The Gallery of Stormy Adler

Queen of the Grime

Original DA Upload Date: October 21, 2021.

Gilda: “Yep.”
Margo: “Yep.”
Wendy: “Yep.”
April: “Mm-hmm.”
[the Tetrad see Flannery, dressed in Middle Ages attire, carrying a lute, walking through the garden]
Flannery: “Greetings, Grime. Greetings, grandkin of Angus of Hynde House.” [pauses and blushes when she sees Wendy] “Hello, lovely wench.” [beat] “And greetings whatever your name is.” [glances at Wendy one last time before running off and ducking behind a blueberry bush. The Tetrad are surprised]
Wendy: “Did she just call me a lovely wench?”
Gilda: “That girl ain’t right.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This description contains a brief discussion of a character’s transphobic views. If transphobia is a trigger for you, feel free to skip out on reading further.

King of the Hill is a show I’ve been a fan of pretty much my entire life. Among the Fox shows, it serves as a contrast to the more satirical tone of The Simpsons and the wacky tone of Family Guy, with a more down-to-earth setting that relies more on character-based humor, than it does references and gags, like most other shows of its kind. Though the show definitely has right-leaning politics, it’s never to the point where it blindly insults or glorifies one political party or the other. You’ll find that Hank has respect for people as liberal as Willie Nelson, and reject people as conservative as George W. Bush¹. He even believes in environmental causes, a rarity among conservatives. You’re all very well familiar with how he’s a propane salesman; he frequently cites propane as a ‘clean-burning fuel’. Which it is, at least compared to natural gas, oil, and of course charcoal, which he criticizes frequently throughout the show. However, it goes deeper than that; in one episode, he helps run an organic garden at his son Bobby’s school, and gets angry at his wife Peggy when she is found to be spraying the crops with pesticides². In another, he leads a push for Strickland Propane to go green after his boss, Buck Strickland, is found to have been dumping propane tanks in the river³. And in the very first episode, he even threatens to ‘kick [his friend Dale’s] ass’ if Texas gets any hotter through global warming!

¹ In season 5, episode 1, ‘The Perils of Polling’. He does think positively of Bush for most of the episode, until he’s found to have a weak handshake. Also, the episode first aired in 2000. As we’d learn in years following, a weak handshake was the least of Bush’s problems.

²Season 7, episode 18, ‘I Never Promised You an Organic Garden’.

³Season 13, episode 2, ‘Earthy Girls Are Easy’.

However, environmental views aside, he still is a conservative. And as a conservative, he does unfortunately have a lot of outdated views. He tosses around the phrase ‘tough love’ sometimes when disciplining Bobby⁴, which you know what I think of that phrase. It’s mostly used as a weak excuse for bullying and being unnecessarily forceful to someone. He also in one episode describes trans men as being ‘jerryrigged out of a toe and some old skin’, which I hope is just out of his/creator Mike Judge’s ignorance than actual malice. This episode I’m describing is from 2005, after all⁵. Knowledge about the trans community wasn’t as widespread then as it is today, even among the LGBTQIA community.

⁴ Remind me to do one of those threads on this phrase.

⁵ And it’s season 9, episode 5, ‘Dale to the Chief’.

Oh, and because it comes into conversations every once in a while… no, social media, Hank Hill would not be a Trump supporter. Even disregarding that Mike Judge himself has debunked the idea of Hank being a Trump supporter, if you think Hank would support Trump, then you’ve obviously paid no attention to the fact that he, not only hates charcoal, but refused to vote for Bush after getting a limp handshake from him (Trump’s tiny hands, anyone?)⁶, had an identity crisis after finding out he was born in New York City (Trump’s birthplace)⁷, hates the idea of well-done steaks (Trump is known for liking well-done steaks)⁸, criticizes his own father for being an adultering misogynist (something Trump is infamous for being)⁹… what I’m trying to say is, if you think Hank would support Trump, all you know about his political views is that he’s a conservative and you obviously haven’t seen enough of the show. And also you ignored every time he’s criticized charcoal. The only one of the guys who commonly stands in front of the fence I can see supporting Trump, is Dale. And even then, it’s not like he’d vote for him. Even the idea that Dale’s name would be on any government document is a misunderstanding of his character¹⁰. Dale would be the kind of person that thinks COVID-19 is a hoax and that masks are mind-control devices. Boomhauer would wear his mask properly without argument or question, Hank would wear his mask properly because he feels he’s fulfilling his patriotic duty, and Bill would wear his mask under his nose like the bumbling idiot he is.

⁶I refer you to footnote 1.

⁷Season 5, episode 10, ‘Yankee Hankee’.

⁸Season 12, episode 6, ‘Raise the Steaks’.

⁹Season 6, episode 21, ‘Returning Japanese (Part 1)’.

¹⁰ Except in the aforementioned ‘Dale to the Chief’.

Anyways, despite the show’s mostly conservative politics, I’ve found that the show, along with Big City Greens, The Casagrandes and Malcolm in the Middle, and of course popular music from the latter half of the 20th century, has been a major influence on my writing style as I’ve written The Oddball Tetrad of Grunvale, New Pork. As for modern audiences wanting to get into the show, just go into it knowing that some backwards political views are expressed throughout the show, and once you get past that, you’ll find a show with some strongly-written characters that are effective at delivering both comedy and drama. And if Mike Judge ever makes a reboot/sequel series set years later in a post-Trump world, as he’s expressed interest in doing before, I’d gladly watch it¹¹. Although I do wonder how they’ll implement Luanne and Lucky into it, considering their voice actors are dead. Maybe recast them? I don’t know.

¹¹The fact this is being uploaded here now is in celebration of the reboot getting picked up by Hulu.

Anyways, onto the piece!

King of the Hill recently made its grand return to cable reruns, after a successful showcase on Adult Swim from 2009 to 2018, and an embarrassment of a timeslot on Comedy Central in 2018. FXX is where its cable reruns are now¹², as the network, now with the rights to the entirety of Family Guy, competes with Adult Swim, now left without Family Guy as a selling point as the big three animation networks, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and the Disney Channel, disappear piece by piece as HBO Max¹³, Paramount+¹⁴ and Disney+ become bigger by the day. I was pleasantly surprised to see that, unlike with The Simpsons, FXX does not crop or even stretch King of the Hill to the 16:9 aspect ratio, instead showing it in its proper 4:3, with black bars on the sides. And I’ve enjoyed revisiting the show; the episodes are just as classic as I remember them being, and I don’t even feel the show deteriorated in quality after the show switched to digital coloring in season 8¹⁵. It was especially nice to see the episodes from the first two seasons again; Adult Swim stopped showing them about halfway into its time with the show.

¹²As mentioned above, this artwork was made in 2021. And so was this description; it was written in the brief window of time before Adult Swim started airing King of the Hill again after it started airing on FXX.

¹³Pre-Discovery merger HBO Max, of course.

¹⁴ As I write these footnotes, Paramount+ and Showtime are merging.

¹⁵ My opinion has changed somewhat since I wrote this. As I’ve rewatched the later King of the Hill episodes, I’ve started to understand the criticisms against them. I still largely enjoy even later KOTH, however.

My time rewatching the show on FXX, led me to drawing this King of the Hill-inspired artwork of the Oddball Tetrad, referencing the show’s most iconic establishing shot, the one of Hank, Dale, Bill and Boomhauer, standing in front of the fence, drinking beer and saying ‘yep’.

In terms of the production of the artwork, there isn’t much to say. Gilda’s wearing her acid wash again, partly because I haven’t drawn her in the outfit in a while, and partly because I’ve seen acid wash associated with the American South (King of the Hill is set in Texas, just about as Southern as it gets¹⁶). The cans they’re drinking out of aren’t Alamo Beer, but rather an imagined combination of Dr. Pepper and Sprite, that I’ll probably come up with a logo for if I ever have to show a can in close-up. Either that, or I’ll use copyright-safe versions of the Dr. Pepper and/or Sprite logo. Don’t want Keurig Dr. Pepper or Coca-Cola to come after me. I think copyright law allows for parodies and mentions of copyrighted properties, even ‘copyright-safe’ versions of logos might be going too far. Also, because Boomhauer and April are both the ones with a unique way of talking within their group, I decided to have April be the one who says ‘mm-hmm’ like Boomhauer instead of ‘yep’. Come to think of it, the rest of the Tetrad kind of matches with where they’re standing, too¹⁷. The reference image I used for this had Hank to the furthest left, then Dale, Bill, and Boomhauer going to the right. Gilda being where Hank was reflects her being the central character of Grunvale/OTOG, Margo being in Dale’s position is fitting considering her hair is orange like Dale’s hat, and even Wendy isn’t entirely filler here; she’s French like Bill is, even if not from the same ethnic group (Bill is Cajun and Wendy is Sephardi).

¹⁶Aside from DeSantis-led Florida, at least.

¹⁷Standing based on the reference image I used; they’re in different positions numerous times throughout the show.

Anyhoo, that’ll be all for this one. Hope you guys haven’t been inconvenienced by the large gap in new art; I’ve had a bit of an art block lately as college assignments¹⁸ have piled up. No worries, though, one of my upcoming artworks is also a college assignment, and I can’t wait for you guys to see that. Until next time, take care, I tell you h’wut.

¹⁸ I was still in college in 2021.

If you would like to commission an artwork, consult the StormArts Commissions Ad for pricing and how to contact me. I accept payment through PayPal. Also don’t forget to follow me at any of the below platforms:

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Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it.
King of the Hill is owned by Disney (I am never going to get used to saying that) through 20th Television Animation.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).

Roth Gets Walked In On

[North side of Grunvale, apple-growing country. Charlotte Walker and Janet Long, in this universe a pteropine/flying fox and ailurid/red panda respectively, are picking apples by a white-painted barn as they talk]
Charlotte: “Hey, what are these apples? They look like a crossover between gala and red delicious.”
Janet: “They’re Jonathans, Walker. And the word you’re looking for is ‘hybrid’. A ‘crossover’ is what we’re in right now, an episode in which characters from a work of fiction appear in another’s continuity. It’s like CN City, remember that?”
Charlotte: “Remember that? I’m ten! I wasn’t even born yet!” [beat] “In fact, it’s before your time too! How do you remember that?”
Janet: “Well, you see, there’s this magical thing, you might’ve heard of it. It’s called ‘YouTube’.”
Charlotte: “Oh, right, that makes sense.”
Janet: “Anyways, CN City were these series of bumpers of characters from various Cartoon Network shows interacting with one another. Set in a city, of course.”
Charlotte: “Ah, I get it!”
Janet: “Similarly, we’re characters from the world of an animation fan named Isaac, on a trip into the world of a phoenix named Stormy.”
Charlotte: “Ooh, a phoenix!”
Janet: “It’s just a title, he’s a leporine in this world. An angora. Although he did survive a car accident, so he earned that title.”
Charlotte: “Cool! And, uh, what about Isaac? Does he know about this world?”
Janet: “Oh, yeah. He’s drawn some procyonine girl that calls herself ‘ambassador to the hue-man realm’ a few times. As a Rigby lookalike, eating a carrot, and at a formal event with her leporine friend. Oh, and for the phoenix himself, he’s drawn some technicolor emoji-looking things to look like the poster to some movie he likes.”
Charlotte: “Show me the paintings?” [Janet pulls out her phone to show said artworks. Charlotte’s eyes go big when she sees the so-called ambassador] “Oh, yeah, I know this girl! Her name’s Gilda. And the leporine’s named Margo.”
Janet: “You know her?”
Charlotte: “Yeah, I freaked her out with my tap-dancing.” [sets apple basket down and starts dancing. Janet’s eyes start spiraling as she watches her, but she slaps herself in the head before she can get fully hypnotized]
Janet: “Okay, I get it, you can stop now.” [Charlotte stops dancing. Janet goes silent as she realizes something is amiss] “Hey, where’s Torres?”
Annie: “Over here.” [Charlotte and Janet turn their heads to the sound of Annie Torres’ voice, coming from the side of the barn. Annie, an albino caprine/ibex in this universe, walks away from the wall, startling Charlotte and Janet with her seemingly sudden appearance] “Perks of being albino.”
Janet: “It always freaks me out when you do that!”
Charlotte: “I freak ines out for just existing.” [beat. Annie and Janet stare at her] “I mean, I am of a race associated with vampires and rabies. No matter how many times I try to clarify I’m a frugivore, and not a sanguivore! Hmmph! So annoying!”
Annie: [beat] “I can imagine. I mean, sometimes I hear that I look like a ghost.”
[Charlotte’s ears pick up on guitar-playing off in the distance]
Charlotte: “You guys hear that?”
Janet: “Hear what?”
Charlotte: “I don’t know, something metallic-sounding. It sounds like –” [sees Charlotte Roth slouching under one of the trees, playing ‘Helplessly Hoping’ by Crosby, Stills, and Nash on Marky] “Guitar playing.”
Charlotte R.: 🎵 Helplessly hoping her harlequin hovers nearby, awaiting a word / Gasping at glimpses of gentle true spirit, he runs wishing he could fly / Only to trip at the sound of goodbye 🎵
Charlotte W.: “Ooh! And some singing! I’m gonna go over there.”
Janet: “Walker, no. You don’t know them. You’re probably just gonna startle them.”
Charlotte W.: “Don’t worry, I’ll be quiet.”
[Walker flies over to the tree Roth lays against, as the latter continues to sing]
Charlotte R.: 🎵 Wordlessly watching, he waits by the window and wonders at the empty place inside / Heartlessly helping himself to her bad dreams, he worries, did he hear a goodbye? / Or even, hellooooo? 🎵
[Walker lands on a branch above Roth. One of her tapdance shoes makes a clack noise as she lands, startling Roth. She grabs Marky by the neck and looks around, and Walker quickly kicks her foot up, hoping Roth didn’t hear her. Walker slowly puts her foot against the trunk and reaches for another branch above her for balance, and Roth goes back to playing her guitar]
Charlotte R.: 🎵 They are one person / They are two alone / They are three together / They are fooo-ooour each other 🎵
Charlotte W.: “Number puns?!” [covers mouth, hoping Roth didn’t hear. But she did. And she’s not too happy about being, for lack of a better term, walked in on]
Charlotte R.: “AAACK!” [beat. Roth looks up] “What in tarn — Hey you! Whaddya think ye’re doin’?!”
Charlotte W.: “I was just… listening to that song of yours. Here’s a tip, if you want anyone to take you seriously as a songwriter, don’t write puns into your music.”
Charlotte R.: [annoyed] “Fer yer information, young’un, it is not my song. It was written by a boar named Stephen Stills.”
[beat]
Charlotte W.: “Who?”
Charlotte R.: [rolls eyes, and starts playing] 🎵 Chestnut brown canary / Ruby throated sparrow / Sing a song, don’t be long / Thrill me to the marrow 🎵 [Roth notices Walker is just staring. She is silent for a while as she thinks of what to play next… then starts playing] 🎵 Think about how many times, I have faaa-allen / Spirits are usin’ me, larger voices caaa-allin’ 🎵 [Roth notices Walker is still just staring] “Okay, if ya don’t know this next one, then leave me alone.” [plays] 🎵 And there’s a rose, with a fisted glove / And the eagle flies, with the dove / And if ya can’t be, with the one ya love, honey / Love the one you’re with / Love the one you’re with / Love the one you’re with / Love the one you’re with 🎵
Charlotte W.: [as Roth sings the second non-repeated half of the chorus] “Ah yeah, I know this one!” [tap dances on the branch. Roth smiles as she notices she’s reached Walker]
Charlotte R.: 🎵 Do-do do do do do do-do / Do-do do do do do do-do / Do-do do do do do do-do / Do-do-do! / Do-do-do! 🎵
[Roth whistles loud, imitating the organ from the original song. Walker continues dancing on the branch, until she trips and falls off]
Charlotte W.: “Whoop!” [flaps her arm-wings to stop herself from falling] “Phew. That was close.”
Charlotte R.: [stops playing] “You ‘kay there?”
Charlotte W.: “Yeah.” [beat] “You’re really talented… um… hey, I never asked your name.”
Charlotte R.: “It’s Charlotte.”
Charlotte W.: [beat] “Charlotte? Like, your name is Charlotte.”
Charlotte R.: “My name is Charlotte, yes.”
Charlotte W.: [pauses, then laughs] “How funny! My name’s also Charlotte!”
Charlotte R.: “Really? Well, latkes and grits! It’s mighty nice to know somebody else by that name, I tell ya what. Hey, if ya like, I can teach ya some guitar. I can be yer teacher! I perform country and bluegrass and folk, so I hope ye’re into all that.”
Charlotte W.: “Oh, uh… I’m actually from California. I’m on vacation.”
Charlotte R.: “California?” [beat] “Well, no reason we can’t still be friends! This is the 21st century, we got social media. I’ve got a YouTube, ‘s just my name, Charlotte Esther Roth. I give guitar and piano tutorials on it, also baseball tutorials, occasionally. My biggest video’s me performin’ “The Star-Spangled Banner”, ‘s got almost a million views.”
Charlotte W.: [pulls out phone to search for Roth’s YT] “Oh, so you’re kind of viral!”
Charlotte R.: “Mm-hmm. It’s a fluke, though. My next biggest’s got only ’bout two hunnerd-K.”
Charlotte W.: “Well, from what you’ve showed me, sounds like you deserve more.” [finds Roth’s YT and subscribes] “Aaaaand subscribed.”
[Roth gets a notification on her own phone of Walker’s subscription. She smiles and reaches to pat Walker on the head]
Charlotte W.: “Woah!” [steps away] “Hands away from the hair! It takes an hour to get it looking this perfect.”
Charlotte R.: “My apologies.”
[Annie and Janet run over to the Charlottes]
Janet: “Walker! What’s taking so long?”
Charlotte R.: “Oh, it’s okay, she ain’t botherin’ me.”
Charlotte W.: “Janet, Annie, this is a new friend of mine, she’ll be mostly a social media friend, but that doesn’t make her any less. Here’s something funny, her name is Charlotte too! Haha! And, uh, Charlotte, this is Annie and Janet. They’re friends from… back home in Cali.”
Charlotte R.: “Nice to meet ya both.” [shakes Annie and Janet’s hands. Walker smiles]

Full disclosure, I began writing this fic before the news broke out of David Crosby’s death. If it hadn’t been so far along, I’d have removed the CSNY/CSN/Stills songs mentioned, since this is a birthday present for my social media friend Isaac Vargas (@AnimationFan15 on Twitter), and I didn’t want it to come off as an awkward last-minute tribute to Crosby. Which it’s not supposed to be. I just so happen to be releasing a fic with CSNY songs in it shortly after the passing of one of its members.

But, the fic was already over half done by the day it’s being uploaded, so the songs stay.

Anyways, this artwork, and the fic to go with it, were written to celebrate my friend Isaac’s 25th; at the time of writing this, he turns the age in two days; I uploaded this early because I’ve scheduled Sunday night to be when I upload the GITGA comic I’ve been working on for months. The most I have to say about the artwork is the scenery; once again, it was done through my recently-developed ‘Color Turner’ process, where I draw in grayscale before colorizing everything. Unfortunately, most of the background got obscured by that branch, but I did take screenshots along the way of what it looks like unobscured, and I’ll be uploading those to my main Twitter account. You’ll be surprised when you see just how bare and minimalistic the background started.

The speckled lighting on the Charlottes were done the way you’re used to seeing from me; massively enlarged and masked noise. I almost posterized that effect, but I decided against it when I saw how ugly it looked.

Finally, as for Charlotte (Walker)’s design, I reused the pteropine design from my 2021 birthday present for him, adapted to my new art style. The color of her eyes is an off-white, inverted from the black prevalent throughout Charlotte (Roth)’s design, including in her eyes. I chose this off-white as a middle ground between how Isaac and I draw pupils on our characters; I draw anime-style pupils, and he… well, he doesn’t draw pupils. What’s the middle ground between that? I say anime-style pupils with white irises!

And yes, Isaac does know about this. He found my take ‘interesting’.

And… well, as Forrest Gump would say, ‘that’s all I have to say about that’. Happy two-days-early birthday, Isaac! And to all my readers, take care, stay safe, get vaccinated, reject crypto, welcome to the Aquarius part of 2023, and have a good one.

In Memory of David Crosby
(1941-2023)

Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you credit me as the creator of the series.
Charlotte Walker, Annie Torres, and Janet Long are owned by Isaac Vargas/AnimationFan15.
“Helplessly Hoping” and “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” were written by Stephen Stills for Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s self-titled album, owned by… (looks it up) …well, I’ll just say Atlantic Records. Since Zaslav is even after WBD’s music catalog. Yes, really. He is that evil.
“Southern Cross” was written by Stephen Stills, Rick Curtis, and Michael Curtis for Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s album Daylight Again, owned by Atlantic Records.
“Love the One You’re With” was written by Stephen Stills for his self-titled album, owned by Atlantic Records.
The artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).

Fresh Pasta

Part of the below script is from “Il Procione Tarantina”, originally posted to DA on October 26, 2022. The artwork associated with it will not be posted to my blog due to its use of AI-generated assets, however, the script is still worth salvaging and expanding upon. The artwork above, drawn for National Spaghetti Day (January 4), does not use any AI-generated assets.

[Grime/Griswold household, morning. Gilda is in her tarantella dress, sitting in a chair in the living room, having her makeup done by her grandmother Sharon]
Sharon: “Alright, Gilda. Stay still.”
[Gilda grips the seat of her chair as she has a coat of mascara applied. She bats her lashes as Sharon puts the wand back]
Gilda: “Sono una bella scrofa! I feel ready to dance already!”
Sharon: “Well, you’re not. You still need your hair done.” [grabs a brush and takes it to Gilda’s hair] “I hope you do well at the Cultural Showcase today. Redfeather pulled a lot of strings to get you in, and… who was it that you got to dance with you again? Some girl with a boy name?”
Gilda: “Yeah. Randi Haggard, an old friend of Wendy’s.”
Sharon: “Right, her. And remember, you’re representing the commune, and Marc Davis, and since she goes to Milt Kahl, Milt Kahl. That’s the reputation of three institutions you’ve got riding on this. Don’t let any of them down with a bad performance from either of you.”
Gilda: [as she has her hair put into a bun] “We both agreed she owed me one, since I was her assistant in her magic show. Also it turns out she has Istallion ancestry. Heronese, not Tarantina, but still Istallion, and that’s good enough for me. I wouldn’t have agreed to tarantella publicly if I didn’t do it with an Istallion.” [with the bun styled, Sharon inserts bobby pins to put it in place] “Oh, and don’t worry, if anyone’s gonna ruin the reputation of Marc Davis today, it’s gonna be Margo. She was assigned to do her report on the country of Kyrgyzstan.”
Sharon: “Kyrgyzstan? I’ve never heard of it.”
Gilda: “Neither did I. Margo entered it as a joke because she saw it’s a meme on some quiz site. Sporcle, I think it’s called. She did it to troll her cultural studies teacher, and didn’t think it’d actually be accepted. But it was, and now she’s stuck with doing her report on it. And having to dress like she’s from Kyrgyzstan, and having to make traditional Kyrgyzstani food, too.”
Sharon: “Oh boy, if I know that Margo, this won’t end well.”
Gilda: “It’ll be up to her tri-fold. April made a Kyrgyzstani-style outfit for her, she hates it because of course she does, and I figured out how to make… well, a vegetarian version of something called ‘beshbarmak’. It’s chopped meat, I used tofu, mixed with egg noodles and an onion sauce.”
Sharon: “Oh, so that’s why the kitchen smelled funny the other day.”
Gilda: “Yeah. I also made some for here. I’m having the rest of the Tetrad over, too, so they can have some too.”
Sharon: “Well, I can’t wait to try it. And whatever Wendy and April have.” [beat] “Hey, what countries are they doing?”
Gilda: “April’s doing Scotterland, don’t think I need to explain why it should be trivial for her. And Wendy’s doing Belkium, because she was too slow to call France. Still shouldn’t be hard for her, given she is French herself, and Belkians speak French. Also she does like the Tintin books.”
Sharon: [adjusts Gilda’s bun to make sure it’s tight, then picks up a hair comb, decorated with flowers and ribbons] “What about the food? What food will they be presenting? April did haggis, didn’t she?”
Gilda: [as the comb is inserted, between her crown and her bun] “Ew, gross, no! She made tablet, that’s crystallized milk, butter, and sugar, and Wendy… well, the food part was easy for her, because she didn’t have to make anything. She bought waffles.”
Sharon: “Is that allowed?”
Gilda: “It oughta be allowed. She thought smart, not hard.” [beat] “Alright, let’s see it.”
[Sharon hands Gilda a mirror. Gilda looks at her reflection, plays with her hair ribbons for a bit, then smiles]
Gilda: “Okay, now I’m ready to dance!” [stands up and dances…] “But not alone to the tarantella because that’s bad luck.” […as she sings “Don’t Cry” by Ken Laszlo] 🎵 What do you think about it? / Do you think that is to hide your pride? / What are you doing about yourself? Baby you can tell me, don’t be so afraid and / Don’t cry 🎵 [the doorbell rings] “That’s Randi.”
[Gilda goes to the front door and opens it. Randi is already in full tarantella attire]
Randi: “Morning, Grime!”
Gilda: “Morning, Haggard! You got the routine down?”
Randi: “Of course I did, spent all night on it. We’re gonna knock them dead. And hopefully show the town there’s more to us than pizza and Mario and saying ‘mamma mia’.”
Gilda: “Oh, trust me, we will. Hey, when we come back, will you join us for… what me and my friends made for the showcase?”
Randi: “Yeah, sure. As long as there’s no meat in anything. Remember, I’m one of those fruit-eating chiropterans, not a blood-sucking one.”
Gilda: “Well, the dish I made for Margo’s Kyrgyzstan presentation, it is usually a meat dish, but I made it vegetarian. I’m sure you’ll like it.”
Randi: “What’s it called?”
Gilda: “Beshbarmak.”
Randi: “Besha-wha?”
Gilda: “You’ll like it.” [calls to Terence] “Terence, we need a ride!”
Terence: [comes downstairs] “Alright, alright, let’s get you to your nerd thing.” [spins keys around]

[later that day, the Tetrad (plus Randi) unwind at the Grime/Griswold household, dressed in the traditional attire of the countries they represented]
Gilda: [claps and rubs hands together] “Alright, guys, ready to try some cultural food?”
Margo, Wendy, April, Randi: “Oh yeah.”
Wendy: “Even though waffles aren’t really cultural to us, they’re just a frozen food aisle staple.”
Gilda: “But you know what is!” [pulls out the beshbarmak from the oven] “Beshbarmak!”
Wendy, April: “Woo!”
[Margo rolls her eyes while Randi just stares, though still visibly interested]
Gilda: “I’d never heard or even had any interest in trying this had Margo not decided to present on Kyrgyzstan! For that matter, I wouldn’t have even heard of Kyrgyzstan.”
[the conversation continues as Gilda sets the beshbarmak down, to get the plates out for everyone]
April: “She thoot she’d play a jook, an’ look where it got ‘er! Stuck presen’in’ oan the moost o’scure countreh in the showcehse!”
Wendy: “But, she did get an ‘A’ on it. With our help, but she managed it.”
Margo: “I wouldn’t have guessed anybody in this town had Kyrgyzstani blood in them. Let alone somebody in our class!”
Randi: “Yeah, but you know what, Hynde? The fact they liked your presentation so much goes to show how well you represented their culture.”
Margo: [beat] “Yeah, I guess so.”
Randi: “No, not ‘you guess so’. You did good. Be proud.”
[Gilda lays the plates down for everyone, before serving the beshbarmak]
Gilda: “And of course, this was for Margo’s presentation, so she gets the first helping of beshbarmak.” [puts the beshbarmak on Margo’s plate]
Wendy: “Right on the waffles!” [places waffles on her plate and holds it up] “I wanna try it as a topping.”
Gilda: “Well then.” [places a small helping of beshbarmak atop Wendy’s waffles. She then serves April (who has already put a serving of tablet on her plate), Randi, and herself, before going over to the microwave and pulling out a plate of spaghetti]
Randi: “Geez, Grime, two plates of pasta? You sure you got the stomach for it?”
Gilda: “I’m not just sure, I’m pasta-ive. Haha!” [beat. April chuckles] “There we go. April likes my puns.”
April: “Behd puns’re a weakness o’ mine, ah ‘dmit.”
Gilda: [sits down, placing her spaghetti plate next to her beshbarmak plate] “I’ve got a lot of pasta puns in me. Probably as many pasta puns as your girlfriend has stories about me getting spaghettified.”
April: “Yeah, Jazz’s got a… vereh zaneh ‘magination.” [cringes, whispers] “She’s e’en written a storeh ‘boot meh turnin’ intae an ovine fro’ eatin’ haggis.”
Gilda: “Alright, now let’s say grace.” [she and the rest put their hands together, fall silent, and…]
Tetrad, Randi: “GRAAAAACE!!!” […break out of their prayer fake-out to start animalistically scarfing their food down]

Happy National Spaghetti Day, everyone! I decided as a New Year’s resolution, that I’m gonna make at least one artwork a month, celebrating National [whatever] Day. Not traditional holidays like Halloween and Christmas or whatever, but the fun stuff. Like National Retro Day (February 27th), or Mario Day (March 10th), or Sonic the Hedgehog’s anniversary (June 23rd). All of which I have drawn artwork celebrating before. But I want to be more unique; maybe I will draw artwork for all of those this year, but I also want to try artwork for ‘national days’ I haven’t drawn for before. Like for today (January 4th), which is National Spaghetti Day.

To the artwork.

Since this artwork is about spaghetti and thus Italian culture, I decided this would be a good opportunity to draw Gilda in her tarantella outfit. Remember, Gilda’s Italian. Well, Istallion, in Grunvaliverse terms. I don’t know if I’ve said this before, but in universe, her surname is an Anglicization of ‘Grimone’. Her father dropped the ‘O’ and the ‘N’ from his surname so he could more easily break into acting.

The title is just a pun, there’s no fresh pasta assets in this image. The floor you see here, which is supposed to be wood and stone, was created through a mix of randomly-placed orange dots, inpainting, and my recently-developed ‘color turner’ effect. The sunlight on the floor proved quite troublesome; ASP crashed several times trying to blur it to the level I wanted. I eventually settled on a gaussian blur after several attempts at a zoom blur failed.

I figured out how to draw the spaghetti quite easily; at its most simple level, it’s just a few circles with lines running through them. And extra bumps between the lines, and a few loose noodles, drawn in for realism. I pulled it off pretty well for… what I think is my first attempt drawing spaghetti.

Now to the script.

As stated in disclaimer, I wrote the first part of it back in October. I was inspired to write it by my Twitter friend @jemibuni, who came up with a fictional Scandinavian country called ‘Doveland’ for a Eurovision parody she runs. She even went as far to come up with a culture and history for it, and actually managed to fool me briefly into thinking that it was a real country. Once I realized Doveland was fictional, however, I praised her anyway, as it reminded me of a cultural showcase from my high school days, that had presentations on various countries, as well as cultural dances, food, and even tarot card readings and a henna tattoo station. I remember wanting to participate in it with a Kyrgyzstan presentation the year my class that got to present, but I never got to, because my folks didn’t like the idea of me doing a ‘stan’ country.

…yeah, I’m from one of those households. I still wish I got to present to this day.

But hey! At least I get to write one of my characters presenting on Kyrgyzstan. Albeit on a middle-school level, not the high-school level I was denied the opportunity to present it on.

For those unaware of what Kyrgyzstan is, it’s a landlocked country in Asia, west of China, that has existed since the 9th century. Despite its close proximity to China, it actually has stronger political ties to Russia, having once been part of the USSR. Its capital city is called Bishkek, and it has a population of around seven million people. If you’re a Westerner that has any prior knowledge of Kyrgyzstan, it’s probably because you’re a user of Sporcle, where the country has become a meme due to how often people get stumped on its spelling on geography quizzes.

Anyways, entering an obscure country into a cultural showcase as a joke, seems like exactly the kind of thing Margo would do. Which is why I wrote her doing so here. Maybe I should also make an artwork of her actually presenting. It’d be funny to see her wearing an outfit she hates, educational for those that want to know about Kyrgyzstan, and also it’d fill the void in my life that’s existed for… over half a decade at this point, of getting to educate people on Kyrgyzstan beyond its place as Sporcle’s biggest running gag.

Since today is a day celebrating pasta, and the script made several references to beshbarmak (a traditional Kyrgyzstani meal that includes egg noodles), I decided to expand on the script here. I kind of have only a beginning and an end of a story here, but hey, at least it’s a way of giving my old work new life.

Speaking of giving older work new life, remember that the comic adaptation of my first Grunvale/OTOG script, “Gaming in the Gild-ed Age”, drops January 22nd on my alternate, art-focused Twitter account, @TheOfficialOTOG! It’s been months in the making, and I hope you enjoy it!

Until then, though, take care, stay safe, get vaccinated, reject crypto, don’t go toucha any Italian ursine’s spaghet, and happy new year.

Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you credit me as the creator of the series.
I assume Ken Laszlo wrote “Don’t Cry”, since he performed it. However, I don’t know what record label released the song. I assume either Time, Memory, or SAIFAM, since that’s what Wikipedia says. It’s hard to find copyright information on obscure media.
The artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).

2022 Was a Bad Year for Artists

[December of 2022 on the strict timeline of ZP-51498. Wendy drives with the Tetrad, up to the Albaneigh Museum of Fine Art]
Gilda: “Here it is.”
[Wendy parks, and the Tetrad begin exiting the car]
Margo: “Museum of Fine Art? What are we doing here?”
Gilda: “They’re hosting an exhibition for art made by robots.”
Margo: “Robots? Cool. How do I make one of these artist robots?”
Gilda: “You shouldn’t want to, Margo. They learn by stealing from actual artists! It’s unnatural, and they’re destroying the livelihoods of the artists they steal from! And they’re duping artists into thinking they’re just a tool to make art look better!”
[beat]
Margo: “So, are they a tool?”
Gilda: “Wendy, pop the trunk.” [she does so, and Gilda picks up the paint cans and paintbrush inside said trunk] “Yeah, they’re a tool. They’re a tool in the same way a getaway driver is a tool for a bank robber.” [slams trunk shut] “Even the Phoenix got duped! They’re past it now, they only use the robots for inspiration and references now. The only moral way to use them. That and educational material that shows how ridiculous robot art looks. But they should’ve woken up sooner!”
April: “Geez, Gilleh, ye soond real radge ‘boot t’is.”
Gilda: “Yes, I am radge about this! And so is the Phoenix. They were the one that got duped, after all. But I’ll tell you what, they need better calibration of their bullshit detector! They fall for a lot of bullshit!”
Wendy: “Hm. Cut them some slack, they thought they were ahead of the curve.”
Gilda: “Yeah, well, they weren’t. Robot art is not the future, it is the present, and once this trend is over, it’ll be the past! It’s already the past for the Phoenix! Except for, again, references and educational material.”
Margo: “You love pop culture of decades before you were born, and yet you’re criticizing things as the past?”
Gilda: “Robot art is not the kind of past that’s cool! It’s the Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher kind of past, the kind of past that was awful even when it was the present!” [holds up paint cans] “And we’re about to make a statement about it.” [hides paint cans and brush in jacket] “Onward!” [the Tetrad walks toward the museum]
April: “I’m nae pa’ o’ yer ‘we’. I jist wanna enjooee th’ m’se’m.”
Gilda: “You can enjoy it until security starts chasing us.”

[inside the museum, Gilda, Margo, and Wendy come up to the robot art exhibit, entitled “Robotic Creations – The Work of the Next Generation of Artists”. Gilda sneers at the name]
Gilda: “Hmmph! Next generation of artists! Not when I get my hands –” [Wendy slaps her hand over Gilda’s mouth. Gilda pushes it away and starts whispering] “Not when I get my hands, my…” [waves hands around, still holding the paint cans by pressing her elbows against them] “…anatomically correct, not-deformed, five-fingered hands, on them!”
Wendy: “Heheh, because they can’t do hands.”
[Gilda, Margo and Wendy walk into the exhibit. Gilda drops her paintbrush, which Wendy picks up and gives back to her… but to slow not to be noticed]
[security guard] “Hey, is that a paintbrush?”
Gilda, Margo, Wendy: “Uhhhhh…”
[security guard]: “Hey, wait a minute, you’re robot art haters! You came to wreck the exhibit, didn’t you?!”
Wendy: “Oh please, they’re made on a computer from stolen images. You can just print more.”
[security guard]: “Boo! You just hate progress!” [into walkie-talkie] “Security to the robot art exhibit! We’ve got more robot haters!”
Margo: “Okay, we better make our move fast. Gilda, you splash that paint on the… paintings? And I and Wendy will smash the sculptures of gnarly-looking hands.”
[the trio run through the exhibit, laying waste to it as the security comes in. Said security turns out to be… hue-man sized robot crayons. That have voices that sound like Verne Troyer and Tom Waits speaking in unison]
[crayon 1]: “DO NOT RESIST THE ROBOT REVOLUTION.”
Wendy: [holding a miniature, mangled interpretation of Donatello’s ‘Saint John the Evangelist’] “Wait, are you… are you a robot crayon? Wow, that’s…” [laughs] “That’s so stupid. Crayons aren’t even any good as an art tool!”
[crayon 1]: “DO NOT MAKE MOCKERIES OF THE ROBOT AUTHORITY.”
Wendy: “The authority is a literal crayon.” [throws the sculpture at the crayon-bot, breaking it in half]
[crayon 1]: “OUCH.” [both halves fall to the floor]
Wendy: “And crayons break easily!”
[the crayon’s top half slowly picks itself up and looks up at Wendy]
[crayon 1]: “CRAYONS CAN ALSO BE MELTED BACK INTO SHAPE. AND IN BETTER COLORS.”
Wendy: “Hey, you’re right! Better colors like –” [stomps and kicks the crayon-bot to pieces, shouting in rhythm with every blow she deals] “Chrome! Grey! Silver! Black! Green! Like the… metal and… wires and… chips and… boards… inside… of… you!” [picks up the sculpture and smashes the robot’s head with it]
[crayon 1]: “CRAYONS CAN BE MELTED BACK INTO SHAPE.”
Wendy: “Not worth it for you!”
Margo: “Eight-fingered arm karate chop!” [another crayon-bot’s tip goes flying]
[crayon 2]: “THAT TIP CAN BE MELTED BACK ON. THESE PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURES ARE STATE OF THE ART.”
Margo: “State of the art, look, dude.” [holds up arm sculpture] “There’s a finger growing out of this thing’s palm.” [pokes said finger into robot’s eyes, smashing them]
[crayon 2]: “HARDWARE FAILURE, CANNOT SEE.”
Wendy: “Hey, maybe we can melt on a pair of eyes for you! Since you things claim melting will solve your problems.”
[crayon 2]: “HARDWARE FAILURE, CANNOT SEE. MAINTAINENCE REQUIRED.”
Margo: [mocking robot’s voice] “Hardware failure, cannot see… another eight-fingered arm karate chop!” [chops the robot again] “And another!” [chops the robot repeatedly, causing it to break to pieces like the first] “Another, another, another, another!” [pauses. Margo looks over the mangled arm and nods] “Actually, say what you will about robot art, I like this arm. It has a weird and cool vibe to it. I’m stealing it.”
[Gilda paints giant red X’s over the paintings she finds. She comes across a piece entitled, ‘2022 – The Year in Memes’, by an artist with a name she finds suspect]
Gilda: “‘Emma G. Stock’?! And it sold? Well! The seller will be getting this piece as a statement against robot art!” [paints X’s over the parts of the image representing Craiyon (for June) and Different Dimension Me (for December). A crayon-bot hops over to where she stands]
[crayon 3]: “CEASE THIS VANDALISM IMMEDIATELY OR FACE PROSECUTION.”
Gilda: “A talking crayon? Have you come to advertise Wild Woody 2?”
[crayon 3]: “…I DON’T UNDERSTAND.”
Gilda: “Heheh, I got you with that one.” [punches the robot so hard that it breaks in half]
[crayon 3]: [laying on the floor] “MAKING WILD WOODY REFERENCES IN 2022 IS FOOLISH.”
Gilda: “Yeah, well, not as foolish as mangling other’s art to call your own.” [looks up at the meme review] “Heheh. Or making a GI Jane reference in 2022.” [chuckles] “Keep my wife’s name out your…” [laughs loud]

I decided to go in a different direction this year with the year-in review, since so much of my art this year used assets generated in Craiyon, something I no longer believe in using as anything more than for the early part of the art process, like in inspiration or in references. You see, me and my social media friend Isaac (Twitter handle @AnimationFan15, drop him a follow, he’s a talented artist) have been, throughout 2022, trying to decide on what are the various memes of every month of the year, after watching a video by @StarGiantPro that detailed what she considered to be the memes of January to April. We both agreed with her choices, and took the torch from there, to fill the spaces of the following eight months of the year.

The memes depicted above are mostly my choices, I don’t know how much Isaac agrees with them. Regardless, here are the memes depicted, described in detail:

January – Elmo vs. Rocco: Elmo’s feud with Zoe’s pet rock, Rocco, became the talk of social media early in 2022, for how irrationally angry the little red Muppet would get at the inanimate object. The feud even became the subject of a Saturday Night Live sketch, which many (include myself) regard as having been so unfunny that it killed the meme.
February – WordGirl: PBS Kids show of yesteryear. I never watched it, but apparently people found this show’s premise strange. Anyways, this month was kind of dry of memes, so this one kind of won out by default.
March – Slapgate: The infamous moment at the 94th Academy Awards in which Will Smith slapped Chris Rock for making fun of his wife Jada Pinkett’s alopecia, skyrocketed to the top of social media late in the month, with many memes and discussions of violence, chivalry, and the Smith family’s personal life, sparked from the incident. I’d even argue the discourse around the moment continued into April, until its own big meme was born.
April – Mr. Enter’s Turning Red review: Mr. Enter’s comment about this 2002-set Pixar film not mentioning the September 11 terrorist attacks made him a laughing stock to all of film Twitter, and spawned many memes tying the film to the historical event. Even at the end of 2022, it is common for someone to trot out a 9/11 joke when the movie comes up in conversation. Unfortunately.
May – ‘It’s Morbin’ Time!’: Misinformation around this non-existent line associated with the film Morbius spread so wide, that it spawned several memes. This meme got so big, in fact, that Sony even briefly re-released the film in theaters. It made barely any money in this re-release… and even its lack of interest in its theatrical release became a big talking point about the film.
June – Craiyon-generated images: AI-generated images took off in 2022 with the public availability of programs such as DALL-E and Stable Diffusion. And at the opening of this Pandora’s box, was DALL-E’s prototype, eventually renamed Craiyon, available to the public without any red tape to get through. June proved to be a month of many people showing off the crazy prompts they put through the crude AI, some funny, some scary, all uncanny as hell. I even used Craiyon to generate some of the assets in my art for a while… something I now regret, as I have said many times.
July – Gentleminions: Largely a TikTok trend, but it did find its way onto Twitter. This meme involved people, mainly high school- and college-aged individuals who grew up with the Despicable Me franchise, dressing up in formal attire to watch Minions: The Rise of Gru. Illumination actually took notice of the film’s older audience; shortly after the film’s release, they announced a banner for releasing animated films for a more mature audience.
August – Ableist posters from school: Particularly posters made by Carson-Dellosa, a company infamous for drawing characters that all have the same giant, soulless, creepy smile. Some people who observed the meme (including myself) even attempted to draw or edit characters to have that infamous smile.
September – The Little Mermaid 2023 discourse: Well, not so much discourse as it was racists complaining about the idea of Ariel, a non-human character who just so happens to resemble a Caucasian redhead, being played by a black actress in her live-action counterpart. Because apparently casting non-white actors as originally white characters, is somehow making it political. Newsflash, white people, whites have been getting cast in originally non-white roles for decades. You can stand to have the opposite happen a few times. Also, it’s not being political. It’s acknowledging people exist.
October – The Super Mario Bros. Movie teaser: Probably the most positive reception any trailer for a film based on a video game has gotten, until the trailer the following month dropped. Aside from Chris Pratt’s performance as Mario receiving mixed reception, everyone was on board with this movie from the moment this teaser dropped. Hopefully the film itself will be awesome.
November – Free Birds: Probably by virtue of this being the only true Thanksgiving movie (as in, movie actually about Thanksgiving, not just set during it) people actually know about, this 2013 film has actually been a meme for a while. But 2022 especially saw people’s feeds bombarded with memes about those turkeys going back in time to the first Thanksgiving, etc. My two cents, this movie sucks, but I’m glad that it’s found a cult following.
December – Different Dimension Me: Tencent’s take on an AI image generator, this particular entry to the trend attempts to turn any image thrown its way, to anime. I saw many people putting images through it, Isaac and I even dabbled with it ourselves. The results, as AI images often are, were uncanny. An image of Flannery I made even resulted in an upside-down character. This meme jumped the shark for me when some jackass put an image of the World Trade Center on 9/11 through the generator. The generator itself also has issues with people and characters with dark skin.

I (Gilda in-universe) crossed out Craiyon and Different Dimension Me due to both being AI programs. As an artist who was an apologist for using AI assets in art for a while, I felt like this was a good opportunity to emphasize that I no longer feel this way. I’ve said it many times before, and I’ll say it again. Craiyon, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, all that stuff. If you want to use that thing for fun, or for references, or for inspiration, there’s no harm in that. But if you’re presenting it as art in any way, you’re going too far. You’re not the maker of that art any more than you’re the guy who made the sandwich you ordered at Subway’s, or the fries you ordered at Wendy’s. You just said the words to get what you wanted from them. You did not make that sandwich, you did not make that burger, and you did not make that AI-generated image. Someone else did, and it’s not cool to pass off others’ work as your own.

As for the rest of the artwork… the background was created the same way as the scenery in my previous upload here. Drawn in black-and-white, and converted to color. I decided to nickname this technique ‘Color Turner’. For how it turns my greyscale assets to color, and also as a joke about Ted Turner and how he attempted to colorize the black-and-white films he owned back in the 1980s.

And that’s it for 2022. See you in 2023, I promise many a great artwork coming your way in the next year. Until then, take care, stay safe, get vaccinated, reject crypto, use AI responsibly, and you all have a… wait a minute.

HOLD UP!!!!!

Right… right. I almost forgot. Heheh.

…

…I’ve actually got one more thing to share with you all.

Consider this the announcement that the OTOG graphic novel series has officially entered production.

I spoke to a friend of mine on Twitter and one of the people I’ve talked to most regarding my work, Wesley (@WesleyHunt2, drop him a follow too, he’s cool). He told me he thinks my series would work best as comic strips that build up to a single joke. I don’t really agree with him on this; I’ve always wanted to be a storyteller with this series, have OTOG be serialized rather than episodic. But I am new to the graphic noveling thing, and I am taking part of his advice. Which is why I’m changing the format of my series, to smaller stories a few pages long and which happen to have continuity between them, rather than epics (by my scope) of scores of pages and hundreds of panels. I don’t want to make myself look like a dummy goober like Margo’s final glasses-less comic. But I still have a story I want my series to tell, and I feel I’ve made my script-writing strengths known throughout 2022.

Anyways, to the details this announcement didn’t make clear.

The first OTOG story written for the graphic novel series, as I’ve alluded to before, is called “Gaming in the Gild-ed Age”, adapted from the first script I wrote involving my characters. It is set shortly after Gilda meets Margo, Wendy, and April in the graphic novel canon, thus, it is not the first story in chronological order, only in production order. However, I feel it still makes for a fitting pilot episode of sorts, considering its source material is itself the first script written for the OTOG franchise. I do plan to have this story published eventually, so I have had to take some liberties with the copyrighted materials depicted in the original script. But I hope you enjoy it when it finally drops on the @TheOfficialOTOG Twitter account, 9PM EST, on January 22.

Buckle up, ladies, gentlemen, and all in between. You are in for a fun ride.

Twitter: twitter.com/StormyAdlerPoG
Instagram: www.instagram.com/phoenix_of_g…
Newgrounds: https://phoenixofgrunvale.newgrounds.com/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCXj2N…
Discord: Contact me by my tag (Stormy Adler, P.o.G.#1752) for an invite to my server.

Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you credit me as the creator of the series.
Sesame Street is owned by Sesame Workshop.
Wordgirl is owned by PBS.
The Academy Awards are owned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; the telecast is aired by Disney on ABC.
Turning Red is owned by Disney through Pixar Animation Studios.
Morbius is owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment through Columbia Pictures; the Marvel brand as a whole is owned by Disney.
The Despicable Me franchise is owned by Comcast through NBCUniversal and Universal Pictures.
The Little Mermaid is… in the public domain. But Disney has their own version of Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 fairytale, which they own.
Super Mario Bros. is owned by Nintendo; the film adaptation is owned by Comcast through NBCUniversal and Universal Pictures.
Free Birds is owned by Disney through their purchase of 21st Century Fox, the original home media distributors of the film.
The artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).

It’s December! Mabrouk!

Original Twitter Upload Date: December 22, 2022

[Albaneigh County Sephardic Temple, Saturday morning during Hanukkah. Rabbi Gabriel Franco gives a speech]
Franco: “I know it’s a hard time for many of us this time of year, having shoved in our faces society’s love of commercialism and gluttony. Quite frankly, it makes me sick as well. You’d think a holiday often called ‘the time of giving’, that originated as a celebration of the birth of somebody known for his charity, would actually be about charity. But charity often goes punished in this cursed society.” [beat] “Well, okay, actually, Christmas originated as a pagan holiday celebrating the Purrsian sun god Mithra, but that’s besides the point.” [points to the vestibule behind the rest of the synagogue-goers] “If any of you would like to do more than the vast majority of the rest of society will, I’m running a donation box in the back. The money will go to the Albaneigh Homeless Aid Center, wonderful organization. Provides housing and food for those less fortunate. That is, when it’s actually donated to. It’s been getting less money in recent years due to the selfishness so prevalent in this modern world. So if any of you would be so kind as to donate your spare change, whether it be a few nickels or hundreds of bucks, it’d be much appreciated. Gracias. Y buena… semana.”
[the synagogue-goers all leave their seats, and make their way toward the exit. Wendy, Nicole, Dolly, and Greg, the former three of whom dressed in 1980s-style suits for the service, begin talking with one another]
Wendy: “I don’t know about you girls, but I like coming here in a suit. It makes me feel important. Plus, I got some pretty good pockets to keep my money.” [pulls out fifty bucks’ worth of Lincolns from her jacket pocket and shows them to Nicole, Dolly, and Greg]
Dolly: [surprised] “Fifty bucks? You’re donating fifty bucks?”
Wendy: “Somebody else needs it more than I do. We shouldn’t forget to do good and share with others, such debts are appreciated, as it’s said in chapter 13, verse 16 of Hebrews. With paraphrasing on my part. And of course, Stella likes to bring up Matthew 25:35 to 36, which isn’t our religion, but they’re still good verses to live by.”
Dolly: “I’ll be donating everything left over from the presents I bought for Hanukkah and Christmas.”
Gregory: “Christmas?! Who would you be buying Chri — oh, right. Stella.” [rolls eyes]
Dolly: “Anyways, I got thirty-three bucks left over.” [takes out wallet]
Nicole: “Ah, dang. I’ve only got a quarter.” [pulls out said quarter from jacket pocket]
Gregory: “You’re still more generous than most of society.” [Nicole puts her hand to her chest and smiles] “As for myself, I’ve got a dollar on me.” [beat] “Alright, let’s do some good.”
[The Wyler sisters and Greg enter the vestibule, and put their money in the donation box. They then head outside, where they find it to be snowing]
Wendy: “Oh, hey, look, it’s snowing.”
Nicole: “Snow! I love snow!” [sticks out tongue to catch some of the snowflakes] “Lehhhhh. Lehhhhh.”
Dolly: [goes cross-eyed as a snowflake touches and melts on her nose. She laughs] “That tickles.”
Wendy: “Hey, you know, it just occurred to me, we haven’t taken a photo yet. Of us in our suits. I think Gilda would appreciate it. Let’s do that before we get in the car.” [points in front of a shrub] “Nicole, Dolly, will you stand over there for a moment?” [Nicole and Dolly do as Wendy says as she pulls out her phone] “And Greg, take my phone, I want you to snap the photo.”
Gregory: “Uh, okay.”
[Wendy takes her place between Nicole and Dolly and puts her hands on her hips]
Wendy: “Alright, girls. I wanna see some smiles here, show those teeth that make you rodents. Say ‘beech’!”
Dolly, Nicole: “Beeeeeeeeeech!”
Gregory: “Beech? Uh, okay, whatever.” [sees the sisters in position on the phone; Wendy is just smiling, not showing her teeth] “Oh, right, showing teeth isn’t really Wendy’s thing.” [snaps the photo]

Happy Holidays, everyone! And if you have a problem with Happy Holidays, then Happy Shut the 🦭 Up. It’s Christmas Day as I post this, and this is a year Hanukkah is going on at the same time. So why not use the opportunity to rebel against Christmas, and post this Hanukkah-set artwork of the Wylers?

Part of the reason I drew this was because I felt you guys deserved better than artwork that had AI-generated assets, to celebrate the holiday season. Gilda as an elf is cute and all, but it’s not cute to have her in a world generated by robots, many of whom probably think she’s a virus upon the earth that needs to be eradicated. Because, you know, robots are often depicted as doing that.

I have enough experience with the fresh pasta effect, that I decided to imitate it here, and try to integrate it into my art style. And by ‘it’, I mean the imitation fresh pasta, not the actual fresh pasta. I still applied the fresh pasta effect to my reference images, to figure out where and how to place the white, black, and three shades of grey as I drew the scenery.

“White? Black? Grey? What white, black, and grey? It looks like full color to me!”

That’s because I colorized the assets with the hue and color effects after drawing them in greyscale initially. Similar to what I did on Auggie Will Prom-ise Margo Anything, but now with a style born from experience using fresh pasta assets. It’s not the most detailed scenery out there, but it captures the general feel of the look I’ve been trying to go for with scenery. Now done by hand instead of by stock and AI images!

As for the snow, it’s just a bunch of white and grey dots made with one of the brushes in ASP, some of which I warped and blurred to make them look like they’re flowing erratically in the wind, rather than just simply falling. The effect turned out pretty cool, all things considered.

Overall, I’m glad I can finally put my AI days behind me. When it comes to using the assets in the artwork itself. As said before, I will continue to use Craiyon to generate references. But no further than that. Further than that is a violation of the First Law of Robotics, which the AIs themselves oughta be programmed to know. Of course, along with the Second and Third.

That’ll be all for this artwork. Next one will be a year-in review… but a bit differently than how I’ve done it the past five years. And also stay tuned in the description of that year in review for… a special announcement. You’ll be excited when you see it. 😏

Until next time, take care, stay safe, get vaccinated, reject crypto, Happy Hanukwanzmas, and have a happy new year.

Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you credit me as the creator of the series.
The artwork was made at a resolution of 3996×2160 (aspect ratio 1.85:1).

The Best Christmas Song, Objective Fact! (not a fact, just her strong opinion)

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The script below is based on an artwork that had assets generated in Craiyon. The artwork itself was made prior to my change of heart about AI being a tool to make art easier. My opinion now, is that AI only has a place in reference material and in shitposts. As a result of its use of AI, I will not be posting the artwork here, although it remains available on my Newgrounds, Instagram, and Twitter. However, I do not wish for this script to go to waste, which is why I am posting it here. As for my other artworks using AI that have scripts associated with them, I will be making a post at a later date that showcases only the scripts.

Enjoy.

[Winter afternoon at the Redfeather commune. Gilda, dressed as an elf, sits at the kitchen table in front of a mirror, admiring her doll-like false eyelashes]
Gilda: “You think elves would look like dolls if they were real, grandma?”
Sharon: “Makes sense to me, Gil. If it’s Christmas elves we’re talking about.”
Gilda: [takes paint brush and stirs it in a cup of red face paint] “Of course, I imagine them being the size of dolls, too. It makes sense that a bunch of tiny toymakers would look at least somewhat like the toys they make.” [paints circles on her cheeks, then stands up to strike a cute pose] “And nowwwww… my cheeks are officially rosy. Don’t I look cute, grandma?” [smiles. The bell of her hat bonks her on the nose] “Whup.” [swats the bell out of her face]
Sharon: “You look adorable, Gilda.” [pats her on the head] “And thanks to you, I know what my own elf self would look like!”
Gilda: [scowls] “No, no you don’t.”
Sharon: “So, you’ve practiced your song, I’d like to think?”
Gilda: “Of course. I’ve memorized it down to the waveform.”
Sharon: “Good.”
Gilda: “That’s not an exaggeration, by the way. I literally have the waveform memorized. Every peak and every valley. ‘I Believe in Father Christmas’ may not be from Perry or Bing or the typical Christmas music guys, but that’s not an excuse to half-ass this performance. If anything, it means bring my A-game all the more. So that others will be more likely to take it seriously as a Christmas song.”
Sharon: “That’s a good mindset to have.”
Gilda: “And because it’s gonna be twenty degrees by the time I go on, I’m going in layers. I got a vest under this and a tank top under that. When the mosquitoes move out of Culex Hill, the frostbite moves in.”
Sharon: “I never was crazy about Culex Hill. Well, not the part of making it an amphitheater. It’s the hottest part of Grunvale in the summer, and the coldest in the winter. Yeah, that’s where to put a place where audiences’ll be sitting for two, three, even four hours. The least comfortable place in town. But, I’ll endure it for you, Gilda.” [pokes Gilda’s cheek]
Gilda: “Woah, careful, grandma, it –” [Sharon notices she got Gilda’s makeup on her finger] “…hasn’t… set yet.”
[Gilda sighs, then dips the tip of the brush back into the cup before dabbing it over the area of washed-off red]
Sharon: “Sorry about that.”
Gilda: “It’s fine, grandma. If I pressed my face against a canvas to leave a print of every time I messed up my own makeup, I’d render Warhol irrelevant. I once looked like a ventriloquist dummy after putting on lipstick.”
Sharon: “Haha! I’d love to see that!”
Gilda: “Margo has the photo of it on her phone.”

Happy Holidays! And if you have a problem with Happy Holidays, then happy shut the fuck up. Here’s my Christmas… script, for the year!

…sorry, I’m tired. I’ve been working six days a week the past four weeks due to peak season at UPS. And also I feel like I said all I need to in the disclaimer. The original image had AI-generated assets, something I no longer believe in using in artwork. That’s also why I have the anti-AI poster above instead of the original artwork. Because I don’t stand by AI. I’d rather suck at backgrounds and be honest that I suck at backgrounds, than violate the first law of robotics to make it seem like I’m better than I really am.

And, of course, I’ll always seek to improve my background design. I specialize in characters, but that doesn’t mean I can’t at least try to create appealing scenery.

That’ll be all for this artwork. Until next time, take care, stay safe, reject crypto, get vaccinated, push for more ethical AI if AI is to be a thing in art, and have a good one.

Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you credit me as the creator of the series.
“I Believe in Father Christmas” was written by Greg Lake and Peter Sinfield for Emerson, Lake, and Palmer’s album Works Volume 2, owned by Warner Music Group through Atlantic Records.
The artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 1.33:1).

Old Duds

The artwork this ficlet originally went with originally used Craiyon-generated assets. As I no longer believe in using Craiyon assets in my artwork, said artwork has been removed.

Original Twitter Upload Date: November 1, 2022.

[Hynde Manor. The Hynde family is away on vacation, and Gilda and Wendy have been instructed to look after the mansion. As they walk toward the building…]
Gilda: “Ah, crap.”
Wendy: “What? What’s going on?”
Gilda: “I forgot Buffett’s mouse back at the commune.”
Wendy: “You did?”
Gilda: “Yeah, I guess I was just in such a hurry to leave I forgot it.”
Wendy: “Well, you better find one! If you raid the fridge for anything, Mrs. Hynde’s gonna know. She keeps track of everything that goes in and out of that thing.”
Gilda: “Don’t worry, I got an idea.”
Wendy: “You do? What’s your idea?”
Gilda: “I hear and feel wild rodents in the walls pretty much every time I’m there. I’ll just hunt down the first one I see.” [opens the door in] “You go take care of the flowers in the garden. Just trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
Wendy: [beat] “Good luck, then.” [walks off to the garden]

[Gilda walks into the manor. She listens for noises as she walks slowly, through the foyer and up the stairs. After reaching the stair second from the top, she hears scurrying, and freezes]
Gilda: [whispering] “The attic, of course! A wild rodent’s taste of civilization.”
[Gilda walks up what little of the staircase she has left to go, and pulls down the lever for the attic. She waits for the staircase to unfold, then walks up it, slowly once again. She turns her head toward the scurrying that she hears, and sees, as her head enters the attic space, a brown mouse, eating a fly]
Gilda: “There you are.”
[the mouse looks at Gilda and runs. Gilda chases them through a narrow passageway among the boxes, until the mouse comes across a small gap in between two boxes in the corner. They try to squeeze through, but Gilda grabs them by the tail and holds them up. They squirm as they dangle from Gilda’s fingers]
Gilda: “Sorry mouse, but my friend’s gull needs food.” [pinches the mouse’s head and twists it back, breaking their neck. She feels the mouse’s chest for a heartbeat. None occurs] “There we go. A fresh mouse.” [looks over to her left, at the pink fiberglass insulation in the wall] “I know my grandma says not to touch it, but… heheh. Grandma’s not here.” [puts her right hand against the fiberglass to feel it] “Ahhhhh.” [goes big-eyed and yanks her hand back] “Ouch! Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow!”
[Gilda runs out of the attic, holding the dead mouse in her left hand while her right is clenched in a fist. On her way out, she knocks over a box marked ‘Russell’s Wedding’, which falls down the attic steps, then stops for a second on top of the foyer steps, before tumbling down them too. On the bottom, it spills out its contents, which include photographs, a VHS tape, three yellow tuxedos, a yellow dress, and some accessories, both masculine and feminine. Gilda runs out of the foyer as the box spills]

[in the kitchen, Gilda washes off her injured hand]
Gilda: “Ow ow ow ow ow! If it’s not supposed to be touched, they shouldn’t make it look like cotton candy!” [wipes hand with washcloth]
Buffett: “Reeawk! Reeawk! Reeawk!”
Gilda: “Here you go, Buffett.” [picks up the mouse and throws it at Buffett, who catches it in his mouth and flies away. Gilda holds her right hand out and wiggles her fingers] “Still itching, hopefully it’ll stop soon.” [sees Wendy walk into the kitchen. She clenches her hand into a fist] “Hey, Wendy. How’s it going?”
Wendy: “Going well. Finished with the roses, now onto… everything else. Heheh.” [notices Gilda’s hand] “Why are you making a fist?”
Gilda: “Um…” [hides hand] “I’m not making a fist?”
Wendy: [rolls eyes] “You stuck your hand in fiberglass.”
Gilda: “No!” [beat] “Yes.”
Wendy: “That was silly of you. Don’t do that. I’ve seen Nicole do that once, she stuck her hand so deep couldn’t hold anything worth a crap for a week. Well, she could. But she groaned with pain every time.” [looks at Gilda’s hand again] “At least you were… wise? Enough to do it with your non-dominant hand.”
Gilda: “I also think I knocked a box over. I think I heard it spill, too”
Wendy: “Well, you better clean it up.”
Gilda: “I wonder what’s inside of it.”
[Gilda and Wendy walk into the foyer to observe the mess the box has left on the floor. Gilda runs ahead to get a closer look at it]
Gilda: “‘Russell’s Wedding’. Oh, right, that uncle of Margo’s that married the oakey tonic dine I don’t know how to say it.”
Wendy: “Awk-ah-tawn-ine.” (Ochotonine)
Gilda: “Right, that.” [looks through the mess] “VHS tape, no label. Mini photo book…” [flips through it] “Haha, look at this, Mr. Shaun dancing like a chicken.” [shows said photo to Wendy; Shaun’s hairstyle in the photo is a short, curly style with frosted tips. Wendy laughs]
Wendy: “Who knew Shaun liked the Justin Timberlake look?”
Gilda: “Tuxedos, one of them’s Shaun’s, of course. Uh… a dress.” [stands up and holds said dress up] “Huh, this must’ve been Mrs. Hynde’s bridesmaid dress.” [looks at the rest of what spilled] “Yellow pumps, white gloves, a turquoise bead necklace, clip-on earrings that look like the necklace, a bracelet that looks like the rest of the jewelry, a wide-brimmed hat like it’s from the 40s — yep, Mrs. Hynde definitely wore this to the wedding.” [looks through the photo book for proof] “And there it is.” [shows Wendy the photo; it features Sally teasing Shaun by sticking a bouquet of flowers in his face… and sure enough, Sally is wearing that yellow dress, and the associated accessories] “You know, why can’t we see more of Mrs. Hynde when she’s all bubbly like this?”
Wendy: “I don’t think she thinks we deserve to see her like that.”
[pause, as Gilda looks over the dress and accessories]
Gilda: “Can I be honest, Wendy?”
Wendy: “Yeah?”
Gilda: “I think I wanna steal this dress.”
Wendy: [beat] “What? You can’t do that!”
Gilda: “Why not? It’s not like Mrs. Hynde ever wears the thing. It was in a box in the attic for gourd’s sake.”
Wendy: “Yeah, but what if she ever decides she wants to go looking for it?”
Gilda: “Right, because she’d want to go looking for a dress she only ever wore once. Also, did you forget that the Hyndes are rich?”
Wendy: “You don’t steal from the rich just because they’re rich! Also, what do you think Margo’s gonna think?”
[Gilda’s phone rings. She pulls it out, and sees Margo is calling]
Gilda: “Shhhhh.” [answers the phone] “Hello?”
Margo: “Go for it. My mom is overdue for a blow to her ego.”
Gilda: “Heh? Uh… what are you talking about?”
Margo: “I’m saying go ahead and steal the dress. It’ll be fun to watch her have a conniption. Just don’t wear it in front of her.”
Gilda: [to Wendy] “Well, look at that. Margo herself doesn’t have a problem.”
Wendy: “W-w-wait a minute, Margo, how did you know we were talking about stealing your mother’s dress?”
Margo: “Because you butt-dialed me. You’ve been on the phone for like two minutes now. Funny it took you till now to notice.”
[Wendy pulls out her phone; sure enough, she’s had Margo on call for about as long as she and Gilda were looking over the contents of the box]
Wendy: “Whoops.” [hangs up]
Margo: “So Gilda, go ahead and steal. Just not my stuff. Oh, and don’t forget to feed my gull. Not that I think you would. And Wendy, keep your phone locked next time. As for me, I’ve got a selfie to take with some guy named Oscar Wilde. Bye.”
[Margo hangs up. After a short pause, Gilda stuffs everything except the dress and accessories back into the box, and carries the box back up the stairs]
Wendy: “If you get in trouble with Mrs. Hynde, I’m not taking any of the fall for you! This is you and Margo’s doing, don’t forget it!”

I completed the script above shortly before the announcement of DeviantArt’s new AI image generator, and had it saved in Sta.sh during my transition to Newgrounds/here. This is the farthest I got on an aborted DA upload; so far I even wrote out the entire script. This description itself, however, is completely original to here. Let’s… let’s get into this artwork.

I don’t think I’ve drawn Gilda in this outfit since Margo gave her the holy grail of Sega console games. Well, at least as far as the Saturn is concerned. In terms of the Genesis, it’s Crusader of Centy, and on the Dreamcast, it’s Illbleed. And on the Master System it’s… *checks PriceCharting* …James Buster Douglas Knockout Boxing? Seriously? But sports fans and video game fans have little to no overlap unless your internet name is SNESDrunk or Sega Lord X!

…back on track to the artwork.

I decided to bring back this outfit, since I was feeling nostalgic, I know how popular this outfit was with some of my followers, and… I wanted to create some lore around it. Namely, that it was originally Margo’s mother Sally’s outfit that she wore to her brother Russell’s wedding. I’ve long headcanoned that the Ketcham siblings married in each year of the first half of the 2000s on the strict timeline; Richard Jr. and Ivy in 2000, Russell and Amy in 2001, Randall and Ebony in 2002, and as already seen, Sally and Harry in 2003, and Shaun and Roxanne in 2004. And, well, consider me saying it now, and doubling down on it on the script above, as me making it canon.

This artwork took approximately 4 hours and 19 minutes to finish total, going by ASP estimates. I also wanted to challenge myself with this piece, see how well I could draw interior shots without tracing or fresh pasta. I also wanted to imitate live-action cinematography elements, in particular the depth of field. Gilda in the foreground and her bed in the background/reflection is blurred, putting her reflection as the main focus of the image. If you look closely at the mirror, you’ll notice I was aiming for realism there too; the edges of the mirror are fogged, and there’s some scuffing and scratches to sell the illusion of an authentic mirror.

The only use of fresh pasta or any assets, stock image or AI generation, is the portrait at the top-left of the frame. It’s a Craiyon generation of ‘Animal Crossing raccoons’, which, full disclosure, I’m surprised there aren’t any. And before you say the Nook family, they’re not procyonines, they’re nyctereutes.

Anyways, the generated image is here because, when looking at only the bottom, and with the image blurred, I feel it looks like a landscape painting. Would Gilda have one in her room? I don’t know, I think she would if it interested her enough.

She definitely would have that dresser with labeled compartments for Game Boar/Boy, Game Gear, and ‘other’ handheld games. What’s in the ‘other’ section? The stuff that can’t be classified as Nintendo or Sega, of course! Like the Lynx and the WonderSwan and the Neo Geo Pocket Color. Yes, Gilda dabbles in imports, what of it?

Overall, glad to finally have this artwork, and this script, out for the public, so I can be one step closer to leaving DeviantArt behind. That’ll be all for this piece, and until next time, take care, stay safe, reject crypto, get vaccinated (I can’t believe that part still needs to be said), remember that not everyone in Florida supports that shit-for-brains DeSantis, and have a good one.

Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you credit me as the creator of the series.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 1.33:1).

Little Wylers

The artwork this ficlet originally went with originally used Craiyon-generated assets. As I no longer believe in using Craiyon assets in my artwork, said artwork has been removed.

Original Twitter Upload Date: November 20, 2022.

[November 26, 2011 on the strict timeline of ZP-51498. The Albaneigh County Sephardic Temple is hosting the b‘not mitzvah celebration of Roz and Maddie Wyler. Eleven of the fourteen candles have been lit]
Roz: “A goofy fella from the commune out west, we brought him here ’cause partying’s what he does best.”
Maddie: “The energy of the hippies he lives around, he carries it with him with a mighty sound.”
Roz, Maddie: “His rebellious spirit is too much for the average ine to handle, this is Terence Grime, here to light the next candle!”
[a spotlight shines on Terence, dressed in an orange tuxedo, as “The Trees” by Rush starts playing. The audience and candle-lighters on stage applaud as he walks up to the stage… except for Wendy and Nicole, who struggle to keep in their laughter as they notice the orange tuxedo he’s wearing]
Wendy: “He looks like pumpkin poop!”
Nicole: “He looks like a marker! You think if he rolled around, he’d paint the floor?”
Wendy: “No. Not when he’s alive. And he’d paint it red if he did.”
Nicole: “Haha, right, he –” [pauses, then reacts with surprise] “Wait, what about painting the floor red?”
Wendy: [beat] “Nothing.”
[Maddie hands the lighter to Terence, and he lights the twelfth candle. He then takes his place on stage next to the Wyler matriarch, Judy]
Terence: [nods] “‘sup, Wyler mama?”
[Judy rolls her eyes as the applause dies down and the song fades out]
Wendy: “Ooh, our turn!”
Nicole: “What do you mean, ‘our’? They might love someone more than us. I mean me. I mean you!”
Wendy: [rolls eyes] “Whatever. Now shush, Roz has the microphone.”
[Wendy and Nicole turn their attentions to the stage as Roz speaks]
Roz: “I describe these next two like Pinky and the Brain; one is a genius, the other’s insane.”
Maddie: “The genius is articulate for one so small, and the insane one is quite the lovable goofball.”
Roz, Maddie: “This next candle goes to Wendy and Nicole, the two sisters of ours who make our family whole.”
[the spotlight shines on Wendy and Nicole as “Our House” by Madness begins playing, and the audience applauds]
Wendy, Nicole: [out of sync with each other and the song] 🎵 Our house! In the middle of the street! 🎵
Nicole: “I know that song, it’s from commercials!”
Wendy: “I think they chose it because it’s about family.”
Nicole: [gets up out of seat] “Hey, let’s dance on our way up.” [holds arms at downward-pointing 90 degree angles as she bobs up and down like a rubberhose cartoon character]
Wendy: “Are you sure we won’t embarrass anyone?”
Nicole: “You the six-year-old not wanting to have fun. You know they’re expecting us to be cute, right? We’re kids.”
Wendy: [pause] “Okay then.”
[Wendy hops out of her seat and puts her arms at right angles like Nicole. The sisters sidestep and bob up and down as they walk toward the stage. Some of the audience gushes at the sight, others such as Judy and Dolly take photos as they walk up. On the stage, Wendy takes her place between Dolly and Stella (taking the former’s hand), and Roz hands the lighter to Nicole. Nicole lights the thirteenth candle before taking her place to Dolly’s other side. She waves to the Grubenstein and Roth families as the music goes quiet; Murphy, Charlotte, and their parents wave back]
Roz: “We bid a thanks for all here tonight, the size of this party is a welcome sight.”
Maddie: “We’ve booked the whole night here for this party, so when we light this candle, help yourself to the soda and the havarti.”
Roz, Maddie: “We wished for a good evening, and the universe came through. This last candle goes to all of you!”
[Maddie lights the final candle as an electro-house remix of “Hava Nagila” starts playing. Gabriel Franco, the cameline rabbi of the temple and who is standing on stage with the other candle-lighters, is surprised by this remix]
Franco: “Oh, my.”
Maddie: “Let us rejoice!” [fist-pumps to the beat as the rest of the party gets up out of their seats and off the stage. Wendy and Nicole run over to Murphy and Charlotte. The Baseball Triad in particular get into a group hug]
Charlotte: “Funny li’l dance ya did, Nicky.”
Murphy: “You two are goofballs!” [beat] “Uh, I mean that in a good way, of course.”
Nicole: “Thanks for coming, by the way. I didn’t think you’d make it.”
Charlotte: “Miss out on hangin’ out with my friend? No way!”
Murphy: “I’ve been to bar and bat mitzvah parties, but a party for two is buh-not something you see every day!” [the Triad and Wendy laugh]
Wendy: “Haha, because b’not mitzvah.”
Charlotte: “Hey, we’ll catch up to ya, Wylers. We’re gonna go help ourselves to punch and wagon wheels.”
Nicole: “Wagon wheels?”
Charlotte: “Cheese sandwiched between crackers. I like to double-decker ’em.”
Murphy: “I like to triple-decker them!”
Wendy: “Hey, while you’re up there, can you get me some chocolate from the fountain?”
Charlotte: “Why, of course, li’l Wendy. I’ll get the acorns and run ’em through –“
Wendy: “No! Not chocolate acorns! I want chocolate! Just chocolate! A cup of straight chocolate!”
Charlotte: “You — ya want… ya want just chocolate?”
[Wendy steps closer to Charlotte and crosses her arms]
Wendy: “Yes.”
[pause]
Charlotte: “…okay then. One cup of… chocolate? Comin’ up in a minute.”
[She and Murphy walk off, toward the refreshments table]
Murphy: “Actually, come to think of it, I’d like straight chocolate too.”
Charlotte: “Latkes and grits, Murphy, not you too! Ugh. Ye’re fixin’ yers fer yerself!”
[Wendy and Nicole stand silently for a moment. Nicole slowly starts dancing, increasingly erratically, and sings badly along to the still-playing “Hava Nagila” house version]
Nicole: 🎵 Da daaa dada ra-da-da, da daaa dada ra-da-da! 🎵
[Wendy starts dancing as well, albeit much more reserved than Nicole, who continues to sing and dance badly]

Hello, WordPress audience! You’ll be excited to know that I’m gonna be focusing more on here. Wix has ruined DeviantArt beyond repair, not that DA was that great a site to begin with, given the multitude of ugly memes, amateur-looking MS Paint art, and gross and weird fetish art that the site is notorious for. But this era of Wix owning the site has been especially bad for it. The Eclipse layout that has made the site unrecognizable and more complicated to navigate (and which I’ve discovered to be half-assed, as the groups and other pages on the site still use the old layout), the site putting NFT protection behind a paywall, and the new AI image generator the site’s implemented. There was enough backlash against the latter that the users are now opted out by default, but it was still the final straw for me. The AI generator shouldn’t be allowed at all, and DA/Wix isn’t doing enough to protect artists from having their work turned into NFTs. So I’m done posting my art there, and will now be posting my art to Newgrounds, as well as using Newgrounds links to display my artwork here. I’m in the process of uploading all the artwork I’ve posted here to Newgrounds, as well as replacing the old DA links with Newgrounds links. Oh, and I’m also salvaging some of my old artwork to upload here. Only the stuff I can look out without cringing, though. Loud House fanfic fanart, you got lucky.

Before I get into this artwork (where there isn’t much to talk about), I’d also like to mention that there’s a glitch going around with art getting mysteriously censored to logged-off viewers of DA. It happened to me, and my friend Jenna (who has also left DA) has also had it happen on her. To those who have decided to stay on DA despite all the shit going on, please report this glitch to the site. The artworks shown in the tweet were never put under a mature content filter, and Jenna is possibly the most wholesome artist on the internet and has never needed a mature content filter on her work. This should not be happening, and Wix/DA needs to be made aware of the glitch so they can patch it out.

Okay, now to the artwork.

This artwork is set five years before Grunvale/OTOG‘s events, as stated in the script. So of course I had to think of how Wendy and Nicole would realistically look at the ages of six and eight respectively. And… what you see above is what I came up with.

The floor asset is the same one I’ve been using for a while, including in the artwork depicting Nicole’s own bat mitzvah party. And the crowd asset, because I suck at drawing crowds, was generated in Craiyon, and color-shifted in various places. And then the fresh pasta effect was applied to these assets, to give them a cartoonish look fitting of my art style. I think this artwork came out successfully, and I hope you enjoy it and the script.

That’ll be all for this artwork. Until next time, take care, stay safe, reject crypto, run like hell from Mariah Carey’s earworm of a Christmas song, and have a good one.

Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you credit me as the creator of the series.
“Our House” was written by Chris Foreman and Cathal Smyth for Madness’ album The Rise and Fall, owned by Universal Music Group through Stiff Records and Geffen Records.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 2880×2160 (aspect ratio 1.33:1).

Burning Secret – Off to the Country Club

Oh, joy, my pre-Grunvale artwork. 😶

At least this piece is one of the better artworks from those days. Hence why I’m preserving it. So, uh… let’s get this over with. 😅

Original DA Upload Date: June 17, 2017.

[Stormy is working on updating his WordPress in the year 2022]
Stormy: “Damn DeviantArt, what were those guys thinking? Implementing an AI program! Do they not realize some of their users are dead?” [sighs] “Alright, guess I’m moving my uploads to this site Newgrounds. Time to update my WordPress with the links to it so I can move on from DA. Starting with my pre-Grunvale art, of course. Which to pick?”
[Stormy goes through the DA uploads from 2016 and 2017]
Stormy: “Hm, a lot of Loud House stuff. Let’s see. Eeny, meeny, miney…” [sees fanart of the fanfiction Burning Secret, “Off to the Country Club”, drawn similarly to a shot from the segment No Guts, No Glori] “You.”
[presses download on OTtCC]
Stormy: “And of course, I gotta copy and paste that description I wrote so long ago. And make some annotations to comment on my 2017 self and how cringe they were.”

For those of you that don’t know¹, Burning Secret is a fanfiction by Samtastic-V3, that I’ve been reading ever since he posted the first chapter. I remember Sam himself telling me it was partially inspired by the South Park episode Butt Out, but personally, it reminds me more of the King of the Hill episode Revenge of the Lutefisk, due to it having what I consider to be a similar plot.

¹ Hey! 2017 me! They don’t know! Especially if they’re reading this on WordPress in the years after!

The plot of the fic is, Lincoln accidentally starts a fire that burns down part of Royal Woods Elementary. Although he’s hailed a hero for pulling the alarm and getting everyone to safety, everyone believes that the fire was arson, and thus Lincoln feels guilty for it. And to make matters worse, someone knows he started the fire, and has threatened to report Lincoln to the police for the so-called arson if he doesn’t do as he says. It’s a pretty awesome and intense fanfic, right up there with Requiem for a Loud and Syngenesophobia² as one of my favorite Loud House fanfics. And I recommend anyone who hasn’t already read it, to read it³. And watch Sam for his awesome work. You won’t regret it.

² Wow. I actually read Brawl in the Family and No Such Luck fics. I’m embarrassed already. No offense to the original author, of course. I’m just commenting on how cringe the Loud House fandom was then, getting Mr. Enter levels of angry about cartoon episodes.

³ Any way you can, of course. Which may involve going to DA.

Anyways, without giving too much spoilers, the seventh and most recent chapter⁴ of Burning Secret has the Loud family going off to Lord Tetherby’s country club, as Lincoln has been named Guest of Honor for the ‘Hero Party’. Before the limo arrives, Lynn Sr. has all the Loud sisters get in line, oldest to youngest, and state the expectations for their behavior at the Hero Party, one by one, as he taps a pool cue on their shoulder.

⁴ At the time this was written, only seven of the nine chapters of the fanfic had been posted to DA.

I don’t know if I’ve ever said this, but I’m a sucker for cartoon episodes where the characters are dressed in formal outfits. I don’t know why, I just am. So of course with the kids dressed in formal attire (and also having an opportunity to draw Lynn Sr., who I’ve come to love as a character thanks to Fed Up and Fool’s Paradise), I felt the need to draw my own interpretation of the scene, re-reading the seventh chapter several times just to make sure I was drawing the sisters’ outfits as Sam had described them. And then my brain basically filled in the blanks as to what their hair and makeup and jewelry would look like. Oh yeah, and I used the scene with Lori dressing and acting like a drill instructor from No Guts, No Glori as a reference for this, of course.

I’m… somewhat impressed with how this turned out⁵. On one hand… I drew Lisa’s ears way too big. I guess I wanted to experiment with what her hair/wig⁶ would look like if it was neatly brushed for a formal event, but I fucked up on figuring out how to draw the ears to go with it. That, and I had to do a lot of last-minute editing to this thing in MS Paint⁷, because I missed a lot of color gaps with the paint bucket tool in the ArtStudio⁸ app, and Lucy’s colors turned out way too… not black, to put it simply, when I saw how the image looked on my laptop. And yes, I know MS Paint is the worst thing ever, but… you probably wouldn’t have known I used it here, had I not told you. Besides, I did do like 99% of the rest of the drawing in ArtStudio. And I wanted to draw Lincoln and Rita in there, but because I didn’t have enough room to draw them in, I had to omit them. So, to compensate, I’m just gonna say that this drawing is from Lincoln’s POV.

⁵ Yes, this was very impressive by my standards at the time, wasn’t it?

⁶ Wow, what a loser I was. Actually paying attention to continuity in The Loud House of all things. Didn’t I also get angry at one point about House of Lies showing Leni with red hair when she said she hated how she looked as a redhead in Anti-Social? Wow, so many layers of cringe. I’m glad I outgrew this show.

⁷ *laughs in GIMP user*

⁸ Oh, right, this artwork is that old. Made in regular-ass ArtStudio. I switched to the Pro version in 2018.

On the other hand, though, other than Lisa, I like how the sisters and Lynn Sr. turned out in my drawing. Don’t know how Sam feels about me swapping Lana and Lola’s places (since Lana’s the older twin), but I think I managed to fit everyone in pretty well. I might need a little practice with drawing Lynn with her bangs back and her widow’s peak exposed.⁹

⁹ The widow’s peak she had in Linc or Swim but not in Head Poet’s Anxiety. Wow, I really took the continuity of this show too seriously.

Anyways, post in the comments below what you think of this drawing. I hope Sam likes it.¹⁰ He did love the work-in-progress version, after all. And read Burning Secret if you haven’t already. It’s awesome.

¹⁰ He loved it. Sam, if you’re reading this, sorry I moved this artwork to here, if that bothers you. I just can’t support a site that wants to make AI of dead people’s artwork. And doesn’t do enough to protect artists’ work from becoming NFTs.

The Loud House franchise is owned by Paramount through Nickelodeon.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 1920×1080 (aspect ratio 1.78:1).

Celebration at Marilyn Springsteen’s (1000 Twitter Followers Special)

Original Twitter Upload Date: October 27, 2022. The script below was originally posted to DA on October 28, 2022, and has been revised from its original version to add story context and fix keyboard errors present in the original version.

Also, the image above is displayed from a Newgrounds link. DA announced they’re implementing an AI in an attempt to steal people’s art, and thus, I will be closing said DA account in the near future. The pieces I’m proud of from my DA days, I’ll be preserving and uploading to Newgrounds. While the uploads here will have their DA links replaced with Newgrounds links. Anyways, onto the rest of the description.

[Marilyn Springsteen’s Retro Diner & Arcade, Albaneigh location, sliding timeline. The Tetrad, dressed in 1950s attire, sit at a table. Gilda watches a turdine/bluebird waiter go around taking orders. As they go into the kitchen, she pulls out a tablecloth and rolls it out over the table; it reads ‘1000’]
April: “A thoosand fo’owahs! Sae much mahr sa’sfahin’ t’ seh than wh’evah-hun’red! ‘specialleh eight-hun’red.”
Wendy: “Tell me about it. I thought we plateaued for good given how long we were stuck in the eight hundreds.”
Margo: “But we didn’t. After that epic struggle, we crossed 900, celebrated with Gilda’s carrot pizza…” [Gilda blushes as Margo points her thumb at her] “..and now, just a few months later…” [points out the tablecloth] “…we’re here. Having crossed the biggest milestone yet.”
Gilda: “Celebrating at the best restaurant in all of Albaneigh county!” [beat] “Objective fact!” [quietly and quickly] “Not a fact, just my strong opinion.” [looks at the tablecloth] “Can we appreciate my attention to detail for a moment? I made sure this ‘1000’ was in Futura font. One of the most popular fonts of 1950s graphic design.” [holds up braids] “And whaddya girls think of my pigtails?” [winks and chuckles]
Wendy: “They’re cute.”
Gilda: “So’s your ponytail.” [Wendy smiles] “I know I said I wasn’t gonna wear these braids much anymore, but I decided to bring them back since it’s fitting for the 50s.”
Wendy: “Good call.”
Gilda: “Margo and April, your hair looks nice too.” [Margo nods and April pats the bottom of her pageboy cut. Gilda sees the turdine waiter coming with the root beer floats] “Whoop, he’s coming.”
[waiter]: [hands out the floats] “Here you go. Root beer floats with vanilla ice cream and colored pasta straws, just as you all asked.”
Gilda: “Thank you, Mr. waiter. Hey, can you do us a favor?”
[waiter]: “Yes?”
Gilda: [pulls out smart flipphone and hands it to the waiter] “Can you take a photo of us? Don’t worry, my phone isn’t as complicated to use as it looks. It just responds to D-pad control as well as touch.”
[waiter]: “Uh, yeah, sure.” [the waiter opens the camera app and tilts the phone sideways] “Ready when you are.”
Gilda: “Okay then. Hands on the glasses, girls! And smile!” [the Tetrad does so] “Wait, open the Rockwell filter, please.”
[waiter]: “Rockwell filter?”
Gilda: “It desaturates the colors to make it look like a Norman Rockwell painting.”
[the waiter scrolls through the list of filters, before seleting the Rockwell filter]
[waiter]: “Okay, got it.”
[Gilda smiles along with the rest of the Tetrad as the waiter snaps the photo]

And to think a year ago at this same point, I was in the 8XXs in terms of Twitter followers. As I was a year before that. The 8XXs proved difficult to break; I ended up staying there for 18 months, which included the entirety of 2021, and didn’t break through until February of this year (although I didn’t post the artwork on DA until March). Just eight months and an art style shift later, I’ve broken through the 9XXs, and made it through the long-awaited 1000-follower barrier.

I wanted to make this artwork look as good as I possibly could, so I used my custom-made lineart brush at half the size I usually use it. I think it helps sell better the anime-inspired look I’ve been aiming to achieve lately. The shadows, too, also look quite nice. This artwork almost looks like what animation Twitter thinks theatrical film adaptations of animated series look like! Heheh.

I managed to make this artwork without resorting to fresh pasta; however, the root beer floats were traced over a stock image and a Craiyon-generated asset. While AI is no replacement for actual drawing, I think it can be a useful tool for figuring out certain proportions and also finding inspiration, as it served for me here. Finally, since I was going for a 1950s theme for this artwork, I brought back the hairstyles from the Thanksgiving special and the rosy cheeks from the April Fools’ artwork, to help further sell those retro-inspired aesthetics. As for the checkered floor with the colored shapes, that’s the pattern from the floor of the diner on my New Horizons island. I haven’t played that game in a while, since… well, the world’s open back up now, and the game has kind of run its course for me. But I’ll always treasure the time I’ve had with the game, and I plan to revisit it one day, for old time’s sake. Oh, and I’ve always intended on using its floor design for Marilyn Springsteen’s. It was here, though, that I finally got to do that.

Anyways, thanks for getting me to 1000 followers, all who helped me reach that point. Here’s to the next 1000, and hopefully no more prolonged plateaus in viewership and followers. Next will be the All Hallows’ special. Until then, take care, stay safe, reject crypto, vote blue, I’m hungry/thirsty for a root beer float now, and have a good one.

Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you credit me as the creator of the series.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).