No Sleep November - Week 3

 I've made it through the third week, and my streak remains unbroken! This week we returned to Merecily to work on some more character designs and stubborn backstories. 

I still have to make it through Thanksgiving Break, which is historically a rough time for my art, but this is also the first year I have reached the break without missing a day. I also planned ahead and scheduled mostly research tasks for the final week, so here's hoping I've set myself up for success this year!

Day 16 - Nyx

Day 17 - The Queen's Council

No Sleep November - Week 2

 I have decided to rename my NaNo-adjacent activity calendar to No Sleep November, since that is what it really ends up being. This week I worked on designs and scenes for the phantom thief story. Having a clear vision in my head of some of the locations has made me feel much more confident.

Day 8 - The Pied Piper

Day 9 - Side Characters

No Sleep November - Week 1

 A solid first week of my NaNoWriMo-adjacent activities. I knocked out some character designs and did some brainstorming for the map and the university uniforms. I'm quite happy with Kaia and the queen's designs, though I couldn't quite settle on an outfit for the queen. Luckily, I'd imagine she can afford to own all of them, so she can wear them in different scenes.

Day 1 - Kaia

Day 2 - Queen Eleonora

Art - Caribbean Blue, Fiddler's Green

 Another piece of Elodie - this is the only time she will ever look happy, so don't get used to it. Really pushing the limits of the Chickensmoothie modesty censors with this one... 😬  I'm also really happy with how the Journalist turned out here.

Drawn 10/29/24, Chickensmoothie.

Art - Halcyon

 This was supposed to be a quick Inktober drawing, but it ended up taking forever, and only to be mildly satisfied with it... I also lost sight of the prompt along the way. It was Smoke & Mirrors from the Art Fright list, but it became more Eldritch Horrors & Glass at some point. It wasn't until I finished this that I realized Halcyon's name really does not suit him, at least from his enemies' perspective.

Drawn 10/23/24, Photoshop.

Art - I Never Wanted to Live Forever

 My most tragic character, la vaguelette herself, Elodie Allaire. There is no happy ending for her; she was doomed from the start. Had to get this posted while I'm still riding the fame and follower count from my featured piece, haha!

Drawn 9/22/24, Chickensmoothie.

Art - Flying Too Close to the Sun

 Finally finished a scene of an ending I was super hyped about when I thought it up a few weeks ago, but then I had a few days to think about it, and now I'm not so sold on it but I had already started the drawing. I haven't scrapped the scene, but it's on the shelf with the other endings. My Oekaki gallery is very quickly becoming a whump gallery.

Edit; This piece was featured on the front page! I remember when I thought I would never have a featured drawing, and now I have three. Chickensmoothie is where I started my journey 11 years ago, and I've come so far.

Drawn 9/14/24, Chickensmoothie.

Sketches - Depressed Detective and his Unpaid Assistant

 I decided to suck it up and use the Oekaki despite it being glitchy with Windows Ink because I love it and I missed the pen tool. And I wanted to draw a bunch of Zhihao and Rico. Bonus Kaitou Kid and unspecified Aisha because I got tired of Zhihao and Rico.

Drawn 9/1/24, Chickensmoothie.

Sketch - POV you're cookee

 Little doodle I've been meaning to do for a while. I do this EVERY time and I never learn my lesson.

Drawn 8/25/24, Photoshop.

Animation - He is (not) the Golden Phantom

 Finally sat down to do one of the many animatics from my list. Just a short one, no need for Krita. At least in grayscale I don't have to worry about the video player ruining the colors. Got to use Photoshop's layer comps seriously for the first time, but it's not exactly a perfect tool.

Drawn 8/5/24 - 8/11/24, Photoshop and Premiere.

Art Fight - Space Western

 Turns out Art Fight ended at noon instead of midnight, so this is my last attack for the year. Christler for startailye, a fellow Chickensmoothian.

Drawn 8/2/24, Photoshop.

Art Fight - Lost in the Storm

 Revenge of E7y1's Jasmine. This is also my 50th attack, so I can finally get my badge! Thank god Art Fight always gets extended a few days so I can get a couple more revenges in before it ends.

Drawn 7/31/24, Photoshop.

Art Fight - Fey Magic

 A quick revenge of Shiinx's over-dramatic emo warlock Raven. Also discovered the Photoshop liquify tool can detect my art as a human face, which is nice.

Drawn 7/30/24, Photoshop.

Art Fight - Charming

 ParAvion's character Char. Love the outfit. I'm trying to crank out these revenges before Art Fight ends. I don't expect to make it...

Drawn 7/28/24, Photoshop.

Art Fight - Siberian Moon

 A quick revenge of lost_bullet's Nascha. I enjoyed doing the background.

Drawn 7/26/24, Photoshop.

Art Fight - Afternoons in the Valley

 Revenge for amazing art of my wandering immortal, BrassWarrior's Stardew Valley characters Philio and Wisp! This took a while, so I'll probably just settle for sketches to try to get through as many revenges as I can before Art Fight ends.

Drawn 7/24/26, Photoshop.

Art Fight - Shadow Tricks

 A late revenge from last Art Fight, Trick for WillCacti. He's usually a beekeeper, but he had a fencing suit as an option, so of course I just had to do that! I have a lot of revenges to catch up on since I missed most of Art Fight this year. Luckily this was my only overdue one.

Drawn 7/18/24, Photoshop.

Character Design - Holland

 Made a quick reference sheet for my Stardew Valley character, Holland, for Art Fight. I hesitate to call her a farmer because I don't actually do any farming. I only mine, and fight monsters. Stardew Valley would be a better game if you took out the farming simulator part and made it an RPG, in my opinion.

Drawn 7/12/24, Photoshop.

Meme - Pride Month in the Campaign

 A pride meme I made for my D&D group. I am fighting tooth and nail against this art block.

Drawn 6/16/24, Photoshop.

Character Design - Smol Nyx

 Followed a sudden urge to draw a little Nyx with the family dragon, and really liked the design! Of course it's a design that will probably never be used in the main comic, while I still struggle over her official design.

 Drawn 6/14/24, Photoshop.

Commission - Cats

 Some quick avatars I made for a friend's catboy friends.

Drawn 6/8/24, Photoshop.

Animation - Nickel

 Tried out Krita for the first time and felt like I was finally getting out of my art block - only to then have to deal with Adobe and its color management when it came time to export. I spent just as long troubleshooting as I did drawing, and all for nothing in the end, as the problems turned out to be unfixable. But Krita was nice, at least. The workflow was so smooth and didn't bog down my computer like Photoshop.

I'm very happy with this, even if color management sucked all the joy out of it! I already see many things to improve and I'm excited to animate more in the future!

Drawn 5/25/24, Krita.

Sketches - Avril & the Crew

 A sketch sheet I've been filling up for a few weeks. A few doodles of Zhihao and Rico, my first go at Avril's design, and a new type of tree I suddenly manifested the ability to draw. Finally drew Rico with that dumb motorcycle he loves so much.

Drawn 4/18/24.

D&D Sketch - POV: They Murdered Helis

 A funny little meme I did for my D&D party to get out of an art block. Falrin told them not to do it and they did it anyway, and then he was arrested, too. Poor Keyleth has never even been in a jail before. Slice knows the drill and will be a free rat by morning. Spork simply has no respect for cops or Helis (this is all her fault).

Drawn 4/11/24, Photoshop.

Art Meme - Age Your Character

 Decided to do another one of these while I was at it. Felt like drawing Ren, and I also got much-needed practice drawing babies and old people. What a shame that Ren is too silly to survive to middle age; the immortal wanderer would get along great with Old Ren and I spent a lot of time on their hairstyle. I suppose this is an alternate timeline where they survive and instead get a cool scar.

I've also realized that Ren's outfit needs a bit of an update, at least in the color department.

Drawn 1/27/24, Photoshop.

Art Meme - OC Challenge

 I wasn't feeling very inspired and the Oekaki isn't working again, so I picked something simple out of my challenge folder. Here's a fun sketch of a handful of my characters! 

Rico is honestly the hardest to draw because I struggle so much with his hair, but he already had a spot, so my immortal journalist earned "Hardest to Draw" simply because his outfit has so many pieces. Though Ren gave me quite a bit of trouble this time as well for some reason. And of course, I love any opportunity to draw Nyx. She's been the easiest OC for me to draw both before and after her redesign.

Thank you to Sharihsha for the template.

Drawn 1/22/24, Photoshop.

Sketch - Arwen!!!!!!!

 My cat!!! Who I love so very much!!!

Drawn 1/10/24, Photoshop.