Still working on my Nanomango. As part of my practice at finishing pages on the iPad without going back to the desktop, I lettered this today. Only one word balloon, though, so it was relatively easy even though I find the learning curve for working in Affinity Designer for iPad pretty steep.

After seeing the transformation sequences in the new She-Ra cartoon, I can think of a million ways this one could be done better. But it’s NaNoMango, so I’m not touching it. I do like Aideen following her power words with more cussing.

Aideen and the Celtic warrior goddess Liath created by @cyberkitten01.

Somebody’s fixing to get their ass kicked OH BOY

NaNoMango update: test image.

Test image of a key panel from Cultish Manners. After yesterday’s quick attempt at drawing the first page, which failed because I hadn’t got things setup right and wasn’t far enough along with the designs, I decided to do a single panel as a clean traditional pencil drawing and ink over it digitally as an alternative approach. Hm. What do I prefer? Smearing and smudging or drawing fiddly bits on the wrong layer? And why didn’t I spot that Aideen’s head was on her neck wrong? I’ll get there. This is a necessary step and the second act of the story is forming in my head. But it’s a frustrating stage. 

Ah well. I managed to fix the locker being in the wrong plain for Aideen to stuff her coat in it like that. I can fix the neck issue as well, and then use this image for a lettering text. I bought a paid font from blambot that I want to use instead of Stripschrift, but it’ll take some getting used to.

(Mod: I really enjoy your commentary on your thought processes while drawing and I’m very pleased to see you continuing to work on this! The inks are outstanding and you put such great personality in your characters!)

NaNoMango update #2: Tess and Young Milia

Tess: I needed a foil for Aideen in the NaNoMango story I’m working on, taking the place of Jung-La who wasn’t a good fit for the characterization I needed. So here’s Tess, who’s new to the Goth/darkwave scene. The lines around her eyes are makeup - I my not use them in the comic but if I ever do a colored version, they’ll serve as a guide. The idea is to have her look like she went through her existing wardrobe to get something to wear for the Cult of XünÿX concert, and looked up a tutorial for makeup styles for Black Goths. Outside, she will wear a motorbike jacket what you’re seeing now, because she doesn’t have any Gothic-looking overcoats. She starts out with the black sports bra under a mesh top but later in the story switches that up for the electrical tape style that is so popular among Cult of XünÿX fans. I don’t want to have characters with elaborate tattoos, because I’ve done that in the past and they’re a pain to draw over and over again, but I thought Tess would look good with a simple arm tattoo, so she gets two tennis rackets on her arm. Her watch is a retro Casio watch - changed at the last minute from an Apple Watch. I’m seeing those on the street a lot lately, and in billboards advertising unrelated products, and I find it a slightly puzzling but interesting fashion choice. 

Young Milia: While I was working on different options for Tess, my wife @ronadijkhuis suggested that I use her character Milia as Aideen’s foil and drew this younger version of Milia (who is 30-ish in her comic American Gothic Daily) to show what she would look like as a 20-ish-years-old newcomer to the Goth scene, and as a more seasoned Goth who’s gone all in on the Cult of XünÿX house style. I love her hair in the second picture. I had already made up my mind that Tess was going to be the foil character, but Young Milia is going to be in the audience, with credit, because she’s too good not to use.

More excellent work from @reinderdijkhuis and their awesome wife @ronadijkhuis ! Really loving this art and this story! Go follow them both and give ‘em encouragement for this project!

First NanoMango update

I’m struggling a bit. We’re four days in, and while I have written quite a bit of stuff in a frenzied series of sessions, including typing up dialog on my phone while on the train, I have not progressed to where there is a real plot in motion - it’s all scene setting and character introduction. It’s good, I can tell it has potential, but it isn’t ready to be drawn. And with the character art above, I have  doubts.

The girl is Aideen O’Neill, a character borrowed from @cyberkitten01. I have drawn two character drawings of her so far, but they look very different from one another. I think this cartoonier, rounder version has more potential but it needs to be adjusted to look like her more. I was also disappointed in how much time this particular image took; a traditionally-drawn version was so bad all it was good for was to use it as a bass for a digital redraw, which did at least fix most of the faults.

By contrast, I enjoyed how the singer’s image came together in traditional format. I found myself thinking “Hmm, I can draw a bit”. Then I ended up changing a lot of it in digital anyway, because it was too over the top. Too unkind to the singer who I imagined as an older gay man with a long-term heroin habit. Yes, traces of that habit should be visible, but maybe not as much. So I removed quite a few folds and sharp angles in his face, but I still think I may need to be more subtle about it. His age, sexuality and drug use may be the subject of gags, but they should not be jokes that he is the butt of. It’s a fine line to walk.

Originally I was going to feature another borrowed character, Jung-La from @thecosmicbeholder, but the characterization just didn’t work. I need to pair Aideen with an ingenue-type character, someone who is more down-to-earth and average but also a bit more sheltered and naive. Jung-La is none of these things, so Aideen gets an OC as a friend. But if that is the case, is it still meaningfully set in the Beholderverse, as I originally planned? 

Another thing that bothers me is that NaNoMango seems to be dead. I see nothing being posted through the @mangogroove account, no new stuff on Instagram, nothing from this year on DeviantArt and no response to my forum queries about it on ComicFury. There is one artist on mastodon.art who is drawing pages but that seems to be it. Is the challenge dead? I found during Inktober that seeing others at work motivated me to stick to the discipline and I’m already finding that motivation being sapped.

Hah I love these characters they’ve got such great personalities ^^ I also enjoyed reading your thought processes and the stories behind them.

I send so much encouragement to you, NaNoManGo can be a really difficult challenge to undertake and to feel like you’re doing it without any support can be incredible discouraging! I hope you’ll continue working on your project and I look forward to seeing it one day!

FIRST DAY OF JUNE KIDDOS YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!!!

Name? I am a man of many names.

First Time doing NaNoManGo? Nah. Had a short attempt four years ago.

How would you describe your style? Nerdy 90s semi-realism.

What’s Your NaNoManGo Flavor? (Not sure what this means? Click herefor a handy dandy explanation of all the various monthly challenges) Mango Dim Sum

Show Us A Bit of Art? (can be your main characters, background, concept, whatever you feel like drawing) Current Project: https://tapas.io/episode/998324

Style change WIP:

{mangos intensifies}

NANOMANGO SUMMER IS COMING!!!!

WHO: National November Manga Month

WHEN: November and June

WHAT: A month-long comic art challenge that comes in a variety of delicious mangoriffic flavors to choose from

Or feel free to mix it up a little or set your own goals. 10 penciled pages? 30 inked pages? Full color weekly concept art? It’s all good, baby!

WHERE: Over here at http://mangogroove.tumblr.com/ cuties! Come follow us or slip #nanomango into your tags and we’ll reblog you! We also have a LiveJournal community for those who have LJs

Spread the word and tell your friends!!! See you on June 1st!!!

FIRST DAY OF JUNE KIDDOS YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!!!

Name?

First Time doing NaNoManGo?

How would you describe your style?

What’s Your NaNoManGo Flavor? (Not sure what this means? Click here for a handy dandy explanation of all the various monthly challenges)

Show Us A Bit of Art? (can be your main characters, background, concept, whatever you feel like drawing)

{mangos intensifies}

NANOMANGO SUMMER IS COMING!!!!

WHO: National November Manga Month

WHEN: November and June

WHAT: A month-long comic art challenge that comes in a variety of delicious mangoriffic flavors to choose from

Or feel free to mix it up a little or set your own goals. 10 penciled pages? 30 inked pages? Full color weekly concept art? It’s all good, baby!

WHERE: Over here at http://mangogroove.tumblr.com/ cuties! Come follow us or slip #nanomango into your tags and we’ll reblog you! We also have a LiveJournal community for those who have LJs

Spread the word and tell your friends!!! See you on June 1st!!!

FIRST DAY OF JUNE KIDDOS YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!!!

Name?

First Time doing NaNoManGo?

How would you describe your style?

What’s Your NaNoManGo Flavor? (Not sure what this means? Click here for a handy dandy explanation of all the various monthly challenges)

Show Us A Bit of Art? (can be your main characters, background, concept, whatever you feel like drawing)

A prompt list for MerMay 2018! Made by @tkodami. Spelling errors are all hers. 

A little art challenge for the month if anyone is interested!

🤟 pst, tell all your art friends about this art prompt 🤟

𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭’𝐬 𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐲 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭 - #AdventureApril

A fun, fantasy character design art prompt for April, feel free to start beforehand, there’s enough time for those who wouldn’t have time to create and post daily!! The idea is to create a character design based on each days theme, then post on that day with the tag #AdventureApril (tag courtesy of Josiah) original prompt post: https://twitter.com/mattydraws/status/970773075712147456

𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 Hey there, I'm mattydraws, Matt for short. I started this fantasy / character design art prompt. I take a lot of influences from the ancient world, relics etc. I thought it would be cool to start an art prompt, so here we are!! Introduce yourself, show us your work over in the ‘artist_intros’ channel. I can’t wait to meet all of you!!   Follow me for updates: www.mattydraws.tumblr.com www.twitter.com/mattydraws : ^ ) 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 By the end of this fantasy character design prompt you should have 31 sweet drawings. You should start posting your work on 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝟑𝟏𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐀𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐥 𝟑𝟎𝐭𝐡. The goal of this prompt is to create some neat character designs. Use any medium, any style, there is no wrong way!! You can use quick sketches, full page illustrations, do whatever you like. If you fall behind or start late, that’s okay!! post when you can. You got this pal, lets see some cool shit!!

: ^ ) If you have any questions, shoot me a message on tumblr, twitter or over in the discord, I’ll be happy to help!!

𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐫 Also, there’s a discord chat for those artists interested in sharing previews of their work, talking with other participants, any questions/queries, all can be found here. 

The adventure awaits.

See you all soon,

Matt.

: ^ )

Okay I totally failed on Magical March, BUT I have a LOT more time (read: not huge conventions) in April and gosh dang it, I’mma try this.

Every so often I don’t have a character planned so I just throw in one of my old WoW alts.  Nira Bottlerocket is one such.  Some day I’ll recreate you, Nira!

Bowspirit’s Aim is a fantasy webcomic with an irregular update schedule.  You can read it from the beginning or from the start of this chapter, which tbh should be an okay place to pick it up anyway.

EVERYONE WHO IS A CREATOR SHOULD DO THIS!! IM GONNA TRY ON MY SIDE BLOG ( @saturdaymoonshine ) IF ANYONE WANTS TO SEE MY STUFF ( kudos to @EmptyFeet on twitter)

So, I was reminded by Facebook a few days ago that I’d wanted to change someone from the novel into a heraldic unicorn. I don’t remember WHy, but I apparently did.

After some debate amongst myself, I decided on Helaine (formerly known as Nytehawk, aka: my previous personal character and one of the novel’s 3 original characters). She’s supposed to be this rare type, was a really expensive gift to Janus… yet she was a boring, basic ass horse. The only “neat” thing was her colors matched Janus’ fairly well. Sure, she ~eventually~ gained a horn and wings, but that scene’s been shitcanned, and that wasn’t how she got to where the story starts.

I’m going to regret all the design when it comes to comic time… lol. I still might tweak her colors some. (I might add hoof fluffs… maybe. I usually forget it.)

I might edit this as well to make a Snowhawk version. That would not be a novel/webcomic official thing.

Have a timelapse! nearly 9 hours compressed down into 33 minutes.

UNICORNS

Hey so yeah. Here’s three big things coming up at the end of the month and the amount that is in my bank account rn. This is excluding what I owe for I am not getting money anytime soon. So I’m drawing today and will be drawing until the end of the month. 

Usual rates. $10 for simple pencil sketch $15 for flat colors $20 and up for anything more involved. Examples below:

It’s either that or a gofundme. Help, reblog, message me if you want something drawn. 

cashme/$gentlymad :my square cash account (it does direct deposit so that means I can get donations more quickly)

paypal.me/arduncan885 :my paypal account (Paypal is finicky about the amount of money I can transfer at any given time, if you want to send me stuff through it, it’s fine but it will take some time to process providing paypal behaves itself)

I have a Ko-fi also but at the moment paypal is kind of being a butt about accepting donations from it for whatever reason so 

Hey friends hooboy I’ve had a rough go of it in the past six months. The exciting life of the birbmum…

Keep reading

Hey friends

I’m about to get walloped with another payment coming up towards the end of the month. I really need help, any little bit, reblogs or monies. Please help

paypal: paypal.me/arduncan885

cashme: https://cash.me/$gentlymad

Something colored 🌸 . . . #art #digitalart #instaart #pastel #elf #girl #hair #flowers #drawing #illustration #instagood #instaart #artist