Maria Ochoa

Pod

Pods are groups of closely related matrilines that travel together 50% of the time or more. A pod is essentially an extended family and whales within a pod are thought to have a shared lineage, and they also share a common set of calls.

This was fun and interesting to work out! I don't have a set number of pod members or names for this group besides Cironus' immediate family so the numbers might change, or maybe not at all. Time will tell! But I hope you find th...

Matriline

Matriline: this is the most basic killer whale social unit. A matriline is composed of an adult female and her direct descendants. This includes her daughters, sons, and her daughter’s offspring.

You ever work on something and it ends up making you sad? It was kind of like that when making this piece. I only have small bits about the pod Cironus' comes from, and little by little I've added more to Lurona. And this is the first time I got to speak about her two...

Comic - Plant browsing

A request for Deft-Muse who asked for their OC, Gale, looking at plants with Agra. I wanted to surprise them with a little comic :> Gotta watch out for that pesky rash wheat! >.>

Orcinus Orca

The Latin name is Orcinus orca. Common names are orca or killer whale, while other names include blackfish, grampus, and killer. Most English-speaking scientists use the name killer whale, although orca is increasingly used, in particular by the general public. The name killer whale originated from the Spanish whaler’s term “whale killer,” based on their observations of orcas hunting other types of whales. In ancient Roman mythology, the genus name, Orcinus, means "of t...

2025-05-05 23:19:38 +0000 UTC View Post

More requests!

These were done for Smackins who asked for their OC, Tiatle, meeting one of Agra's dinosaurs! The second piece was a request to turn her betta fish, Cupid, into a zora. One of their traits was they love bubbles! Took inspiration from werewolfsister, I love how they draw bubbles and oceanscapes ❤️

A nice pair of booby's

I mean where is the lie? :>

A request for gargoylesister who asked for their favorite bird. And who can blame her? They're awesome! 🤩

Last Supper pastiche

A few friends started exchanging art requests and trades and its been a ball. When I asked for requests the first was to have everyone's OCs talk with Brian from Family Guy. And then it evolved into a Last Supper situation 😂

drawing for friends always gets the inspiration going but when its awesome when things can get really silly. How often do you get to draw a cartoon dog pretending to be the messiah?

Featuring, from left to right we have:

Tiatle (2025-05-04 04:23:32 +0000 UTC View Post

Yona expressions once again

I wanted to do that 25 expressions challenge and Im using Yona as my subject. Here is what I have so far! Slowly but surely filling up the chart 👍 She reminds me of how I started drawing the krogan.

• Latch onto a character

• find out there isn't a lot of art for them

• push myself to learn how to draw them to make things for myself

• ????

• PROFIT!!

My personal May challenge

My apologies for the small lull in posting, been a lot on my mind and spending time with my partner and trying to decompress from everything.

I've also been working on this!

So May is a big month for art challenges especially with all the variations of MerMay! Last year I participated in a zora themed one called Zora May which kicked off my zorca hyper-fixation ✊Unfortunately, I'm opting out of it this year because I have this looming anxiety that I'm not welcome in the...

Comic - Two old men

PHEW I had a blast with this one! A sequel piece to werewolfsister's comic "Old!"

After playing with Fat Fin's personality I wanted to do a scene where he and Castov have a chat regarding the events that happened in Werewolf's comic. I get self conscious that my dialog doesnt flow well or make sense, but with some feedback and encouragement, I did alright! :D

The character named ...

Comic preview

Working on another comic, this time featuring Castov and Fat Fin. It's not finished yet, but figured I'd show a preview, especially because Im really pleased with these panels! :>

I was telling my partner that, like Dwick, if I can get Fat Fin's grin just right then everything else falls in place when drawing him.

Comic - One year later

Let's call this a palate cleanser (and one more freebie) ❤️ My last pieces helped me sort some feelings out and Im ready to keep drawing...and possibly trying to increase the number of digital pieces to catch up with my traditional ones >> <<

An idea for a sequel to the earlier Lurona piece was on my mind and I wanted to get this done in a comic. SO! I didn't give context for what Turning the Wheel was in the last piece! The Zorca have a courtship event where all pods ga...

Something completely different (part 2)

As sad as the last post was it was cathartic to draw out my thoughts. Also the blue colors were working for me 💖 I wanted to talk about a few of the experiences I had with people from other fandom spaces.

The old adage is that fandom is best enjoyed with a small group of people, and the thing that always got me was; I did do that. But it was just the unfortunate luck of coming across people who thought it was okay to cross lines. I don't know what it is that allows a person to do th...

Something completely different

While Ive been having fun drawing my zorca, behind the scenes I've been going through a lot of emotions and dealing with stuff to the point where I'm feeling like that line Bilbo said:

"I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."

When I used to post on my personal tumblr, I repeated myself when writing out personal posts and it made me self conscious. Repeating stuff helped me think, like, if I said something over and over, it was the equival...

In which Lurona learns racing with a friend leads to something more racy

In previous comics/stories, Sardon is shy and clueless when it came to flirting and courting Sona. The long story has to do with upbringing, zorca social behavior and family politics. The funny side to that is he got that from his mother, Lurona.

Her first time joining their courting event, the Turning of the Wheel, she met Fat Fin, and she didn't realize everyone was single and ready to mingle (Fat Fin, especially so) He was smitten with her from the start and very patient and VERY amu...

Zorca lore - Eye rings

A while ago I did some eye studies with my zorca characters and I wanted to play with another idea that came to mind.

Real orca have a ring around their iris which look neat and I thought about adding that to their designs. It's a very small detail I won't draw often but think of this as a little more flavor in their culture/society. The rings themselves are just aesthetic but their presence is similar to cultures that have old wives tales about physical traits (red hair, brown hair, et...

Digital sketches - Fat Fin expressions

I enjoyed doing the Yona expressions I wanted to do some for Fat Fin. I joke to myself that I got carried away but I just saw a post how you should be self indulgent, and who's gonna love your OCs if you don't? So yeah, I love all of these! :>

Human AU - Sona and Sardon

This started out as a pencil sketch but I liked it so much I was afraid it'd be ruined by inking it. So it was sitting by itself for a few days till I realized I could ink it digitally so here it is!

This was based on a pose of Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels from The Duitiful Dub!

Digital sketch - Need a hand?

Cironus being a polite young man and offering the merchant from Lurelin a boost to get to their destination!

Digital sketches - Fat Fin portrait

I haven't had brain zoomies like this when it comes to digital work since my days on CDN and Im also trying to remember old coloring techniques I did back then too!

I notice I tend to draw a lot of faces, but over the years doing expressions have been one of my favorite things to work on, especially the eyes. Im tooting my own horn here but I absolutely love Fat Fin's eyes. I have an idea for his personality so bear with me if you see more of those ol' 3/4th angle portraits haha!

Digital sketches - Yona expressions

More practice! I was looking at various expression sheets to use. An artist by the name of Peter de Sève said when it comes to character design they always start by drawing a character pissed off; a good character can do it all (emotionally) so they put even the smallest background characters through this emotional gauntlet :>

Bonus for Bec Son

Yona, my beloved

I was trying to do some screenshot studies but then I got lazy and just focused on drawing Yona, which was good practice anyway! I want to build up muscle memory when it comes to drawing the shape of her face and all of her jewelry.

SHES SO CUTE 😭💖

Comic - He's just dense

Im back and I remembered to stretch!

I came across a incorrect quote generator (NOT ChatGPT just to clarify, one of those old fashioned randomizers) and this dialog made me laugh and I pictured Sona and Sardon with it. Her face in the last panel is my fav 100/10 points for me! 😌

Digital sketches - Cironus/Yona fluff

Pros of digital art: THE SHACKLES OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD HAVE NO EFFECT ON ME I AM AN UNSTOPPABLE MACHINE OF CREATIVITY

Cons of digital art: you forget to take breaks and stretch

Digital sketches - MY BOYS

I was doing some editing and then I had a hankering to do some digital sketches. It's been a while since I posted digital works as they kind of make me tense when Im working on them. Still, it was fun to dust off the table and do some practice!

TOO SERIOUS!

I wanted to draw this meme for a long time. I think Im funny :B

BONUS: because a friend made a Free Willy reference

More humanized zora!

Ive been playing Sims 4 and created my zorca characters and Ive been inspired to draw them as humans. I love my zorca but sometimes coloring in shades of black and grey get me a little...down? Their human versions have a pop of color that help switch things up, plus its good practice to work on different face types!

Thresh the Thresher Shark

These were gifts for a friend as thanks for letting me talk their ear off about zora related things. They go by Chaotic-Zora on tumblr and they have a few cool OCs! Thresh was a character mine have never had the chance to meet, so I had made a joke about a meeting between Thresh and Fat Fin. They joked how Thresh would be tiny in comparison and most likely lost

Draw me like one of your french fish

A request made for Werewolfsister! Jokingly started with saying "draw me like one of your french girls" then asked for me to actually draw something.

This came to mind. Their character, Esis, posing as I doodle something realistic (hes a white tipped reef shark) this had me cackling the whole time. Perfect for April Fool's! :>

Comic - Once shattered, now whole

Im considering this my big hurrah for this month! Im really proud of this one and Ive been itching to do a colored comic on this sketchbook. My only nitpick is the difficulty of trying to get a good photo/scan of these pages because it was not doing the colors justice.

This is my last entry for Werewolf's march madness challenge. I wanted to do a scene with my OCs to a song from Centaurwold called Once Shatt...