More playing with markers and pencils! (Please excuse the poor lighting conditions. I'm still trying to figure out how to take good pictures with my phone. In real life the lighting at my desk looks just fine, but apparently my phone disagrees.)

This is Norbin the quickhatch, Lord Saturos's chamberlain at Castle Ravenscrag in a novel I'm working on. Quickhatches are a species that's kind of a combination of wolverine and rat. They have very strong jaws, and are also extremely tidy and fastidious, which makes them excellent housekeepers. Norbin and Carrie become fast friends, and he looks after her as he would one of his own pups. Also he has a Cockney dialect because it just seemed to fit.

I decided to test out my Prismacolor markers after several years(!) of not really using them, and to my surprise most of them still work great! Back in college, I used to really enjoy working with a combination of Prismacolor markers to lay down some good solid flat color, and then go in with colored pencils for detailing and shading. So I decided to try that again with better art skills. It was a lot of fun, and I'd like to do more if I have the time.

As much as I'd like to get a set of Copic markers, they're a little out of my budget at the moment (definitely not because I'm saving up for Pokemon Legends: Z-A, cough), but honestly I find I'm perfectly happy with my Prisma markers. Yes, they smell (don't worry, I turn on a fan and open a window when I'm using them*), but they have the distinct advantage of being already in my possession. 

Anyway, my subject this time around was Marlowe, the leader of the thieves' guild in the fictional MMORPG Heroes of Avonell in my novel Pixeldust. Marlowe was designed to be the quintessential lovable rogue with questionable ethics, but in a twist of irony, she is the only one of the faction leaders who does not turn against humanity - thanks to the friendship of a couple of player characters - and ends up helping them and the game's "villains" save the day.

*This may present problems in the winter when it's like 20 degrees F outside where I currently live. My favorite thing about winter is that it ends eventually.

I thought it would be fun to share some WIP thumbnails of that previous painting, in case anybody wants to see my progress.

Sketch

Underpainting

Head, neck, and most of the sash finished

Painting mostly finished; just missing the bristles and a few last touches

 This took quite a bit of time and effort, but finally it's done! This is concept art for a novel I've been working on. The Quo Qu are a desert-dwelling species who love numbers and mathematics almost to a point of obsession; a common farewell benediction among them is "May the numbers calculate in your favor". Because of their strong mathematical bent, they are also keen businesscreatures, and their coastal city of Toba is one of the largest commerce hubs in the world. However, their love of watching numbers can sometimes make them a bit conniving and willing to take advantage of others to get the sums to come out just right.

This particular Quo Qu is Jawwad, a prominent businessman in Toba and old friend of some of the protagonists. While always looking to swing a business deal in his favor, deep down he is a kindhearted person who regrets that his kind's avarice has put the Plainsmen in a difficult position, and tries his best to make up for it.

The Quo Qu are derived from an idea I originally had for the Plainsmen back in high school--the idea was that the Plainsmen lacked the cognitive capacity for mathematics, and had a mutually beneficial commensal relationship with the Quo Qu, who lived alongside the Plainsmen, because the Quo Qu did all their math for them, and in return were provided for and protected by the Plainsmen. When I got around to writing this novel, I decided that wasn't really what I wanted for the Plainsmen (they have a rustic and nomadic way of living, but are really highly intelligent), but the Quo Qu worked perfectly as the denizens of Toba. In their original design, the Quo Qu had flat faces and large ears, but since moving to Idaho and becoming the one-woman fan club of the Idaho Museum of Natural History, I just kept picturing the Quo Qu as resembling Oryctodromeus, so I went with it. They were really fun to write.

 Again, I don't understand how Blue can claim he picked the "wrong" Pokémon when he always picks the one that will end up having a type advantage over your starter.* What a dolt.

(Also, if you really are getting tired of these comics**, rest assured that I have not stopped producing new stuff. In fact, I'm almost done with a painting and hope to finish it either today or tomorrow. I've just been dealing with a lot and haven't been getting the best sleep, so creative pursuits are a little low on my list of priorities and I just haven't had a whole lot of energy for that kind of thing most days. I'm working on fixing stuff. Hoping to feel better soon.)

*I'm aware that The Pokémon Company prefers the phrase "first partner Pokémon" over "starter Pokémon" in official materials nowadays. But after 20-odd years of fans calling them "starter Pokémon", it's a hard habit to break.

**If you really are getting tired of these comics, that would imply you actually read my blog, in which case thank you. :)

 I'm not really sure how Blue can claim his Pokémon looks stronger when you both have level 5 derpnuggets with two lousy moves each, that just got handed to you ten seconds ago and you've had zero time to train them. I can only assume he's just as delusional as his grandfather.

Actually, a running joke in this comic is that Blue is totally incompetent and doesn't understand the first thing about battling. It's an interesting experience being a franchise veteran setting out on a Pokémon journey where you know battling like the back of your hand, but the rival/friend NPCs are like "did you know Pokémon have types?!?!?!"

 Thought I'd take a break from uploading Pokémon comics that no one but me seems to think are funny and share a few WIP photos of that Oryctodromeus illustration.

Just the line art. At this point I was feeling paranoid that I'd somehow ruin the picture with color, so I wanted to preserve the black-and-white version just in case my colored pencil attempts turned out horribly.

    

Thankfully my fears were unfounded (I think), but I took another picture when I was nearly done, because I was really worried that something might happen to the illustration. Paper is a terrifyingly fragile material.

I definitely don't spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about things.

 Here's a seminal moment in Oak's character development (although whether that's a good thing is... up for debate). I always found it weird that he tells you he only has three Pokémon left and doesn't explain what happened to the other ones. Like, did he release most of his Pokémon when he stopped being a Trainer? Or maybe they were trying to imply that Oak regularly gives his former Pokémon away to new Trainers (and as this was before Pokémon breeding was a thing, eventually he'd run out of Pokémon)?*

Whatever the case, I'm sure it wasn't... this.

I really enjoyed making Oak's expression progressively more psychotic.

I recently showed these comics to my 10-year-old niece and barely got a chuckle out of her. I'm starting to suspect I'm the only one who understands my sense of humor. I'm not really surprised.

*If this is the case, it's weird that he only has three level 5 Pokémon left, and this also implies that he's given away like, a level 100 Gyarados to a newbie trainer at some point? Why is it that he conveniently only has three extremely weak Pokémon left by the time you roll up to his lab?**

**The real explanation for all of this is that this is just a video game and I am putting way more thought into in-universe logistics than the development team intended.

 Oak tells me he used to be a "serious" trainer and I'm just like "then what are you now".

I had a lot of fun giving him absurdly thick eyebrows in this series.

 There's no real joke in this one except "Oak goes unhinged again". Maybe this series is less about a preteen's coming-of-age journey and more about a middle-aged man's descent into insanity. Man, what is wrong with me.

But really, the first panel is word-for-word his dialogue in Red/Blue. I don't know why he laughs in the middle of it. I don't understand what's so hilarious about showing starter Pokémon to a new trainer. I can only conclude that Oak is a few Poffins short of a platter.

 The threat level on Route 1 is... questionable, to say the least.

Also, I had a lot of fun making the Pokémon in this comic look extra derpy.

 This is what I've been working on for the past few days!

Last Virtual Fossil Friday we had an excellent presentation by L.J. Krumenacker (who I have spoken to at multiple Fall Fossil Fests at the Idaho Museum of Natural History) about the ever-lovable Oryctodromeus (Idaho's state dinosaur and a precious little dooper of an ornithopod). One of the most remarkable things about oryctos is that they were definitive burrowers, so host MaggieJo mentioned how cute it would be if they were basically saurian prairie dogs. And so I just had to draw that.

The colored pencil work is kinda rough; I haven't really worked with colored pencil in a while. But I picked up some tips from a couple of excellent colored pencil books, so I feel like I at least know what I'm doing slightly more than before.

Also featuring a guest appearance by Idaho's giant oviraptorosaur, which so far is only known from its eggs. Exciting stuff coming out of the Wayan Formation these days!

 One thing that amuses me about fictional settings with more advanced technology than the era in which the fiction was created is how they almost always get the direction of technological progress completely wrong. Mid-20th-century sci-fi confidently predicted that we'd be living on the Moon with our jetpacks and robot butlers by now--but they never expected the Internet or 3D printing or cringe-y generative AI. (Although, the first Pokémon games came out right on the cusp of widespread cell phone development, so in Gen II the PokéGear is a rather prescient smartphone analogue.)

Also I just realized that Red's hat design changes in these earliest comics. Not sure why. I guess I was still easing into the aesthetic of the series and hadn't quite settled on a design for Red that would be something I wouldn't mind drawing literally hundreds of times.

You might also notice that in this series, one side of Red's jacket collar is perpetually turned up. That's an inside joke; for some reason that tends to happen to me when I wear collared tops. No idea why.

Yeah, I really find myself questioning a lot of things Oak says in this game.

 

 The more I overthink old Pokémon core series intros, the weirder they seem. Like, your character is Oak's next-door neighbor in a miniscule town with an apparent population of 9, and he has no idea who you are?

Also, these first few comics are just the beginning of Oak's very strange character development. As the comic progresses, by the beginning of Book 2 he's somehow become this supernatural entity who is known (and feared) by the Pokémon world.

I love when stuff takes on a life of its own like that.

The early intro screens in the Pokémon core series are actually pretty terrifying. You're in this featureless void, and suddenly someone comes out of nowhere and starts indoctrinating you into a world of monster fights, and I've probably thought way too much about this.

Also I thought Oak's face in the third panel turned out pretty great.

 Oak's gotta give the same speech every time. It's a contractual thing.

 And so an adventure begins...

Now that I think of it, I have a niece who's 10, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about the idea of her going off on a region-spanning adventure, catching and training ferocious creatures with supernatural abilities, and confronting a criminal organization, all with no adult supervision.

... When you're actually 10, though, that whole thing sounds awesome.

All right, let's try this again.

A while back, I drew a Pokémon webcomic where I played through two Pokémon games (Blue Version and Silver Version) and riffed on lines of dialogue that caught my eye. (Which is basically what I do when I play video games anyway.) The result was an unhinged, tongue-in-cheek journey through an odd world of insane professors, utterly incompetent criminal organizations, unnecessarily detailed environments, and the side effects of using too many Repels. I'd previously hosted it on a webcomic hosting site, but that site went belly-up some years ago, so I thought I'd bring the comic back online here so more people can enjoy it. I think it's hilarious.

I'll be putting the comics up on the blog sequentially, so first up, here's the title page! It's called "Trainer Wants to Battle" because so much of the dialogue in Pokémon games comes from the things Trainers say to you before and after you battle them.

 Also, the past few weeks have been a learning experience for me. I was experiencing severe social media burnout, feeling like all my attempts to post and network and build friendships on social media were somehow making me feel even less connected, more isolated, and like I just couldn't get people adequately interested in my work (or indeed me) no matter how hard I tried. 

(Read on for self-reflection that has absolutely nothing to do with Pokémon webcomics.)