Corpsephage

Coming across this Aegosexuality Bingo on Twitter was a real big "there's a name for it?!" moment.

Sorry for scarin' ya. Three years back I made a Meet the Artist meme for my birthday (be warned, that link takes you back to the forsaken land of DeviantArt), so this year I made a new version that's a little (but not a lot) more honest.

I've not been idle during the radio silence these past three months. I've been honing my art skills and learning new techniques. That's why this Meet the Artist is all so cluttered - I'm not trying to be big-headed, I just wanted to showcase how I'm doing.

I'm well aware my hair looks like Rukia Kuchiki's.

And because I know someone will ask...

Night falls and the world disappears

I lie in bed and wait for you to come

I smile slightly when I feel your ever-faithful hands

You hold me like I’m something worthy of love

And you bear me away

A kingdom of marble castles and magic rivers

Cities of light and steam and hi-tech

Full of familiar people

Who tell me things I never get told elsewhere

Compass rose points onward

The distance of a thousand seas doesn’t seem so big now

Black flag; outlaws on my side

Voices from the graveyard

The baying of night-creatures from other worlds

Others would turn and flee

But you make me braver

Knowing there’s more to the world than the world

In a dress of starlight

I step gingerly into the debutante ball

All applaud, enraptured and proud

Finally, I am beautiful

The night of that bad breakup

Sitting on the park bench; you were weeping

I was weeping too

Even though I knew you would find love again

I told you my heaviest secrets, my most fraught doubts

I already know all of yours

You tell me over and over that I’m not alone

Abed, she lies on top of me

She runs a hand down my cheek

No judgment

No judgment in the world

I never imagined someone like you would be here

You came into my world and set to work making it yours

Might I say, I loved your show

I was always your biggest fan

Across the rooftops she runs, a streak of night

Assassin, trading blood for freedom

She lights upon me, dancing with a knife

I thank her for the release

Death doesn’t last here

My feet ache from the following

But I’ll follow wherever you lead me

Running with you hours at a time

We talk endlessly

You always get so much out of me

And you have so much to say

And when we’re apart

All I want to talk about is you

The great beast lies in wait

On the edge of the valley

Great scourge of the kingdom

Fear turned to beautiful scales and onyx wings

You’ve all reckoned with the titan

You stumbled, struggled, doubted, fell

I cheered as you got back up again

We charge right in, fearless

There’s so many people beside me

Heroes, villains, creatures of my and others' dreams

A surging tide of light

Then I trip through a gap in the reverie

And I’m back in this lousy place

The gray world of pain and uncertainty

Of what’s real and what doesn’t give a damn

Just some pathetic thing who doesn’t know how to live

Met with silence, or platitudes and other falsehoods

From people who I won’t bother trying to make understand

Through the tears I still glimpse vistas of home

Of magic and beauty and second chances

The only place I’m understood and understand

Screw this, just yank me away again

Rushing through the valley

All of you by my side again

Swords raised in the air, yells of defiance

And we triumph

We always triumph

But the grayness is still there

It doesn’t seem to care

That I kill it in my head night after night

I know this is wrong, and sometimes I even care

Chain-smoking waking dreams

Because I suck at being human

Five more minutes; let me believe

Spanky the Dwarf, my Dungeons and Dragons character... *sucks through teeth*

You know, I probably should give it another try. It’s really annoying, because there’s a lot about it that I like. As a kid, I probably would’ve loved it. As an adult, I certainly like the idea of it.

I’ll tell you where it went wrong, alright? I’ll tell you the moment I realized this wasn’t going to work. So we were fighting a harpy or a griffin or a pigeon or whatever… and I have a rope in my pocket. So I decide to tie it into a lasso and use it to wrangle the beast to the ground. I don't remember exactly what happened, but I think I spent two turns tug-of-warring it before it broke free.

What I wanted to have happen, of course, was that I wanted to go flying. I wanted it to go spectacularly wrong and I wanted my character to be thoroughly humiliated. You know, like in them cartoons. 'Cause that's how I was playing a game I'd never played beforehand. That's when I realized I was That Guy™ .

None of us were really playing it serious; we were newbies going through the motions to see what it's all about. And I guess I just found "vanilla" really boring. It got to the point where my fellow party member said (not wrongly) that every time I try and do something flashy or weird it doesn't have any effect, so I might as well just whack the octopus with my sword every time.

I played DM as well, twice, but it was just the same problem - the material was just giving me nothing to work with. It got to the point where I was just describing the story to them and their characters didn't have any agency.

The annoying thing is that DnD is something I really want to like. It's perfect for wannabe storytellers. I've seen other people play it and it looks like a lot of fun. You can literally do anything you want. Maybe that was the problem - there's so much you can do you just sort of freeze up and wait for someone to tell you what to do. Maybe I was looking more for a tabletop Final Fantasy than actual literal roleplaying.

Look, you don't need me to give you the whole "different opinions disclaimer", but I have to put it, so I'll do it in Pig Latin: if you ikelay omethingsay that I don't ikelay, that's erfectlypay inefay. Oremay owerpay to ouyay. Ifferentday okestray for ifferentday olksfay.

But like I said, maybe I should try it again. It's not fair to judge something like this after the first experience. Maybe if we had a session zero where we planned out the whole thing beforehand, I'd know a bit more what my "script" is. Then again, campaigns are long, and I have the attention span of a gnat ("Are we still trying to kill this octopus?!")

Spanky wasn't the character I used, by the way. I just used a pre-built elf character, which if memory serves I drew like this:

STOP THE PRESSES! HOLD THE PHONES! One of my all-time favorite obscure games is finally getting a remake! After 22 years, GHOST MASTER IS BACK!

...IN AI FORM!

Let me explain. Ghost Master is "SimGhost". You have a whole bunch of ghosts and monsters, you put them in a location, and you used their powers to scare all the humans away. It's a little janky, but it's made for the Halloween crowd, and is a jewel in the crown of childhood villain simulators, right up there with Dungeon Keeper and Evil Genius.

It and spooky media like it are inspirations for my own work, which is why it took until today to learn of Ghost Master: Resurrection, a remake of the original with all-new features. On reflex I had to check it out, and... my feelings have never been more mixed.

One look at the key art and you can tell AI's been involved. Now, I've been staunchly anti-generative-AI for some time now - it's why I stopped posting art on Twitter. So it being the first thing I see when I look at the game is really off-putting. The only AI I want to see in a video game is the NPCs' behaviors.

I also don't quite know where the game stands copyright-wise. I don't know whether the original necromancers behind the first game signed off on it (the company went bust, so I'm not sure who owns the IP now). The remake was released in early access last October, and no one's seemed to stop them yet, so I assume it's okay...

It's a shame, because there's some really cool new features in this remake - things like mad carnivals and pirate ghosts - but I really struggle getting past the whole AI thing. It's so much better to hire real artists to put a personal stamp on it. Hell, if I had more skill, I'd do it myself. I'd do ritual blood sacrifices to get a Ghost Master 2.

Anyway, this is Harriet. She's the best ghost in the game - she can't harm humans directly, but she can create new spawn points for other ghosts, so you'll be taking her with you every level after you unlock her. Whether you're a furry or not.

My favorite scene from the Grinch book is when he makes Cindy-Lou a cup of water before sending her to bed. It's a little thing, but it says a lot about the Grinch's character. He could've just thwacked her with the tree or something, but the fact that he took time to reassure her, then went to the trouble of getting her a drink, suggests there might be an altruistic bone in him after all.

I wanted to use the color palette of the original story in here. What color is the Grinch? Green, of course. So what's the only color that appears in the original book? That's right - red.

Is it too late to comment on this pic?

'Cause I don't want to say "I called it", but... a while back I was drawing up a (very loose) idea for a Sonic fangame, and... this looks exactly like how I imagined Blaze's world.

Well, not exactly, but... the whole town by the sea and the castle being out there in the water... I liked the idea of it being both fairytale-ish and maritime.

The design of Blaze's castle is one of the, like, two things I like about IDW. The rest of the town I imagined looking like the Disney opening logo - you know, the countryside behind the castle looking down the river, with trains and ships and villages.

Five years ago, on Halloween night, I drew my very first picture. I always wanted to draw but was always too scared to try, until that night. I still remember it - laptop in one hand, sketchbook in the other, the original Halloween film playing on the TV, the time drawing near midnight, and me sitting there trembling because the little doodle in pink crayon and pen coming together was actually magical. I still maintain that I was motivated by a religious experience (even though I don't remember what it was).

Five years later... and look how far we've gone backwards...

Alright, obvious joke out of the way, let me get serious. This isn't the best drawing in the world, obviously. At this stage, I still wouldn't even call myself "good" at drawing. But I am DAMN PROUD of it. I'm doing things now I never imagined I could do five years ago. I even bought a guitar. I can't play any more than three chords on it, but I did it anyway, because when you're riding the high of doing something you never thought you could, you feel unstoppable.

If you're anything like me and you want to be creative but you're too scared to try, I implore you to try it. I remember being mystified that drawing a shaded circle only took thirty seconds. Sounds stupid. It is stupid. Please be stupid. That one little victory of doing something that seems trivial now might well prove the biggest victory you've ever had in your life.

Angel Dust kind of holds a special place in my heart, because he was the first character I ever looked at and thought "crap, I'm not straight, am I?"

Of course, we can't forget the other half of the equation:

Two new OCs have emerged from the fog. They're Taylor and Nee, an iniquitous goth couple who are perfectly ordinary by day, but by night have odd habits and peculiar fantasies.

I've been reluctant to upload things in the past, but never before have I actually been afraid to make a piece of art. It's not that this picture is all that scary (it's creepy, yes, but I've done worse). These characters I have in mind for 18+ content, and for some reason making those intentions "official" kind of unsettles me.

Making the jump into doing suggestive art is always daunting. This is the only image of the couple I've made, but I have a few scripts of scenes. I always hear first-timers saying "Omg, I was really blushing while I was writing/drawing this -" THIS THING KILLED MY SOUL.

I've mentioned in the past I'm quite awkward about drawing teh seggsy. I don't want to make women or LGBTQ+ people feel dehumanized or only valued for their looks. I'm not saying that's what all the other kinky artists are guilty of... so I'm not sure why I'm saying it about myself.

Taylor and Nee came to me in one of those states between wakefulness and sleep, while I was thinking "can you make something that's superficially dark, but actually quite wholesome?" If it eases your fears, I'll tell you they really are a wholesome, loving and consenting couple - it's just their roleplays are a little dramatic.

Usually October is my busiest time of year, but recently I've been in an extremely foul mood. You ever get the feeling you know what to do and how to do it, but when the time comes your mind goes blank? Or you know just what to say, but when you get the opportunity you freeze up? It's as if someone's snapping their fingers and making your thoughts disappear... which gave me the inspiration for this image.

I don't like to get heavy with these things, but I like to hope that if people see me reaching out positively, it'll help others in some way.

I very rarely do vent art, and I promised myself if I did I would want it to be uplifting.

Fact is, I've been at my lowest emotional ebb in ages. A few nights ago I actually ruminated so hard I got a stomach ache.

And in that moment I remembered something I read on Tumblr the day before. Well, I didn't really remember it - I can't for the life of me recall who wrote it or what it was about. I only remember that after reading it, I had this thought in my head:

Instead of thinking of yourself as a mind trapped within a body, try thinking of yourself as a body trapped within a mind.

I always thought that the mind was the "higher" part of us, because it's where all our ambition and creativity lives. Meanwhile, the body just lets itself get jerked around by impulses and distracts you from your true purpose.

But what if it's the other way around?

All the things I like to do start off as impulses. That happy feeling I get while I'm making art or music. That spark of "this seems fun, why don't you try this?" The gall to make this here vent piece.

Meanwhile, my mind's been saying nothing as of late but "you can't do that" or "the world is full of jerks" or "you're a jerk" or “everyone thinks you're weird, or they would if they knew you”.

And because of that I haven't made anything new in weeks. I've just been spending that time hating and resenting things. So, really, which one's actually distracting me from my purpose?

Where does your "soul" truly live - in your head, or your heart?

They say that things are all in your head, which a lot of folks hate hearing because they're all in their heads, too. But is that where all of you is? Could a part of you think of itself as being elsewhere? Like in your heart? Your spleen? A different part of your head? Some kind of magical psychic mist?

Maybe not, but I find the idea comforting. It means you can challenge your own brain (or at least the part of it that keeps coming up with garbage). I'm not saying the brain is bad - it's where all your capacity for intelligence and imagination comes from. But it's an organ, just like all the other organs that make you up, only sometimes it starts thinking that it's the only one that matters. That it's the boss of you. It gets big for its britches.

I agree with what people have been saying about Amy's character. She just ain't what she used to be.

About a year ago, I watched a couple of episodes of Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years. (That’s how long it took for me to get my thoughts in order.)

I wasn’t purposefully seeking it out – I just flicked on Nickelodeon because it had been a long time since I’d watched some TV cartoons and I was feeling nostalgic. I’d never thought SpongeBob was the kind of thing that could work as a spinoff, so I just watched the first two episodes of it that came on and… did I just so happen to get the worst ones?

Now look, the whole zeitgeist of grown adults ranting about cartoons for children is long dead by this point, and I don’t want to get all "security system takes control of Squidward's house" over this. I’m only talking about this because my experience of it was just… bizarre.

There's been a recent spate of AI-produced Studio Ghibli mock-ups, so I figured I'd make one of my own. According to my sources (hearsay on Twitter) the studio's head honcho himself thinks of AI as "an insult to life itself". Well, take this, life! How'd you like that? Not so high and mighty now! I've already gotten AI to draw you as the Soyjak and me as the Chad! Now why don't you pick up a pencil and sit on it?!

Alright, I'm gonna get serious here - happy April Fools' Day, by the way - I can't pretend to be fond of this whole AI craze. Now look; I'm not completely innocent when it comes to AI. A few years ago, I was actually working on an AI-based video for YouTube, but I pulled the plug on it when I started hearing how voice actors were worried that AI would put them out of work - and this was back in the early days, when you could easily tell something was AI.

I think it's a real shame websites like DeviantArt seem to be prioritizing this AI stuff over the integrity of artists. It's like "artists" are no longer needed around here, which is definitely the way I've seen a lot of people take this. It's like your creative work is just a "product" to be "consumed", not an "entertainment" to be "enjoyed".

With this in mind, I've built my own AI chatbot (in my head) to try and explain what my problems are with AI drawing. If you have any pro-AI arguments of your own in mind, let me hear them. I sure would like to be wrong about this:

I just got back from watching the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie, which gives me a good excuse to upload something I should've done for Sonic X Shadow Generations.