I realized I completely forgot to post this okami fanart here! it was a sticker design for a stamp rally my friend organized last year. I tried pretty much every brush pen I had in clip studio and lined this like 30 different ways but I cut most attempts from the timelapse because I thought it'd be agonizing to watch haha. I liked the last brush pen I settled on though and how it turned out in the end!
always a treat to draw snarling fluffy beasts...
I've been replaying pokemon mystery dungeon: red rescue team as random new characters (myrtle the ivysaur and pépin the torchic) and I ended up getting attached to them so I drew them for funsies! I thought the official art for the x-ray specs item was cute so I included it.
then there's some exploration doodles of the raptor dragons I posted a while ago, trying them out on four legs instead and deciding against it, plus trying out harpy eagle head feathers on them which I like... they're still not there yet but I'm getting somewhere with them. the last drawing is a rough design for a very indulgent dragon fursona I need to draw again.
happy holidays & happy new year everyone! thank you so much for your support ❤️
2025-12-27 19:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
the final version of this is all I have to post this week so as a treat I'm posting the full sized version here! I can't work at a huge resolution because of my aging ipad but you can still see more detail than usual. I'm slowly working on more commissions and doodling here and there so I should have more to post soon.
I figured I'd talk a bit more about this commission too- I did end up going with castle ruins mixed with some church/abbey to give them a sort of unusual look but they're definitely not that out there haha. I didn't have much luck looking for fantasy ruin ideas that fit and I didn't feel like I knew enough about historical architecture to make something up, but that's an area I'd really like to research more later...
also, the layers got pretty complicated on the dragon! I didn't use layer modes for painting the light on most of the body, but I used a few different linear light layers set at different opacities for the tail feathers, and a hard light layer for the blue sky light on their head and shoulders. I couldn't find any good references for sunlight shining through dark blue feathers so I fudged the colors a bit but I do like the slight rainbow effect it gives the color palette.
2025-12-19 19:00:15 +0000 UTC View Post
I don't have much new to report so here's the progress on two of the wips I posted last week!
the commission has been challenging but rewarding to work on haha. it just needs some final details and then I need to figure out some kind of ruins to put on the cliff- I was going to do a ruined castle from reference but it didn't seem dramatic enough so I've been looking for inspiration from fantasy stuff...
2025-12-12 19:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post
a few of the things I'm working on right now! a personal piece and two commissions from my backlog I'm slowly getting through.
the drawing of my lion plush last year is still one of my favorite pieces I've done so I figured I would draw some more of my toys for fun, can't say it hasn't been cathartic right now. they are just so snuggly... look at the worm...
2025-12-05 19:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post
some further medieval dragon exploration (and goob dragon if anyone remembers him...), sphinxes, griffins, and a little winged lion thing, maybe to use as my shop icon if it looks good!
these are all from last month- I've barely drawn at all this month because after catching up with UK news I've spent all my time getting ready to apply for british citizenship which has been pretty stressful lol. but I'm almost done with that now so hopefully more drawing soon...
the griffin was inspired by this illuminated manuscript by matteo di ser cambio of the perugia griffin!
remmy mentioned wanting to see a list of artists that I admire, so I'm sharing my art inspiration moodboard! I've actually been meaning to update it for a while so I'll post the new one when I do, but this board has been my reference point for the last few years so I thought it'd be fun to see anyway.
radford sechrist - katsuya terada - mike mignola - cy-lindric - le chat à botter
mignola has been a big inspiration for me, especially for his control of black spaces and his shapes and textures. when I decided to purposefully steer my style in a new direction about 5ish years ago I used that inspiration as kind of a starting point, so my work was very obviously inspired by him, but I think it's naturally shifted since then.
ivan bilibin - matt smith - evgeny rachev - nushanchel - aspeneyes - goreintake - natalia trepenok - nadezhda illarionova - idlelizard
I'm pretty sure that artist credit is natalia trepenok because it matches her style but I can't find that specific piece anywhere anymore! also yeah some of my own work is up on here- a few of my favorite pieces I've made that I use as a stylistic compass basically. I think while it's valuable to confront your art with what you don't like about your style/process to consider what to change, it's just as helpful to look at what you do like and want to try more of.
matias bergara - coyoteprince - lesliedraws - sssantine
I can't seem to find the artist for the piece of the person playing electric guitar... it looks like the yellow writing reads "(something) draw 2023" but I can't make the first word out, if you have any suggestions for what it says let me know so I can look it up!
artyom trakhanov - cloudtaincrow - simone d'armini - david talaski-brown - alex toth - crom.ink - mrdanidiez - matias bergara - theoplum
matias bergara is also a big inspiration for me, I love zooming in on the details in his lines- they feel both so loose yet so intentional.
also, I put together a list of a bunch of art resources I use! I'll be adding more to it later! I found the book graphics blog at the end while looking for some of the artists here and I'm planning to deep dive through it sometime to save a bunch of stuff, they have so many gorgeous book illustrations.
2025-11-21 19:00:15 +0000 UTC View Post
this one was fun to sketch! he's really working that fluff...
I remembered I could download the sonic adventure 2 soundtrack from internet archive so you'll probably be hearing more of that in future timelapses...
the anatomy and chains were good challenges in this one! I looked at pitbull muscles for reference, but the chains were a real mental exercise- you can see that I take a break halfway through to line the rest of the body before I finish the chains in the timelapse lol.
I do have a little tip for drawing chains though! as you can see in the timelapse, I sketch them out as just one main line to lay down the curve first, before I draw any of the links- whenever I start with the links, the flow of it ends up looking stiff. I fill the links in by thinking of them as alternating upright and sideways rectangles that intersect each other, like so:
for rounder links you can just round off the rectangles when you're filling the details in, but I find that rectangles really help to understand the angles going on. I hope this is helpful!
most of my october commissions were big sprites so I'll post through the timelapses! I got a lot of really fun designs to work with, including this one, that really suited pixel art.
finally finished this piece I posted the rough sketch for in august...!!! it was so much work lol.
I put off working on this for a while because I wasn't happy with the previous sketch, so I redrew the lads to be a bit more dynamic and stylized and finally got back to it. I had been catching up with the IDW sonic comic at the time and really admiring nathalie fourdraine's covers for it- especially her use of color and contrast, so I tried applying more thought to the colors and contrast in this piece! it might have ended up a bit too saturated in the end but I still learned a lot I think.
bonus original drawings for the TV screens at the end! as I thought I did indeed enjoy drawing multiple funny tennas...
also, a few people have joined my patreon in the last month- just wanted to say an extra big thank you for supporting me here! ❤️
2025-10-24 18:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post
the alchemical green lion sprite was such a treat for me this batch haha. the triceratops sprite was a pippet design commission for pouflons!
my ipad managed to survive clip studio recording this timelapse so here it is! just without the sketching because I did that in another canvas.
you can see me start putting the lighting in with a midday/noon atmosphere before remembering this piece was supposed to be set later in the day (which was way easier to do anyway, the midday version was too green...)
I usually struggle more with the shapes of tree leaves in this style but I liked how they came out here! I really love the shapes and patterns of tree leaves so I want to do more experimenting on how to stylize them, I have so many tree photos waiting for me to do studies of lol.
2025-10-10 19:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post
not a lot to post for september- I took a few less commissions last month and a couple of them were bigger character design ones that aren't actually done yet. but I really enjoyed trying some new things with the painted portraits!
2025-10-03 14:00:36 +0000 UTC View Post
the timelapse for this one is funny because I kept changing which direction he was looking at so he just keeps lookin' around...
I was initially a little worried about working his cool colors with the very warm background but I think the contrast of his hair turned out really nice! if anyone's curious, to get his initial local colors to look like they fit in the scene, I put a beige multiply layer on top (you can see it around 1:34) to put a warm shadow over him, did most of the lighting, and then added a dark brown screen layer on top of that to brighten and warm the darkest colors.
the reference for the background was this pic from unsplash (a tiny part of it, by the trunk of the biggest tree)
here's the cat sticker I posted the sketch for before! mostly done bar some tweaking... I feel like it might have turned out more detailed than the cow sticker, or maybe the proportions are too different, so I'm not sure they look like they go together? taking feedback on that if anyone has any thoughts!
then there's some rough design explorations of medieval-y dragons and winged lions, some phone call doodle pokemon, and older sphinx sketches I don't think I posted before!
2025-09-19 13:26:43 +0000 UTC View Post
lots of pixels!
I picked up game of thrones last month so I was listening to that through most of these commissions and probably will be for like the next five months of commissions...
2025-09-12 10:09:32 +0000 UTC View Post
some sticker designs I've been working on! the first two will be for a set based on hey diddle diddle... I don't think I'll be including the dish and the spoon lol but I'm not sure about the laughing little dog. if you'd want a giggling dog sticker in this style let me know haha
the last one is for a canine warriors themed stamp rally laine will be doing for an upcoming convention!
2025-09-05 13:01:40 +0000 UTC View Post
this was a very trust the process kind of commission... lots of flinging placeholder colors around and being stumped by the contrast until I landed on that bright and desaturated cream for the lit fur!
some deltarune fanart I've been working on! the tenna sprites are stickers my friend laine has been selling at cons. the sketches are both very rough so I wouldn't normally show them but what the heck... I'm not sure I'll be able to do both pieces but I'd definitely like to finish the tv world one at least so I can draw one billion funny tennas
2025-08-22 13:58:17 +0000 UTC View Post
lots of bear sketching at the start of this one, which reminded me that bears have such fun shapes, especially their legs... gotta draw more bears...
didn't get to do nearly as many attacks as I would've liked since july ended up a rough month for me, but I had fun with the attacks I got to do and tried some new things!
2025-08-08 10:16:44 +0000 UTC View Post
the atmosphere of this portrait was much more my regular wheelhouse haha. I was pretty happy with how the lighting and textures turned out in this one!
it's interesting to compare this portrait to the other rainy day window portrait I did about two years ago:
I think I like the shading better in the older one but I like the window more in the newer one... food for thought...
here's the reference I used for the background of the new one from unsplash!
thought I'd talk a bit about how I used some references to try to capture the right atmosphere for this portrait!
in the timelapse you can see me scribble some purple in the background before I start filling it in- the commissioner gave two options for the background, either wisteria flowers or a snowy scene. I'd usually jump for a sunny wisteria background, hence trying the purple first, but I couldn't deny that this felt like a snowy drawing, so I went and found this photo from pixabay to use as a reference for the background-
I really liked the gradient from blue at the bottom to slightly more purple as you go up the mountains (though only a hint of that made it into the portrait). this pic was really helpful to get the shapes of the falling snow- I tried putting some tree branches too in but it ended up working better without.
I went looking for another reference for how light would affect a subject in the snow like this. I found this picture on unsplash-
which was sooo helpful. you can see how the color of the sky reflects onto the hair, is brightest at the top and dims as the hair drops over the sides of the head- so I tried getting that down in the portrait. the fluffy white hat in the reference was coincidentally a great ref for the fluff on her dress too!
I really tried to focus on atmosphere for the pixel portraits this month- cool/greyish color schemes are really hard for me but I'm happy with how they turned out! I have the timelapses for most of these so I'll probably be posting them later, or artfight progress since I couldn't resist joining in the end...
2025-07-11 09:56:08 +0000 UTC View Post
I was commissioned for this design back in may- I didn't think it would be too complex a design so I saved the steps to make a process post!
the commissioner provided the moodboard and sketch- they wanted a gradient of light to dark and the effect of a sunrise sky over the ocean. in the gradient they also wanted the leafy shapes of the veil in the middle of the moodboard. I figured most of the body would be the ocean gradient, so I filled them in with a blue base.
the sunrise half of the design would be its own separate gradient, so to keep it separate for easier airbrushing, I blocked it out on a layer above the base.
it's helpful to start a design with one or two main colors and then add accents and transition colors as you go- so my starting points for this design were light cream/yellow and blue inspired by the moodboard, and I grabbed a photo of the sunrise over the ocean to reference for more colors. to make the transition between halves more interesting and a little softer, I airbrushed a touch of pink in. the colors are pretty muddy at this point, usually my designs are a bit ugly at the start and I tweak the colors as I go!
added some light cream and orange accents to bring attention to the face, and more pink accents in the nose, pawpads, and gradient- I thought the leafy pattern looked too stark and simple and wasn't blending the halves well, so I added another layer of leaves in pinks and blues in a layer below, and softened the edges of the original leaves with blue. the blue base was looking too grey so I bumped up the saturation at this point.
then I added a bunch of details- a light greyish blue underbelly, a touch of pink accent to the wingtips and a lighter blue on the base of the wings, some blue stripes to resemble the lower left and right images on the moodboard, like ocean waves or currents, more pink to transition between gradients, and some sparkles on top. adding little speckles like that to gradient heavy designs often works well as a finishing touch! I turned this in to get their feedback.
they wanted some tweaks to the cream markings on the face and neck, a new scaley pattern in the gradient, and the saturation and contrast boosted for the whole thing- here it is finished with those adjustments!
let me know if this was interesting or helpful to read!
2025-07-04 08:05:11 +0000 UTC View Post
first is a new reference for kirie, then a sprite I made to decorate my payhip store & carrd, a little sprite for riven, some more exploratory sketches of marchosias and a potential goat mage friend for them! I'm thinking about making marcho more of a demon mage instead of a demon demon maybe.
I've had artfight references on my to-do list for months and only managed to get kirie done, but I'm not sure I'll be able to do artfight this year. I have a lot of other work to hopefully get through in july, and since the river story world had its big shakeup a couple months ago I haven't had the chance to rewrite my characters so I wouldn't want anyone drawing them until I update them... I might join later in the month if I can.
2025-06-27 12:57:14 +0000 UTC View Post
I got a bunch of these recorded so big video this time!
