I was re-reading Tolkien (as one must regularly), and one of the things that strikes me about the man's writing is how much he puts into his descriptions of not only landscape and geography, but the details of just being outside--the color of the sky at a given time of day, how the wind smells, the sounds trees make. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were obviously written by someone who loved nature and thought it worth writing about on its own accord, not just as the backdrop for a fantasy adventure. That richness of detail is what really helps bring Middle-earth to life in the imagination--it's not just a place where things happen, but a place that is wonderful and beautiful in itself, a world where you would want to be even if nothing particularly exciting was happening.

The way Tolkien describes the Shire is utterly charming, a loving homage to a rural England of yesteryear, and it serves as a really effective happy place when life gets stressful. I just wanted to doodle Bag End I guess.

 I always thought it was really odd that somehow, just you defeating this guy in a Pokemon battle causes him to drop an extremely important security item that's crucial to navigating the complex, and ultimately leads to Red ousting Team Rocket from Celadon City.

But, y'know, video game logic: if there's an objective to be met, the only way you're getting there is by doing more of what you've been doing the entire game.

Or maybe this guy just hates his job so much that he actually wants Red to go defeat Giovanni.

 I love Carnotaurus, so of course I had to make fun of it. T. rex is notorious for its proportionally small arms, but they look absolutely massive next to abelisaur arms, which were... basically just stumps with fingers. Seriously. 

(It kinda makes them even cuter, though.)

 Yeah, it's not like there were half a dozen people in the Game Corner tipping me off about checking a poster on the back wall.

On a somewhat related note, I'm reaching the end of Pokémon Legends: Z-A (the base game, not the DLC, which I will get ASAP), and I like it more and more on a story level the more I progress. At the beginning of the game, characters and events around Lumiose felt kind of disjointed, but when you reach the higher ranks, they start to gel into a cohesive whole, the significance of reaching rank A in the Z-A Royale makes sense (although I kinda wish AZ would have explained it to me earlier), and the plotline does a lot to follow up on the events of Pokémon XY in ways that are really satisfying for people who have played those games. 

 Every time I play a Pokémon game and see a Masquerain, this pops into my head, so I thought I might as well draw it.

 And that's how you defeat a Team Rocket Grunt.

 Fun fact: The rugose bony structures on the noses of Pachyrhinosaurus are called bosses.

Fun(?) fact: I have a ridiculous sense of humor and this is why I can't be a serious paleoartist.

Fun fact: I want this on a t-shirt.

 It's so shady that this guy in Celadon realizes how stupid gambling is, so he divests himself of his Coin Case by giving it to a random child. That's definitely sending some questionable messages.

 My buddy and accomplice in space humor Chris Lintott is Gresham Professor of Astronomy, and his running joke throughout his lectures is trying to start fights with the audience about whether or not Pluto is a planet (although I did once call him out on it during the Q&A and made him answer for his shenanigans in front of everyone, because that's what friends do). (For the record, he and I both believe that Pluto is awesome no matter what the IAU decides to call it.) So I just couldn't resist doodling New Horizons having this same debate with Pluto itself.

The irony, of course, is that New Horizons was a flyby mission, so it won't get to talk to Pluto later. Or ever.

 If you're a criminal organization, it's just a really bad idea to establish a prominent business right in the middle of town with the name of your organization in the name of the business.

Wait, new fan theory: the police are corrupt and actually letting Team Rocket do whatever they want, and Red is a lone vigilante trying to bring justice to a lawless Kanto.

They already used that idea for Pokémon Colosseum, though.

 Fight the system! Are we gonna let the Man bring us down, or are we gonna get our rover back?!

... I'm glad Chris Lintott enjoys my bonkers sense of humor.

 Poké Dolls are perfect items for escaping from both wild Pokémon and enraged significant others.

 There are some Pokémon that make socializing a little more difficult when you've got them in tow.

Also, I had a lot of fun making that Koffing extra derpy. He's just living his best life as an animated floating toxic gas mine.

 Finishing up Pokémon Legends: Z-A, and I feel like the story gets a lot better as you get further in the game (and Naveen is still kind of obnoxious, but huge props to the writers for having his dynamic with the player character develop realistically). Although it started a little slow and clunky on the story side of things, Legends: Z-A is a super fun game that makes some sleek improvements on the formula introduced with Legends: Arceus, and I kind of just want Legends to be the actual core series from now on (especially after Scarlet and Violet were so underwhelming).

Aaaaaaanyway. Every time a Pokémon uses Struggle Bug, this is all I can think of. I kinda want a t-shirt of this now. We all have days like this, feeling like a level 2 early-route Pokémon whom people won't stop throwing Poké Balls at.

 Probably a bad idea to let the player character know you're the guy responsible for coding the universe.

And of course this comic references the oh-so-handy Missingno.-related glitches in Gen I. I know glitch exploitation in video games is a controversial issue, but I personally don't see anything wrong with it as long as you're not using it to gain an unfair competitive advantage. For example, once you max out effort values, there's no real difference between a Pokémon you trained to level 100, a Pokémon you got to level 100 via Rare Candies and EXP Candies you found naturally in the game, and a Pokémon you got to level 100 via Rare Candies and EXP Candies you obtained through glitches. 

Using glitches or cheat codes to give a Pokémon an impossible moveset or unobtainably high stats, and then using that Pokémon in a tournament, would definitely be cheating and there's never an excuse for that. But if you're just casually battling with your friends, and you tell them how you got your impossible Pokémon so they can do it too, that's a completely different context where everybody benefits. (When my niece played Pokémon Red, I told her about the Missingno. glitches and it was driving her crazy having to wait to reach Cinnabar Island to use them. Why is life so hard.)

On the other hand, I was never fond of devices like the GameShark that allowed you to essentially modify a game's code freely to do whatever you wanted the game to do. That kind of thing pretty much destroys the entire purpose of playing a video game and robs players of the satisfaction of working hard for anything. If you input the right codes, sure you can make a save file where Red starts off in Pallet Town with 6 level 100 Mewtwo, a full Pokédex, and all 8 Gym Badges... but what's the point? Bragging rights? (Pro tip for 10-year-old boys: it's not very impressive if you brag about achievements you didn't actually earn.) Reinforcing the illusion that if you throw enough money at anything you can achieve it with minimal effort but still gain the benefits attained from working for it? (If you think that, you're going to get a rude awakening when adulthood hits.)

I mean, yeah, stuff like the GameShark can be an entertaining diversion if you've played a video game to death and now just want to mess with the code, but I'm not on board with the idea of using cheat devices as a shortcut to achieving something that's supposed to take time and effort. It benefits no one, least of all the person using the cheat device and sinking further into the depths of being an obnoxiously entitled human being whom nobody wants to be around.

... Whoa, that was a bit of a rant. I'm getting cantankerous in my old age, I guess.

 Congratulations to China on a phenomenally successful first Mars mission! I look forward to the day when we can all explore the cosmos together as a human family and stop pretending it's still the Cold War.

 The development team inserting themselves into the game and making meta remarks is a cute idea that would definitely lead to an existential crisis for a player character.

Sat and doodled for a bit last night! Nothing like chilling to classical music and just drawing whatever comes to mind.

Expression studies for Saturos. Although he can come off as imposing, once you get to know him he's actually kind of a goof. He's a real foodie and a voracious eater (although I imagine reality-bending magic does require a lot of energy). When the situation commands it, though, he is capable of becoming a demonic creature roiling with unleashed power--but he actually really hates doing this because he's worried it scares people. The only time he's had to let out the full capacity of his power was when he fought the Erdunn (but back then, nobody was really around to see it). (He actually only gets into one fight in the plot of Ravenscrag, but he was intentionally holding back because he didn't want to hurt Tam.)

 And a concept doodle for a novel I've been brainstorming for and would like to get around to writing soon. Valdovas is a millennia-old dragon from Eastern Europe who is arrogant, aloof, and disdainful toward humans--but that changes when he is forced to accept help from a family living on the American frontier, and he grows to realize that not all humans are enemies, and that some of them need his help, too.

Valdovas was inspired by Smaug and Tolkien's treatment of dragons in general--I love the man's writing, but his dragons are always irredeemably evil spawn of darkness. I've loved dragons since I was a kid, and I feel like they deserve better than that. I also haven't written a novel with dragons since Voyage of the Kaus Media, so we're way overdue for more dragons. <3

Not sure I did the best job rendering it yesterday, but Valdovas has black iridescent scales. He also breathes poison. He's a zmey from Slavic folklore (but a one-headed variety, because multiple-headed dragons means more characters to juggle).

Well, what else would you do with a bike on Cycling Road?

(cue catchy bicycle theme)

 I was listening to a podcast where the hosts were discussing the possibility of pink dinosaurs, and I got to thinking about how a dinosaur could be pink. Modern dinosaurs (birds) that are predominantly pink, such as flamingoes and roseate spoonbills, get their coloration from ingesting foods rich in carotenoids, usually arthropods in aquatic environments. That made me think of Deinocheirus, which is from a swampy, tropical environment and looks adapted for a bit of aquatic feeding. So naturally I put two and two together and concluded it would be great if Deinocheirus was pink. It's already such a bizarre dinosaur that you might as well make it pink on top of everything else it's got going on.

I specifically based this guy's coloration on the roseate spoonbill, one of my favorite birds because of how so very weird it is. <3

 Mean old authority figures not letting people do whatever they want for their own safety.

I had a lot of fun drawing that Grumpy Meowth sign.

 After that Viking comic, my thoughts turned to the "Face on Mars" and what could really have been responsible for it. :)

 I love this one because it's so fun drawing people freaking out. (FYI, this is a different Lass from Zombie Lass.)

They say they got stuck at the gates, but they don't explain why. Could be a thirsty guard. Could be that gates are just really scary. I mean, they temporarily make the screen blank out, for crying out loud! For all you know they could be dimensional portals to the netherworld!

#overthinkingeverythingagain

 I'm not quite sure how these things happen. One day I'm just sitting around thinking about Tiktaalik and how cute it is, and the next thing I know, this pops into my head and I have to draw it.

Well, I think the Internet needs more sarcopterygian fan art.

 More costume design for Ravenscrag. Tam wears her clothes from Earth throughout her journey to unseal the Erdunn, but at the end of the story, she spends some time at Castle Ravenscrag and Melly (the resident giant spider seamstress) makes her lots of new clothes. Melly crafted mostly elegant gowns for bookish and intellectual Carrie who spends much of her time studying magic with Saturos, reading, and playing the harpsichord, but I imagine the more athletic and tomboyish Tam would need attire better suited to romping around the woods and using Smaragdus to fuse crystal armor onto herself.

 I feel like the two things everyone remembers most about the Viking missions are a) the controversial results of the life-detection experiments and b) the "face on Mars" incident caused by Viking 1 just happening to be in the wrong place at the wrong time for probably the most infamous case of pareidolia ever. Chris Lintott already made a joke about the first one, but the second one was still up for grabs!

 Costume design for Ravenscrag, which I just can't stop doodling things for. Not sure when I'll ever publish it, but I sure had fun writing it.

This is Carrie's outfit when she and Saturos go to a northerly locale for Important Sorcerer Business. (Castle Ravenscrag is located in the mid-latitudes of its planet's southern hemisphere, FYI.) I based that setting off the island of Svalbard, which is an incredible, beautiful place that I'd probably only ever visit if I made sure I got a really, really warm hotel room. But the landscapes are stunning.

 Well, gambling can be life-threatening (and life-destroying). Honestly I'm glad they got rid of the whole Game Corner thing after a few generations.

Pokémon is okay though!

 After that last comic, I of course had to draw the follow-up--the spectacular landing of the Huygens craft on Titan! This was such an incredible achievement as the first landing in the outer Solar System. I'm just kinda bummed out that I missed it when it was happening because I was in high school at the time, and too busy with terrible friendships and pretending like video games solved everything to pay adequate attention to really awesome stuff like this.

But at least I can re-live the excitement vicariously through my buddy Chris Lintott, who was at ESA headquarters reporting on the landing for The Sky at Night and adorably lost all composure when the signal started coming through. Journalism at its finest.

 I always thought it was kind of weird that Blue was hanging around Pokémon Tower trying to find a Marowak (which don't even appear in Pokémon Tower), when he should have been focusing on leveling up his Cubone. But maybe Blue didn't read the Nintendo Power Player's Guide obsessively like I did.

 There's some fantastic NPC dialogue in the Pokémon games. Like this creepy little girl in Lavender Town. Who gave me a great excuse to throw in Zombie Lass again.

 My mom requested this one, and honestly it's such a great anecdote from the Voyager mission that I just had to. Voyager 1 was specifically directed toward Titan (which would put it on a trajectory that would not allow it to continue to Uranus and Neptune) because it was known at the time that Titan had a thick atmosphere, and astronomers were really curious about what the surface looked like.

Well, turns out Titan has a thick, opaque atmosphere, so we got lots of great pictures of a fuzzy, featureless orange ball. Oops. (Thankfully Voyager 2 made it to Uranus and Neptune, and Cassini-Huygens came back later with radar and a cute little lander to give us a proper look at the surface.)

 There's this one Hiker on Route 10 who just laughs when you battle him, and afterward explains he's not laughing--he's sneezy from hay fever.

Or he ingested too much Repel and he's on the fast track to becoming another Professor Oak.

 I was listening to a paleontology podcast where they were discussing Scutellosaurus, and one of the hosts called it "scutey", and this popped into my head and I just had to draw it.

I think we need to celebrate cute little dinosaurs more. They were dinosaurs too! (Scutellosaurus was about the size of a turkey. So cute!)

 Really makes you wonder if Game Freak had this exact NPC in mind when they designed Munna.

 I couldn't draw cartoons about space missions and leave out Voyager! It's amazing that both Voyager probes are still working after nearly 50 years. Their discoveries defined most of what I learned about the outer Solar System as a kid (I'm dating myself here) and they have a special place in my heart.

... So, when are we going back?

 Again, the NPCs seem to think the world is larger than it actually is. Just walk a couple of frames down, Jr. Trainer, and you'll start to see rooftops.

 Time to indulge in wild speculation!

I watched this interesting documentary on dinosaur biomechanics that seemed to show that it was very unlikely that ceratopsians' skulls could withstand the stress of charging at opponents in the manner of rhinoceroses, and it got me to wondering how else ceratopsians might have used their horns. (And no, I don't believe they were purely display structures. Nature makes weapons to be used, and I'm not of the persuasion of writing off every unusual anatomical element as a display structure unless all other options are exhausted.)

The other day, I was watching a video of a bison using its horns to throw a tree (and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you stay away from bison), and suddenly it occurred to me--what if ceratopsians used their brow horns to throw things instead of stab (for the most part)? A large animal like Tyrannosaurus getting lifted and thrown is going to hurt quite a lot, and I think large ceratopsians could manage that kind of thing with their massive builds.

I also think ceratopsians might have used their horns (especially their nose horns) more for shoving. I watched a video where a rhino was given a pumpkin, and it very adeptly used the flat of its horn to crush the pumpkin into edible chunks. Maybe ceratopsians did the same thing to fruiting bodies of plants, or used them in social shoving contests.

Just some thoughts.

 In the pint-sized pixel-world of the Game Boy Pokémon games, the NPCs have to really try to sell it to you that Kanto is actually geographically vast, and not, y'know, a place you can walk clear across in less than an hour.

Fun fact: Hyrule in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom is roughly based on the geography of Kyoto, Japan, home of Nintendo headquarters. It's also a faithful to-scale reproduction of the Kyoto region in terms of size (as compared to Link). So next time you're making Link jog from one side of the map to the other out of boredom, realize that that's about how long it would take somebody (at least somebody in shape) to jog across Kyoto. Wild.

 Can't leave out the OG space mission!

I've been having a lot of fun with this series; I guess the overarching theme is the history of space exploration seen through the hypothetically sentient eyes of the plucky robots who have taught us so much about the universe. (Except sometimes they're ceiling fans.)

 I think it's really awesome how a lot of Chinese dinosaurs get Chinese taxonomic names, and a lot of them include the word long (dragon). Much more fitting than saurus (lizard); dinosaurs were pretty much as close to dragons as the history of life on Earth has ever gotten. 

I just wanted to play around with depicting a Chinese dino as it might appear in one of those historic bestiaries, especially since they often have the names to match. This is Zhenyuanlong, a dromaeosaur from the Yixian Formation.

I've heard speculation that finds of sauropods like Mamenchisaurus might have been what inspired the serpentine physiology of the Chinese dragon. Such a fun idea, and would bring the whole dragon thing full circle.

 Truly a moving sight.

 Stamps definitely won't get you any closer to the Pokémon League. Baseball cards, on the other other hand...

Speaking of, can we talk for a minute about the Pokémon TCG and the controversy surrounding all the card scalping that's been going on over the past few years? 

 I'm not actually sure how funny this is; it's just that every time I see the Mariner 4 spacecraft, all I can think is that it looks like a ceiling fan. 

And then I want an actual ceiling fan shaped like Mariner 4.

(Maybe there's one on Etsy.)

 I drew this to commemorate some... sort of milestone when Trainer Wants to Battle! had its original run. Unfortunately I completely forget what that milestone was. Some number of readers reached or something? Anyway. I still think this turned out pretty cute. This was Red's party at the time of making the illustration. I was going for quality, not quantity.

 I feel like the Scientists in Kanto are extremely shady. First they're messing around with the questionable practice of bringing back extinct taxa, and then one of them just hands a valuable museum specimen to the first 10-year-old to walk in the back door. Sounds like some under-the-table research to me.

Or, y'know, it's just a video game and I'm way overthinking it again.

 Has Jurassic Park taught these people nothing about bringing back extinct taxa?

Then again, this is the Pokémon universe and they have all sorts of crazy science stuff going on, like creating self-aware virtual life forms that can manifest physically, genetically modifying clones to be exponentially stronger than their progenitor, and engineering technology that projects a person's mind into a Pokémon. So maybe by now they've also learned to resurrect fossils responsibly.

 Thought I'd switch it up from Mars for a bit, and give some love to older space missions! Including the ones that... didn't quite perform nominally and probably ended up running into the Great Galactic Ghoul.

 I'll take "draw" every time! :)