#yurble

I'll sprinkle out some of my more recent art (mostly Neopets lol) :) Anniversary Yurble!

Neopets Battledome TCG (The Void Within)

The Grey Painter

I can finally share some of my illustrations for Upper Deck's Neopets Trading Card Game!! (As though the artwork hasn't been out for a while now, I've just been neglectful of social media!)

I was 12 years old when I first set eyes on Neopia in 2003. It was the first time I really saw what art and imagination could achieve when married together - an entire online ecosystem sustained by a community of creatives just like me! I've longed to be a part of it ever since, be it drawing for the Art Gallery or publishing comics in The Neopian Times, just hoping to work for The Neopets Team one day.

So when Upper Deck reached out about collaborating on the Neopets Battledome Trading Card Games I thought I had died and gone to heaven! From playing Neopets in 2003 to officially illustrating for them in 2023, this project has been something of a dream come true. It has been such an honour to see my art alongside not just the artists who defined my youth, but also other artists who grew up with Neopets as I did. If that 12 year old girl could see me now I know she'd lose her mind!

So for context for those unaware: TNT has released a massive amount of pride-themed styles for, well, pride. And thankfully this is not just a queer cash grab: the proceeds are getting donated to It Gets Better.

As for what the styles are, they're recolors of the "adoring Valentine" styles that were already released, and include rainbow/gay, asexual, bisexual, lesbian, nonbinary, pansexual, and transgender options (for a total of well over 200). Normally I'd consider recolors for a new style to be lazy, but I'll give TNT a pass seeing as these are for charity.

In terms of how they look, they are pretty cute. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about them using gradients over stripes—sometimes they look a bit rough depending on the colors (e.g., a lot of the ace pets end up having an early 2000s gradient shading thing due to the inevitable use of blacks and grays), and the prismatic pride rainbow pets (left) somehow look less gay than the regular rainbow colour (right). However, I also can admit that the gradients as a whole do look nice aesthetically, and not having different numbers of individual stripes probably made it easier to recolor 200 of these things.

The only other thing I hesitate on is the "pastel rainbow" option, which is just a pastel version of the prismatic pride pets instead of an actual queer palette. I love the aesthetic and I think they're really pretty, but it does feel like a shame to toss these in there instead of including more orientations, like a gay men option to go with the lesbian one.

Overall, though, these are very cute and a nice gesture on TNT's part. I like 'em.

These are just recolours and were made for charity so I'm not going to do any in-depth critiquing, but as an ace person I'll list out my fav ace styles as a treat:

Thanks Neopets, I DO love me a sad old-timey villain.