my less serious style should look like.

I noted in the prior post that this character (Makoto)’s deal is that she’s an aspiring magician, but is terrible at most magic. I wanted to depict her first time ever (barely, and at great difficulty) conjuring fire.

『新魔法使いまこと!! 』

NEW Magician Makoto!!

I was feeling in a somewhat nostalgic mood and remembered this OC I made a million years ago in high school and thought it would be fun to draw her again, adapted to suit my current sensibilities and drawing style. I doodled her from time to time and although in my youth I almost exclusively did OCs I tended not to create much of a story for them, they were usually just designs I was playing with. With Makoto here I was kind of attached to her and gave her an actual deal, which roughly was that she was a mage’s apprentice with big shoujo-protagonist dreams of becoming an accomplished magician, but she’s kind of terrible at magic and the only variety she has any aptitude for whatsoever is conjuring slimes, which she hates, so I guess her vibe was cute girlfailure.

In redesigning her I really wanted to avoid Ship of Theseus-ing her, and did my best to keep as many elements as I could while still updating them, which while more challenging was probably the right call. I was especially pleased with the solution of adding chaps to her boots to get across the visual design of the original nondescript Dragon Quest looking boots while still updating them to very functional realistic ones. Although none of the old depictions of the character ever had color, I always imagined essentially this color scheme she has here: Coppery red hair, with a uniform that’s primarily white with orange trim.

Below is the very first Makoto design. Note that the original page has other things on it, including damage, so I’ve extracted the salient part by itself. This original is circa 2005.

Here also is a version of the character as I redesigned her in college, bumping up her age and altering it relatively little. She was always meant to have coarse slightly floofy hair which she doesn’t take entirely great care of as a result of being too focused on magic, and in this version she braids it to keep it out of the way, which I really like and kept in this new redesign. This redesign is circa 2012.

Birth Trauma

A while ago I did a series of doodles of Revenant to try out different ways of drawing her face, and one of them really stuck out to me as something with potential, so I’ve been wanting to polish it up and expand it into a full composition.

More Or Less Human

I keep making the mistake lately of depicting the subjects in my drawings too small and a lot of the fine detail work gets very lost at the size you’d actually view it, so I wanted to force myself to do a much closer study to get more in the habit of it, and was in the mood to draw the Plain Doll. I’ve never actually drawn her before, so I had to spend a ton of time staring at her with the monocular to get a good idea of the details.

All Ready For Bed