#critterbitter

I am also available on instagram! But to a much lesser degree, as I treat that site mostly as an illustration commission work place. Feel free to look through though! I still have all my old zelda stuff on there.

I’ve always seen Emmet as more zekrom esque, and Ingo more reshiram esque. Is it cause the typing matches their starters? Maybe, hehe.

Ultimately though, the guys are too multifaceted for me to easily split them into truth and ideals.

I also see the legendaries as Eldritch Abominations Beyond Understanding, so having the dragons in my iteration become the twins would, uh, have consequences. The funny goofy story would dip into horror territory instead. (Reshiram demands only truths, and anything not Absolute will burn. And zekrom’s ideals are beyond human understanding, and trying to understand the mad tangle of thunder would drive somebody insane.)

(I’m a huge tma fan. Can you see it? Man.)

((Also N’s a scary mofo for summoning reshiram. I’m digging directly into the whole “twin heroes have a civil war and it destroyed unova” backstory that pokemon set up, and the more I think about it the stronger my dread mounts at the idea of Zekrom OR Reshiram casually flying overhead.

But this is also just how I see the legendaries of the pokemon world! Lugia sinks islands. Groudon covers towns. Arceus loves the mortal world, and mourns because its immortality only brings grief. Giritina hates, because it’s the ghostly remains of every one of Arceus’s mistakes given drive, banished into the distortion realm. Normal stuff!)

You sly dog, you got me monologing! But here’s the tldr: Not sure i’ll ever make my own serious Dragon AU that follows my internal world building for pokemon. I’m too attached to my favorite trope: “the smallest people can still initiate the biggest of changes”, and I’m too attached to my other favorite trope: “legendaries are actually gods and you Should Be Frightened.”

So that’s why, in this essay, if the trio gets turned into pokemon, I’d make them route 1 run of the mill rats. Because rats can do whatever they want.

(Plus, patrats and pachirisu aren’t banned from the subway battles last I checked.)

If i had to make a goofy crack dragon au though, I think this would be the result:

The whole story would just be the trio and historians trying to figure out what the hell the twins got turned into, and concerns of other people becoming pokemon as well. So far, people are convinced they’re a paradox version of an archen. (I mean…)

(Alternate take of THAT, where elesa gets turned into a victini.)

First question! What art program I use!

Mostly procreate, along with a handful of brushes! (Specifically the Jing Set and some custom stuff, which is really just a circle brush with the shape changed to a square.)

Second question! How do i draw so much!

Okay so. I am. Ahhah. Unemployed,,,,? No, I do freelance illustration, but hmm. A studio job would be nice.

i graduated college last year and I’m very used to eight hour art shifts. The body sort of remembers to keep working, even though I no longer have storyboards or visdev homework to do.

Also. The hyperfixation is a deep vast tunnel I STILL have not seen the end of the light to, good golly. (I have dreams now about the kids committing shenanigan crimes. I wake up in cold sweat and write them down in a journal. It’s like being the mouthpiece to an angry god.)

So the overall gist is: I was trained to be a storyboard artist with a visdev background, and I’m using that higher education to draw funny muppets because my brain’s funny.

I also DO have a queue, and I’ve been treating this as a sort of inktober project. I am definitely going to slow down soon though! Maybe. Hopefully. Ah… (sheepishly drops my kofi here)

Third question! How do i color!

I. I, uh. I dont know man the coloring demons have a grip on my soul and i just go along for the ride. But also, if it helps, i prefer to limit my pallets to only a few colors at a time. Lighting is king, so if you can figure out if you want to focus on either on your lights or shadows, you’ll have a much easier time composing. That, and symbolic colors— idk, something hits different about art drenched in gold with a tiny hint of a man staring into the blinding horizon, or a green leafy environment with a single dot of artificial red. I also like using blue and purple for shadows, and I’m a big fan of muting colors with only one or two that pop— one of the reasons why I was so attracted to submas in the first place is because from a design aesthetic, they’re both super funny muppet men AND really cool train guys that have a limited pallet and thematic apparel.

Overall response! THANK YOU SO MUCH. This goes out to a BUNCH of people who sent me inbox queries— sorry for not responding, it’s a tad overwhelming because some of them are story questions even I don’t really know will go yet, and others are words of praise and I’m selfish and like scrolling through the inbox to look at them when I feel down. I am more of an artist who sits in the corner and sprouts like a potato rather then a branching vine who socializes, but I really do see people’s responses and they make me go :)))))

At the end of the day, all my lines are VERY sketchy. I’m a lot stronger when it comes to mashing colors. That, and if you set your line layer from normal to multiply, the lines will always be automatically darker then whatever layer is placed underneath. It’s a trick used quite a bit for placing cel shadows in animation, but it’s useful for lineart in a pinch.

For colors, I like to stick to a limited pallet and branch out only after setting my primary colors. This entire series has been very experimental for me though, as you can probably tell.

As for the last bit— YES… YOU GET IT! As Elesa grows, the lines in her dialogue will start appearing less and less. It’s the little things that map the span of time for these guys.

Yippee!

For making a comic AESTHETIC and APPROACHABLE:

I've noticed that it's easier for people to be pulled into a comic if I set the environment first and foremost, so people have some vague context for the scene. Of COURSE that's not always necessary ( there are a lot of comics that start out without environmental story telling and it works perfectly) but I've always liked having a lil illustration before digging my rat claws into the meat of the story.

For example! “Emmet and Elesa have a clandestine meeting in the library at 4 am.”

The sketch was sort of the jumping point to where I wanted to go with the comic. I wanted to a. explain wtf is happening and b. draw a nice conclusion about what the f is happening.

You don't need to make the environment available in every panel too! I'd suggest making your first panel tell all the environment detail you need and then like... slowly removing irrelevant detail from there. And then hit folks with the background again at the end. (So basically, you don't see the library in this comic until the beginning and a bit towards the end. I have tricked you! aha!) So that's one tip i have. For Readability: Anyways, to make a comic easy to read, spacing is super important. Dialogue tends to cramp a shot by a WHOLE lot. For example! Remember the "Lamp is told she's beloved (and has a tsundere moment over it"? That used to be TWO panels. Man. Nightmare fuel. Lemme find it. (This is the rough. I Lined It, realized the pacing is off, and then withered. Please don't look at it too hard.)

So here's the thing. This READS. But the sheer amount of dialogue in the beginning is fatiguing for me and the "you are beloved, Lampent" NEEDS that oomph of both characters realizing that over the span of years, their relationship stopped being antagonistic and started being family instead. Some folks are fine with blocks of dialogue, but I have the attention span of a patrat on candy. I will not make it. SO! To match the almost moody atmosphere, I stretched the comic out. I stretched that bad boy out a LOT. And I got this out of it.

Something to keep in mind in comics is there's always going to be one or two iconic lines. Lines that make people FEEL things. Those lines deserve their own panel, their own shot, their whatever. A good story has lulls in its conversation. If you can replicate it, you're winning. Character Blocking:

So basically no, it's not all witchcraft. It's only a bit of witchcraft. Another thing that helps is differentiating characters if they're on the same panel is by solid blocks of color. I have, for the longest time when working on storyboards, blocked characters different tones in order to help differentiate them. Don't be shy! Do that if it helps your comics read! Ingo will always be darker shaded then emmet. The angry nightlight will always have some hint of purple on her (unless I forget). The first goal in a story is to convey information, hehe. Here's an example of color blocking! (This is from a VERY old botw comic I did for linktober in 2021.)

It's, ah, rather rustic compared to what I do. usually. I know! BUT the primary goal here is to convey where the characters are in relation to each other. And the fact they're color coded makes life easier for both reader and artist. Alright! That's all the tips I can think of off the top of my head. Time to get off that soap box, haha. Overall: Basically, my work process is-- draw a story telling image/ write a funny piece of dialogue. Build the comic around that. Pace it so the important lines stand out. Color code the characters for max visibility. And then four to twelve hours of lineart, but that's neither here or there.