Complete horror

Guys! Guys! This has been driving me INSANE. I cannot get horrified Autumn to look right, and it is making me sad. As you undoubtedly know, this commission involves Dionne one-upping Autumn in the schoolgirl chic department. Thus, we need a properly shocked fox girl. This is harder to do than expected.

Part of it is, sadly enough, the direction she's facing. It must be a left-handed thing, but I draw my characters MUCH better when they are facing the right. Doing a quarter-turn pose to the left is awkward unfamiliar territory. Am I seriously foiled by something as simple as looking left? REALLY? Sad. Grim. Pathetic.

Anyway, if you want to know where I've been these last few days, that's it. I have been failing at Autumn drawing and quitting. Maybe tomorrow will finally have the breakthrough. Heck, maybe I'll just dive into the painting and hope it all works out.

Awww again!

Here's the final coloring of the Yvette commission. Isn't she precious? The coloring is actually much nicer than you see. My scanner, as much as I love it, can't handle light colors. This is GREAT when scanning line art, and not so great when scanning a light gray character. You'll just have to trust me that it looks OK.

Awww!

Here's the line work for the Yvette sketch. As you can see, we went with her hugging the stuffed animal. The ear and tail markings will be done in colored pencil, so that is why they are missing from this drawing. I ended up making this drawing on a full page of paper instead of the half-page as planned, so my tiniest character is nice and big for me. In the future, I may want to do a card-sized drawing for a donation incentive.

If approved, I will get to coloring - provided my printer behaves. My printer is old and surly. Don't make me replace you with the young hotshot printer/scanner combo upstairs, old man!

British invasion

Before I get back to the Yvette commission, here's an alternate take on Dionne trumping Autumn's schoolgirl look. Instead of ye olde Japanese sailor suit, I've gone with a British style. Preppy!

Sailor Dionne

And here we have another commission. This one is about Dionne taking the schoolgirl outfit style and trumping Autumn. Japanese schoolgirl > Catholic schoolgirl?

Finding a proper source was a far more harrowing experience than expected. Let me tell you something... If you are interested in drawing a sailor suit, Googling "Japanese schoolgirl" is THE WRONG THING TO DO! Holy crap, it's all creepy and gross porn! I should get hazard pay for this commission.

The first step is nailing down Dionne's look. After that, I can play around with poses.

(click the image for a larger version.)

So cute it may kill you

I've started work on a new commission and this one's adorable: Yvette in pajamas. How can that not make your brain explode into candy?

My take on the idea was to give her a big stuffed animal friend for her to drag around as she prepares to drift away into slumber. What you see is my playing with poses. So far I like the bottom one the best, as it shows off both jammies and toy, but the others have their charms. (Other pose suggestions are, of course, accepted.) For the PJs I went with a basic polka dot pattern. I have to keep the pattern fairly simple. Anything too complex would come out looking like black blobs once tech pen gets involved.

(Click the image for a larger version.)

"Commiepingo" takes on new meaning...

Holy cow, guys, check this out! Precocious has been Russianized!

What's the most striking about this discovery is that it's been done really, really well. Everything's been translated, down to t-shirts, mugs and background writing. When I use puns, there's a note in Russian on the comic explaining it. The guy doing the translation is excellent! Good job, Nox!

I know, I know. Technically, this is stealing my content. That should be a no-no. But... but they put in so much effort to do this. Almost all of Precocious' strips have been translated at this point, and that's a huge number! Someone had to care enough about the strip to put in that phenomenal amount of work.

On one hand, it's not fair that I don't get a chance to profit off my work. On the other hand, it's not like those who need to read the strip in Russian would ever be readers without this. Maybe I can make them show my Project Wonderful ads or something...

Linkletter Love

Here's the first coloring of the wedding card! Sorry about the crappy photo. The colors are nice and light, which means they die to both a flash and my insensitive scanner. Hopefully enough came out that you can get a sense of what things looks like.

Working around the fold

It's time to get serious about this wedding card. Behold: Bonus flowers! Now there's something cute for the back of the card! Also, the train has been shortened so the fold of the card no longer violates the rules of composition. My college professors will be so proud.

Now comes the task of picking out colors. The difficulty is that the Linkletters are a bit, um, off in fashion sense - but the card still has to look nice! It's time to mess around with coloring! I can't tell you what I'm planning, as I have no plan yet. Just assume it shall be awesome.

Get aboard the train!

Here's an updated version of the wedding card idea, featuring a new dress for Deirdre! (The original design is below for comparison.) Gone is the lace around the neck, as no wedding dresses on a Google search had them. I stuck a necklace on her instead. The big addition is a larger train on the dress, which makes it more wedding-y. The bow is something I am ambivalent about, as evidenced by me forgetting to draw the ribbons in the new drawing. It's something Deirdre *would* probably wear - neither Linkletter has much fashion sense - but it may be conflicting with the new dress.

The downside of the new dress is that the train makes it no longer fit on the card front. That's either a design flaw or a feature, depending on what I do with the back of the card. I had sorta planned on nothing for the back, as this was to be a smaller project.

There's not much change for Harvey. I added his signature bow tie back in, as all tuxedos I Googled had one. Otherwise his clothing remains a bit off - but deliberately so. Tuxes are really boring from the side, so I had to make it wrong to make it look right in a cartoony drawing.

Here's the original wedding drawing, for reference:

Stop me before I color again!

Eh, I had the colored pencils out and I didn't feel like making more comics tonight. This is what happens!

I am about ready to seriously delve into the wedding card and all its glory, but instead of actually doing that my easily-distracted mind went to other card ideas. Problem: I had none, so I just started drawing freely hoping something would come. Nothing did, so enjoy a boring pic of Tiffany! Next time I need to START with a theme. (Or, y'know, start on the card that I need to finish soon!)

Color inside the lines!

It's time for the fun stuff with this Mothers Day card: The coloring! Here is attempt #1. (Click the images for larger versions.) Tomorrow I get to do this again and again. I'm sure the novelty will wear off, but colored pencil is my old unruly friend. (It's a harsh, unforgiving medium - but I love it anyway!)