Originally Uploaded June 16, 2019Happy Father's Day To Those Who Celebrate.

Originally uploaded June 16, 2019 Happy Father's Day to those who celebrate.

Originally posted January 14, 2019 Make sure what you love is given what it needs to grow.

The Pokemon TCG Illustration Contest has released its top 300 submissions! I didn't get in (understandable given the amazing art on display), but I'm still proud of what I submitted. Can't wait to participate in the next one!

Timelapse of this art below the cut!

Since I'm currently working on a few more art pieces that aren't ready to show yet, and am not sure about which of my old traditional pieces I want to share next, let's take a moment to appreciate this little piece:

This is the avatar I used for my secondary account on Twitter, one appropriately called "Deb79ful Switch Video Backup." As you could tell by the name, I used it as a place to dump the videos I recorded while playing on the Nintendo Switch, which I saved a lot of. And often, simply because I often wasn't motivated to post them, they would pile up until the 1,000 video cap, at which point I would just dump a massive backlog of vids all in one sitting. I did eventually catch up to the present day on that account! ...On June 9th, this year, the day before Twitter integration was discontinued for the Switch. Better late than never, I suppose! That account's gonna be a relic now, I suppose, just sitting there for all to witness the mundanities of a guy playing Sky, Pokemon, Tetris, F-Zero, Obakeidoro, Disney Speedstorm for a little while, the works. I'm still recording vids, obviously, though now they're just for my personal benefit. But maybe I'll post some of the new ones to here, instead! (Nah, my cred would plummet instantly if I start doing that /s) But yeah, here you can see how I drew a whole Switch for Ghostie to play, and you can probably see the reptile scale pattern used on my avatar (both this version and my normal version!) a little bit clearer. It's a nice effect, though admittedly one I don't use much for him in his recent digital art. Maybe I should use it more? (...Goodness, can't believe I put down that many words for an old avatar.)

Behold, the greatest balancing act in the world!

Fortunately, I found the time to make some new Mareep art for Mareep Day (the fact that said time was from midnight to 3AM is irrelevant 🙃), so here we have the moment I caught the Mareep on my in-game team—one of the first characterization moments I made for any of my Pokemon:

This is Shawn the Mareep, whose monotonous life on Route 32 was turned upside-down when she laid her eyes upon Toasty the Cyndaquil, leaping out of the tall grass to pounce and cuddle him! And, much to the poor echidna's dismay, his trainer (me!) decided to catch her and bring her along on the journey, instead of chasing her off or something. So now he has to deal with an admirer through my journey through Johto. Fun! For a continued writeup of the two's relationship, plus a timelapse of the art, click below!

During the whole journey, I picture the two of them being mostly at odds with each other—with Shawn continually trying to impress Toasty, while the poor Cyndaquil/Quilava/Typhlosion wants nothing to do with her beyond her being "that one teammate who keeps getting on my nerves." Given the Mystery Egg in Pokemon SoulSilver, I can even see her trying to place herself and Toasty in the role of the Togepi's parents... only for her to be embarrassed when it latches onto my Noctowl as a mom, instead. Then, things change during the Lake of Rage portion: Shawn, now an Ampharos, gets kidnapped via sleight of hand, one of many pilfered electric-types Team Rocket is using to power their evolution wave plan. David (still me!) doesn't learn about this until he's about to battle the red Gyarados, and after they fail to find her... Toasty is furious, rushing right into the Souvenir Shop and threatening any grunts who get in his way. He even defeats Ariana's Arbok effortlessly when it taunts him about Shawn's fate! Afterwards, Shawn and the other electric-types are rescued, and for once, the Ampharos sees her Typhlosion beloved finally returning the love she had for him since they met. And so, one short cuddle later, the two are on much friendlier terms for the remainder of the Johto and Kanto trips. She still tries to impress him, sure... but now, her attempts work. So, there's that. And now, here's that timelapse I promised at the start!

...Yeah, don't mind the lack of stripes on her ears compared to above, despite a visual reference I completely forgot to add them until I began typing out this Tumblr post, at which point I had removed the timelapse from the file. Whoops!