Whats This? A Finished Pencil Drawing? Its True! I Started A New Part-time Evening Job At The University

What’s this? A finished pencil drawing? It’s true! I started a new part-time evening job at the university library, which is extremely quiet when I’m there, and I’m actually allowed to draw to pass the time. It’s amazing! I’m used to retail jobs where doing anything non-work-related is strictly verboten no matter how quiet the shop is. So anyway, here’s Fret looking slightly distressed in his birch grove, the product of sitting at the library counter with nothing better to do. I’d like to do a painting of him and Larkspur soon to show their proper colours. I’m fairly often guilty of designing characters with important colour schemes and then drawing them in black and white all the time.

I found some old marker tests that I never shared! These were basically tests for how best to get skin tones with my limited range of marker colours, but I’m still pretty pleased with how the characters look. Especially Franz (the blond covered in blood). Even though he’s my character I find him nearly impossible to draw, and that picture is the only one that really looks like him. I only remembered I never shared these because I was trying to draw him and it would not go right and I had to dig out this picture for reference. I’m sorry Franz, I try.

My little sister was trying to explain Poppet to her boyfriend and asked for some visual aids, I was happy to oblige.

I’m not sure how much they will have helped for someone who had trouble with the concept of ‘helpful house fairy, gives advice’. It’s not rocket science, Matt.

Oh gaw, Pikachu! So much pressure! It’s the mascot of the whole franchise! Raichu was much more relaxing by comparison, even though I needed to give it a re-design to make it look sensible. Poor Raichu, its official model doesn’t even have fingers! I tried to make it look cooler since it’s always been one of my favourites. These little ‘electric mice’ are now up in my shop with the others!

I was watching a bunch of UFO videos on youtube, so how about some aliens? Well, one alien and a human. You might recognise Amé, but this is the first solid design for Spacegirl 2. (I’ll name her properly eventually, Violet was Spacegirl 1 for over a year.)

These two are from the same world as Violet and the Vrega, but live a couple of hundred years later, when the humans have been... space refugees... long enough to develop some distinct space cultures. Spacegirl 2 lives in a fleet of legacy ships that have adopted a permanent nomadic lifestyle, so she and Amé get to see each other for a few months every few years, when the fleet stops at the Alith-nen homeworld.

Amé is trying to look interested, but Alith facial expressions are a bit limited if you can’t read their ear position, so he can only manage a slightly fixed smile. General enjoyment of trying on your friend’s mysterious ‘clothes’ is easier.

Another couple of bug types! I recall Venonat being one of the ones I preferred not to evolve, because Venomoth was insufficiently fluffy in comparison. It’s grown on me over the years though, I like them both now. These will go up in my shop when they’re painted, so keep an eye out!