This year’s theme was genres, which was another interesting set, Piku always puts a lot of effort into making these lists. I think my favorites are the Xellos and Filia Youtube beefing both in concept and I think they’re some of the sketches that turned out the best too. Some of the posts may be a bit out of order since I’m adding to the gallery from two different devices but I’ll try to touch them up and add a little commentary along the way.
I try to include a variety of characters and not just the main 4 all the time so I started off with Martina and ZangulusI think I might legit be the biggest Wizer Freion fan. When I watch Macross Frontier seeing the name “Freyja Wion” causes my neurons to misfire.I’m pretty sure I used Zelgadis for a monster related topic last year so I avoided it this time lolThis one really went over well! I used to be super into Greek mythology as a kid so I had to include the detail of the mirrored shield.I had a pretty set scene in mind when I drew this but now when I look at it I just imagine Amelia trying to keep local toughs from picking on a roaming gunslinger.I feel like I bit off more than I could chew trying to do a magnifying glass effect in a rough sketch. Note the crumbs around her mouth- she’s trying to frame someone else.I tried to go for a more classic gothic vibe than hot topic mall goth and it sort of feels like a nothingburger of a picture since I’m no expert in either.This was one of the ones that was an easy way out but I threw in Filia in a biohazard suit in the corner so I’m not just recycling a joke from NEXTUsing the airbrush to slop in some greys feels like cheating but I was frustrated with how undefined my shading made things come out.This was a stolen Simpsons joke. Everyone’s allowed one or two.This one did Numbers and seemed to resonate with a lot of people. Aren’t we all stranded in our lives?I basically shitpost these entire lists so when “Comedy” came up as a topic I dissociated and defaulted to Transformers.I like this one but it’s a bit plainer than I realized when I look at it again.This is one of my favorites even if the perspective isn’t great.This one is kind of a deep cut, riffing on the cover of Chris “Irate Gamer” Bores’ second ghost hunting show.A surprising amount of people didn’t seem to know what a “space opera” was. I didn’t want to do a direct riff of anything so I tried to get across some ‘scale’ with those starships in the background.I LOVE the Nerima Daikon Brothers anime but it was damn hard to pick out a Hideki. He’s supposed to be Xellos but I don’t think the bangs and purple shirt sell it well enough.Wizer and film noir just felt like a perfect match.I’ve drawn Lina as UMP45 and vice versa before so “alternative history” was a good excuse to dust off the idea one more time.This isn’t the first time I made Amelia into a Kamen Rider and it won’t be the last.Having started DanDaDan with the anime club recently, it was the first thing that came to mind for general ‘occult’ stuff. I watch entirely too much Youtube slop, so having already done a soap opera thing this was the next thing that came to mind for “Drama”This isn’t the first time I’ve drawn Lina and Naga as the Dirty Pair and it won’t be the last.CONTINUITY??I could probably have come up with a more inventive way to show dystopia but turning Gourry into a Mr. Handy is good enough to ease my regrets.Zelgadis earned a reputation as a demonic samurai and Amelia the miko is confused why her sealing talismans don’t do anything.I could only think of one thing for “disaster” as a genre and mashed it with the disaster adjacent movie I’ve probably watched the most.I’ll be honest I don’t really have *genuine* knowledge of anything steampunkI think Phoenix Wright was covered by others and I couldn’t think of a good conclusion to the Xellos/Filia internet beef so Lionel Hutz will doWhen I think of urban fantasy it’s either Dresden Files or super stylized stuff like TWEWY. I felt like ZZZ would be a little too self indulgent…Bomber nose art Lina is actually an idea I’d wanted to mess with for a long time, I even made an attempt at it in the Armored Core 3 emblem maker (which is basically MS Paint done through a D-pad.) Maybe I’ll clean this up properly later…
It’s been a hot minute since I last posted here, got a bit lazy mirroring my artwork here that I posted to the socials and haven’t really been doing anything out of the ordinary worth reporting on. Really enjoying the iPad as an art tool the more I get a feel for proper settings, may still look into other software since it seems worth the investment. I’ve also found that my desk space is *way* more comfortable now that I’ve removed the arm rests from my chair. It struck me while I was streaming the other day that my elbows were kind of getting ‘pinched’ inward awkwardly while holding the controller and I’ve been apparently subconsciously contorting around the rests and developing extra neck and shoulder pain. So hopefully that tweak leads to some more productivity.
I haven’t really had the juice to update the plane girl stuff for a while, had some surprise work drop in my lap like the *day after* the TTS demo went up and got hit with a wave of pretty bad burnout once I caught up to everything I needed to do, and it also coincided with one of my vacation weeks so I didn’t really get to unwind as planned. I feel like my head is on a little straighter this time partly because I kept my time off a freaking secret so I could work ahead early then decompress a bit before I go back for the holiday boss rush that caps off the year.
I’ve been participating in the Slayers Artober event again this year but I’ll save my contributions for a masterpost at the end this time since I’ve already waited this long. I’ll go ahead and catch up some of my other doodles since last time while I’m here, though!
The ZeroRanger arranged soundtrack has dropped on YouTube with an irresponsible amount of very talented composers in the same place at once and I’ve been breaking in my new iPad with some celebratory fanart!
