Today on Fossil Friday, Maggie Jo gave a great presentation on crocodilians, and we were talking about how cool it is that alligators sometimes balance sticks on their snouts to lure in birds. Ashley said the gators are probably thinking "Shhhh... I'm a log", and I just thought that was so cute that I asked her if I could make a graphic of it. Gators need more love!

This behavior also speaks to just how smart crocodilians are, because using something as a lure definitely counts as tool use. Don't count out the ectotherms! They'll surprise you.

 Yes, that is a Pikmin reference! I just thought it would be hilarious if Mr. Pokémon kept calling Elm about very mundane "discoveries".

Return to Lynwood, 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 - Chapter 18 - Chapter 19

Lynwood itself was very much like how Suhel remembered it, a drab block of an educational institution with no thought given to aesthetics or individuality. Just like how its teachers tried to mold their pupils into lifeless copies of each other to join the great dull mass of society, she thought. The building had stood the test of time quite well, as it was intact, albeit with the windows boarded, missing shingles, and vines crawling up the stone walls. Again, though, things decayed slower in the Haunted Woods.

But now the place was crawling with Werelupes. Several pairs patrolled the lawn, which was dotted with firepits and stacks of probably stolen goods. The boards on many of the windows had been broken, and there was no lock on the large front doors—but each of them sported a large V etched with claws.

“Bites and curses,” Isengrim hissed. “Of course Vakhtang would need a home base. And of course it would have to be Lynwood.”

 

 To be honest, Elm is kinda me when I'm hyperfocused on something. (But without the smell.)

 I wanted to characterize Professor Elm as also eccentric... but in a different, more benign way than Oak. But still eccentric.

 I designed a qilin gargoyle a few years back, but I was never quite satisfied with her; the proportions were off, plus I accidentally used the wrong brush for the line art and it just didn't look quite right. I've recently acquired some free time, though, so I thought I'd put it to good use redrawing her. I'm happier with this version. Qilin manes are so fun to render.

 A few months ago on Virtual Fossil Friday, we got an awesome Zoom tour of the Whiteside Museum of Natural History, located in the Permian Red Beds of western Texas. I got to learn more about Dimetrodon than I ever knew I wanted to know, and I came away really wanting to make this graphic for my merch. My dad is from Texas, and I'm proud of the Lone Star State being home to the largest species of Dimetrodon, D. grandis. They really do make them bigger in Texas!

I find drawing Dimetrodon a fun challenge, because it's not just a big lizard with a sail on its back--it's a basal synapsid, a cousin to mammals. Synapsids aren't even reptiles; they're a totally different branch of amniotes. That's why I feel it's important to portray them as something fundamentally different than reptiles despite the superficial similarities. These creatures were on their way to becoming mammals and their life reconstructions need to reflect that.

 Ever notice how the player character almost always starts off in their bedroom? Proof positive that the whole "introduction to the Pokemon world" thing is really a nightmare.

Return to Lynwood, 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 - Chapter 18 - Chapter 19

Suhel hated getting sick. But this was a sickness like nothing she had ever before experienced. It not only lingered, but got steadily worse, until she felt like a mere husk of the mighty Werelupe she once had been. It frustrated and scared her to no end, especially because they still had a journey ahead of them.

The trip to Lynwood would take four days, accounting for the circuitous route Isengrim led his party on to try to avoid Vakhtang’s territory as much as possible. While the rust-furred Werelupe claimed he was king of the entire Haunted Woods, he seemed to – for the time being – concentrate mostly on the northern, more populated regions.

Lynwood was really only a day or so away from Barrowmere, less for a Werelupe travelling at a brisk pace, but Suhel knew Isengrim wanted to find the staff first, and she and Lexora didn’t think their condition would worsen all that quickly. But it seemed as though ever since they started heading toward Lynwood, their health had gone even more downhill. It hurt to breathe now. Every morning Suhel struggled to open her eyes and force herself to get up. She had to conserve her words, because nearly every time she spoke she would end up coughing. By the end of the first day, she had already resorted to having to ride on Gwyneth.

Lexora was worse along. The Kougra was so weak that she did not even have the energy to stay propped up on Gwyneth, and Suhel was glad to ride so she could keep hold of her friend. Lexora’s breathing was labored and she spent much of the time sleeping—except when her coughing woke her up.

No one said anything anymore about this being a fun adventure. The others tried to keep Suhel’s and Lexora’s spirits up, but for the most part the hours were long and silent as they trudged through the forest, their thoughts concentrated on the curse and how to break it. The lozenges were gone, and the tea was running low. The chilling fear began to sneak into Suhel’s thoughts that they might not make it to Lynwood at this rate.

 

 Maybe in the games, when Oak's intro sprite starts fading into white, it's actually because you're just trying to get away from him as fast as possible.

 Okay, time for Oak to take a sabbatical.

Return to Lynwood, 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 - Chapter 18 - Chapter 19

As Isengrim set Terra down, Pharazon spread out his arms to ward the others away, before stepping toward the staff. “Everybody stay back,” he said. “I don’t know what this thing’s capable of.”

Suhel’s ears were flat against her skull. “Pharazon, are you sure you know what you’re doing?” she asked. She hovered near the edge of the group, but a squeeze of her paw from Lexora seemed to keep the Werelupe from bolting.

“Either I take it,” Pharazon said, “or someone else does. I know what risk I like better.” He crouched down, stretched out a hand to the staff, took in a deep breath, and grabbed it.

 

 There are some questions science shouldn't try to answer.

 Life's been kind of crazy and stressful and weird, and I haven't had many opportunities to do more sketching at the Idaho Museum of Natural History, but today I managed to get over there to see my buddies from Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument who were paying the museum a visit. They brought some fascinating Pliocene-era fossil casts, and I decided to try giving mammals another go because I don't feel good at drawing them.

Today the Borophagus skull stood out to me, so I decided to try a reconstruction. Borophagines, also known as bone-crushing dogs, are usually portrayed as pretty nasty critters, but their skulls were actually really cute. They had slightly upturned snouts that would have given them shorter-looking muzzles than most modern canids, almost like something trying to be a bulldog. It was fun to portray one looking not ferocious for once.

 I'd been wanting to make this graphic for a long time, and I finally was able to get around to it during a rare lull in scientists throwing ideas at me. :)

I know there's a lot of controversy surrounding the whole Pluto "demotion" thing, and I personally don't feel like the IAU's case was watertight*, but in the grand scheme of things, we should really stop and ask ourselves: is it a big deal? Dwarf planets are still amazingly incredible places no matter what humans decide to call them. So what if the IAU categorizes things into tidy little boxes with emotionally weighted labels? That doesn't prevent us from studying them, exploring them, and loving them.

So I made this graphic to encourage people to stop thinking of dwarf planets as somehow inferior to major planets. Dwarf planets are wonderful in their own special way. I think we'd all be better off spending less energy being angry about something inconsequential, and more energy finding ways to enjoy life.

My friend Chris Lintott is going to give a lecture on this very subject in a few weeks, so stop by (or watch the YouTube recording later) for what I'm sure will be a very elucidating take on the subject. Chris is a fantastic example of a well-grounded astronomer, which is a great oxymoron to be.

*Among other issues with the current definition of the term "planet", I'm not convinced by the argument that we need to keep the number of "real" planets in the solar system low so they're easy to memorize. Students are required to memorize much larger sets of data in most curricula--think about how many characters Chinese and Japanese students have to memorize just to be considered basically literate in their languages. US students have to memorize all 50 states and (theoretically) all the capitals. And who could ever forget those long hours spent with multiplication or periodic table flashcards?

Plus, just because a large set of something exists, doesn't necessarily mean you need to memorize all of the items in the set. When I was in school, part of the curriculum was learning the counties of California. California has 58 counties. We were not required to fully memorize all of them, but we were expected to remember at least 5. (I feel bad for students in Texas, which has 254 counties. Yeah.)

If I were designing an introductory astronomy curriculum, I'd require my students to memorize all the major solar system planets in order as well as their largest moons, and a handful of the more notable dwarf planets. Anything more than that would be unnecessary, but I would encourage them to keep learning about the solar system on their own time.

I'm not fond of taking actions that dumb down education. The human brain is capable of so much. Learning should be about stretching and enlarging your brain's capabilities, not checking off boxes.

 Seeing as Oak is also the one who does the introduction speech in Gen II, I had a lot of fun twisting his in-game dialogue to fit the character I established for him in these comics. 

Some of it may be slightly paraphrased. :)

 Seems like a very supportive relationship indeed.

 I actually reached 100 followers on Facebook, so I celebrated with a little thank-you doodle. I thought it would be fun to have the subject be a species that lived around 100 million years ago, and I picked Oryctodromeus because I have a lot of experience drawing it by now (and I thought the tunnel-number idea would be fun).

There's a little mammal popping in to say hello because smaller burrows have been found branching off from orycto burrows, and it's thought that mammals may have done their own tunneling inside the burrows.

I'm really grateful for everybody who enjoys my art (and maybe my writing)--I'll keep doing my best to create a bright spot on an Internet that can get really scary sometimes. Let's all be kind to each other--that's what really makes things better.

Return to Lynwood, 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 - Chapter 18 - Chapter 19

 

It was a couple of hours after lunch on the third day that they found the ruins. The landscape had become more and more familiar to Isengrim these past few kilometres—this was land that he had not only traversed before, but had once roamed regularly. Even individual trees were familiar now. There was the thick old pine with the knots like a twisted face in its trunk. Here was the oak where he and his packmates found gold buried under the roots. The memories came flooding back to him. A look around at the other Werelupes’ faces told him they were experiencing the same thing.

Through the mist, Isengrim could see a number of immense fallen conifers, moss-covered and long stripped of their needles, stretching toward the approaching company like the spears of a hostile guard.

One of the Werelupes drew a sharp breath. “We’re close now,” she whispered. “Those are the trees that toppled when the keep fell on them.” Her packmates nodded.

“Let’s keep going,” Isengrim said. Now back on foot, he led them through the blockade, beneath rotting trunks that sat propped on the remnants of undergrowth where they landed nearly fifteen years before.

 

 And here we go again with the featureless void where a strange old man indoctrinates you into a world of monster fights.

 Unlike the Gen I games, Gold/Silver/Crystal have you start out in a black void where a disembodied voice is talking to you and asking you to set the time. Which is actually pretty terrifying if you stop to think about it too much like I have!

Return to Lynwood, 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 - Chapter 18 - Chapter 19

For the rest of that day and the first half of the next, they travelled further south, deeper into the ancient Woods. The rain continued off and on, which Isengrim appreciated as it drowned out any scent trail they might be leaving. Nevertheless, he did not see any more V’s slashed into trees. He guessed that Vakhtang probably operated more northward, where there were towns to raid. This increased their chances that the iron-hearted Werelupe hadn’t stumbled upon the artefact—but not enough for Isengrim to stop worrying.

If there was any upside to the situation, it was Connor becoming slightly more personable. Although still quiet and far from chatty, he no longer seemed so sulky, and by the twitching of his ears seemed to actually be listening to the others instead of outright ignoring them.

Isengrim was not sure if the pup had taken to heart his companions’ promise to protect him, but it looked as though Connor at least found them better company than Vakhtang. Although the dark-furred Werelupe could hardly consider that a compliment. He was fairly certain a mutant Kiko with the Sneezles would be better company than Vakhtang.

 

 Aaaaand welcome to Book 2!

I'd been wanting to make a chapter covering the Johto games since the very beginning of the comic; Gen II is my favorite Pokemon generation and Gold/Silver/Crystal are some of my favorite core series games. Unfortunately, at the time, there was a bit of a snag--the Gen II cartridges released in America are notorious for having unusually low lifetimes for the save battery, meaning my games didn't save anymore. 

This was back in the day before virtual re-releases on newer consoles, so I did what any dedicated fan would do: I bought a new battery for my Silver cart and a friend of mine helped me get the cart open so we could replace the battery. Miraculously, that worked, and I was able to have another Johto adventure.

If you know anything at all about those games, you're probably wondering what Kris is doing as the player character when it's supposed to be about Silver Version. I did indeed base these comics off Silver (so no, no Eusine or Suicune subplot here, sorry), but Crystal was the first core series game to allow you to choose the gender of your player character, which, being a girl, I really appreciated. So I decided to honor that by making Kris the main character of chapter 2. (No shade to Ethan, but Kris is kinda more fun to draw anyway.)

So buckle up--the adventure starts tomorrow!

 And thus concludes the Gen I story(?) arc of Trainer Wants to Battle!

After this, I took a break for a few months because the comic was a lot of work and I needed a breather. But this definitely wasn't the end of the story. Nor of Oak's reign of terror over the Pokémon world.

Gen II starts tomorrow!

 I drew this to put on graphics in my stores. Because whenever you say the phrase "dinosaur renaissance" this just keeps popping into my head.

Apologies to Dr. Bob Bakker. But he'd probably like this so I'm not too sorry.

(Yes, I know what the actual dinosaur renaissance is. That's why Deinonychus is playing the role of da Vinci.)

 Oak is a terrifying person to have as a grandfather.

Return to Lynwood, 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 - Chapter 18 - Chapter 19

The next morning dawned just as cool and foggy as the last. This was usual for the Haunted Woods, and Isengrim enjoyed the frequent cloud cover over the region. Werelupes were creatures of the night, and the sun often hurt their sensitive eyes and overheated their thick-furred bodies. Isengrim and his pack used to be largely nocturnal, but over the past few years had eased into being more active during the day, to better facilitate relations between them and their diurnal allies.

Not to mention his owner was a morning person. By the time Isengrim was ready to open his eyes, Terra was already up and about, nibbling on a bit of bread and dried fruit for her own breakfast before she helped a groggier-looking Pharazon get Gwyneth fed and watered. Suhel and her packmates had gone off on another hunt. Connor was still asleep, while Lexora had been woken up by her own coughing a while ago, and never managed to get back to sleep.

 

 Yeah, no, 10 years old is waaaaaay too young to be coming of age.

Takeshi Shudō, the head writer for the first seasons of the Pokémon anime, wrote some novelizations of the first episodes of the anime where he went more in-depth about the society of the Pokémon world as shown in the anime. In the anime universe as Shudō envisioned it, people were legally considered adults at age 10, which is why Ash and Misty can romp around Kanto without any adult supervision, and why 10 is the minimum age one can be registered as a Pokémon Trainer.

Seeing as Professor Oak shows up at the end of the game to congratulate Red on becoming Champion... it was the perfect opportunity to unleash his insanity upon readers again. :)

Return to Lynwood, Chapter 10

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 - Chapter 18 - Chapter 19

The trip to the old keep would take two and a half days from here, but they would be far from boring ones, Isengrim thought as they began their march through the forest. The Haunted Woods was full of wild beauty, and the company couldn’t be beat. The only things dampening his mood were the curse, Connor’s struggles, and the nagging fear that someone or something might have found the staff by now. After all, it had been nearly fifteen years since that keep was destroyed—more than enough time for looters to comb through the ruins.

But he tried not to let that get him down. After all, the air was cool and clean, the trees were aflame in autumn colours, and he and his party chatted and sang as they went. Lexora was quite good company, and the secondhand shopkeeper had a great deal of secondhand stories from her father about his globetrotting business exploits.

Isengrim was fascinated with everything Mr. Fitchet had seen and done in places like Shenkuu and Krawk Island. Someday he would have to figure out a way to travel over Neopia more widely without causing too much trouble. The fact that he still had business ties to quite a few individuals on the wrong side of the law had made his dealings with other kingdoms complicated, and lately the fact had begun to set less and less well with him. He thought that when he returned home, he should devote some time to trying to figure out a solution.

 

 I feel bad for Blue, honestly. He seems to spend most of his time waiting around for Red to show up. Who knows how long he had to sit in that Champion's room bored out of his mind.

 Agatha's line when you challenge her is a really intriguing bit of character development... that never gets brought up again. Also she's nowhere to be seen in Gen II which takes place three years after Gen I. I dunno, maybe she and Oak got married and she realized there's more to life than Pokemon battles?

 More doodling, this time for a My Little Pony fanfic I've been working on (which explains last month's geek rant). 

This is a concept design for the evil version of mirror-universe King Sombra, as the fic is a follow-up to the MLP:FiM graphic novel storyline “Reflections”. That story arc revolves around an alternate-universe Equestria where moral alignments are reversed, meaning that universe’s versions of Celestia and Luna are evil while King Sombra is good. Regular Celestia finds her way into this universe during her studies under Starswirl the Bearded, and she and Mirror-Sombra strike up a relationship that is severed when Mirror-Sombra absorbs the evil inside Mirror-Celestia and Mirror-Luna to prevent them from trying to take over regular Equestria. Celestia is also forced to seal the passageway between the universes to prevent them from becoming inextricably entangled.

 

 If you see somebody bothering with Victory Road, do you even need to ask that question?

My friend Ashley Hall is moving on from Museum of the Rockies and won't be co-hosting Virtual Fossil Fridays anymore! I'm sure Maggie Jo will continue to do a wonderful job hosting, but I'm going to miss seeing Ashley every week too. I drew her a couple of things to express my appreciation for everything she's done for science outreach at MOR during her time there.

She asked me to draw a picture of her riding a Parasaurolophus (her favorite dino), so I had to remember a lot of things I forgot about horseback riding from when I would go to visit my equestrian aunt as a kid. (Horses kinda terrify me with their extreme jumpiness and their ability to sense your lack of confidence. Carnivores are more my speed.) I also included her cat Samhain because I always look for excuses to include cats in things. :)

 

And then I drew her as an actual Parasaurolophus because why not. She used to work at the Page Museum at Rancho La Brea*, so I drew her with Smilodon, one of the tar pits' iconic species. Love that place. I hope I get to visit it again someday.

Thanks for everything, Ashley! I'm secretly hoping she organizes another chapter of Virtual Fossil Fridays in her new location. Double the paleontology, double the fun!

*For those not in the know, "la brea" is literally Spanish for "the tar". So when you say "La Brea Tar Pits" you are saying "the the tar tar pits". Let's be less cavalier with our linguistics, shall we?

This message has been paid for by the Coalition Against Tautological Place Names.

Return to Lynwood, Chapter 9

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 - Chapter 18 - Chapter 19

Isengrim awoke to a twinge in his leg and the smell of breakfast. No—to call it just a “smell” would not do it justice. The aromas wove a rich tapestry that told tales of sizzling bacon, hot mushrooms and tomatoes dripping with their juices, hearty black pudding, sweet and savoury beans, buttered toast, and potatoes browned to a perfect crisp.

His mouth watered as his eyes remained shut. Then someone playfully whacked his shoulder. “I was wondering when you’d get up, lazybones,” Suhel’s voice said.

Isengrim opened his eyes to see her standing over the sofa with a smirk. He offered her a grin. “How did you know I was awake? My eyes were still closed.”

She let out a few coughs and took a swig of tea. “You were drooling, milord.”

 

 Back in the early days when there was a limited pool of Pokemon to pull from for NPC teams, some type specialists didn't always have teams that strictly fit the theme.

See also: Sabrina and her Venomoth (Bug/Poison-type in a Psychic Gym?!), Agatha and her Arbok (definitely not a Ghost-type), Bruno and his Onix (I'm surprised there aren't more fan theories floating around about him being Brock's dad or some such).

 Today on Virtual Fossil Friday, we were talking about the dwarf sauropod Magyarosaurus and how it was the perfect size for riding, and Ashley and Maggie Jo wanted me to draw this. :)

Return to Lynwood, Chapter 8

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 - Chapter 18 - Chapter 19

“Millie!” Lexora grimaced and stood up. “I’m sorry, dear, did all this fuss wake you up?”

The grey Ogrin nodded, still staring at the odd scene below her. “Yes, and my brothers—“

A scrawny little yellow Moehog and a slightly larger, portly white Skeith pushed past her, scrambling halfway down the stairs before they, too, saw the Werelupes and stopped. “Wow!” the Skeith said as he and the Moehog poked their heads through the banister. “Mummy, are those real Werelupes?”

“We certainly are,” one of Isengrim’s thanes said with a toothy grin.

“We’ve got real Werelupes in our house!” the Moehog squeaked, although he looked as though he couldn’t quite decide whether to be excited or terrified.

 

 Ever notice how no matter how many times Red visits home, Red's mom is just loitering in front of the TV? Really makes me wonder about her parenting skills.