grandma, it's me... DOM!

Just going off of my last post on the topic of water-based phobias and animatronic horrors, here's some more doodles of things that scare me hahaha! The Loch Ness monster has been a childhood fascination and fear of mine. I both love her and am horrified by the notion of this ancient long-necked creature silently lurking under dark waters. In 2005, there was a UK documentary called Loch Ness Monster: The Ultimate Experiment that built and utilized an animatronic plesiosaur that could move and swim in Loch Ness, to see what the response from public tourists would be at the sight of seeing Nessie. You can actually find the documentary online, as well as images of the animatronic itself, which is what I ended up basing these doodles off of, as a way to scare myself, really.

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This is a bit of a random doodle from yesterday I decided was nice enough to post. Does anyone recognize this from a long gone Disney ride? I used to watch videos of this ride in the early 2000s, enchanted but mostly horrified if I'm being honest. I'm glad I can point to 'submechanophobia' (specifically of submerged animatronics) as an actual term to articulate this fear of mine, but the two versions of this ride in California and Florida both make me deeply uncomfortable and unsettled to my core, but in a morbidly fascinated way. Which is why I wanted to draw my take on this part of the ride, to pay tribute to this specific fear of mine haha. If you're not familiar with this ride, it's called 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Submarine Voyage where guests inhabit a submarine that takes them through a lagoon that features various sea animal animatronics, shipwrecks, a giant squid, and the ones that effectively target the fear trigger in my body - a sea monster animatronic accompanied by mermaid animatronics. The ride was shut down in the 90s but for whatever reason, wasn't completely demolished for at least ten years save for the lagoon being drained, but all the animatronics remained in tact, rotting during that time. There's some now famous photos online of the attraction which look like absolute nightmare fuel (to me). It's not actually meant to be a scary ride, and the way that the characters are designed are meant to be endearing and friendly, but if you look up images of this part of the ride, when combined with dark lighting and camera flash, it easily creates some really spooky shots of these underwater animatronics, so that's really what I wanted to do my interpretation of.

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🐚 D Y E S E B E L 🐚

I wanted to do at least one new drawing for this year’s MerMay, and this is a character that I’ve been meaning to draw my own spin on for a couple of MerMays now, but have kept missing the chance to, or just haven’t been inspired. This is my take on Dyesebel, a prominent mermaid character in the Philippines. She originally made her debut in comics, created by Mars Ravelo, and has since been translated into various screen adaptations. Her story varies in the adaptations, but pretty consistent elements through them all are that she has at least one human parent, and when she grows up, she falls in love with a human boy named Fredo. She’s usually having to conceal her mermaid identity and runs into trouble when she’s discovered and becomes a circus attraction. It depends on the adaptation whether she gets a happy ending. For my design, I stuck to her red orange tail, which has become the most popular look for her on screen. I lifted the shell and pearl hair decorations from the 2008 telenovela, and the tail design was me having fun trying to make her distinct from previous versions.

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PS: Sorry if I'm bothering you or if you don't like being told how to do your art. Also, sorry for my English, as it's not my native language.

Hi there!

First, not a bother at all! This was such a lovely message to read through, and honestly made me very happy, so thank you so much for reaching out!!

Yes, I'd love to hear some recommendations - I'm always open!

And I'm so glad to hear you've been enjoying the fairy tale character designs, but even more happy that it ended up helping in giving some motivation to pick up those abandoned projects again - that's really rewarding to hear honestly, and I'm just so appreciative.

“I am Illyana Rasputin… humanity’s savior… or the means of its eternal damnation.”

Magik is one of my favourite Marvel characters, but initially more in the sense of adoration of her design and barebones knowledge of her character. I’ve put off reading her comics because in the past, I’ve been very “I’ll read this when I’m in the perfect mood, and when I’m all caught up on all the issues I need to be caught up on” which is my general approach to a lot of comics, and it’s just never going to be the perfect day to read them and I will never have the luxury of abundance of time to actually catch up on everything, so I’ve just been ripping off the bandaid on reading things I’ve been holding off on reading. I finally read through her first spinoff Magik (1983) and was even more fascinated with her character, and totally taken aback by how dark her time in Limbo and relations with characters there actually was. I definitely plan to continue reading more of her and I wanna see what kind of journey her character takes on. Now she’s DEFINITELY a top Marvel character for me!

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Hi there!

I definitely considered having the mermaid be a male character when I was initially drawing the designs!

Ultimately, I went the route of having mine be a sapphic twist on the story instead because I’d seen a few versions out there on the web where artists did put that spin on it, of having their interpretation be a merman falling in love with a human prince.

I didn’t see too many, or enough, of this fairy tale with a princess instead of a prince, so that seemed more compelling to me to make my version stand apart a little more!

No need to be sorry - I appreciate the questions!!

Never say never! I had a fascination with Joan of Arc when I was younger. I've actually previously drawn something based on her back in 2013 from my DeviantART days hahaha

⭐️ COVER REVEAL ⭐️

“In this YA sci-fi original graphic novel, teenager Kal is an Earthling without much purpose in life. Cosmoturr Col Al’neyr, or Cosmo for short, is an alien struggling to find his place in the galaxy. Sparks fly when the two meet—but when Cosmo’s past catches up with him, Kal is forced to make a choice: remain on Earth, or follow his crush into the great unknown. Easy choice, right? Now they just have to navigate the dangers of outer space, a megalomaniac pseudo-parent, and their growing feelings for each other. Yeah. It’s complicated. Kloud 9 begins as a slice-of-life love story with fish-out-of-water humor before expanding into full-on space opera, packing every page with thrilling action and charming romance.”

AJ O. Mason and I pitched this book way back in 2020 and it has been such a journey to get to this point, years later. We are so delighted that we can now start talking about it! KLOUD 9 is our queer space opera TRILOGY series, with BOOK ONE: The Star Soldier introducing readers to our fantastical outer space story.

KLOUD 9 BOOK ONE: The Star Soldier hits stores on JULY 7th, 2026 but you can PRE-ORDER it now.

ART by me WRITING by AJ O. Mason and me COLORING by Leonardo Ito FLATTING by Alice Ito LETTERING by Lucas Gattoni

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I'd definitely like to do some fanart for Ghibli eventually! I love Ghibli!

And I've had it in my mind for a while to do fanart for the 1968 Little Mermaid film at some point haha

Here's a small tribute to Jennifer Hale's artistry. These are just a handful of characters with her voice that I grew up with! A lot of them I haven't drawn before, so that was really exciting. Can you identify all of them?😉

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FAIRY TALE ART SERIES | L. Frank Baum's 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' | PART 7 "You people with hearts," he said, "have something to huide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful. When Oz gives me a heart of course I needn't mind so much."

Here is my interpretation of the Tin Man character! I had a lot of fun designing him.

These are some additional insights into his looks:

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Ooooh that's lovely!

I never considered them meeting, but I grew up on The Swan Princess films (pre-3D lol) and I loved Odette from that version, so I'd definitely like to draw her at some point.

(Also, I kind of feel like I love her more in Odile/black swan mode)

Hi!

My instinct is to say try not to worry about the specifics so much at this stage, which I know is easier said than done. I think a lot of artists end up having this panic of “the right art style” (myself included in my younger years!) and the truth is that your style will always just continue to change, shift, and evolve. And you can also have a whole range - multiple art styles and that’s totally okay too.

Right now, I would encourage just focusing and reframing your headspace into what art style makes you feel good when you’re drawing. Focus on what comes naturally to you in the way that you draw things, and how you instinctually draw certain shapes or the way that you put detail on a character’s face. I would think that it should feel good while working, and it should feel good when you look at the result. And if it doesn’t feel good at all right now, try to pinpoint what isn’t working for you and explore.

Be open to other artists and styles… be inspired!

I think by shifting the focus to making sure the experience of your creation is self joy, then the rest comes later. And naturally too. You don’t want to force it, but you do want to encourage it and let it come to you.