Sketches and Messes

More doodles of my My Hero Academia OC, inspired by the Vigilantes show since I finished it recently. I’ve always lowkey shipped my OC Korei with Hawks, and I did the math, figuring that Hawks would be just around the age he’d debut with his agency a little bit after the last season of Vigilantes, since he never appeared in the show but there’s undoubtedly more to the manga story I don’t know about. I think it would make sense if my OC were just starting out around that time too, a fledgling detective agency with no established office, no employees, just a young woman trying her best.

I felt like drawing Dapple and Hypha again, really wanted to emphasize their contrasting designs here with shape language, body language, etc. I think I’ll color this sketch some other time.

Made this on TikTok, basically illustrating how the first day aboard the ship went for these three

The magical girl avatars of the dark dragon and light dragon, still figuring out character names but I know I want the light magical girl to be Ramona. On Ramona I went for a pastel CMYK color palette and for my main character I pulled inspiration from the various colors in the night sky.

Slight redesigns, gave my main girl the same finger gloves as Garnet from Steven Universe cuz I think it helps communicate her darkness theme, and I reworked major aspects of my rival girl’s outfit, gave her an empire-waisted dress and brought her tights all the way up, adding the same pattern to some new sleeves. I’ve named the rival girl’s Ramona, while her dragon god is named Dawn since it’s the primordial concept of light. I’m still working on naming my main girl, but I’m thinking either Ava or Cora, and I think I’m naming her Crow Dragon friend Des, as a parallel to Dawn’s simple one-syllable name and as a shortened version of either Destiny or Destruction, to tie in the Wheel of Fortune tarot card inspiration and the idea that he’s seen as this harbinger of chaos.

I drew these frames a long time ago but I recently touched them up cuz I had forgotten to draw in this OC’s most iconic feature, her antlers, and I also decided it could do with some shading, to make it clear that the bird was supposed to be a raven.

I bought @abd-illustrates ‘s book, 100 Lessons to create Anime and Manga characters, and some of the poses and references in the book inspired me to draw my superhero OCs again, this time in training scenarios! I’m actually using up the last couple of pages in my moleskine sketchbook, I’m using this to cap off the sketches and designs I’ve made while I’ve had the book in my possession. It’s a good marker of how far I’ve come with my art, and a reminder that an artist’s training arc is never really finished.

I think this is the first time I’m posting all these characters together, these are my next gen Mystechs! They attend a summer camp themed around learning practical superhero skills run by Starburst, original leader of the Mystechs, but under her guidance they don’t have the weight of the world on their shoulders, they can just be teenagers and goof around, learning about each other and themselves. I wanted to design their civilian looks to be their more standard looks, cuz they suit up for hero stuff a lot less than their predecessors had to. I’m still working out their hero designs, but from left to right their hero names are Troubadour, Arachne, Moon River, Lamplighter, and Skyjack sitting on the ground in front.

Here’s a more finalized sketch of my dove horse dragon magical girl idea, still gotta decide how to draw the Light Dragon, cuz I want it to be draconic but also horse-like so I can pull in unicorn and Pegasus imagery to tie together the dove theme.

Massively experimental mixed media piece, started as a pencil sketch, then I used watercolors to do the background, then I got scared and decided to color the characters in my digital painting app, did some digital touch ups, now it’s done! I love these ocs, but I still haven’t figured out their airship, their mobile home in the sky, I just barely decided certain things about its structure with this drawing, and I’m certain I’ll change things when I finally get around to designing it fully.

So this is the diametrically opposed magical girl to my crow dragon magical girl oc, she is the light to my OC’s dark. The crow dragon represents the primordial universal darkness and dark matter, so this girl’s dragon is the Light Dragon, the primordial force that guides life itself, but the ones who worship her have long since forgotten their deity’s original draconic nature, calling it the Dove Alicorn for its horse-like traits and otherworldly beauty. Haven’t quite designed the light dragon yet, but I’m working on it! This is how my design process looks when I’m trying to go against all my usual design sensibilities to make a character that’s the opposite of all my aesthetics. I think I really like what I came up with, she’s got great shapes and she’s definitely visually different enough from the dark dragon magical girl yet uses enough similar shape language to make them from the same set of magic rules, yknow? I didn’t want a Sailor Moon style “they all wear the same outfit in different colors” thing, I was going more for a Madoka Magica style in that regard.

I loved these magical girl OCs so I redesigned all six of them into a hot girl fantasy circus troupe in my sky islands fantasy story I’ve posted about. They’ll be friends turned foes turned unexpected friends later down the line, and here’s a bit about each of them; Ringleader is a Siren, taking inspo from both bird sirens and mermaid sirens; Acrobat/Strong Woman is a Púca, so a shapeshifter who can turn into a few different animals, and I have her in goat horns and a tail for her mid transformation look; Mechanic is a gremlin, with lots of spikes, wild hair, and large clawed feet for gripping onto plane wings mid flight; Beast Tamer is a Dryad, specifically of a Weeping Willow; Blade Master is a Nixie, so a freshwater aquatic fae; and Clown is a Pixie, so she’s got insectoid features like a Rosy Maple Moth, to differentiate from fairies, which come with bird features and feathers.

I customized a Mickey ears hat with Figment!

I made a tiktok vid of my ocs and basically how they first met

Decorated my sketchbook with stickers I bought from a local artist, @miraku_memo on other platforms, I dunno if they’re on here though

I wanted to draw my short-lived magical girl oc again and it kinda reignited my love for her and her whole story concept; dragon deities inspired by birds being hunted by a misguided order of intergalactic knights, a magical girl companion essentially a fugitive with the powers of a primordial god and no sense of responsibility, a lonely girl trying to find her place in the world and becoming the host for this tiny fugitive god. I just like it a lot, it definitely sparks dopamine.