Jellyfishin

While alcohol markers are my currently-preferred coloring medium (largely for the sake of speed), I found myself returning to color pencils recently after stumbling a bit into the world of fashion design and wanting to incorporate some of that skillset into character clothing design. In the process, I had an introspective thought: It's now been over a decade that I've been using color pencils when designing clothes for characters.

Let's start back in 2015...

My earliest known [internet] record of character clothing design goes back to 2015 when I designed a set of Yu-Gi-Oh! Vaseshipping (Atem x Mana) paper dolls.

During this time, alcohol markers options were not financially or physically accessible back then (it was pretty much monopolized by Copics), so I was pretty much stuck with color pencil as my coloring medium.

Now let's jump ahead a bit to 2020...

It wasn't until 2018 I got my hands on LePlume markers; these were cheaper than Copics, but still expensive.

And so I used those sparingly and still opted for color pencils when I worked on Undertale Frisk & Chara paper dolls in 2020 (which isn't clothing design, per se, though it did involve some visual abstraction of the armor and weapons).

My accessibility-to-alcohol-markers situation changed around 2021 when more generic brands started to come onto the market - FiveBelow store now sells a decent working set of alcohol markers for, well, $5.00 USD and below, and I also got a nice (albeit incomplete) Brea Reese set from a discount/outlet store for a discount.

I'd say 2021 was when I began using alcohol markers more frequently for my art, and I thought I'd stop with color pencils. Or so I thought.

Now for something more recent in 2023...

In 2023, I offered to draw ComicFury comic characters in Cucinelli fashion wear. Despite having a decent hoard of alcohol markers back then, I was travelling between multiple countries, so, again, color pencils was still the more practical option here.

This time around, I had actual reference images of clothing in front of me for reference, and it at this point something clicked for me - clothing has texture - and I realized I didn't need to color clothing so "flat" like I did before.

Let's come full circle in 2026...

So, when stumbling into the world of fashion design, one of the things I picked up was the use of pre-made croquis, and I've now unlocked what I consider my "speedrun mode" to easily stuff a character's closet.

The only thing slowing down this "speedrun mode" is that I've returned back to using color pencils again, even though I am in a perfectly good position now to make use of alcohol markers. This is because I find the ability of color pencil to capture certain fabric textures easier than with marker.

Which isn't to say it's impossible capture texture with a marker (I think by going further down the rabbit hole of fashion sketches and illustrations I can better learn how markers or other mediums are used in that field and improve my skillset some more).

What video game world would be your #1 travel destination?

Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.

What is the most beautiful world you've played on?

Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.

Perhaps it would be the first one I've built.

I found it I wanted to make something like this. But I didn’t know you'd made it already, before me. If you want I can give you some ideas for new pages.

And so... Thank you a lot!!!

Hey, glad to hear you like my MTT AU comic!

This said: Have you ever seen stuffman's post about two cakes?

I think we've sort of grown into this think trap that, if someone's creative work has been around for a long period of time, no one else is allowed to create anything similar to it, either out of fear of lack of originality or out of fear of not being able to meet the same level of standard. Now obviously copying/plagiarism is wrong, but it's a bit silly to think an artist can never be allowed to create something if it's similar to a pre-existing work. Especially when it comes to fandom where fancomics and fanfiction build upon someone else's ideas already.

The point being, I know my Mettaton AU comic has been around for quite some time (about 8 years at the time of this post!), but I think there's quite a lot of internet space for other Mettaton fans to make and share their own Mettaton-themed AU comics. "The Scribblings of Nib-Mettaton" doesn't have to be the only one out there.

Or, in short:

For years in my possession was an old Digimon keychain (in the shape of Okuwamon, a Kuwagamon derivative) that I salvaged from a street vendor's trash bin. It was not the greatest-looking thing, and I've been meaning to remove the mold flashing and re-paint it, which I did so just recently.

I did the repaint as I would approach painting a D&D miniature (albeit using generic acrylic paint as that's all I have on hand). The figure, by the way, was some kind of soft pliable black plastic (solid, though), and this made it hard to paint since you can't file a pliable plastic surface down to fix flashing or make surfaces smooth.

Needless to say, it's not my best re-paint job (and the figure came out darker than I wanted as I forgot to take into consideration the final black wash). But I like it better than the original paint regardless.

Interesting is that the figure has some fine details, such as a muscle definition in the legs, teeth in the back of the jaw, and details on the underside of the gossamer wings (which you can see in the photo below). Unfortunately, with the way the model was designed, a lot of these interesting details get obscured upon assembly (probably in favor of keeping the pincer claws close to the body and less out-of-the way).

Years ago, I had an active side blog called @mtt-doll-photo which was a doll photography blog for a needlefelt Mettaton doll.

There were a myriad of reasons why I stopped uploading to that side blog, but one of those reasons I stopped is that the doll took quite a beating and the internal skeleton kept getting broken after extensive use.

The initial skeleton was made of wire, which broke frequently in the pelvic and knee region a lot. I did try bendy straws at one point, and while it worked, it turned out excessive use (mostly compression) resulted in plastic deformation. After some time, I made the ultimate decision to "retire" that doll and make a new one, which is what you see above.

I decided for the second time around to make the Mettaton doll shorter (5 inches) for the sake of being travel size, and that I wanted to minimize the use of wires as much as possible. The design I came up with was akin to that of a simple ball-jointed doll, except it's with needlefelted body parts that are held together with sewing string.

What I like about this design is that any stress on the joints would result in string breaking instead of wire breaking, and so it's a lot easier to go in there and fix the joints with a needle and thread instead of cutting the body open and finagling with wires.

Of the only gripe I have with this design is the knees, which don't quite bend as well as I like, and I think they could have been better made by making the leg as three separate parts (thigh, knee, calf+foot) instead of two parts (thigh, knee+calf+foot). But it works sufficiently enough.

Not too long ago, I uploaded an MTT-themed miniature purse inspired after an Hermès Picotin.

Here's another miniature purse, but in a more realistic earthy color (brown). Same dimensions (7.5cm [3in] tall, bucket height 4.5-5 cm [2in] tall, base 2x3cm).

I combined it with an Eiffel tower tourist trinket that I picked up from a trip to Paris years ago to make a faux fancy bag charm. (I had also paired it with a tiny croissant, but that got lost sometime after taking the photos).

Sometime back in May, I uploaded a picture of a loose MTT leathercraft. At the time, I was mulling around on what to do with it, and finally, with the date of the Undertale 10th Anniversary looming upon me, inspiration (or perhaps determination?) struck and I came up with this idea.

A while ago I made a small MTT leathercraft, and wanted to turn that into a mini diary. Genuinely would have been a fun idea, but alas, I discovered lately I did not have enough remaining scrap material wide enough to make such a project. :(

So what's a crafter to do? Make smaller MTT-themed leathercrafts, obviously. XD

This is a miniature MTT purse charm, modeled after an Hermès Picotin. The even tinier miniature MTT keyholder is a bit of a nod to the official MTT Fangamer plush (which is sewn with a key on the inside).

The typical mini Hermès Picotin purse charms on the market are usually sized to sufficiently hold an earbuds container, but this MTT purse is significantly smaller. The size is roughly 7.5cm [3in] tall when counting the handles (otherwise the "bucket" is 4.5-5 cm [2in] tall), with a base that's only 2x3cm. But it's still sufficiently large enough to hold things like coins, a few pieces of candy, needle-and-thread, and such.

Or one Mettaton NEO NANO.

@mettatonmay - Day 17 - Free Day

A little craft project I made for myself, but never shared to the world, until now. May as well do it celebrating MettaMay. :)

Years ago, I came into possession of some faux leather scraps, and I'm trying to figure out what kids of fun craft projects I can make for myself. This was one of those ideas.

Spoiler alert - it kinda sucks - but I already knew that based on reviews of it online.

The only thing is that I didn't know how much it would suck because some of the online negative reviews were questionable - for example, there were negative claims that the clay doesn't hold well against moisture and disintegrates in water (despite nearly all air-dry clay being like this) and negative claims saying the clay is oven-bake clay (despite the clay ingredients containing wheat and the packaging instructions warning not to put creations by an open-flame).

So, nothing much else to do except buy it and try it. Here's what I ended up creating.

Some of these results were decent, but some of them were just a bust.

The Negatives

The negative claims I've been able to duplicate are as follows:

The clay is not really good for more intricate work (i.e., doesn't work well with molds with intricate details)

Dry pieces will absolutely not pass a drop test.

There were some tests with silicone molds. I ended up "recycling" these into more slip.

There were a few negative claims that had some truth to them, but were missing context:

The clay is crumbly - Indeed it tends to be crumbly when working with it right out of the package, and in an ideal world, clay should not be crumbly right out of the package. However, I found that adding some water makes the clay more pliable.

The dry pieces are not strong - I tested a piece that was 3mils or 1/8in thick and was able to snap it in half with my hands, but it felt like it still required some force. I think as long as the piece is is a display piece and not undergoing aggressive use, the strength is okay for some handling (i.e. you don't really need to hold it gingerly if you want to move the creation from one spot to another).

The dry pieces are dusty - This obviously means the binding agent isn't great, but it's not like this isn't fixable with a varnish or sealant

Note: Regarding the poor binding - I did notice the clay had a weird smell upon opening the package (yet another confirmed negative), so if I had to take a guess, I think this might be a mineral-based air dry clay that uses wheat paste to bind things together. I'm curious if adding cornstarch paste would give the clay better strength like you see with cold porcelain or baking soda clay. Probably an experiment for another time.

One negative I experience that didn't seemed to be mentioned by others was that the clay seems to have a short working time (unless you add water to it to make it pliable again). So I always had to have a bowl of water handy whenever I saw the cray cracked too easily when pressing into it.

The Positives

Now with all the negatives out of the way, can Dollar Tree clay be used to make creations? Well, yes, but with some limitations:

It can be used for flat "cookie cutter" creations and stamps.

It's better for more simple creations with some thickness

As with most other air dry clay, pieces can be connected together via scoring and applying slip, and any tiny cracks that appear after drying can be fixed by adding in slip in those areas.

I ended up making a cartoony owl paperweight, a trinket dish with a ginko leaf impression, and a tiny banga [pot] with a handle. The tiny banga is my favorite. :3

So overall, I found the Dollar Tree clay somewhat sucks but it's not impossible to work with.