2024: Year of the Dragon and then some!

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!

Lo!

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

Retro Vibes

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? 😅

Rabbit & Co


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! ✌️

Wayback Wabbit

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. 💀⌛️👶

Rabbit Rabbit!

Uh… so I decided to do a thing? 😬 I put this design up on Red Bubble so it’s available on some shirts, notebooks, etc. I put up some older designs as well.

Rabbit Rabbit HERE

All of my Red Bubble art HERE

I’m gonna try to add more over time–I have a few ideas for new pieces that might make for fun shirts, and I’m also going through my backlog to see what else could work. If anyone happens to buy anything, please post and tag me! 😅

ANYWAYZZZZ…

Rabbit, Rabbit! I’m ready for October, ready for Autumn, ready for (eternal) Halloween, and heck, ready for next year (the year of the rabbit)! 🐇🐇

Mutant Zoo -esque! Crow + Lion + Octopus!



“A king of the savannah, sea, and sky, the majestic, powerful, and cunning Leoctrow is often depicted in the heraldry of versatile multi-class adventurers, most typically warrior-mage-rogues.”

Fitting in perfectly with the old Mutant Zoo posts, here’s today’s warm-up using my buddy @jazylhdraws #jazylhcreateacharacter prompts for August! The prompts were crow, lion, octopus, water, and backpack. I failed at figuring out how to incorporate backpack, but I didn’t want to get hung up on it, so I just went with the other four prompts. 😅