Second try designing a Cookie Run character--this time it's Strawberry Cookie! Strawberry is another one of my favorite Cookie Run characters; her shyness and love of video games are very relatable.

 I intentionally made sure her hands could fit in the pocket of her hoodie. For this design, I was able to drastically scale things down from Wizard Cookie by using only 2 strands of 4-ply yarn for the eyes. I'm still not super satisfied with how the eyes turned out because the brown sides of the eyes peek out from behind the white borders too much. So next time, I think I'll crochet the white border on the back loops only of the irises(?). Hammering out the details!

Still, I think she turned out pretty cute. :)

 It's very important to give epic quests the right-of-way. You don't want to be on the wrong end of a wizard's staff.

 I may not actually play Neopets anymore, but I still love my cast. (I actually started writing another fanfic that will never get submitted to the Neopian Times, about Blynn becoming a Defender of Neopia and battling the dark forces of legal advisors. I'll post it here one of these days.) This idea for Blynn popped into my head and I just had to draw it, because I couldn't think of a story to fit it into.

Before anyone asks, no, I'm not submitting this to the Neopian Times. I'm feeling very done with the website and the way the franchise is going, and the last few times I got something published in the Times, nobody seemed to care. At any rate, here it is on my blog for everyone to enjoy.

 So, one day, I just started coming up with ideas for road signs one might see around Middle-earth. I came up with a whole list of ideas and I've finally got the time to draw them, starting with this one.

Pretty self-explanatory.

I just had way too much fun with the ridiculous juxtaposition of the Great American Road Trip and Very British Fantasy. 

More coming!

 I thought it would be fun (and keep me from getting bored in between visits to my table) to offer free dino doodles to folks at Fossil Fest, so of course I had to go all-out and draw this adorbsies Giraffatitan advertising for me. 

Also playing around with lettering. Lettering skills are one of those lost arts that few people except professional calligraphers seem to pay attention to anymore, but are such a cool and enriching thing to know.

Remember when everybody was into hand-lettering things for a while?

And now it's the 2020s and we just ask AI to make something look fancy.

I'm concerned.

Shadow Play, Chapter 17

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7
Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14
Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 17

Zoltan glowered at the mages who had trapped them, his mane bristling and magic coursing through his fur. “You dare test zhe Lord of Shadows?!” he snarled, and they cowered.

“I didn’t know we was dealin’ wit’ him!” an Eyrie said, dropping his wand. “I hear this guy took out like twenty mages wit’ one spell!”

“I hear he’s in cahoots with Hubrid Nox!” said a Kacheek as she backed away from the fearsome Halloween Kyrii. “We picked the wrong guy to mess with!”

Vile turned to run—and bumped into Mammoth, who frowned down at the comparatively tiny Skeith. The Elephante clamped his hands on Vile’s shoulders. “So, about those negotiations,” the furry Defender said.

 

I've been wanting to try to crochet some Cookie Run characters because they just have such strong and great designs (and are so loveable). First up is Wizard Cookie! He's one of my favorite Cookie Run: Kingdom characters. His English voice actor does such a hilarious job with him, and his personality reminds me so much of myself.

The shape of the hat definitely needs improvement, but overall I think this wasn't bad for a first try. This was also my experiment with designing elements of a base "Cookie" template I could use for further Cookie Run characters, and I think I got it mostly right... but it turned out way too big! Wizard Cookie here clocks in at about 11cm, and considering he's one of the "fun size" Cookies, a taller Cookie like Hollyberry or Bamboo Blade would be nearly twice his height. And while jumbo plushes can be fun, they also take a lot more time (and more yarn) than smaller projects, and kind of lose some of their cuteness factor.

Mostly the reason this happened was because I tried to determine the minimum possible size I could make the eyes and then scaled the rest of the design from there, but the eyes still turned out too large. So for my next Cookie Run amigurumi, I made the eyes using two strands of four-ply yarn instead of the entire thickness of the yarn, and the scaling was much better. #YouThoughtThisWasADrawingAndWritingBlogButActuallyIt'sAnAmigurumiBlog

As for who the subject of my next project was, I'll save that for later. :) For now, enjoy Wizard Cookie! Wingardium... Jelliosa?

 Boy, we breezed through Kanto pretty quick, didn't we? And here's the last one. I thought it would be fun to put a bit of a different spin on the Mt. Silver encounter with Red, given Red's history with Oak.

As Chapter 2 came to a close, people asked if I was going to do a Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald chapter. I honestly thought about it, but by the time I was wrapping Chapter 2, I'd become pretty busy with other projects and didn't want to try to squeeze in a semiweekly webcomic on top of everything else. In addition, I no longer had my copies of Sapphire and Emerald, and this was before Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire came out, so I had no way to adventure through Hoenn and collect riff-worthy NPC dialogue.

Plus, I just really didn't want Trainer Wants to Battle! to become one of those things that continues for the sake of continuing and slowly, painfully declines in quality. It's better to finish strong with a project and leave the audience with something they'll always have positive memories of, instead of becoming one of those things that start out great and end terribly and alienate the fanbase, and make it so you can't even properly enjoy the old, good bits anymore because it just reminds you of how badly wrong the whole thing went later on. Entertainment industry, get your act together.

Anyway, if anyone's actually been keeping up with this series, I hope you've enjoyed it! I've entertained the idea of doing more Trainer Wants to Battle! now and again, but I am honestly so swamped with other projects right now that I literally don't have the time or energy for a webcomic. Still, it was a fun journey putting the comics up here on my blog where they'll be available until Google gets shut down (so like never), so more people can enjoy them.

Shadow Play, Chapter 16

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7
Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14
Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 17

Defenders began to come out of the woodworks. Aisheena lobbed fists full of light at her opponents and Lightning Lenny dodged them with his unmatched speed, leading them right into the range of Kourage Korbat’s stupefying sonar. Judge Hog lifted another crate in one hand as though it was a pillow, and tossed it at an Eyrie flying for him, while Blackwing flung energy and wisecracks in equal measure.

Amidst the fracas, Zoltan motioned for the others to join him as he ducked around the corner of the warehouse. He slid his paw through the air as though he was closing a curtain. “Zhat’ll give us a little time to catch our breaths,” he panted. “Are you all right?”

“Just fine,” Hyren said, and Terra and Blynn nodded.

Isengrim crouched down and hugged his family. “Just so you know,” he said, “I never would have given in to Vile. Ever. And I never would have let him hurt you, either.”

“We know,” Terra said, hugging him back. “You’re awesome like that.”

 

The Idaho Museum of Natural History did a Facebook post where they showed off their new trucker hat by putting it on fossil mounts around the museum, and when I saw it, I just had to draw the actual animals modeling the hat. I think my favorite is the Oryctodromeus looking like a little kid wearing a too-big hat.

I don't draw normal paleoart.

 Not sure why anybody thought building a town on Cinnabar Island was a good idea.

I was honestly really sad when I got to Cinnabar in Gen I and found the entire place destroyed except for the Pokémon Center. Although, looking back, I suspect the developers did that because they had to cut some corners on Gen II Kanto to get it to fit onto a Game Boy cart. (I'm still secretly holding out for some ridiculously massive Pokemon game where you can visit all the regions.)

 Including their own development team in most of the Pokemon core series games is such a fun Easter egg that Game Freak throws in. I love when game developers don't take a game entirely seriously.

My latest ridiculously overambitious project: an amigurumi Gigantoraptor with its nest! Since I'm going to be a guest at Fall Fossil Fest this year, I thought it would be fun to put together an amigurumi of one of Idaho's native dinosaurs. I love oviraptorids and this was a great excuse to make an adorable plush of one. Ever since I started doing amigurumi, it's been a goal of mine to design some scientifically accurate dinosaur plushies--nothing against the sort of generic green cartoony dinosaur plush patterns you see elsewhere, but as a pedantic nerd I was craving more.

 This fella was a lot of work, and honestly there are places where it didn't turn out perfect--the neck is too thin and too droopy despite a pipe cleaner insert, so I think for future dinos I'll make the neck thicker and try to stuff more rigidly. The arms/wings are also pretty flimsy, so I think next time I'll make four of each wing and sew them together with stuffing in the middle. It also didn't turn out perfectly symmetrically... but honestly I've been really tired lately and I'm pleasantly surprised it turned out as good as it did. I think the head is absolutely adorable though.

For the wing and tail feathers, I attached, tassel-style, some Lion Brand Homespun, which is a notoriously flimsy yarn made of countless tiny acrylic strands. Terrible for amigurumi... unless you brush it out into some beautiful feathers! I love finding creative ways to use scrap and found yarn.

Honestly I don't think this turned out too bad for a first go! I learned a lot that I can apply to other dino species moving forward. My secret goal is to just create an amigurumi Jurassic Park in my house. Except all the dinos are friendly and well-fed.

If you want to make one of these for yourself (or order one from me!), you can buy the pattern or place an order for a plush in my amigurumi shop!

 Where does all that money from Pay Day come from, anyway?

 This was actually a joke the developers themselves put in! An NPC in Celadon City south of the Celadon Department Store says this, poking fun at how the brick pavement pattern in the open area by the department store is pretty disorienting when you're looking at it on a tiny Game Boy screen.

Oh, the old-school days before you could play 3D games on a handheld console.

 The whole point of this joke hinges on the assumption that people remember the small detail that in the Gen II games, when you take the Magnet Train, your character bounces up and down while riding the train. I can only take this to represent the player character bouncing with glee at using mass transit.

 Once a month on Virtual Fossil Fridays, the awesome Ruby Pines comes on and gives everybody an art lesson! This month she did a step-by-step tutorial on how to draw a Gargoylesaurus (which my niece rocked, by the way), but I'm... kind of a maverick, and instead of following along with the lessons, I use them as a springboard for my own ideas.

For example, this time, somehow we got onto the idea of ankylosaurians having whiskers (actually I think I was the one who said that...), and then I just had to draw it. Ornithischians are known to have bristle-like integument, so I think it would be great fun if ankylosaurs had big ol' walrus whiskers. Also just gave it random whiskers everywhere else like an armadillo. I love getting speculative with my reconstructions!

 I really love this one too. With a Pokemon like Exeggutor existing, this joke had to happen. (I guess Doduo could have worked for this too.)

Also, you may notice we're moving through Kanto rather quickly and not touching much on the (admittedly spare) Kanto postgame plot. Part of the reason for this is that Gen II Kanto is more sparsely populated than its Gen I counterpart, and I just couldn't find a whole lot of dialogue I could riff on. In addition, though, I was definitely feeling burnt out on the comic and ready to call it a wrap after the end of this chapter, so I did kind of rush things a bit here. Still, I tried to give it all I could. The Kanto part of Book 2 may be short, but it honestly has some of my favorite comics. Quality over quantity, right?

 One last cartoon poking fun at iffy science journalism! For over twenty years, the question of whether Tyrannosaurus or Spinosaurus was bigger has preoccupied the minds of a startling number of dinosaur enthusiasts. Maybe a dinosaur doesn't have to be the biggest to be cool? #unpopularopinions #teamtherizinosaurus

Shadow Play, Chapter 15

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7
Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14
Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 17

A dim purple light appeared in Zoltan’s paw, faintly illuminating everyone’s faces, but past that was only an abyss. Terra looked around in confusion. Everything was dark—absolutely everything. Even the window outside. A nearly full Kreludor shone in a starry sky above a pitch-black city.

“My apologies,” Zoltan said. “Being a dark mage, my magic does not exactly provide much illumination.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Isengrim said. “What do you suppose happened?”

“A power outage?” Hyren asked, moving to the window. “Looks pretty severe. And those aren’t really supposed to happen here.”

“Vhy not?” Zoltan asked. He and the others joined the Grundo, and the Kyrii frowned as he gazed out at the silent metropolis.

 

 I really love this one too. Random NPCs just being ridiculous in unnecessarily well-drawn landscapes is my favorite part of this comic.

Also, props if you get the reference!

I needed a break from a big amigurumi project I've been working on, so I made another Digimon--Motimon! I love how that adorable little muzzle and cute paws turned out. Izzy has always been one of my favorite Digidestined. He reminds me so much of myself.

Had to give Silver some closure, poor guy.

... Even though I didn't really give him a proper introduction. Oh well! This comic is not really about cohesion.

 This week's Redbubble design was super fun to put together. I wanted to make it look like a fancy book cover. I'd definitely read a very thick novel about the Ediacaran.

 Had a lot of fun with that magazine cover.

Can any apparel choices 8-year-old boys make be appropriately labeled "fashion", though?

Shadow Play, Chapter 14

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7

Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14

Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 17

They all burst into the room, weapons at the ready—and no one responded. Instead, Terra found herself looking at a suite that seemed like it hadn’t been cleaned in ages. Dirty laundry littered the floor and the furniture, crumpled pieces of trash were strewn everywhere, and the paintings on the walls hung askew. But someone obviously lived here, because the trash included stacks of empty pizza boxes and Neocola cans.

There was also a blue Kougra tied to a chair, his muzzle gagged. The Masked Intruder’s golden eyes widened when he saw the group, and his long tail lashed frantically.

“Is this a trap?” Isengrim asked him. When the Kougra shook his head, Isengrim moved to the chair and cut him loose.

“Oh—thank goodness someone came!” the Masked Intruder said, stretching out and rolling his shoulders. “They were going to use me as ransom against the other Defenders!”

 

 Okay, this is another one of my favorite comics. A classic case of a conversation starting off benign... and then somehow turning apocalyptic. As some conversations do.

This has been my latest big amigurumi design project: a cuttlefish! He turned out rather large (about 33cm with tentacles extended), but that just makes him all the more huggable. I'm pretty proud of how he turned out! I used variegated yarn to emulate how cuttlefish can change their colors and patterns. I also had some really pretty and unique hand-dyed variegated cotton yarn that I was itching to make into something fun.

 

 This is one of my favorite of these comics because it just kinda encapsulates what this entire series is about: Pokémon NPCs being totally out of touch with reality.

Between this and knee frostbite, I guess this comic is also about warning the public of the dangers of wearing shorts.

 It stinks when you have to awkwardly crash someone's date because you want a Gym Battle.

... Also yes, I very intentionally made Misty's date look like Ash. :) Brings me back to the good old days of schoolyard shipping wars!

 

This one is making fun of how news stories try to make a paleontological find sound more exciting by proclaiming it as the "first ever found in such-and-such location".

The joke here is that Teton County is a hotspot for dinosaur finds, so if you want to make yet another dinosaur fossil found here seem attention-grabbing, and it's not a super remarkable fossil to begin with, you're going to have to reach quite a bit.

Shadow Play, Chapter 13

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7

Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14

Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 17

The next morning, much to Terra’s surprise, Zoltan elected to join them for breakfast in the cafeteria. Although once again they did not all fit into one lift, today he seemed in much better spirits about sharing a lift car with Terra and Hyren.

“Have you been practicing your summoning?” Zoltan asked the owner as the lift descended. “I vant to make sure you are vell-prepared vhen next you are asked to fight.”

Terra nodded. “Yeah, a little,” she said. “Sometimes I summon it just to make sure I still can.” She leaned away from Hyren and Zoltan, reached to her opposite side, and twitched her wrist slightly, as though she was loosening a blade from its sheath. In a flurry of magic, the sword appeared, and she grinned.

 

 I was listening to an episode of a paleontology podcast where one of the hosts said he wanted to see a reconstruction of a sauropod with a bullwhip of feathers at the end of its tail. I'm never one to turn down a wildly speculative reconstruction, so I went for it. 

 Come to think of it, isn't this sort of thing how Ash earned the majority of his Kanto Gym Badges? Kinda seems like cheating the system. No wonder he only placed in the top 16 in the Indigo Plateau Conference.

... Oh wait, this comic is about the video games.

 I, and many professional astronomers, are extremely tired of people blowing pareidolia out of proportion. Yes, sometimes things are almost sort of shaped like other things if you use your imagination. No, it's not aliens. It's never aliens. It's going to take a lot more than these sorts of shenanigans to convince me it's aliens.

... Now I'm hungry for poutine.

 I'm honestly not sure what's so scary about someone being able to see into your soul? Like... now they know your favorite color, I guess?

I had way too much fun with those little ghosties.

 If you average out the power of every Trainer the player character has encountered up to this point, this Medium probably has like level 20 Pokemon, tops.

Also, I just really enjoyed drawing the ghosty effects.

Shadow Play, Chapter 12

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7

Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14

Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 17

Once they cleaned up after dinner, Terra placed her new weapon on the living room table, and Hyren ducked into his room and brought out his sword-maintaining tools. They were tucked neatly away in a leather holder than he unrolled onto the floor, pulling out a metal mallet with a punch that unscrewed from the top.

Meanwhile, Zoltan held his paws over the sword, closing his eyes as the purple streaks on his fur and mane surged. “No curses or evil magic,” he reaffirmed. “It is bursting vith light magic, however. As for enchantments… zhere’s a strengthening enchantment to prevent zhe blade from breaking… and an ever-sharp enchantment.”

Hyren turned to face the blade, mallet in hand. “An ever-sharp enchantment?” he asked. “Only faeries know that one.”

“I thought you vere not one for magic,” Zoltan said. “How do you know zhat?”

“Not most magic,” Hyren said. “But magic relating to weapons? Let’s just say I research weapons a lot. All righty, let’s see how well-made this blade is…” He moved aside some of the leather binding on the grip to reveal a metal peg that ran through the hilt. Flipping the sword over, he found the smaller side of the peg, and he carefully used the punch and mallet to work the peg out.

 

 Because you can totally grab people's attention just by announcing that astronomers have discovered something. Anything.

 Yep, he actually went through with it. And he's going to need a chiropractor.

Shadow Play, Chapter 11

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7

Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14

Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 17

The return to Defenders HQ thankfully passed without incident. The gum-covered Zafara Rogue got plenty of odd looks from passersby, but considering their party also included a Werelupe and a glowy Halloween Kyrii battlemage, Terra was more than used to odd looks by now. The Nimmo receptionist in the Defenders’ lobby also did a double-take at their motley group, but Terra also figured double-takes were par for the course with her family.

The receptionist informed them that Judge Hog had already left to retrieve his artefact of choice, but Aisheena was currently holding down the fort in his place, so they went to talk to the white Aisha Defender.

Terra had never been in Aisheena’s office, and it looked markedly different from Judge Hog’s office, with plush faerie furniture and paintings on the walls of relaxing landscapes. It was funny, Terra thought, how one’s workspace said a lot about them.

The Aisha looked up from the book she was studying, and lifted an eyebrow at the Zafara Rogue’s strange condition. “Well, good morning,” Aisheena said. “You’re the Zafara Rogue, aren’t you.”

The Zafara nodded with a bit of a scowl. “They told me you could help me,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “I’m trying to—to make things better.”

 

 What if Copycat isn't actually copying everything the player character (presumably) says? What if she's just talking to herself? People in the Pokémon universe are a little unhinged like that.