The world is cold, making the snake sluggish–but she slithers on, sloughing off the skin of the old…
It’s the Year of the Wood Snake, so this year’s Zodiac adventurer is a fantasy RPG style druid who wields mystical powers as well as technology. She’s a loner, but also a regular ally of last year’s Dragon team.
(WOW is this late, but as the title says… ^_^U )
New year, new me.
Going to be sharing a number of older pieces that I haven’t shown before, and just decided I’m going to keep them all in one post. Updates will be ongoing!
Swordfighter:
A ghostly fox spirit (kitsune), and an old school JRPG mock-up featuring the said fox spirit… pretty proud of myself for coming up with the pun Kit Swoony.:
Here’s a nutty one… a vanilla/coffee/chocolate ice cream squirrel. Topped with hot fudge and nuts:
IYKYK #letsfightinglove
This skull dude is one of those rare cases where a visual popped up in my head, and I was actually able to draw it as I saw it. I think maybe I should put him on a shirt. Or a sticker?
A cosmic maiden and a cosmic unicorn:
Birthday Cake Dinosaur, drawn earlier this year for a dino-mite friend!
The Year of the Dragon has a lot of alternates in different cultures, I decided to cover all of them! This was a lot of fun, but drawing 9 characters wiped me out! Note that I started this blog entry with the Snail on the posted date, but kept updating it until posting the Dragon on Feb 15, 2024 (several days after the actual Lunar New Year >_<U). I feel very relieved that next year’s Zodiac features no alternate animals!
2024 is the Year of the Wood Dragon according to the Chinese Zodiac, so I conceived these characters as a group of Rangers (in the fantasy RPG sense), but for a futuristic setting. My aim was to make each character feel very distinct from the others, but still make sure the group’s costumes and colors felt unified and balanced as a whole.
Size chart below!
For the final #FlashBackFriday of 2023, here is a drawing that will shortly be 10 years old. [insert skull emoji]
I drew a tiny dinosaur to show my appreciation for a dear friend!
The good thing about getting a burst capillary and drawing a little cartoon about is that the next time you get a burst capillary you already have a little cartoon ready for it. 🙃 #flashbackfriday
Other artists will draw outfit-of-the-day posts, but I don’t have a lot of outfits, so this ish is gonna have to tide me over for a WHILE.
Time-lapse video of my process HERE!
A retro heroine with retro sci-fi gear.
Also retro because I finished the lineart two years ago, but didn’t finish the colors until now. 😬 So, also #WayBackWednesday, I guess? 😅
I know I said I wasn’t going to do one of these every month, but this one just came to me–it’s been cold, windy, rainy, hail-y (and snowy, less than an hour outside of Los Angeles!), which I love, but all I want to do is nap. 😴🐇🐇
Rabbit Rabbit! Not planning on doing one of these for the first of every month, but this visual came to me a several weeks ago, so I saved it for the month of Valentine’s day! 🐇🐇❤️
Last time the Year of the Rabbit came around, I was enlightened to the fact that in Vietnam they celebrate the year of the Cat rather than the Rabbit. A little research this time around and I learned that the Gurung of Nepal also use the Cat, while the Malays use the Mousedeer!
That sounded to me like a good excuse to draw a Rabbit/Cat/Mousedeer crew for the year of the Water Rabbit (and Cat and Mousedeer). And hey, this time I actually finished the drawing in time!
Okay ya nerds, Gong Xi Fa Cai! ✌️
This one is going WAY wayback, two full zodiac cycles back to the Year of the Rabbit 1999! 😬
The drawing on the right is the original–back then I could not run Photoshop on what I’m sure was a very busted, dusty, and ancient PC. So, in my pre-digital era, I would draw and ink the lineart on paper, make photocopies of the finished inks, and color over one of the photocopies with markers or color pencils. I did it this way so that if I screwed up the colors, I wouldn’t have destroyed the original lineart too… and trust me, I screwed up the colors plenty of times!
The drawing on the left is a scan of the lineart, with brand-new digital 2023 colors. I always find it a fun exercise to color old lineart… it’s like a collab with your younger self. 💀⌛️👶
A quick sculpt for no reason. 😈
Rabbit Rabbit, and Happy New Year!
Wishing you good luck for the first of the month, for the New Year, and of course for the upcoming Year of the Water Rabbit as well.
(I have some more Year of the Rabbit posts leading up to the Lunar New Year. Stay tuned! 🐇🐇)
Happy Friday, Happy (belated) Solstice, and Happy Holidays!