szmitten

Saya icebreaker

Yofukashi no Uta (Call of the Night) ended this week and I was feeling nostalgic for Saya, and I hadn't done any real new work since October and pushed myself into doing this. Work after a big break tends to be rusty but also reveals a small jump in quality/ability, so something a little different and a little looser and experimental is good. I probably won't stop doing the artstyle emulation thing, but I think I'm feeling a little less insecure in whatever "my" style could be these days.

Asuka keyframes pt 2

So there were some changes to the first 3 from last year, and I got the subsequent 3.

The most difficult thing about it is the fact that I'm, eventually, going to have to reverse engineer some inbetween frames. You can see the difference it makes in the two gifs, which *should* have the same timing.

2024-01-12 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post

A Nagatoro/Hana goof

This is the last thing hidden in my drafts I made last summer, just me dicking around with what I had.

Your continued patronage despite myself is amazing and I hope to make it more worthwhile next year. I kinda created the Patreon a little too early in my ability and pressured myself onto a borderline performative treadmill of art production, so taking the pseudo-hiatus I've been on has been healthy for me. 

Near future: Asuka frames that might be animated, maybe some work on...

Shizuka nsfw blended ref

Teased on Twitter in the wake of the "Twitch Meta" gag, here's the thing. It's actually a sorta old edit/blend of two images you've probably seen previously which was primarily made for me to quickly have a reference for myself without a ground-up redraw. I've also been looking at the cast I've made and rethinking and mentally combining characters. Blackhairglasses, shortmuscle, skinnylonghair(beanie?), Kaede, Shizuka, are all definitely in though. Moving the setting out of arbitrary high sch...

Kaede Stretch H ver

This one always looked rough to me, but it's still one in the chamber.

Giving myself room to think, the whole "succubus" idea might be more appealling to me if I ditched the high school setting and just eek up a bit to a college/university dorm setting. Kinda ends up feeling novel, avoids some feelings when it gets lewd, can actually ditch the succubus concept entirely and just give everyone a rethink. My Scott Pilgrim deep dive and Dasei 67% reminiscing kinda nudged me into this direct...

Kaede #1 H

Yes, I sat on this for a year and a half.

I'm taking a small mental break from drawing (while still practicing I suppose) while warming up my writing brain. Working on the Kiki drawing really fired me up and I had to change gears and take advantage of that, even if it's not what I intended to be doing. With that in mind, anyone interested in writing, you may have heard of writers using index cards to plot stories - I got a free app for it (Cardflow) and it's truly a fucking revelation a...

Birthday post - OC Kiki

Annual birthday Kiki. Wanted to make something a little more elaborate with her. Still experimental and concept-y and not quite as crazy as I was imagining in the final render but it's good to see her existing.

Birthday art preview

Just the lineart for the upcoming birthday drawing. It's Kiki again this year. I've been in a huge lull lately and doing this made me feel much better and invigorated. It'd be cool if I worked on her more than once a year but we'll see.

Succubus WiP #7

After making most of the cast I went back around to fiddle the initial trio to ensure they're still okay. Ditched the guys glasses, redid Succ's glasses and eyes for both ease and a little more interest.

I was in an unsure rut about Succ's character this whole time, where she was somewhat innocent and naive and kind hearted, that kind of character. In the last few days I find myself having an easier time having her be somewhat... not necessarily colder, but a little more curt and cool, ...

Text post: Personal update

Okay, this isn't an update week but I need to be forthcoming here since I'm struggling.

There's been an intense family situation for the past year which, while largely somewhat resolved as of a few months ago, turned into a 24/7 everpersent lifestyle adjustment since summer. I'm not depressed, and I don't feel burnt out, but I am experiencing something adjacent to that since my creative headspace is being hindered. I hadn't touched a videogame since February or bought one for a year, an...

Succubus WiP #6

More excuses but it's been a very difficult time with very little good work done so this is fresh hot off the presses.

I took aspects of #3's wip process and wanted to reuse them and you get the evolutionary process above. She's kinda meant to be plumper, bit more of a traditional nerd, much rounder eyes and glasses. Another freckle girl. Also yes, half the cast seems to be wearing glasses. 2023-09-22 21:30:01 +0000 UTC View Post

Succubus WiP #5

I don't want to make excuses every time, but the living situation continues and as I write this the heatwave we didn't get last month is now underway. Luckily the old fan broke and was replaced right before. Cold new motor =v= But forgive the shorter more exhausted post.

This was the "bigger tomboy" character, and while I didn't have the firmest idea for her look (Tomo on the brain) she changed quite drastically as the top got heavier, the sides got thinner, the eyes more cat-like. So k...

Succubus WiP #4

I apologise for how different content has been lately, I've been refocusing and am experiencing some temporary household changes that aren't great for creative headspaces. HOWEVER:

One of the key things about last years Design-a-Character process was that you guys were able to railroad me into decisions - and without you here, the designs are much more iterative and sometimes very drastic. Below has the last month of iterations, and I'd settled on that top middle for a few weeks, but as...

Succubus WiP #3

Oh no, a boi. All male MCs seem to look the same, but trying to avoid those while having someone who doesn't look like a wet blanket nor someone you wouldn't like the girls to hang out with is a tricky balance. Half the cast are wearing glasses at this rate though it must be said. 

This'll be the main trio, still working out side characters. You could technically add Kaede and Shizuka to this, just in some mix of the uniforms you see here. I've also been trying to definitively come...

Patreon Payment Issue

Just letting you know that there was some kind of issue on Patreon's part (switching payment location from California to Ireland causing banks to mark as fraud, apparently?) that caused Patrons to either not successfully pay or outright remove all subscriptions from their account. Most/All of you seem okay from what I can see on my end, but be sure to check on any other Patreons you're subscribed to.

Succubus WiP #2

Tomboy friend edition.

There is the traditional male MC POV character, but I wanted to pair him up with a female character so that they can share the same brain cell and push/pull each other around the succubus character. She won't be a childhood friend character: in fact, inspired by the Seitokai Yakuindomo manga/anime, which begins with the idea that an all-girls school has just become co-ed but at a ratio of like 20 guys to 500 girls. This lets me have a setting that's largely female...

Succubus WiP #1

This whole idea emerged from me playing with those Japanese novel/manga with verbose premise-based titles, and came up with "The New School Transfer is a Half-Succubus!" At that point, the Demi-chan wa Kataritai (Interviews With Monster Girls) manga had concluded and its Valentine's Day postscript had released, which focused on the protagonist and the succubus teacher, who I always found quite fun and had an interesting dynamic that perhaps wasn't as massively or hornily focused upon than cou...

Change of pace & Comic Project

The last 5-6 years I was regularly producing art to a schedule, which while helpful in a way it ultimately locked me down to popular showable works to the detriment of my personal growth, experimentation, ability to complete bigger things, and significant guilt-free breaks. For example, I've spent some of the last year sketching models, but I don't feel comfortable sharing those for privacy and quality reasons. So upcoming I may slow down, be irregular, random, or show off WiPs far more than ...

Machida (Nagatoro)

Drawn a few days after chapter 128 dropped. She had a painting that we never see, so I wanted to play. This was going to be a small part of something else, but something else never materialised. I believe this is the first Machida lewd online too. Also clearly early because her hair design altered slightly between chapters 128 and 129, and I'll probably be proven wrong with the honker size.

Man it's warm. Working out how to present my character design WiPs going forward.

Nagatoro 124 ALT END 2/2 H

Mid and high. Demisted.

Gotta be honest, I've spent the last month refocusing so I don't have a clear plan of what I'll be posting in presentable states the coming weeks. Lots of practice people-sketching that I probably shouldn't share, a fragment of an idea, but mainly incrementally working on character designing for a potential thing - so we might live in a little wip-land for a while.

Pretty much learning new but necessary skills that don't have exciting showable renders at th...

Nagatoro 124 ALT END 2/2

Mid-res and high-res. Wanted to do some backgruond work. Managed to manipulate a brush to get easy stars. Still pleased with the hair hard/soft shading. 

Still character designing and so we'll transition into irregular wip territory eventually maybe. Latest Nagatoro introduced a new artist girl character who is tempting me but her baggy shirt leaves too much to the imagination.

Nagatoro 124 ALT END 1/2

Mid-res and high-res. Pleased with the hair rendering in this. Next page is a little more ball busting for a few reasons.

Quietly trying to character design for the succubus idea, so as we approach that I may lean more towards wips, or if I can't do a 4koma with the created OC's I'll try to get something done with them. I'm a slave to my brain's whims and whatever I think would be good practice.

Nagatoro 124 alternate ending WIP

Just wanted to prove that I'm working on stuff and not just sitting on a pile of completed works. I am a little further along than this implies, and there will be another page too. I think working at my own pace and allowing myself to slip from scheduled posting and showcasing WIPs might be a better fit.

That said, I'm very much thinking about multiple comics/projects currently. There is more than this, along with the designwork involved, but at the forefront of my mind:

Dorkoma -...

Asuka keyframes

Here's a weird one, sorta in progress but at a slower pace than originally.

Evangelion 2.0 has a goofy fanservicey-y scene with convenient censors and cropping, but the Groundwork books contain the original much larger keyframes (along with digital RGB colour codes). I've attempted this in a minor way once before years ago but this is more proper.

The idea was to redraw and colour every keyframe for two shots, maybe deal with the inbetweens if possible (pain), maybe find a way to ...

Nagatoro competition reject

This recolour was originally intended to be some kindstarted for a reason that I couldn't remember, but then I picked it up again with the idea of making a censored version to enter into the contest somehow, but realised the arms/hands/others were a little more fucked up than I was willing to fix and redraw, but this. However the specific colour pallete, stylings, renderings, formed the basis of how I'd recolour the actual entries. It's a weird mix of that Vol 13 alternative cover I did based...

Hitomi redline saucy ver

Because of course I did.

Talking about comics

I really want to build up my comic making skills for my Kiki project, and I've been in a weird half-assed rut the last few months. But I've basically got three comic ideas in mind that I'd like to do to gradually assist in my ability to do them.

"Dorkoma" - Because Kaede and Shizuka have no real purpose or setting, I felt like a series of 4koma would suit them well. Little bit of characterisation, little bit of goofing, could have a little bit of sauciness but I persona...

#nagatorofanart Twitter competition entries

You probably weren't expecting a post but why not post these everywhere. There's a competition ending soon that'll be judged by Nanashi and editorial staff so, while something original might have been better, I wanted to give these a new (also sfw to be safe) colouring job based on the more recent colouring attempts.

Hitomi vol 8 cover redline

I feel a little weird about this one since I don't like the idea of "fixing" someone else's art, let alone a professional, but volume 8's cover does kinda have particularly warped proportions even with the current artstyle. So I wanted to have a little taller leaner course correct with some minor adjustments and a monochrome restyling.

I'll think about whether this one goes public or not since I feel so weird about doing it.

Personally, I'm reeling from some wild family/living sit...

It's a "Shizuka finds Kaede's phone unlocked and unattended" episode

So, 6 months ago I drew the main image in this post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/dacii-finale-69669843 - and as per a few comments I did in fact sneakily draw Kaede's reverse shot photo and put it into reserve. As time went on, my mental image of Shizuka has changed so the image is kinda poor and not correct (specifically figure etc), but I wanted to preserve it in some way, and so you have the above...