Original Twitter Upload Date: April 27, 2022. The script below was originally posted to DA on April 28, 2022, and has been revised from its original version to add story context and fix keyboard errors present in the original version.
[August 13, 2016 on the strict timeline of ZP-51498. The Albaneigh County Sephardic Temple is hosting the bat mitzvah celebration of Nicole Wyler, which, lucky for her, fell right on her 13th birthday. As Nicole dances with her boyfriend, the perameline Murray Rose, to “Lady” by the Little River Band, Holt Klug, Murray’s sciurine friend and baseball teammate, fixes himself some strawberry lemonade from the refreshments table about thirty feet away] Dolly: “Um, ‘scuse me, don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Holt: “Uh, what?” Dolly: “I mean, well, don’t you think you’ve had enough of the lemonade? I’ve seen you have like ten full glasses already.” Holt: “Well, I’ve seen you have sixteen glasses of it, toots. I’ve been counting!” [Dolly opens her mouth, but can’t think of anything to say] Gregory: “He’s got you there, Dolly.” Dolly: “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. But can you blame me? Strawberry’s just so deli –” [to Holt] “W-w-wait a minute, ‘toots’? Did you just call me ‘toots’?” Holt: [blushes] “Uh… maybe? Uh… Dolly, you’re so hooooot!” [Dolly blushes. Gregory is dumbfounded by Holt’s behavior. Roz and Maddie are standing nearby; the latter recognizes Holt] Maddie: [walks up and speaks to Holt] “Hey, I know you. You’re Holt Klug, aren’t you?” Holt: “Yeah?” Maddie: “Holt as in brother of Hoyt of the Clark Salmons football team?” Holt: “He’s gonna be on the Iwerks Rushin’ Quartzes next month, but yes.” [pauses, then glares] “Wait a minute, you’re that girl who cheated on him, aren’t you?!” Maddie: “That’s how he took it, but I’m polyamorous.” Holt: “Poly… amo –“ Maddie: “Meaning I like having multiple boyfriends at once. Look, kid. I know how your kind thinks. You’re at that age where every doe and sow, every female you see is hot to you. But my sister Dolly here’s a grown lady, with a fiancée. Way too old for you. You stay in your area of the sea and stop being a shark in Dolly’s.” Dolly and Gregory: “Thanks, Maddie.” Maddie: “How old are you, anyway, kid? Thirteen?” Holt: “Uh-huh. Turned thirteen ten days ago.” Maddie: “Yeah, you should only be looking for girls your own age. The rule is half your age plus seven. For you, that’s thirteen. Or fourteen, depending on how you round.” [looks over at Nicole and Murray; she grabs Holt’s head and turns it so he’s also looking at the young couple] “Why not my sister Nicole?” Gregory: [mildly but visibly disturbed] “Huh?” Dolly: “Maddie, what are you doing?!” Maddie: “Hey, you never know. Nicole might be poly, too.” [to Holt] “You should go talk to her.” Holt: “But my friend Murray’s already taken her!” Maddie: “If I know my sister well, and I do, then I expect that she’s willing to open her heart to another boy. As well as the one she’s already got. Nicole’s not the kind who replaces anything, she’s the kind that accumulates everything.” Holt: “If you say so. I mean, she does look pretty.” Maddie: “I do say so!” [pushes Holt onto the dance floor; Holt covers up his lemonade] “Now get out there, Quasimodo!” Holt: “Quasimodo?” Maddie: “Because you look like Quasimodo, the Disney version. The one that gets the happy ending!” Holt: [beat] “Not the nicest thing to call me, but I’ll take it!” [“Lady” fades out, and “Never Tear Us Apart” by INXS begins playing] Holt: “Ooh, INXS! Now that is music!” [unintelligibly hums the music as he walks up to Nicole and Murray] 🎵 And they could never, tear us apa — 🎵 [quickly lifts glass… sending the lemonade splashing into Nicole’s eyes] “OH SHIT!” Nicole: “OWWWWW!!!” [falls to the floor, covering her eyes] “My eyes, they sting!” Holt:[puts glass in his jacket] “Oh, no! Nicole! I burned your eyes!” [kneels to Nicole’s level] “I’m so sorry!” Murray: “Um… I’ll go… get a washcloth?” [walks off] Holt: “Are you okay?” Nicole: “Uh, yeah, I’m fine, J-Cans pitcher. Whatever your name is.” [twirls whiskers back into place] “What’s your name again?” Holt: “It’s Holt. Holt Klug. I’m a friend of Murray’s. Can I help you back up?” Nicole: “Sure.” [Nicole takes Holt’s hand, and he lifts her back up. As they stand up, they stare into each other’s eyes] Holt: “Um… did… did anybody ever tell you how beautiful you look?” Nicole: “Did anybody ever tell you how handsome you look?” [the two blush and smile at each other as they realize they’ve fallen in love. A panicked look then comes to Nicole’s face] Nicole: <Crap, I’m poly!> “Um… you better go.” Holt: “What?” Nicole: “I said you better go.” [nervously pushes him away] “Bye, Holt, I love you! I mean like you! I mean it was nice talking to you!” Holt:[confused] “Um… it was nice talking to you too?” [walks away as Nicole nervously waves goodbye] Nicole: “Whew. Dodged a bullet. Now where’s Aussie baby?” Murray: “Right here.” [hands washcloth to Nicole] Nicole: “Ah. Thanks, Holt.” [rubs her eyes with the cloth] “You’re real life saver, you know that?” Murray: “…Holt?” Nicole: “Wait, did I — oh. Haha. I mean Murray! Thanks Murray you’re a life saver!” Murray: “Nicole? Are you okay?” Nicole: “Yes, yes I’m perfectly fine now! I was always fine! Let’s get back to dancing, Aussie baby!” [tosses cloth on the floor and grabs Murray by the hands. Though visibly confused, the latter smiles and gets back to dancing with Nicole, as “I’ll Never Find Another You” by the Seekers begins]
The main reason I made Nicole (and Roz and Maddie) polyamorous, was as a response to fandoms arguing who to ship with a certain character. The Amphibia fandom is the biggest inspiration behind the idea; I’ve seen Sashanne supporters, Marcanne supporters, and Sasharcy supporters, as well as lesser numbers of Sprivy and Spraddie supporters. For the latter, probably because the show itself settled on Ivy as a girlfriend for Sprig, even giving the couple a segment in season 3 called “Sprivy”.
Anyways, the Amphibia fanbase’s weird obsession with shipping, was what led to the idea to have Roz, Maddie, and Nicole (most prominently the latter), be into having multiple relationships at once. In Nicole’s case, her boyfriends are Murray Rose, the perameline/bandicoot shortstop of the Kahl Junior Canaries that Nicole has had a crush on since she was ten, and Holt Klug, the sciurine/squirrel pitcher of the Junior Canaries, who is Murray’s friend and Nicole has had a crush on since meeting him at her bat mitzvah celebration, as depicted above.
Now to the artwork!
Since drawing Mabrouk to Wendy!, I’ve had this idea that the star-shaped earrings are hand-me-downs, originally worn by the Wylers’ mother, Judy, for her bat mitzvah celebration in the 1980s, and later passed down to Dolly, Roz, Nicole, and eventually Wendy for theirs (Maddie’s ears are not pierced). So as a bit of continuity, I decided to have Nicole wear the earrings here. I also have her wearing a Karner blue butterfly brooch (the Karner blue is a large topic of concern for conservationists in New York’s Capital Region), and her hair is decorated with peanut leaves, as peanuts are stereotypical baseball park food, and Nicole, as I’ve stated before, is a baseball player.
Also, on a side note, the similarities between Nicole’s outfit here and the Tetrad as a 1960s-style girl group, kind of makes me want to draw Nicole and Wendy together performing as 1960s-style singers. I think that’d be cute.
I managed to draw all the scenery in this artwork without resorting to fresh pasta textures, with the exception of the wooden floor in panel IV, which wasn’t even made for this artwork specifically anyway. For the most part, all it took this time was studying the background of the aforementioned “Mabrouk to Wendy!”, to figure out how to draw something that looks similar. Speaking of panel IV, I also drew a crude Dolly and the top of Wendy’s head, to make the scene feel less empty. Panel V, on the other hand, has pixels rendered, stretched, and blurred, to give the effect of partygoers.
Finally, there’s panel VI. The panel containing a new technique, that I only discovered while drawing this artwork. I found out that the pens in ASP, can actually be set to be horizontally or vertically symmetrical in their place on the canvas, which makes things a lot easier, considering I’ve previously used a combination of the rectangular marquee and copy/paste tools to achieve symmetry, and I didn’t get to see what the symmetry would look like until after. I used this new and more efficient method of symmetry to create a romantic-looking background fitting for Nicole and Holt, decorated with infinity symbols (as a reference to both being on the spectrum), baseballs (as a reference to both loving baseball; the detail didn’t make it into this artwork), abstract representations of their initials (also obscured here), and of course a giant heart in the center. I think it turned out beautiful; I’ll show the whole background off in my blooper thread.
Overall, this comic turned out cute. It’s a cute comic of a cute couple’s meet cute. Heheh.
Anyways, that’ll be all for this artwork. Until next time, take care, stay safe, get vaccinated, reject crypto, 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 Grunvale. “Never Tear Us Apart” was written by Andrew Farriss and Michael Hutchence for the album Kick, owned by Warner Music Group through Atlantic Records. All six panels of this artwork were made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1). Panels I, II, IV, and V have been scaled down to 1080p for narrative and resolution purposes.
Original Twitter Upload Date: March 28, 2022. The script below was originally posted to DA on April 12, 2022, and has been revised to add story context and fix keyboard errors present in the original version.
[August of 2003 in Boarston, MA, on the strict timeline of ZP-51498. Shaun Ketcham, wearing a tuxedo and his hair in a Ty Pennington-style cut, runs toward the flower shop] Shaun: “Hair clip, hair clip, hair clip, hair clip!” [barges in] “HAIR CLIIIIIP!!!” [pants heavily. He sees a nearby coccinelline/ladybug, wearing a dark green apron, sorting the shelves] “Hey! You, ma’am! Is my sister’s hair clip ready?” [the coccinelline turns toward him, shown to be male, with Billy Idol-style spiky blonde hair, a mustache, and a prominent chin. He looks annoyed] [flower shop employee]: “You talking to me?” Shaun: [blushes in embarrassment] “Oops.” [beat] “Um… hello. Sir. Is my sister’s hair clip ready, the one with the red hibiscus? It’s urgent, she’s due to be married in…” [pulls out cell phone] “…about two and a half hours.” [flower shop employee]: “Sister? Married? Oh, wait a minute, I know you. Your sister’s marrying Angus Hynde’s boy, isn’t she?” Shaun: “Yes, yes, that’s her! Her name’s Sally, I’m her brother!” [flower shop employee]: “Hey Crown! Her brother’s here!” [a male procyonine, with glasses, brown curly hair, and a similar green apron, comes out of the back room] Crown: “Who’s brother?” [flower shop employee]: “Who’s brother you think? Sally Ketcham’s!” Crown: “Harry Hynde’s fiancée — yep, yep! I got it!” [goes to get the hair clip] Shaun: “Well, actually, this evening, it’ll be Sally Hynde. She’s taking Harry’s name.” [flower shop employee:] “Well, congratulations.” Shaun: “Don’t congratulate me, congratulate my sister.” [flower shop employee:] “Your sister’s marrying into rock music royalty. That makes you rock royalty too. Embrace it.” Shaun: “This is my sister’s accomplishment, not mine.” [Crown comes up carrying the hair clip; true to Shaun’s description, it bears a giant red hibiscus] Crown: “Here you go, Mr. Ketcham. Your sister’s hair clip.” Shaun: [takes the hair clip and looks at it] “It looks beautiful. It’ll compliment my sister’s hairstyle beautifully.” [flower shop employee]: “How is she wearing her hair, exactly?” Shaun: “If you must know, she’s wearing a 1940s style with giant curls on both sides. [sets the clip on the windowsill and pulls out his wallet] ‘Victory rolls’, she calls them. They’re the style some doe called Ingrid Bergman wore in a movie called Notorious.” [flower shop employee]: “Oh.” Crown: “That sounds nice.” Shaun:[takes out a Franklin out of his wallet and hands it to Crown] “Anyways, here’s a hundred for your work.” Crown: “Um, your sister already paid for that clip.” Shaun:[puts wallet back in his pocket] “Take it anyway, you’re not paid enough. Byeeeee!” [picks up the clip and runs out of the store] [beat] [flower shop employee]: “He forgot to sign for his order.” [Shaun barges back into the store] Shaun: “I forgot to sign for my order!” [goes to the checkout desk and signs the order sheet] “Okayforrealnowbyeeeee!” [Shaun runs out of the store again, this time for good. He fastens the clip to his lapel and runs across several lanes of traffic. Not a problem for him, as he’s a leporine and thus can cross quite quickly. He makes it to the other side of the road, where the Sheraton Boarston hotel stands. As he walks up to the hotel, he sees a bus bearing a Rugrats: Go Wild ad… which he isn’t happy to see] Shaun: “They canceled Invader Zim, but they made a third Rugrats movie? Geez, Nickelodeon sucks!” [looks up at the hotel] “Now, which is it? Third floor, one, two, three… four from the left! That’s her room! Here I come, sis!” [leaps in the air]
[in the hotel room, Sally and Shaun’s sisters-in-law, Ivy (the angora leporine/rabbit), Amy (the ochotonine/pika), and Ebony (the black-tailed leporine/jackrabbit) are helping Sally get ready for the wedding. The sisters-in-law are all in their bridesmaid dresses and Sally is in her bridal gown, putting on her jewelry] Amy: “The son of the Beef of the Leaf, that’s who you’re gonna call your husband. You must feel really special, Sally.” Sally: “Honestly, I was nevah really a fan of Myxoma. It’s hair metal production valyahs given to songwritin’ that I can only describe as the poah buck’s Phil Collins. Who himself’s a poah buck’s Petah Gabriel.” Ivy: [wincing] “Yikes.” Sally: “At least Harry’s music sounds nice. It sounds like Train with a touch of Oasis. That and he could use a lawyah like me to keep him outta trouble.” Ebony: “Train and Oasis, that’s the kind of music you like?! Wow, that’s lame.” Sally: “Says the doe that keeps playin’ “I Believe In a Thing Called Love” at every oppahtunity.” Ebony: “Hey, don’t shit-talk The Darkness!” Sally: “Their singah sounds like a crocodile’s bitin’ his junk.” Ivy: “You said the same thing about Prince and “Kiss”.” Sally: “Only about the last thuhty seconds of that song. That Dahkness one is a whole song of someone soundin’ like that!” Ebony: “Oh yeah? You’re gonna trash my Justin? Well, uh… Chad Kroeger sounds constipated when he sings!” Sally: [beat, then starts laughing] “Pffft. That’s yoah comeback? I actually agree with ya about Kroegah.” Amy: “Girls, girls. Can we not argue about music and just be happy for our sister-in-law on finding love? And also that the Beef’s son is about to be our brother-in-law?” [beat] Ivy: “I can.” Ebony: “Yeah, I can too.” Amy: “Good.” Sally: “Amy, Harry’s not gonna be yoah brothah-in-law. Or yoahs, Ivy, or yoahs, Ebony, eithuh. He’s just gonna be my brothahs’ brothah-in-law.” [the does hear a thumping against the window. Ivy pulls the curtains to see Shaun standing on the few inches of windowsill, holding on tight to the space above him. This sight mildly startles the bridesmaids, while Sally reacts like she was expecting her brother to do this] Amy: “Woah.” Sally: “Speakin’ of which.” [walks over and opens the window] “Hello, brothah o’mine.” Shaun: [climbs into the room] “Afternoon, Sally. And Ivy, and Amy, and Ebony, and… hey, where’s Linda?” Sally: “She’s helpin’ downstairs in the banquet hall, gettin’ the tables ready.” Shaun: “Aw, dang it. I was hoping I’d check up on her here, make sure we’re still on good terms.” Sally: “Of coahse the two of ya are on good tahms. Ya had to break it off ’cause of yoah job, you and I are still friends with ‘er, everything’s fine.” Shaun: “Ah, okay, good.” Ebony: “How’s it going, Peter?” Shaun: “It’s going good, Ebo — wait, Peter? Why did you call me — oh. Because Peter Parker. Haha. I’ll admit it, that’s a good one.” [beat] “Of course, I prefer Wonder Boys as a Tobey movie myself. And guess which one my sister likes. She probably made you watch it.” Ebony: “I know which one you’re talking about. And yes, she did. What a way to hold a bachelorette party, turning it into movie night.” Amy: “I can understand why your sister likes that movie so much.” [Sally looks over at the TV shelf in the room; a Pleasantville VHS is lying beside the tube] Ivy: “I liked it too. Love the costumes in it. And Randy Newman’s score, of course.” Shaun: “Would you believe it’s not even her favorite movie?” [Ivy, Amy, and Ebony look at each other] Amy: “Well, if she talks up a movie that isn’t even her favorite the way she did, then I’m curious to know what her favorite movie actually is.” Ivy: “It’s something Douglas Sirk, isn’t it?” Sally: “No, actually, Ivy, it’s My Cousin Vinny.” [beat. the sisters-in-law are visibly surprised] Ivy: “My Cousin Vinny? Isn’t that with the Karate Kid?” Sally: “Yep. It’s also the movie that got me interested in law. I still remembah back when Shaun and I were ten, oah fathah let us go to the movies by oahselves foah the fahst time. We were supposed to see some kiddy flick called Rock-a-Doodle, but I talked Shaun into sneakin’ into My Cousin Vinny. I wanted to see it ’cause the Karate Kid and Harry from Home Alone were in it. Little did I know I’d come out of it interested in the legal system and how it wahks.” Amy: “Well, it’s definitely a good one to call your favorite.” Sally: “What can I say? It depicts the legal system in a respectful and accurate mannah, and yet it’s still effective as a comedy. Ivy, you’ah a theatuh grad, you can attest to comedy bein’ difficult to write, can’t ya?” Ivy: “By far the most difficult genre to write.” Sally: “I can go on and on about how much I love that movie. But, we’ve got a weddin’ to get ready foah, in…” [looks at the alarm clock next to the bed] “Crap, that close already?” [to Shaun] “Shaun, ya got my hair clip from the florist, didn’t ya?” Shaun: “The one where the dude ladybug works?” [pulls the clip off his jacket] “Uh, yeah. You were looking at it the whole time.” [beat; Sally looks embarrassed for not noticing] Sally: “Ohhh.” [chuckles, then sits down in the chair in front of the vanity mirror] “And his name’s Lars, by the way. The ‘dude ladybug’. His name is Lars.” Shaun: “Lars. Okay.” [Shaun prepares to put the clip in Sally’s hair, but pauses to look in the mirror. He focuses on Sally and the various details of her ensemble. Her hair, tight curls of strawberry-blonde. Her eyes, bearing voluminous, swooping lashes from lids painted blue like her eyes. Her lips, a bright and shining ruby. Her jewels, deeply shimmering sapphires. And her dress and gloves and shoes, a blinding white like snow. Shaun is overwhelmed by his sister’s beauty; he takes a deep breath and stares at his own reflection, as he slowly and clumsily slides the clip into his sister’s hair] Sally: “What? What’s takin’ so long, brothah?” Shaun: “Wow, Sally. I mean, wow.” [sets his hands on her shoulders] “First getting into Harvard, and now marrying the son of the Beef of the Leaf. I don’t know who should feel more special, you for achieving such things, or me for getting to be born with you and watch you grow into what you’ve become.” [Sally blushes and smiles] “Is… is it okay for me to feel special on your big day?” Sally: “Of course it is, Shaun. Foah the reason you said you should feel special, yes, it is okay.” [stands up and hugs Shaun, Shaun hugs back. The sisters-in-law are overwhelmed by how cute the twins’ hug is] Shaun: “I love you, sis.” Sally: “I love ya too, brothah.” Shaun: “I wish you and Harry many happy years together.” Sally: “And I wish the same foah ya. And whoevah’s the doe that’ll see ya as hubby material.”
[October of 2004 in Grunvale, NP, on the strict timeline of ZP-51498. Sally, dressed in a green, 1950s-style outfit, has a surprised look on her face as she watches Shaun’s bride-to-be, Roxanne Sumner (a peach-colored brunette Holland Lop a half a foot taller than Sally), get dressed into her wedding outfit… a puffy white blouse with white, Katharine Hepburn-style pants] Sally: “So, you’ah the doe who sees my brothah as hubby material.” Roxanne: “Of course I do. Shaun’s a total boss! I always hear him cheering me on when I’m playing for the Dribblin’ Quartzes and he’s selling the hot dogs. ‘BOOM SHAKALAKA!’. Really speaks to the NBA Jam fan in me.” Sally: “All my brothahs like that game.” Roxanne: “That, and he’s good at taking basketballs to the stomach.” [beat] Sally: “What.“ Roxanne: “It’s a ritual we have at Iwerks. We get somebody to dress as the opposing team’s mascot, they walk across the court, and we all throw a bunch of basketballs at them.” Sally: “That sounds horrific!” Roxanne: “Eh, it’s all in good fun. Besides, it’s a full-body costume, head and body, really sturdy and reinforced. The costume takes more of the blow than whoever’s wearing it. Unless it’s like, really damaged.” [beat] “We’ve been getting Shaun to do it because he barely reacts to getting hit. And he’s a good challenge as a target, given how fast he runs.” [chuckles] “And the team thought a leporine couldn’t do the job.” Sally: [rolls eyes] “So that’s what my brothah’s been doin’ lately.” Roxanne: “He’s also very funny and sweet. He even tended to my foot after I sprained my ankle. And he makes a great casserole, too.” Sally: “Shaun always was the nice one among my siblings and I. And he was also the only one of us who took home ec instead of shop. Which turned out well foah him, ’cause he ended up the best cook in the family.” Roxanne: “And way better than me, too. Who also took shop.” [steps into a pair of white high heels] Sally: “So… pants.” Roxanne: [chuckles] “Yeah. I’ve always been a bit non-traditional. You like them?” Sally: “I’m moah used to the idea of weddin’ dresses, but it’s whatevah you want. Not what society expects of ya.” [Roxanne stares at her silently] “Ya look nice in what you’ah wearin, though.” Roxanne: [smiles] “Thanks.” Sally: “I’m guessin’ you’ah goin’ pretty minimalistic on the makeup, too.” Roxanne: “Yeah, just mascara and blush and a peach lip gloss. I don’t want my face looking all painted and feminine if the rest of me isn’t.” [pulls out said mascara and begins applying it to her lashes] “Those’ll be interesting photos for my future kids to see, won’t they, eh, Sally? Their mama wearing a shirt and pants as a bride.” Sally: “Oh!” [lightly touches belly] “Right! Kids!” [to self] “I haven’t broken the news to Shaun yet.” Roxanne: “You okay there, Sal?” Sally: “Yeah, I am, just… I’ll see you at the ceremony, Roxie. Byeeeee!” [runs out of the room to find Shaun] Roxanne: [calling out to Sally] “Don’t let Shaun see me, okay?”
[on a porch outside, Shaun, with head and facial hair resembling that of Chad Kroeger, looks over the railing as he talks with Roxanne’s own twin brother, Richard] Shaun: “Can’t believe I’m only three hours away from becoming the last of the Ketchams to marry. And that I’m about to have two brothers named Richard. On top of also having a father and a nephew named Richard!” Richard S.: “Well! Sounds to me you’ve got a real… rich family! Haha!” Shaun: “Uh, yeah. I do. My sister is the wife of Angus Hynde’s son.” Richard S.: “Oh. Right. Pun backfire!” [slaps himself in the head] Shaun: “You could’ve had a V8.” [beat] “Gotta say, going the route of having each other’s twin as groomsbuck and bridesmaid was a good idea. Roxanne gets to know my sister better, and I get to know you better. And from hanging out with you for the past day… well, you certainly know how to party.” Richard S.: “Yeah, I have that reputation in my circles. I’m a real party buck. So is Roxie, but I’m better at throwing them. Hahaha!” [Sally barges in, opening the screen door] “Oh, hi, Sally. What’s the word?” Sally: “Hi, Richard. I’m gonna need to talk to my brother. Privately.” Richard S.: “What? Uh… okay.” [gets up and walks out the door] Sally: “And get out of earshot, okay? Maybe check on Roxie and see how she’s doin’.” [closes the door] Shaun: “Wait, what’s going on?” Sally: “I, uh… I just wanted to check up on ya, see how you’ah doin’. Thought you might be feelin’ nuhvous.” Shaun: “Well, as a matter of fact, I am.” Sally: “Well, ya don’t really need to be. Roxie loves ya, and ya love her. What’s theuh to be nuhvous about?” Shaun: “I guess I’m nervous to see how beautiful she looks.” Sally: “She looks very beautiful, Shaun. The most beautiful ya’d evah seen her.” Shaun: [blushes] “Oh.” [beat] “I’m gonna be taken in by her beauty, aren’t I? I… I hope I don’t get so taken in I screw up the vows or the kiss or anything.” Sally: “You won’t, Shaun.” [puts arm around Shaun] “You won’t. And hey, listen to me.” Shaun: “Yeah?” Sally: “If ya get nuhvous durin’ the ceremony, just remembuh that in about eight months, you’ll be an uncle.” [Shaun’s eyes get big. Sally holds up three fingers] “To triplets!” Shaun: “Triplets? Wait, hold up! You mean to tell me you’re pregnant?!” Sally: “Yes, yes I do mean to tell ya that. They should be comin’ sometime late June, the doctahs said.” Shaun:[eyes welling up with tears of joy] “You’re gonna be a mama. My sister’s gonna be a mama! Woo!” [beat] “Have… have you figured out any names yet?” Sally: “I’m not that fah along yet, Shaun. But if ya may ask, I’m countin’ on at least one of them bein’ a girl. Something tells me I should name whatevah girl I get ‘Margo’. What do you think?” Shaun: “Margo? Like our aunt we never see?” Sally: “Yeah, like her. But I kinda wanna go with a theme.” Shaun: “A theme?” Sally: “Ya see, both mine and Harry’s names go, consonant, A, double consonant, Y. And I want my kids to have names followin’ the same foahmula. I’ve got a feelin’ the girl’s gonna be rebellious, though. So I’m thinkin’ ‘Tamra’, T-A-M-R-A, as the first name. It can still be nickname-ified into ‘Tammy’. And then ‘Margo’ can be the middle name. What do you think?” Shaun: “‘Tamra Margo’, huh? Well, it is a nice name. Quite tomboyish-sounding. But trust me when I say I know girls. If she’s gonna rebel about her name, it’s gonna be the middle name she uses. If you’re lucky.” Sally: “Well, then at least she’ll still have the birth name that follows the theme in spirit. If… if I even end up with a girl.” [laughing] “Let alone a rebellious one.” [chuckles] “Any suggestions ya have foah the othah two?” Shaun: “Well, keeping that formula in mind, and assuming it’s a boy and another girl…. how about ‘Paddy’ and ‘Molly’?” Sally: “Paddy Hynde. And… Molly Hynde. I… love it! Paddy ’cause the name’s Glirish like me and Harry, and Molly ’cause the name means ‘pearl’ like my favorite gemstone!” [looks down at belly] “Oh, now I’m countin’ on my babies bein’ a boy and two girls!” [looks at Shaun; a nervous look comes to her face] “I… I haven’t made this weddin’ about me already, have I?” Shaun: “No, it’s fine. If anything, you gave me reason to be excited and not anxious. I’m about to marry a beautiful doe, and we’re gonna be the favorite uncle and auntie of…” [takes a deep breath, looking at Sally’s belly] “…your kids. Wow.” [holds hands to chest] Sally: “Well, I’d better go off now. See ya at the chapel, brothah. I wish you and Roxie good luck on yoah marriage.” [pinches Shaun’s cheek before going back inside. Shaun puts his hand to his pinched cheek as Sally closes the door behind her] Shaun: “My sister is carrying the grandkids of the Beef of the Leaf. And I’m gonna be those kids’ uncle. I’m Myxoma’s heirs’ uncle. Wow.”
Well, that was a long one. Truth be told, Part of the reason I made this comic was because I wanted to see if the script format works for multi-panel comics as well as single-panels. The comic itself, well, it ended up more of a diptych than a comic. A diptych of Shaun talking with Sally before her wedding, and Sally talking with Shaun before his. But the script part, yeah, it can work out. Probably best as an extended version of the story the comic’s already telling, but there’s a use for the scripts even on multi-panel comics.
Oh, and of course, panel I shows younger versions of Ivy, Amy, and Ebony from… well, you’d know them best from last year’s Easter artwork. Amy and Ebony are still largely recognizable, but Ivy has some noticable differences even disregarding this is her younger self, whose eyesight hasn’t yet deteriorated to the point of needing glasses. Namely, that her ears don’t lop anymore. This change was made to be more accurate to actual Angora rabbits. I’ve long gotten used to drawing leporines with lopped ears, regardless of if they’re a lop-eared breed or not. And this was a good way to break that habit.
Finally, as you can probably guess, it was the first panel that took up the majority of the work for this piece. Placing the fresh pasta images in a believable manner, making the reflection in the mirror, working in barely visible details like the glow of the lamps against the wall and the lower part of Ivy’s leg, showing the makeup on the shelf to make the scene feel more lived in. It took… no less than eight hours total of work, I’d like to say. Whereas panel II is just Sally, Shaun, and fresh pasta of a forest and a balcony railing. Not that I’m less impressed by the second panel or anything, I think both panels of this comic/diptych compliment each other well.
Anyways, that’ll be all for this artwork. Until next time, take care, stay safe, get vaccinated, reject crypto, 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 Grunvale. Both panels of this artwork were made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).
Original Twitter Upload Date: April 1, 2022. The script below was originally posted to DA the same day, and has been revised from its original version to add story context and fix keyboard errors present in the original version.
[jazz theme plays as we open in this 1950s sitcom-style alternate universe] [announcer]: “Gilda and Flannery is filmed before a live studio audience.” [Flannery is playing with a homemade doll of an ovine ewe made of wood, wool, and crudely-stitched pieces of white fabric, and holding a knife made of tinfoil, as another doll lies on a ‘bed’ of cotton and a cut piece of plaid fabric. A beetle walks on the windowsill] Flannery: “Leave my mother alone, you cad! I’ll kill you for what you did to her!” [jerks the doll back and forth toward the beetle, imitating stabbing] “Grrrrr!” [the beetle tries to run off, only for Flannery to push it off the windowsill with the doll’s tinfoil knife] “That oughta teach you!” [Flannery blows a raspberry as Gilda enters the room. The procyonine is talking with her hands and has… um… different speech patterns than usual] Gilda: “Ohhhhh! What’s you’s doin’ over there, Flans?” [sees the dolls] “Playin’ Cheryl Crane with those dolls of youses again?” [the audience laughs] Flannery: “Uh… Gilda? Why are you talking like that?” Gilda: “Whaddya mean, talkin’ like what?” Flannery: “You’re talking like a lazy stereotype! I thought you hated stereotypes! You hypocrite!” Gilda: “Ayyyyy now, Flans! Relax. I’s just acting like an Istallion stereotype! Imitatin’ Caucasians ain’t considered racist by nobody. Never will. You give it a try, you’s Glirish!” Flannery: “Um, no. I’d rather not.” Gilda:[pauses] “Anyways. I’s just here to ask if you’s family has fulfilled your quota for the commune’s medicinal output –“ [Flannery rushes to cover Gilda’s mouth] Flannery: “Shhhhh!” [beat] “It’s ‘farming settlement’, you dolt! You want us deported to Walrussia?!” Gilda: “Kinda, you’s weird like their’s toons.” [the audience laughs again. Flannery hits Gilda on the nose, which makes a bop noise and makes the audience laugh louder. Gilda holds her nose for a few seconds as the laughter continues, then looks back up as it quiets, revealing it to be misshapen, with prominent, forward-facing nostrils. It looks like a piece of prosthetic makeup] Flannery: “Haha, you look like a suilline.” Gilda: “Ah yeah? Well, so do you, wisejill!” Flannery: [beat] “What?!” [Gilda uppercuts Flannery in the nose, making a bonking noise as the laughter starts up again. Flannery, like Gilda, holds her face as the audience laughs. When it dies down, Flannery removes her hands, revealing that her nose has become so dislodged that it now appears to have completely replaced her right eye, and left a vacant space where a nose should be. Some laughter is heard as she turns around to face a mirror, and sees her nose over her eye] Flannery: “Well, I may be ugly now, but at least I look like a Picasso.” [the audience laughs, more quietly than during the punching] Gilda: “I’ll rough yous up so bad you’s gonna be lookin’ like a Dalí!” [a similar laughter to the previous one] Flannery: [mockingly] “Oh no, don’t subject me to a good time!” [a loud laughter and applause from the audience]
Yeah, this is what I came up with for an April Fools’ joke this year. Grunvale as a 1950s-style sitcom. Which began as the title card you see above (unless you’re looking at the transparent background version), and I decided to write the sitcom-style script to go with it. Which has a few jokes referencing the time period, and sanitized language and violence much like what would be seen on a sitcom from the era.
Of course, it began with just the drawing of Gilda and Flannery in period-appropriate attire, with the hair ribbons and full skirts and mary janes and such. And to sell the period feel of the asset, I decided to give it some details I associate with/swear I’ve seen before on artwork of the period. Namely, the sparkles in their eyes, the shines on their shoes, and the flush of their cheeks. Particularly in the monochrome versions, I feel these details really sell the retro feel of this artwork.
And I say ‘monochrome’ and not black-and-white, because the monochrome versions of this artwork aren’t actually true black-and-white. They have a slight bluish-purple tint to them, to imitate how I’ve often seen black-and-white images appear on some screens, particularly CRT screens. And with the CRT-filtered versions of this artwork, I went all the way to make it look as much like an image on a CRT as possible. I scaled the image down to a quarter of the size of the canvas, added white dots to simulate film grain, and then scaled the image back up, to blur the pixels and make them appear much like they would on an old TV. To imitate the scanlines, I made a pixel-tall line on every fourth horizontal axis from the top of the image, and then added an overlay effect and one-pixel gaussian blur to the lines.
And then I added the final touch, the curvature of the image that resembles that of a CRT screen. ASP has had a curvature tool for a while now, but it was only on this piece when I finally figured out how to be pixel-precise with it: use a placehold layer with a single guide at a time, in this case, a 100×100 square in the corner of the canvas, which the corner of the main asset could be dragged to the edge of and be snapped to. Repeat until the curvature is equal on all sides, as it is in the main version of this artwork. Which you’re probably looking at above, unless you decided to dig into my DA gallery and look at the other versions.
Anyways, that’ll be all for this artwork. Maybe one day the script above will be fleshed out into its own story in the OTOG graphic novels, heheheh. Until next time, Until next time, take care, stay safe, get vaccinated, reject crypto, and happy April Fool’s Day.
Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you credit me as the creator of Grunvale. This artwork was made at a resolution of 2880×2160 (aspect ratio 1.33:1).
Original Twitter Upload Date: February 27, 2022. The script below was originally posted to DA on February 28, 2022, and has been revised to add story context and fix keyboard errors present in the original version.
[After a trip to the local Goodwill for a suit more to Nicole’s style than just a matching version of Gilda’s, Gilda, Wendy, and Nicole walk into the Sears at the Grunvale Mall] Nicole: “Sears? I didn’t know Sears was still a thing.” Gilda: “Of course it’s still a thing! What, you gonna tell me you think Blockbuster’s not still a thing? Or Circuit City? Or Borders or Sports Authority or KB Toys? You think they disappeared because *duh ehntuhnets*? Not in this timeline, no ma’am! They survived, every one of ’em! And we’re better off for it!” Nicole: “Um, you don’t need to be so formal with me, Gilda. In fact, I’d prefer if you didn’t. Just call me ‘Nicole’. Not ‘ma’am’, please.” Wendy: “She was saying it to be funny, Nicole.” Nicole: “Oh. Never mind then. Silly me!” [she and Wendy both laugh, and lightly punch each other in the arms] Gilda: “You two are really cute together, you know that? I wish my brother and I got along as well as you two did.” Nicole: “But of course! I’m Wendy’s big sister. And as her big sister, it’s my job to protect her! And of course be her friend.” Wendy: “And I’m there to pick her up when her lack of social skills knock her down.” Nicole: “Awww, Wendy!” [ruffles Wendy’s hair] Gilda: [smiles] “Now, where is the photo studio in here –” [sees it a few dozen feet away] “Oh! There it is.” Wendy: “100 Washingtons for one hour. That’s a bargain! You got the money, right, Gil?” Gilda: [pulls out a Franklin] “Right here!” [and a Tubman] “Plus a tip for the photographer. Because it’s polite. And let’s be honest, corporate would replace them with a robot if they could.” Wendy: “I like your thinking, Gilda! It’s important to do good and share with others, it’s debts like that which –” [realizes Nicole isn’t standing with her] “Where’s Nicole?” [Wendy hears Nicole laughing, and turns her head to the direction of her laugh; the elder Wyler sister is placing her feet on an upward-moving escalator] Nicole: “Haha! This is fun. I’m totally running down.” Wendy: [runs up] “Um, no, Nicole. You’re in heels, you could hurt yourself, or –“ Nicole: “That’s what makes it more fun! Down I go!” [starts running down escalator] “Woooooooooo!” Wendy: [facepalms] “Oy…” Gilda: [walks up] “Wendy! What’s the holdup? And why is it oy?” [Wendy points and Nicole, who is barely down the escalator steps] “Che cosa. Sto. Guardando?!” Nicole: [still running] 🎵 Runnin’ down a dream, goin’ wherever it — 🎵 [steps too far over one of the stairs and trips] “Wh — WHOOOOA!” [Nicole falls down the stairs, and into a patron carrying a coffee and a tote bag. Gilda winces and Wendy looks concerned as the impact occurs, coffee spilling and shirts flying. Slowly, the escalator carries Nicole and the patron up to Gilda and Wendy’s floor. Both Nicole and the patron look embarrassed, but when the patron sees a coffee stain on their shirt, they fly into a rage] [patron]: “Goddammit! Coffee! All over my shirt!” [looks over at Nicole] “What the 🦭 is your problem?!” [throws empty coffee cup at Nicole, which bounces off her head] “You 🦭ing idiot! Stupid little punk! You oughta be sent to juvenile hall!” [runs off] Nicole: [eyes welling up] “I was only trying to have fun…” [sits down at nearby bench and starts sobbing] Gilda: “What did you think was gonna –“ Wendy: [covers Gilda’s mouth] “Gilda! My sister’s sensitive to others yelling at her. Let me take this.” Gilda: [muttering to herself in a sing-song tone] “She kinda had it coming.” Wendy: [sits next to Nicole and puts an arm around her] “Sorry you had to put up with that. That guy doesn’t understand you like I do.” Nicole: “But juvie?! He said my autism is something for me to be thrown in jail for! Do you know how that feels?! To be told that you should be thrown out like trash for just trying to exist?! Locked in a cage despite the fact you’re not hurting anybody?! No you don’t! But that’s how I’m seen! A stupid troublemaker with a mental defect!” [sobbing louder] Gilda: [muttering to herself] “He did not say anything about autism. And also, ‘mental defect’? That’s just offensive.” Wendy: “You’re not mentally defective, Nicole, you were just doing something you shouldn’t have been doing at the time you were doing it. I tried to warn you something like that could happen.” Nicole: “But did I deserve to be yelled at for it?” Gilda: [muttering to herself] “Yes!” Wendy: “No, you didn’t. But next time, actually listen to me when I tell you not to do something like that, okay?” Nicole: “…okay.” Wendy: “Now let’s go have our photo taken, what do you say to that?” [tickles Nicole’s chin, making her smile] Nicole: “I’d… I’d like that.” [beat; tickles Wendy’s whiskers] Wendy: “Hey!” [laughs; Nicole soon joins in as well] “We’re gonna need to fix up your eyes, though, your makeup’s running.” [Gilda’s scowl at the scene (and Nicole’s behavior) turns into a smile]
[in the photo studio, Wendy and Nicole are already sitting down, the latter’s makeup being fixed by Gilda] Gilda: 🎵 Don’t mind me, I’m having my picture taken, having it taken! 🎵 [photographer]: “Bob Geldof! You know Bob Geldof, little miss?” Gilda: [puts makeup kit into purse] “Of course I do! Geldof’s awesome. Best Glirish rocker not named Bono or Angus Hynde.” [photographer]: “Are you sure you’re a middle schooler? That’s my parents’ generation’s music.” Gilda: “I’m homeschooled, but yes, I’m middle school-aged. I’m 11. Born 30 years after I should’ve been. And that’s not your parents’ generation’s music, that’s every generation’s music. The best music transcends generations, and U2, Boomtown Rats, Myxoma, that is the best music.” [photographer]: “Well, that is certainly one way of putting it.” Gilda: [hands Tubman over to the photographer] “Here’s your tip, by the way. Haven’t seen the work you do, but I already know you deserve it.” [photographer]: “Oh. Well, thank you.” Gilda: “Now, this first photo’s just gonna be of my friend and her sister. I was thinking for the first one, do a landscape photo, they both stand up, and Nicole could hug Wendy –” [Wendy hugs Nicole instead] “Or the other way around, that works too! Dio mio, this is so cute, Wendy’s ears are actually perked up! Oh, and Nicole’s eyes are sparkling! Might be because she was crying a few minutes ago, but oh, this is so adorable!” [photographer]: “So, uh, you want me to take this photo?” Gilda: “Yes! Do it now! Before Wendy’s ears fall back again! Take it take it take it take it!” [the photographer takes the picture] “Oh, we’re definitely printing this one out. This deserves a 32 by 24!”
This is just a little piece I made for #NationalRetroDay this year. And before you say it’s late, no it’s not. I uploaded it to Twitter yesterday, February 27th. It’s only a day late here, because the opening script took so long to write. I was going to draw a comic of Sally and Shaun set during their childhoods, but the scope of it turned out too big to finish by the end of National Retro Day. So I decided to instead draw another artwork of the Wyler sisters bonding, and make the Ketcham twins piece one of the March artworks.
There isn’t much to say about this artwork’s production, other than that I filtered the colors and added noise to make the artwork appear like it was a photo taken on film, like it would be during Sears’ heyday in the 1980s. Other than that, it’s just another cute scene of Wendy and Nicole bonding. It’s always special to see Wendy smiling, she doesn’t smile as often as the rest of the Tetrad do. But her sisters (the speccy ones, anyway) do bring out the best and happiest in her. Roz and Maddie are the kind of individuals who would only take interest in neurodivergents for their advanced knowledge, and would take advantage of their social weaknesses to learn what they know. Wendy is the kind of individual who would actually make the effort to befriend neurodivergents and aid them in their social life, and any knowledge she learns from them is just a bonus, like crumbs on a muffin or frosting on a cupcake. And it’s because Wendy is such a strong ally to neurodivergents, the Aaron to their Moses, the Anne Sullivan to their Helen Keller, that she has such a strong bond with Dolly and Nicole.
Anyways, that’ll be all for this one. Until next time, take care, stay safe, get vaccinated, reject crypto, and have a good one.
Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it. “Runnin’ Down a Dream” was written by Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Mike Campbell for the album Full Moon Fever, owned by Universal Music Group. “Having My Picture Taken” was written by Bob Geldof and Pete Briquette for the album The Fine Art of Surfacing, owned by… (looks at Wikipedia article) …damn, that’s a lot of labels. But I’m gonna guess Universal Music Group, since most of these labels are closely related to it.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 2880×2160 (aspect ratio 1.33:1).
[Afternoon on a weekend. Wendy and Nicole sit on a bench in front of an ice cream store, eating ice cream cones. Wendy has chocolate and cocoa bean, while Nicole has mint chocolate chip] Wendy: “Mint chocolate chip, huh?” Nicole: “Yeah. What about it?” Wendy: “I don’t know, never really took you as the kind that likes mint chocolate chip. I thought you were more of a… I don’t know, maybe peanut butter or cotton candy kind of sow?” Nicole:[laughs] “Nah. I do like those flavors, though. But mint chocolate chip is the best. It tastes like chocolate toothpaste! And you know how much I love brushing my teeth!” Wendy: “Just curious, but… why do you like brushing your teeth?” Nicole: “What do you mean?” Wendy: “I mean, why do you like brushing your teeth so much? It’s a weird thing to like doing. Especially for somebody who wears braces.” Nicole: “Well, I love the taste of the toothpaste, for one. It feels… clean. Clean and refreshing. I don’t know how else to describe it. That’s why I’m eating this ice cream that tastes like it.” Wendy: “Huh.” Nicole: “And two, it’s just really relaxing. You’d think it’d be boring and tedious, but it actually helps keep my mind off things. Like my teachers and how they hate me.” Wendy: “School’s rough for you, isn’t it?” [licks ice cream] “I wish your teachers understood you better.” Nicole: “So do I.” [pause] “At least I have you, though. You and Dolly.” [Wendy smiles. Nicole smears some of her ice cream on her little sister’s nose] “Ice cream boop! Heheh!” Wendy: “Oh, Nicole.” [pokes Nicole’s cheek with her left index finger] “You’re so cute sometimes.”
This was mostly just drawn as a test of my abilities. Most of my artwork is traced from artwork I’ve already drawn before, ensuring that it stays on model. This time, to make sure I’m not going soft, I decided to draw this piece without tracing. The result? Well, I’d say I still got it. Perhaps the line work does look slightly funkier than usual, but it’s not enough for me to say that I’m losing my skill.
Aside from the Wyler sisters here, I’d like to talk about the background. As anyone following my artwork would know, I’ve recently been using stock images in my artwork, especially for brick walls, which I’ve always hated drawing because mine always look so fake. This is a continuation of that trend, refined a bit further. The stock image used for this one didn’t have a watermark over it, but the bricks were still selectively chosen, to appear more random. You may have also noticed that the brick wall here is more seamless than before. This is partially due to the use of ASP’s ‘inpaint’ tool, which randomly generates pixels in a selected, blank area of a layer, based on the pixels that are around it. From there, I selected other areas of the image with the clone stamp tool, and used their pixels over the inpainted areas to make it look even more seamless. The result is… the background you see before you. Which do you prefer? Stock images or my own bricks? Because I think I prefer stock image bricks at this point. Perhaps it’s not as professional, but I’d rather my bricks look realistic than like some cheap-looking trash.
Also, I decided to dial up the contrast on this artwork, since, as all of you know, Grunvale is meant to take a lot of inspiration from pre-digital technologies, as well as early digital technologies. What does this have to do with the color? That’s easy; I’ve observed that works shot on film have more vibrant color than those shot digitally. And I feel turning up the contrast on this one really made the colors pop, more so than usual.
Finally, the reason I decided to make this artwork ice cream-themed was because, yesterday, I bought some Neapolitan ice cream, with a coupon I got from Winn-Dixie after getting my Moderna booster. I’ve never tried Neapolitan before, but I found it to taste delicious, so much so that I can’t believe I haven’t tried it before. Even if… well, it is technically three flavors I have had before. That everyone has had before. I decided Wendy should have chocolate, and Nicole should have mint chocolate chip. Because, let’s be honest, those would totally be their preferred flavors.
Anyway, that’s all for this one. I know it’s a short description, but I don’t really have a lot to say about it. Also I want to get this piece out on DA when it’s still the final minutes of November of 2021. So, until next time, take care, and Happy Hannukwanzmas.
Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it. This artwork was made at a resolution of 3996×2160 (aspect ratio 1.85:1).
Original Twitter Upload Date: February 16, 2022. The script below was originally posted to DA on February 25, 2022, and has been revised to add story context and fix keyboard errors present in the original version.
[The Tetrad are approaching the arcade, dressed in Victorian-era attire. Gilda looks excited to enter] Margo: “Ugggggh! I hate this outfit! It’s so heavy and itchy and… British-feeling!” April: “Ah loove it. Makes meh feel like a ladeh. Ah knoo what ah’m wearin’ fer All Hehloo’s. Dinnae ken what it’s gotta dae wit’ th’ ahcade, thoo.” Wendy: “Yeah, seriously, Gilda. Why did you make us dress like this? You know how I feel about being a blonde!” Gilda: “Like a prettier and cooler version of me?” Wendy: “Yeah! Like a prettier and –” [blushes, smirks, and lightly punches Gilda’s shoulder] “Oh, you flatterer.” Gilda: “Heheh, even with your cheeks made up I can see them flushing.” [pokes Wendy’s cheek; Wendy smiles] “Anyways, the reason I wanted us all to dress like this is because I wanted us to get into the mood for the cabinet that just came in.” Margo: “Cabinet? You brought us here to look at furniture?!” Wendy: “No, Margo. Cabinet like arcade cabinet. Machines for arcade games are called cabinets.” Margo: “Really? Are you sure they’re not just ‘machines’?” Wendy: “Yes.” April: “E’en ah knew they’re called cabinets. An’ I play vidayah gehms less ‘an a quartah o’ th’ time Gilleh daes!” Margo: “Cabinet, machine, whatever. Gil, whatever game you’re gonna show us, it better be one we all can play. And I don’t mean taking turns, I mean together. All of us!” Gilda: [pushing door into arcade open] “Well, Mar, Dub Dub, Scotty. Just you follow me in and see.” April: “Whatever ye seh, Luigi!” Margo: “Luigi?” April: “’cause she’s Istallion an’ wears green.” Margo: “Oh.” [she and April chuckle]
[The Tetrad walk into the arcade; Gilda leads them to the arcade cabinet she’s excited to play.] Gilda: “Okay, here it is, girls. Sunset Riders! The four-player masterpiece from Konami!” Margo: “Oh yeah, I think I’ve heard of this one. Isn’t there a version on Sega Genesis that’s –“ Gilda: “THERE IS NO VERSION ON SEGA GENESIS!” [Margo covers mouth] “If you guys are familiar with Contra, this game plays very similarly. Except it’s set in the Wild West. Which is why I wanted us all to dress like this. It matches the time period of the game’s setting.” Margo: [pouting] If I knew this was a Wild West-themed game, I’d has dressed as a cowdoe.” April: “Ah, shut yer geggeh, Mahgo. Sapphires look bonneh oan ye an’ ye knoo they dae.” [repeatedly flicks one of Margo’s earrings; Margo grabs April’s tail and tickles her nose with it, causing her to sneeze] “Li’l bastid!” [raises hand to slap Margo, only for Wendy to grab her and Margo’s hands] Wendy: “That’s enough, you two!” [throws Margo’s and April’s fists into each other’s faces] Gilda: [applauding] “Very good, Wendy. Just for that, I’ll let you choose first which player you want to be.” Wendy: “Player one! I choose player one!” Gilda: “Player one? Are you sure?” Wendy: “You said I could choose which player I want to be, right? I choose player one! What, you got a problem with not being player one?” Gilda: “No, I don’t. But that’s the controller for Steve. He only shoots two bullets at once. Trust me, you want to be either player three or four, Bob or Cormano. They’re the most fun to play as, they fire a whole spread of bullets and –” [Margo and April quickly take the controls for Bob and Cormano; Gilda facepalms] “My big mouth.” Wendy: “Ah, let ’em take them, Gil. I prefer to be challenged anyway.” Gilda: “You know what? Good thinking, Wendy. So do I. It’s Billy time!” [takes the controls for Billy; Wendy takes them for Steve] April: “Ye got quahtahs, Gilda?” Gilda: “Four for each of us. Four credits each. Same as the maximum allowed on Super Nintendo.” [takes sixteen quarters out of a reticule and gives four each for herself and the rest of the Tetrad] “Any extra credits are on you.” Margo: “Fine by me. I always bring like a hundred quarters with me when I come here anyway.” Gilda: “Good luck playing the console version, then. If you ever do.” [the Tetrad insert their quarters into the machine] “YEE-HAW! Let’s go!”
This artwork has been a long time coming. I started drawing it in November of 2021, around the time I posted Strolling Victoria-sly in ye Ole Part o’ Town, and before I redesigned Margo to have glasses and shorter hair. So if she looks closer to her older design here, that’s why. Because I originally drew her asset with that older design in mind. After retconning Margo’s design, I did add small, Victorian-style glasses to her asset, being prepared just in case I decided to finish to this artwork. However, I ended up not revisiting the PSD for several months afterward, and thought of deleting it.
That is, until the recent HBO series, The Gilded Age, premiered. My mother recently got into the show, having been recommended it to her by my ex-girlfriend’s mother, who lives near where the show was filmed. Around the time she started watching it, I decided to do some research on the Gilded age. Not the show, but the time period… which, after doing some research, I’ve learned is comprised of the latter decades of the Victorian era, and, like many time periods, the exact years are debated. The years that make the most sense to me, though, and what I’m going to go with, is 1865 (the end of the Civil War and beginning of Reconstruction in the United States) to 1901 (the assassination of William McKinley and the death of Queen Victoria). Since Gilda’s Victorian outfit was designed with the year 1887 in mind, I felt stupid for not knowing that ‘the Gilded age’ is a term for the latter Victorian era. Had I known at the time I drew the original Victorian Gilda piece, I definitely would have made the ‘Gild-ed age’ pun. But then I remembered that I had this artwork saved… which meant I still had an opportunity to make the pun. So I took it.
Yep. That’s the reason this artwork exists. For the purpose of making a stupid pun. And also because the idea of drawing the Tetrad playing a game famous for supporting four-player play was too good to pass up.
Anyways… onto the artwork. Actually, on my opinion on Sunset Riders, for those that need a refresher.
The version of Sunset Riders I played first, was the Sega Genesis version, the first Konami game on a Sega platform. And as you could probably tell from me using Gilda as a voice for my opinion in the introductory transcript, I do not think highly of that version of the game. It shows very clearly that Konami was unfamilar with the Genesis hardware, and basically thought that developing for the system was like the NES with more colors. The game was released on a 4-megabit (512KB) cartridge, pitifully small for a fourth-gen system in 1992, especially with some games like Streets of Rage 2 coming in as large as 16 megabits (2048KB/2MB). 4-meg carts were mostly relegated to single-screen puzzle games such as Columns III and Zoop by the middle of the fourth generation. So imagine trying to make a run-and-gun as famously colorful and sprite-heavy as Sunset Riders in such a small amount of space.
You can’t. So what you get out of the port, is a game that should be regarded as Sunset Riders in name only, with none of what makes the arcade original so acclaimed. Dull visuals, only two playable characters (Billy and Cormano), half the bosses being removed… basically, it’s a port that only does the bare minimum to be called Sunset Riders. If even that. But I could forgive all the cut content if the game was at least playable. But Sunset Riders on Genesis truly does play like an NES game, with all the traps and cheap deaths people hate about run-and-gun games from the third generation. The original arcade game based much of its difficulty on one-hit deaths, and that carried into the Genesis version as well. But here, it was handled much worse. The bullets don’t flash like they did in the arcade version, and I swear there’s more of them as well. This makes the bullets hard to see and even harder to dodge, and will waste you entire continues just to get through one stage, even if you set the life count higher in the options.
Sega Genesis Sunset Riders is a game that really could’ve used infinite continues, in tandem with sending you back to the beginning of the level once you lose the continue’s last life. But no. You get five continues, and once they’re gone, you’re back to the title screen. The game even lets you keep going right where you left off when you use a continue, as if the devs knew how cheap the game was and tried to save face by making it seem less cheap than it really is. I mean, come on. I know Contra had limited continues, but Castlevania and Tiny Toon Adventures had a continue system that worked like I just described above. This game really could’ve used that if they were gonna make the game this cheap with its difficulty.
The soundtrack I will admit is a redeeming quality of this version; the tracks here are slightly-scaled-back versions of those in the arcade version, mostly removing the samples and leaving just the synthesized bits. I don’t miss the samples too much though, they’re the least of the cuts made to the port, and the tracks sound perfectly fine without them. But that’s about all I have to say positive about the Genesis version of Sunset Riders. Outside of the soundtrack, it’s a dull-looking, unbalanced port that should only be regarded as Sunset Riders in name, and makes the hardware it’s running on look weaker than it actually is.
Several months after the porting disaster on Sega Genesis, Sunset Riders would be ported to the SNES… with much better results! This time, the game was put on a proper-sized 8-megabit (1024KB/1MB) cartridge, much more appropriate for a game of its genre and era. This version still recieved cuts; not all the level layouts are one-to-one, the scaling sprites are gone, and although all four playable characters are present, it still only goes up to two players. I can forgive the last part since there wasn’t any multitap for the system at the time, but this port still would’ve been a good opportunity for Konami to make one.
But these minor cuts aside, the SNES version of Sunset Riders is the superior home console port by far. It’s just as colorful, the bullets actually flash again, Steve and Bob are added back in, all the bosses are here (and with their spoken dialogue that was also cut from the Genesis version!), it redeems itself for all the sins the Genesis version committed, as well as being as great a port the SNES could possibly offer. Minus… still limited continues. But I’m willing to overlook that. I prefer how the continues work here anyway, them sending you back to the beginning of the level when used. Call it artificial difficulty, I say sending you back to a checkpoint/beginning of the level should be how continues/lives should work anyway.
Unfortunately, for some reason, neither home console port of Sunset Riders saw release in Japan. Which is strange considering both versions were developed in the country. I wonder what it was about the game that made them think the Japanese wouldn’t like it.
As for this artwork, aside from it being months in the making, there isn’t much to be said. The crazed expressions the Tetrad are making I thought up late into the linework process, I had this fun idea that certain cartoonish faces run in the families of the Grunvaliverse. The Grimes and the giant, bloodshot eyes, the Hyndes and the Invader Zim-inspired eyes and teeth, the Wylers and the target eyes and angular smile, and the Lowrys and flushed faces. Of course there’s more than this, and sometimes there’s overlap, but these are the cartoonish faces I’m establishing as the main face for each family here. On a side note, Ezmanify stated in a Twitter chatroom that the Tetrad here look like they’re going insane. And to that I say, well, that’s what playing Sunset Riders does to you. It’s a very difficult game that, considering how often death comes in the game, is made for multiplayer, multiple players to get through and suffer through together. It has the kind of difficulty that can indeed drive someone insane. And there’s no first few easy stages like in Battletoads or Ninja Gaiden; Sunset Riders is relentless from the moment you start playing.
Finally, that “IT’S TIME TO PAY.” text you see on the bottom of the screen? That’s not pixel art. That’s an actual asset from the SNES version of Sunset Riders. I played the game on the BizHawk emulator up to the point where it shows up (at the beginning of the Simon Greedwell battle), took a screenshot, erased the area around the text in GIMP, and finally, scaled it up in such a way that the sharpness of the pixels would be kept. It’s a touch I thought any fan of the game that came across this artwork would appreciate, even if the text wasn’t present in the arcade version, which is the one being played here.
And that’ll be all for this artwork. Until next time, take care, stay safe, get vaccinated, reject crypto, and have a good one.
Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it. Sunset Riders is owned by Konami. Dragon’s Lair is owned by Don Bluth. This artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).
I may not have had much to say in the artwork in which this mock-newspaper was featured, but damn, do I have a lot to say about the newspaper itself. I don’t know how long this description is gonna be, but just trust me when I say that this description will probably be the most in-depth you’ve ever seen about a mock newspaper. So get comfortable. This is gonna take a while. Then again, if you’ve been following me for a while, you’d know long descriptions are usually to be expected. Whether you’re a follower or not, though… let’s dive in.
I – The color of the newspaper
“The color of the newspaper? But it’s black-and-white! Why are you dedicating an entire section to this?”
Yes, yes, ‘it’s black-and-white’. What a very broke observation. But you know me. Just turning it black-and-white never cuts it around here. Here’s the woke explanation.
The colors you’re seeing here are actually not black and white. Or any shade of grey, for that matter. The ‘white’ is actually a faded yellow, chosen for its close resemblance to the paper of actual newspapers, with a subtle paper texture added over it. The ‘black’, however, is actually black… or at least it was, before I applied blending effects and set the transparency so that it’d more closely resemble ink on paper. So it’s not true black you’re seeing here. I never logged the actual hex values of the ‘white’ and the ‘black’ before the paper texture was applied. But if you want a ballpark estimate, the red, green, and blue hex values for the ‘white’ are around E8-EB, E4-E7, and DC-DF respectively (with a margin of error of two units each), and the hex values for the ‘black’ are 27 and 28 for red and green, and 25 and 26 for blue. And for those unfamilar with hex values, that’s not ‘twenty-seven’, ‘twenty-eight’, and whatever. That’s ‘two-seven’ and ‘two-eight’, which are hex code for thirty-nine and forty respectively.
II – The newspaper title
As you can see, the newspaper is called ‘The Grunvale Gazette’. That’s self-explanatory, and it’s not what this section is about. It’s about the font I used to write it.
The font is called ‘Chomsky’, designed by Frederick Brennan and modeled after the font used in the New York Times logo. I’ve also seen similar fonts used for many other newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the Miami Herald. Because of how prevalent Chomsky and similar fonts are for newspapers, I used it for the Grunvale Gazette logo. Call it cliche, but be honest, what other font do you think of as ‘that newspaper logo font’ other than Chomsky?
III – The issue information
Below the Grunvale Gazette logo (and of course in the title of this work), we see that this particular edition is the 34th issue of the 151st volume, dated August 26, 2017 and costing fifty cents. The fifty cents part is self-explanatory, except for the fact… apparently the cents symbol is so underused nowadays that modern keyboards don’t bother including it. So I went with ‘$.’ instead. Since it means the same thing. As for the rest of the information on this line…
This paper being part of the 151st volume of the Grunvale Gazette, means that 2017 was/is the 151st year of the Grunvale Gazette’s publication. Which, in turn, means that the newspaper has been published since 1867. And no, people bad at math, that would NOT mean issues published in 2017 would be volume 150. 1867 to 2017 includes 151 years. As for this being ‘issue 34’… well, that’s a part where I paid particular attention to detail.
I imagine the Grunvale Gazette being a subsidiary to the Grunvaliverse’s equivalent of the Times Union (the real-life newspaper of Albany county). It’s a smaller paper, of course, that has less content, narrower focus, and smaller circulation than its parent paper, and distributes only a Saturday edition. August 26, 2017 was indeed the 34th Saturday of that year; I counted through the 2017 calendar myself, and then did a Google search for ’34th Saturday of 2017′ to confirm.
Finally, ‘NP’ is an abbreviation for ‘New Pork’. For those outside the US, we Americans often refer to the states with two letters. For examples, New York is ‘NY’, and Florida is ‘FL’. It only makes sense that the Grunvaliverse would do the same for their versions of the states.
Those are the production notes for this section. Before I move on, I’d like to talk some notes on Grunvale’s history related to the Gazette… I’ve canoned ever since the web novel era, that Grunvale was founded in 1817. That would mean that the Gazette was founded during the 50th anniversary of the town, the Golden Jubliee. The anniversary was actually the original motivation for the newspaper’s founding. In fact, it was originally called the ‘Golden Grunvale Gazette’, before dropping the ‘golden’ from its title for its second volume in 1868.
IV – The headlines
The text reading ‘50,000 TWEETS’ is the second and last use of a font other than Times New Roman anywhere on this newspaper… mock-up. It is in DIN Condensed. The subheadline is also uniquely kerned, as I felt that special kerning would make this mock-up better resemble a newspaper. The smaller headline at the bottom, on the other hand, is a joke I’ve been wanting to do for a while, referencing the decreasing relevancy of newspapers.
V – The columnist names
The names of the columnists who ‘wrote’ the articles present on this page, are puns. ‘Tyne W. Roman’ is a pun on ‘Times New Roman’, the font which the majority of the text in this newspaper mockup is written in. And you are very familiar with by this point. I’d even say that it’s the font you’ve seen the most throughout your life. Although unless you’re a designer like me, or you remember the names of the fonts your teachers from school required you write in, you may not have known its name. As for ‘Walt Breaker IV’, that’s a pun on ‘fourth wall break’, doubling as a reference to how the headline itself is a fourth wall break.
VI – The article
Oh, was this a fun one to write. For this one, it wasn’t enough to just write a mock newspaper artcle about me reaching my 50,000th tweet. I had to imagine myself as a Grunvalian who has only heard of the human world, our world, through what me, the Phoenix of Grunvale, has revealed about it to the Grunvaliverse, as well as conspiracy theories and information distorted through word-of-mouth. I know that COVID-19 isn’t named after Corona beer, and 4 BC is the year I hear the most regarding Jesus’ birth year. This ‘Tyne W. Roman’, however, heard some time before writing this article, that coronaviruses are named for the beer, and that 2022 is the 2022nd year after our world’s Jesus’ birth.
It was also fun writing about my work and my life in a fictionalized matter. The ‘second senior year’ part is indeed true; I graduated high school in 2017, being held back a year to have me ‘better prepared for the adult world’, as everyone around me has liked to put it. And I admittedly forgot that my Twitter account used to be called ‘PRSToonCritic’ until writing that part; AnimationFan15 didn’t even know that’s what I originally went by on the site before ‘StormTheArtist’.
The ‘hue-mans’ thing is nothing new, I’ve had my anthropomorphic characters refer to humans that way before. But since I have an opportunity to talk about it now, I guess I’ll reveal what inspired it. It’s probably the weirdest place I’ve ever found inspiration from as far as Grunvale/OTOG is concerned… it comes from a movie I saw as a kid, called Aliens in the Attic.
Anyone remember that movie? Aliens invading home in the country? A lot of video game references? Ashley Tisdale was in it? Yeah, don’t feel like you missed out on anything. Even as a kid I thought it was stupid. But at least it has the weird distinction of inspiring the way my anthropomorphic characters pronounce ‘human’.
Finally, to keep continuity with the 50K arc, the Tetrad are all 12 years old, the age they’d be in August of 2017 on the strict timeline, on which they were all born in 2005. I’ve already stated the Tetrad’s birthdays before; Gilda’s is May 14th, Margo’s is June 23rd, Wendy’s is March 7th, and April’s is March 30th. And yes, I do acknowledge the irony of April being born in March. Always have. She’s the chain-breaker when it comes to the Tetrad being born in successive months. However, her Tetrad opposite, Margo, is the chain-breaker in terms of them being born under successive astrological signs. Wendy is a Pisces, April an Aries, Gilda a Taurus, and Margo a… Cancer, skipping over Gemini. And similar to April’s ironic birth in March, Margo’s birth being under Cancer is ironic considering that she’s from a set of multiple births, and Gemini represents twins.
VII – The Gilda photograph
This was the most fun part of the newspaper to work on. Gilda’s photograph here doubles as a WIP for the actual 50K special, as it features the assets that will be used in it. However, they won’t be presented in the same way that you see here. Gilda’s left arm? Not only is that asset rotated from what you’ll see in the artwork, but cropped out of the image is… April’s right arm, detached from the rest of her body, high-fiving Gilda.
Good luck getting that image of body horror out of your head, heheh. Truth be told, I could probably make an entire Twitter account dedicated to my most shitpost-looking WIPs. Hm… I’ll do it if you all can get my Twitter account to 1000 followers. It’s at 885 as I write this, I only have… a little while to go, numerically speaking. Then again, I haven’t crossed a hundred-follower barrier since August of 2020. Maybe I’ll start bringing in followers in bigger numbers again soon? Maybe?
Anyhoo, if you zoom into the artwork, you’ll see I went the extra mile with that photo in making it look like it’s actually printed on a newspaper. I used ASP’s built-in Halftone effect to render the asset in dots, much like those that would be used to display it if it were printed on paper. Not just newspaper, any kind of paper. Much like the text, the asset also has blending effects applied to it to further sell the idea that it is ink on paper.
That’s all the details regarding the piece itself, now for some miscellaneous production notes.
VIII – The miscellaneous production notes
There were typos in the paper in the 1.00 version of 50,000 Tweets (Give or Take)!, namely an omission of the word ‘runs’, and using the term ‘human’ instead of ‘hue-man’ twice. By the time I noticed my mistakes, I had deleted the PSD and only had the PNG. Thankfully, ASP has an inpaint tool, which is used for filling in blank areas of a layer with procedurally-generated pixels based on the imagery around it. So I just cut out the areas that had typos, filled them in with the inpaint tool, and typed the new text over them, complete with the correct blending effects. I even made sure the placement of the text was pixel-perfect. The 1.00 version of the paper is still visible in the background of the 1.01 version of the parent piece, however. Parent piece… does that term work here? Because the mock newspaper was made first. I guess you can call this is a chicken-and-egg scenario. Hm… egg piece. The dual-panel comic is the egg piece. And the paper is the chicken piece.
My logo is nowhere to be seen in this paper. I didn’t feel I needed to include it this time, since my name is already mentioned in the egg piece several times. Plus, the egg piece for includes my logo, so why include it twice, right?
IX – Conclusion
This was fun to make. I may even do more Grunvaliverse newspaper/magazine/print media mockups some time down the line, if this gets enough views. Say, 1000. That’s a 1000 barrier I break on a regular basis, DA views. I think this can make it too.
Anyways, that’ll be all for this one. Until next time, take care, stay safe, get vaccinated, reject crypto, and have a good one.
Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it. This artwork was made at a resolution of 2160×2880 (aspect ratio 1:1.33).
Happy another year for us to immediately call terrible when a beloved celebrity dies! Let’s kick off 2022 the same way I kicked off last year… a timeskip artwork showing what life is like for my characters on the strict timeline!
It’s 2022, over half a decade after Gilda Grime met and befriended Margo Hynde, Wendy Wyler, and April Lowry (the story now begins in what’s imagined as fall of 2016), forming a group known as ‘the Oddball Tetrad’. The Tetrad, now sixteen, are old enough to drive, and have their own ways of getting around. Margo and Wendy have their own motorcycles, April drives the Lowry family car, and Gilda takes public transportation, including rides from her friends and acquaintances. During the summer, Wendy’s sister, Dolly Wyler-Voronov, gave birth to a daughter named Sonja, whose name was chosen for being a Romanization of the Koirean (Dolly’s ancestry) ‘Soon-ja’, that also ended up being a Walrussian (Dolly’s husband Gregory’s ancestry) name.
The Voronovs have decided to celebrate New Year’s at Marilyn Springsteen’s Retro Diner and Arcade, and the Tetrad have all been assigned to night shifts at the restaurant, thus making them unavailable to babysit Sonja. When April suggests her younger sister Abby for the gig, Dolly is initially hesitant, as the younger Lowry had bullied her into quitting babysitting years before, and to this day is intimidated by her due to her 6’6″ stature at a mere 13 years of age. But Greg, desperate for a babysitter on such short notice, has insisted upon her. No worries, though. At least Abby is getting paid, even if she’s gonna be missing out on the chance to party. Plus, the silence will help her get caught up on any homework she has to do, when Sonja’s not crying for her bottle.
Now to the artwork.
I brought up last time that I don’t feel I’m as good as I want to be with staging, especially when 3D space is involved. I still plan on outsourcing my covers, however, this time, I was more considerate of vanishing point. Most of the scenery here uses a one-point perspective, including the walls, floor texture, couch, and Sonja’s crib. For the crib, I used a bunch basic cubes and rectangular prisms, and built off of that. The crib’s frame is made of bamboo, and the mesh is made of vines. As for the couch, I just drew a bunch of blobular shapes and extruded them over perspective lines. It’s not a perfect go at perspective, but I feel that it’s effective at illustrating depth.
Sonja’s design is one I thought up on the spot. Since I imagine the Grunvaliverse operating by Pokemon rules of breeding (individuals can breed within their class [for example, Mammalia x Mammalia and Reptilia x Reptilia], but not with other classes [Arachnida x Insecta, Cephalopoda x Asteroidea, and whatever other combination one can think of don’t happen], and they will always come out as whatever the mother is [for instance, a lupine mother will always have a lupine child regardless of the father), Sonja is an Eastern grey sciurine like her mother. However, she has inherited the big black eyes, pink nose, and brown curly hair of her Siberian flying sciurine father. She’s also quite small, coming in at the bottom 30% of four-month-olds in terms of height, a trait inherited from the Wyler side of the family. (all of the Wyler sisters aside from Nicole also had bottom-30% height at four months). However, she’s also quite heavy for her age, which is a trait from both sides of the family (Dolly was obese when she was a child and Gregory has been overweight all his life).
Being an infant, Sonja wouldn’t have much of a personality. She mostly just stares at things and sleeps, and mostly only cries when she wants her bottle. Dolly believes that this is a sign that she may be on the spectrum, although, even during the main chronology (i.e. when the Tetrad is 11), she knows that she’d only start to know for sure once she turns six months. I imagine Dolly is actually hoping that Sonja end up diagnosed as being a speccy, as she feels that she, as a speccy herself, would be able to handle being a mother best if she is. I also imagine Nicole is expecting this outcome, as she (also a speccy) wants to introduce her niece to baseball early on, and feels it will be easier to get her hooked on it if she ends up on the spectrum.
Yeah, I know, the way I drew Abby holding Sonja is a bit of an oof. I realized that after the fact. At least I have cartoon physics to excuse it, even if Grunvale/OTOG isn’t supposed to be cartoony the same way something like Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry is. Also, since Sonja’s wrapped up in a blanket, I can still say that Sonja’s in the fetal position, and Abby’s pressing her wrist against her knees. Still though, next time I have to draw a character holding a baby, I’ll… come up with a pose better than this, less cartoonish than this. Don’t you go holding a baby like this, anyone reading this description. Especially if you’re a babysitter or aunt or uncle.
Oh! Speaking of being an uncle. This artwork was partially inspired by my own sister Audrie, who, as I write these words, is expecting her third child, a son. It runs in both my family and my brother-in-law’s family to have three kids; I’m one of three (including my sister, of course), my mother’s one of three, my father’s one of three, and my brother-in-law is one of three as well. Hm, come to think of it, that must’ve subliminally influenced my own work already. The Hyndes and the Lowrys are families with three kids as well! Anyhoo, I wish good luck to my sister, and my, as of me writing these words, yet-to-be-born nephew. And to my nephew, who, out of respect for his mother’s privacy at the beginning of 2022 I will not name here…
Nephew, if you’re reading these words years from now in a world that hasn’t been overwhelmed by climate change, thank you for playing a role in inspiring this artwork, and the development of your uncle’s most well-known work. Your mother actually read a portion of an early draft of “Cross Carpenters” during the summer of 2021, and praised the way I wrote April’s Scottish accent into her dialogue. That was a highlight of that summer for both of us.
Now back to the rest of my audience.
In addition to the new birth in my family, this artwork was also inspired by my post-graduation situation, where I now have to look for employment now that I have completed the requirements for a bachelor’s degree. Being an employed person, particularly one who works shifts, means occasionally missing things you’d rather see or go to. I already know that from being a grocery store maintainence worker who often missed Loud House premieres for work. And that downside to being a worker inspired this piece. Since I’m on a search for employment, I decided that, instead of drawing a party scene like last year, it’d be fitting to scale it back and draw a scenario of someone who had a miss a party for work. In this case, teenage Abby watching her former babysitter’s own baby. At least she gets to see the lasers form the Roman numerals for the new year!
Oh, and of course, pixelated versions of the New Year’s specials for 2020 and 2021 appear here, as photos hung on a wall. This decision was partly inspired by how I used Zigilda Zagrime and Wendirisu Wyler (80s AU) as a pixelated asset in This Shouldn’t Still Be a Rivalry, both of them being Pokemon/National Retro Day hybrids.
That’s pretty much it for the artwork itself. However, I still have a few more things I’d like to say. One, the next artwork will be a commission for KamenRiderLoud, a Twitter user who has had a DeviantArt account in the past, but from what I can tell, doesn’t use it anymore and I forgot what his DA account was called. Commissions are… pseudo-closed to the rest of you for now. I am doing this commission now, but they’re not officially open for everyone else yet. This is more a test run. However, when I do open commissions, they will cost $20 a panel, the price of the commission I’m doing right now. Also, this should go wihout saying, but any commissions for NSFW content involving minors, or content to be turned into an NFT, will be immediately rejected, and the client blacklisted.
Two, happy 20th to the one I consider my closest social media friend, jemibuni. If the rest of you have been following me for a while, you’d know the 2020 New Year’s special was actually a birthday gift for her. Jenna has since decided that her anthropomorphic self is a leporine, but I still look back with fond memories of drawing that artwork. Partly because it’s a memento of the pre-COVID world, but also because it marked my entry to the Cookie Run fandom, and the start of me interacting with her on a regular basis. Thank you for the joy you bring me and everyone else in our community, Jenna. This world needs more people like you.
Finally, to the rest of you, happy new year. Let’s make 2022 the best year it can be for being the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the West (fourth in the East). Until next time, take care, stay safe, GET VACCINATED, and have a good one.
Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it. Cookie Run is owned by Devsisters. Jenna’s likeness is her own, even though the sciurine version of her Grunvalified self has been disowned. This artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).
Wow, this is my fifth one of these things? Damn, it feels like just yesterday it was 2017 and I decided to do one of these things, just because I managed to make at least one artwork every month that year. I’ve managed that output for half a decade now! Whoa!
Anyhoo, let’s continue the formula.
Just like the last four years, I’ve managed a consistent monthly output of art. Which isn’t really that impressive anymore, since I’m now working on a graphic novel, i.e. something that requires hundreds, if not thousands of drawings. I can manage it, though. The graphic novels as individual stories are gonna be released in black-and-white, which simplifies things tremendously. The colorized editions will come when they’re compiled into books.
I even have an idea of how to market and sell my graphic novels. I’ve told you all before that I’m gonna do the diagonal billing thing with my characters; Gilda to the left and Margo at the front. But I also took some other details into account. For instance, I’ve talked with JFMstudios about commissioning him to draw the covers to the books, since I feel he’s more talented than I am in making artwork look… um, how do I put this, cinematic. He’s better with things like staging and lighting. My approach to both is pretty simplistic; my characters mostly occupy the same horizontal plane or two of 3D space, and my lighting, aside from the inner shadow/inner glow effects generated by ASP, is mostly just blobs of a single color with a gaussian blur and a blending effect. JFM is better at both those things, plus, he has an ability to take the art style of whatever thing he’s making fanart of, and make it his own. With that in mind, I feel he can do wonders with Grunvale/OTOG, and I can’t wait to work with him when it finally comes time for designing the covers to my work.
In addition, I know what prices I feel my work would sell best for. In terms of the first six stories, I’ll be selling the individual, black-and-white editions for $5.95, and the colorized compilation, the actual book for which the stories are intended, for $25.95. So, six for the price of… just over five.
Oh! And while I’m still talking about OTOG, “Trivia Tussle” is scrapped. In the process of writing “The Swamp Witch Hagatha”, I’ve found it to be more of a Wendy chapter than an April chapter, largely due to her taking charge the most during the story. And because I want to keep to one chapter per Tetrad member, and also because I didn’t have any good ideas for “Trivia Tussle”, I decided to scrap that one, and give April a proper chapter called “Elect-ric Chemistry”, where she meets Jazz in an elective tennis class, and Margo and Wendy help her out on her first date with her.
“bUt WhAt AbOuT gIlDa?”
Oh, you mean Gilda the aromantic?
Well, I’ve said all I should about my graphic novel for now. Let’s talk about 2021.
“You know what’s great about hitting rock bottom? There’s only one way left to go, and that’s up!” – Buster Moon, “Sing”
I knew 2021 could only be better than 2020, after the announcement in December of last year, that the COVID vaccines were starting to ship out. I wasn’t expecting it to be a good year, and… well, it wasn’t. There’s no such thing as a good year when a deadly pandemic is still going on. That, and this year also saw its own share of shitty events, most notoriously the Trump administration going out with a nasty bang as thousands of his supporters raided the US Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 elections, which BIDEN WON FAIR AND SQUARE AND THE ONLY POSSIBLE CORRUPTION THAT OCCURED WAS FROM RIGHT-WING VOTING DISTRICTS SUPPRESSING VOTES FROM THE ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED, BECAUSE OUR GOVERNMENT IS CONTROLLED BY THE BILLIONAIRES, WHO HAVE AN OBSCENE AMOUNT OF INFLUENCE OVER WORLD POLITICS AND WILL DO ANYTHING TO KEEP THEIR POSITIONS OF POWER SECURE, EVEN IF BY IMMORAL AND CRIMINAL MEANS.
But at least the movie theaters and such finally opened back up, and it finally became the norm again for movies to actually be released, and not delayed. Barring Omicron becoming another world-halting pandemic of its own, it seems that, with the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home, movie theaters are back to normal, with the film making $121.8M on its opening day in the US (a figure that, due to the year’s worth of progress streaming made while theaters were paused, I didn’t think would happen again for an opening weekend, let alone a single day), and $516.4M domestically total as of me typing these words. Oh, and it also became the first film of the 2020s to cross the billion-dollar mark worldwide. Things are looking up for movie theaters, and even if my opinion on them has soured, I will admit I enjoyed the experiences of watching Mortal Kombat and Ghostbusters: Afterlife on the big screen. The latter in a Dolby theater!
And that’s all for this piece, and 2021 as a whole. To close out, here are the artworks featured in this edition of the year-in-review. Until next time, take care, and see you in 2022.
Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it. Star Wars is owned by Disney through Lucasfilm. Charlotte Walker is owned by AnimationFan15. This artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).
🎵 I wish you a hopeful Christmas / I wish you a brave new year / All anguish, pain and sadness / Leave your heart and let your road be clear / They said there’d be snow at Christmas / They said there’d be peace on Earth / Hallelujah, noel / Be it heaven or hell / The Christmas we get, we deserve 🎵 Greg Lake (1947-2016)
—–
Geez, it’s already been over five years since Lake’s death? Which means it’s also been over five years since Keith Emerson’s! Damn, does time fly. Remember when we were calling 2016 the worst year ever? 2020 and 2021 have made me wish for 2016 back. At least 2016 didn’t have COVID-19 existing. And also we had a competent human being as president, and not a gross orange thing or Strom Thurmond’s goon.
Anyhoo, this is just an idea I’ve been wanting to draw for a while. Well, not specifically this, but more the loose concept. Since Gilda often has rosy cheeks when she smiles, I’ve for a while wanted to draw her wearing a costume where her cheeks would be painted red. Not just having her wear blush, but having bright red circles painted on her cheeks, like a clown or a ragdoll. I’ve tried before having her dress up like a ragdoll, but I ended up abandoning the idea somewhere down the line. But as Christmas approached, I decided it’d be cute to draw her as an elf. She already has pointy ears, so pretty much all else that needed to be thought up, was the outfit. And this is what I thought up. I knew a green and red color scheme was a must, as well as bells and curled-point shoes. But then I recalled seeing images of elves with red cheeks… somewhere. I didn’t remember where exactly, and I still don’t. But I know I’ve seen it somewhere. Anyhoo, the dubiously-accurate memory of seeing clown-cheeked elves let to me deciding to put the painted cheeks idea to good use, and have Gilda’s cheeks be painted red for her elf costume. I imagine she’d also put on foundation to hide her freckles; she wouldn’t want dark dots peeking out over the red circles, they’d ruin the look she’s going for.
Because I imagine elves being the size of dolls, I decided to also have Gilda wear big, voluminous false eyelashes, that resemble the eyelashes of a doll, like an American/Amareican Girl. I think they make her look cute, especially with the highlights in her eyes.
And of course, because Gilda is Gilda, and candles are associated with Christmas, I also drew Gilda holding a lemon-scented candle. As she’d tell you herself, everything is better with citrus.
Once again, I used filtered stock images for the scenery. However, I also put my photomanipulation abilities to the test. That fallen tree that Gilda is leaning against? The most prominent one in the frame? It wasn’t part of the rest of the scenery. And it didn’t even have snow on it; I drew that snow myself. Most of the scenery is a photograph I found online of the Canadian wilderness, but that fallen tree is taken from a photo I found on a website for a news station in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Wisconsin… I think I’m gonna call its Grunvaliverse equivalent ‘Whalesconsin’. I also thought of ‘Weasconsin’ and ‘Wiscoonsin’, but the former doesn’t sound punny enough to me, and the latter sounds too close to ‘coonskin’, and I’d rather not think of Gilda getting skinned, thank you very much. Plus, that latter name also contains a slur for a black person, and I’d rather not be mistaken for a racist.
It did take a bit of work to get the trunk to look like it was part of the rest of the image. Of course, I had to draw snow on the trunk, to make it blend in with everything else. I also masked out the side of the trunk that’s in the snow, and added a shadow, to make it look even more authentic. The colors were gonna be filtered as always, but I still wanted to make that trunk look like it was really there, not like it was a crude cutout placed on an image. For that matter, Gilda needed some effects applied to her as well, to make her look like more than just a drawing on a picture of the woods. So in addition to the shadows at her feet, I also added interior shadows coming off the sides of her asset going in, masked out the bottom of her right foot to make it look like it’s in the snow, skewed her asset towards the teal of the scenery, and I even added footprints in the snow to make it look like she walked over to wherever on Mount Hatcher this is. And yes, I did imagine this as being on Mount Hatcher, which means this piece is set in Hatcherwood or the outskirts of it, and not Grunvale.
Finally, I’d like to bring up the candle. While most of Gilda’s asset is skewed teal, I did apply a light, but large eraser to the teal block used to filter the asset, to show the candle’s glow. This glow effect shows the colors I used for Gilda’s asset, and I think the effect turned out quite well.
And that’ll be all for this piece. Happy first day of Winter, everyone, and until next time (probably the 2021 year-in-review), take care. Oh, and Happy Hannukwanzmas.
Grunvale/OTOG is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it. This artwork was made at a resolution of 2160×2160 (aspect ratio 1:1).
The Gallery of Stormy Adler 