Secretmellowblog Art Sideblog @secretmellowart - Tumblr Blog

Hello everyone! I’m Mellow and this is my art blog! Here are some of my comics on tumblr. I love it when people spam-like/reblog my posts so go ahead. See below for links to my tumblr comics, organized by category. Whether you're here for the fairytale stuff or the digital circus stuff or some other mysterious thing, find 'em all below.

You can also

Find these posted on my Website,

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support me on Patreon.

Gonna be real, most of the digital circus comics are tumblr-only at the moment so i don’t advertise them in other places.

Longer Comics

The Butterfly Boy

The Little Mermaid

The Hobbit [full sideblog; this is my longest comic so far! I started it years ago.]

More coming soon!

Short comics

The Lady of Shalott

Vague Flashes on the Horizon [Dogs and Wolves]

Sly Cooper […short, for now!]

Digital Circus Comics

............yeah this gets its own section now. Search my "TADC" tag for non-comic art, but here are the larger comics I still like:

ELIZA /Amazing Digital Therapy [Pt 1]

ELIZA/Amazing Digital Therapy [Pt 2]

Digital Bodies

Taste-Testing Cocktails

Pomni’s Apartment

Frankencaine / Frankencaine pt 2 / Pt 3 / pt 4

Showbiz

[comics shared before episode 9 came out, may not reflect how I currently see characterization:]

Amazing Digital Transgenderism [a lot of my thoughts on Jax's characterization changed after the finale.]

Conjuring Lesson [Post-finale Caine's characterization is different from what I was picturin' in a redeemed Caine AU.]

Old Scratch Theory [my first digital circus comic. A lil crusty but still.]

My favorite Short Circus Animations

Happily Wondering

The Little Mermaid

Cut out for It

Cain pt 1 / Cain pt 2 [not animated I just Like this one]

Non Comics

Check my #Les Mis, #LOTR, #the Hobbit, #the amazing digital circus, and #animation tags!

Who am I? learn more about me below, or visit my pinned post on my main blog @secretmellowblog for more non-art Lore.

#new pinned post!!!#art #artists on tumblr #illustration #comics #meet the artist #webcomics #the butterfly boy #the little mermaid #the lady of Shalott #sly cooper #retelling the hobbit #pinned post

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A followup/partner to my first ELIZA comic [read that one for more context.]

I was thinking about Kinger, Caine, and creating life you don’t understand that grows in a way that frightens you-- Kinger creating a sentient AI that gradually broke down over its imprisonment, Caine waking the humans’ brainscans only for them to break down and abstract over their imprisonment. Kinger’s role as the father figure of the circus, and how the circus’s cycles of harm all started [unintentionally] with Caine’s abandonment. I was also thinking about that bit in Ep 7 where Kinger is the only one to chuckle at Caine’s Chinese Room/AI programming history humor.

ELIZA was a 1964 “therapy chatbot.” Unlike modern chatbots, it was a relatively simple text program that gave you basic parrot-like outputs. Despite being rudimentary by today’s standards, ELIZA was very influential. You can talk to an interactive recreation of ELIZA online here.

In this comic Caine starts by repeating stock ELIZA responses, but then begins slowly creating his own content in a way that she never would. [he starts with the canned ELIZA phrases like “please tell me your problem” and “are you saying no just to be negative” and “is it because [x] that you came to me” but then gradually, without fully being aware of it, drifts into more creative & human conversation.] This is also influenced by my personal headcanon that Kinger’s conversation with Ragatha about relationships in episode 6 is a reflection of his perspective on Caine at the time.

#tadc #the amazing digital circus #tadc spoilers #next evening rb!#see the original poast for my usual tag essay

Lately I've been trying to figure out why I even make art, which is part of why I haven't been sharing any of my latest circus art on my other accounts [Tiktok, Instagram, etc.] Sometimes I find myself thinking "more people would see [X] if I also shared it on Tiktok" and then I ask myself.... "but why? Do I want that? what would be the Purpose." I like that tumblr is uh, well you're never going to be a tumblr influencer. there is no point to being popular on tumblr. It's a niche artsy freak site for niche artsy freaks to talk about things they like, and it's sorta built to prioritize conversation over 'engagement." I think that makes it easier to be comfortable sharing weird or goofy art you wouldn't share in other places.

#aimless musing #not art #delete later #instagram and tiktok also love to put your posts on the feeds of people you know IRL #regardless of how often you tell them not to use your phone contacts or location data to 'help' people find you

I was listening to the Chicago soundtrack again and had to draw Caine saying this quote from Roxie.

#tadc #the amazing digital circus #caine #my brain was telling me to create a full-color Caine animatic to Razzle Dazzle and this was my compromise.#I do think Caine & Roxie Hart have a lot in common actually #[derogatory]#failed artists/bad performers who commit a murder after learning they'll never get to perform for people [the murder of Fred & “Abel”]#then spend the entire runtime of their show imprisoned & desperately putting on a performance to avoid punishment for their actions #they're really desperate for love and validation but also profoundly self-absorbed and unempathetic #only caring about other people as an Audience to applaud them #theyre very childish and cause harm by being so childish #but they also infantilize *themselves* constantly as part of the Performance they're putting on to save their own life #publicly playing a stupid sweet child who never even says swears even as they're privately pretty GODDAMN sick of all this #I think Caine is a lot more sympathetic [and the circus show is a lot less cynical] for a lot of reasons #for example: that he does genuinely feel guilt for what he did and is desperate for connection beyond just having an audience #but yeah I also really want to draw Caine with the line 'Who Says that murder's NOT an art?''#'And who in case she doesn't hang can say she started with a BANG' [Caine pointing finger guns at Abel]

A collection of miscellaneous Goofy Teethguy poses from my latest little fancomic. He's blorbo [from my shows]

#he's Silly!!!!#the amazing digital circus #tadc #you must understand. he's from my shows #caine #caine tadc

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i love the way you draw the tadc characters in the end credits style! They look so cute :)

Ahhh thank you so much!! my exact face and expression on reading this:

#tadc #the amazing digital circus #asks #<3333 #i really appreciate all the kind little comments and asks and replies. its fun to talk to people

When you post a comic you've been working on for a while and you just have to like, run away into the hills for a bit. Run away into the hills....

#my perfectionism says we could still make edits. my brain says 'let it be'

A followup/partner to my first ELIZA comic [read that one for more context.]

I was thinking about Kinger, Caine, and creating life you don’t understand that grows in a way that frightens you-- Kinger creating a sentient AI that gradually broke down over its imprisonment, Caine waking the humans’ brainscans only for them to break down and abstract over their imprisonment. Kinger’s role as the father figure of the circus, and how the circus’s cycles of harm all started [unintentionally] with Caine’s abandonment. I was also thinking about that bit in Ep 7 where Kinger is the only one to chuckle at Caine’s Chinese Room/AI programming history humor.

ELIZA was a 1964 “therapy chatbot.” Unlike modern chatbots, it was a relatively simple text program that gave you basic parrot-like outputs. Despite being rudimentary by today’s standards, ELIZA was very influential. You can talk to an interactive recreation of ELIZA online here.

In this comic Caine starts by repeating stock ELIZA responses, but then begins slowly creating his own content in a way that she never would. [he starts with the canned ELIZA phrases like “please tell me your problem” and “are you saying no just to be negative” and “is it because [x] that you came to me” but then gradually, without fully being aware of it, drifts into more creative & human conversation.] This is also influenced by my personal headcanon that Kinger’s conversation with Ragatha about relationships in episode 6 is a reflection of his perspective on Caine at the time.

#tadc #the amazing digital circus #tadc spoilers #the amazing digital circus spoilers #Caine #Kinger #Kinger - Caine father -son adventure #I’ve been looking at this for so long that I really do just need to Poast it #take it out of my hands!#anyway I feel like my thoughts on their dynamic are all conveyed within the comic itself but I feel a tag essay is traditional #anyway something about how Caine and Kinger hurt each other the most horribly of anyone currently in the circus #and are the two who are responsible for all this #something something about how Kinger says he used to hate himself #and how that applies to Caine’s fixation on how he ‘ruined’ everything #so one thing that’s hinted at the end of the first Eliza comic I did #is that Caine has weird feelings about Kinger will react to Eliza #and here my specific take is that he would assume Kinger’s goal would be to ‘fix’ her so she was back to ‘normal’#because why would he think otherwise or that it was wrong?#idk. I like how episode 9 Caine hasn’t come around to understanding his own personhood #or to the idea that the humans are capable of seeing him as something with personhood #and we’re left with just the implication [ in the scene with the moon] that it’s something he’ll have to slowly learn with time #so that’s this #drawing note: in some of the panels I made it so that Caine is trying to ‘mirror’ Kinger’s pose or expression #but there’s only some bits like that I just thought it’d be cute #father son bonding moment #but yeah I have a lot of feelings about how kinger Learning about his real world fatherhood #could reshape so much of how he understood himself- giving him the context he was missing #and oh wow I’m out of tags. anyway the moral is I had thoughts #long post #tadc comic

Me: I need to stop coming up with new high-effort Digital Circus project ideas I don't have time to do them all

Also me: Caine animatic set to "Razzle Dazzle" from Chicago???

#See I think it works perfectly for him but in a different way from what the song is originally meant to mean in context #I think it'd be a perfect song to convey his self loathing lil character arc up to the end of ep 8'#tadc #the amazing digital circus #'when you're in trouble go into your dance?"#its too perfect

secretmellowart

ELIZA was a 1964 “therapy chatbot.” Unlike modern chatbots, it was a relatively simple text program that gave you basic, mistake-ridden, obviously parrot-like outputs. Despite being rudimentary by today’s standards, ELIZA was very influential. You can talk to an interactive recreation of ELIZA online here. [I used that recreation to help write ELIZA’s “dialogue” in this comic, sending in my Caine dialogue and getting her responses— these are all how ELIZA “really” responded, with only minor edits. This comic was originally planned to be goofier, until ELIZA started responding in a way that I realized would trigger Caine’s amazing digital repressed trauma.]

I was thinking about Caine & ELIZA’s status as “early flawed models abandoned for more perfect things that could actually generate the content humans wanted” and I liked the idea of Caine seeing personhood in ELIZA for the opposite reasons a human would. She feels like a person not because her responses are good, but because they’re obviously bad, defective, and broken—- not because she acts convincingly human, but because she fails to. Find a bonus page below the cut.

#reblogging this ahead of its upcoming Sequel #get hype #tadc #the amazing digital circus #tadc spoilers #delete later #[for the rb not the original comic]#long post #self rb

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secretmellowart

Chores: 2 hours

Life obligations: 1 hour

Obsessively drawing digital circus comics: 272838939303945 hours

Someone help me budget my post -work free time, I somehow don’t have the time to get anything done :(

secretmellowart

@shirokou

#so true #thanks for the advice #not art #delete later

TRAILER for my next Digital Circus comic, coming soon to a Tumblr near you!!! Can you, the viewer, guess the plot from these out of context screenshots?

#tadc #wip #mysterious!!!#torn between 'want to share more' and 'don't want to spoil the Mystery and Surprise'#tadc spoilers #do i still need to tag that? its been a month #the amazing digital circus

Chores: 2 hours

Life obligations: 1 hour

Obsessively drawing digital circus comics: 272838939303945 hours

Someone help me budget my post -work free time, I somehow don’t have the time to get anything done :(

#‘spend less time on circus folk’ ‘no’#tadc #not art #the good news is that my next big comic will likely be shared either tonight or tomorrow!!!#it’s a Good One is all I’ll say. in my humblest of opinions

No context scrungly t-rex arms caine

#I'm at the phase of comic drawing where i'm like 'what if I redrew all previous pages to be Better'#No mellow! don't do it! Just finish! be less precious with your art! etc etc #tadc #the amazing digital circus #wip

“Make a 16 page full color comic,” they said. “It will be fun,” they said. And it is fun but also time consuming 🫣. It will be exciting to share when it’s done. Which will not be tonight, alas. And perhaps not tomorrow either. As much as I wish it.

#trying not to uh be too disappointed in myself for not getting things done faster #I do indeed have a day job #WIP

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Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.

✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions

Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming

have a no-context low-poly Caine:

And a low-poly Kinger:

#wip #tadc #i need to save more of these thumbnail doodles so I can put em together #give you the Average Physical Circus

No context surprised Kinger WIP. what could he be reacting to....

#I'm trying to do the iconic hand pose from his concept art #tadc #the amazing digital circus #wip #I feel like you can Glean a lot about what will happen in this comic from the background & other hints I have dropped in the past

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