Time to go back. Way, way, way, way back. With a remake of a piece I drew all the way back in kindergarten.
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On December 8, 2021, at 9:12PM EST, I submitted, barring any potential event in which I decide to go for an advanced degree, the final assignment I will ever have as a student. It was a travel campaign for a fictional place, done in the medium of our choice; I chose Loompaland, and I did the assignment as a mock-website, coded with HTML and CSS in Brackets, a semi-off-brand version of Dreamweaver. And I say semi-off-brand, because Brackets was made by Adobe, which kind of makes it a self-knockoff.
Anyhoo, I imagined the site advertising the Loompaland vacation, as a cruise line owned by the Wonka company, and I made six pages for the assignment, five which were part of the website itself (a main page, a page describing the staff of the boat, a page describing the fauna of Loompaland [hornswogglers, snozzwangers, and whangdoodles], a page of links to the Wonka company’s social media [which was really just a page of links to Nestle’s social media, as a reference to Nestle owning the Willy Wonka Candy Company brand], and a page where a code had to be entered), and one of which was a CSS stylesheet. Around 327 lines of code in all, and, including the photo-composites I made for the assignment, around 12 hours total of work.
The assignment was also the last of mine that needed to be graded. I ended up getting a 94/100 on it, in line with the consistent A’s and B’s I’ve gotten throughout… well, my entire life as a student.
In the hours after finishing my assignment, timed specifically to make a Rush reference (as 9:12PM is 21:12 on a 24-hour clock), I wondered how I could celebrate my completion of my Bachelor’s degree, and by extension, eighteen and a half years of education. As I sat down on the couch to rest for the evening and into the early morning, I saw a drawing of a snowman I made back in kindergarten (so we’re talking late 2003/early 2004), hanging on the wall next to the Christmas tree. And so I got the idea to do what many digital artists nowadays like to do with their own childhood art… remake it, to end my time as a student artist the same way that it began. With a winter-themed artwork. It’s kind of like how the year itself begins in winter, and ends in winter.
So, what more to add? I guess… just take the artwork in, as it represents the completion of an education that’s lasted as long as it takes for a newborn to age into adulthood. That’s right, anyone looking at this artwork born in September 2003 or later. I’ve been drawing longer than you’ve been alive.
Nothing here to put a copyright disclaimer on, other than me owning this artwork. This artwork was made at a resolution of 2160×2880 (aspect ratio 1:1.33).
Color VersionBlack-and-white VersionRockwell-filtered Version
Original DA Upload Date: November 25, 2021
Don’t worry, Redfeather is okay with Thanksgiving. Just as long as the day is treated as being about racial/ethnic unity.
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Drawing the Tetrad serving dinner in 50s-inspired outfits is an idea I’ve had for quite a while, and as long as I’ve had the idea, I knew Thanksgiving would be the best time to draw it for. And because it’s food that’s involved, I knew that meant the Tetrad had to dress as waitresses, much like the ones at Marilyn Springsteen’s. Since releasing three different versions of my previous artwork, also period-themed, went over so well (amassing over 2500 views in total despite two versions not even being part of my featured gallery), I decided to do the same this time around, too. There’s not just a color version, but keeping with the 1950s aesthetic, I also made a black-and-white version, and a version with a filter inspired by the paintings of Norman Rockwell. I enjoy the fact that FlapperFoxy releases multiple versions of her artwork in different filters, after all, and I think she’s onto something doing so. Especially considering the sepia version of my last artwork was the one that got the most views. Maybe it’s also because it was the one I uploaded last, but I’d like to think the period-inspired filter also helped.
BTW, shout-out to FlapperFoxy, since I mentioned her. She’s a retro-loving furry like I am, and if you like my work, then you’ll love hers. I’d even argue she’s even better at accomplishing a retro feel with her art, as she works mainly traditionally while I work mainly in digital. So drop her a follow!
Anyways, on to the piece! I’ve got production notes for all three of these, both together and separately. The notes that apply to all of them together I’ll talk about first, and whichever version you’re looking at (on DeviantArt) or want to know about (on WordPress), just look for the notes marked “Color Version”, “Black-and-white Version”, or “Filtered Version”. Now, with that out of the way, let’s get on with this piece already!
Notes for all three versions For those that haven’t been keeping up with my Twitter, I downloaded the Animal Crossing: New Horizons DLC, Happy Home Paradise, the day it was released, and I’ve had a blast with it. During the DLC, in addition to designing houses, you also design ‘facilities’, namely a school, a restaurant, a cafe, a hospital, and an apparel store. Of course, I named all of these after what I imagined exists in Grunvale. I named my cafe ‘Wilkins” (after the coffee Jim Henson used his puppets to advertise for early in his career), my hospital ‘St. Rogers” (after Fred Rogers), and my apparel store ‘Searing-Lord’ (after Sears and Lord & Taylor). Wilkins’ and St. Rogers I know I want to make canon, but since I’ve established that businesses that exist in our universe exist in the Grunvaliverse, I don’t think I’ll be going with it. Also, for the record, I’m considering coming up with animal puns, much like I do for place names, for the businesses, to get around copyright.
The other two facilities, on the other hand, I named after places I’ve already made canon. The school is named ‘Iwerks U’, and the restaurant is named ‘Marilyn Springsteen’s’. The latter of which, of course, has a major 50s motif going on. In case you’re wondering, my staff at Marilyn Springsteen’s is Walker (the chef), Nate (the apprentice), Maddie (the cashier), and Cleo (the employee). And of course, the way I designed the Marilyn Springsteen’s on the archipelago, was part of the visual inspiration for this piece. I’ll go into deeper detail with the description of the color version.
The diner setting is based on a stock image I found online, and is made out of a combination of stock images and my own assets. The top of the counter table and the… other thing that’s above it (I’m just gonna call an awning because that’s the closest word I can think of to describe what it is), are made out of the same stock image, and the seats around it are actually not seats, but rather inverted and distorted tables with cushions on them. As for the pixelated posters on the wall, they’re all images of things from an inspired by the 1950s. The posters on the left wall are posters for Pleasantville, which anyone who knows anything about the film would know is mostly set in the world of a 1950s sitcom. As for the posters on the right wall, they are pixelated images of, from left to right: Andy Warhol’s paintings of Marilyn Monroe, the LP cover to the original Broadway recording of Grease, and the LP cover to Elvis Presley’s debut album. Perhaps I could’ve chosen less-anachronistic things, but then again, the images I used, other than the Elvis one, are still from things inspired by the 50s, even if they’re not from it. Also, although I don’t imagine this artwork being set there, Marilyn Springsteen’s isn’t entirely a 1950s-inspired restaurant anyway. It’s also inspired by the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Which still leaves Pleasantville as an anachronism considering the movie is from 1998, but also not, because, again, it’s set in a 50s sitcom.
The floor is a checkerboard pattern, of course, because no retro diner is complete without a checkerboard pattern. Like, seriously, if there’s no checkerboard pattern around, what are you doing? If there’s no checkerboard pattern present, it’s not a retro-inspired diner. It really is that cut and dried.
Finally, since all the other information is best saved for the specific versions, I’ll talk about the food, and how it reflects each of the Tetrad members’ tastes. Gilda, who I’ve established well at this point is a talented baker, is carrying an apple-and-lemon pie. Because citrus makes everything taste better, as she would tell you. Also because apple pie is my favorite thing to have around Thanksgiving. Margo is carrying a sourdough bread loaf, as a nod to her love of sub sandwiches. Wendy is carrying a chocolate milkshake, inspired by her love of coffee. And finally, April is carrying a deviled ostrich egg, as a nod to her own love of eggs. I have a brief moment in “Link of the Chain” where April expresses interest in the idea of eating ostrich egg, after Gilda mentions that Chandler is responsible for the Redfeather commune’s egg production.
“What? You drew Margo wearing glasses? But Margo’s not a glasses-wearer! Is she?”
Oh. Right. About that. Um… let’s talk about the information about the color version!
Notes for the Color version The “Marilyn Springsteen’s” I designed on the Happy Home Paradise archipelago, has a cyan color scheme going on. Which, of course, influenced the color scheme of this piece. I did at one point consider color-shifting everything to a red-orange color, but by the time I had the idea, it would’ve been too complicated to fix it, as the posters had already been merged onto the walls. Plus, I kind of got used to the cyan by that point, so why mess with a good thing? Especially when it would mean erasing the most obvious inspiration I took from the ACNH location I designed.
That’s not the interesting part of the colors, though. That would be how I came up with the colors of the dresses. I started with a block of the hex value FFE6E7, a pale pink color much like the pastels I associate with 1950s color schemes. Directly over it on the layer above, I placed blocks of the specific hex values I associate with each member of the Tetrad, at 20% opacity. That’s how I came up with the main color of their dresses. The accent colors of the dresses were created by placing a black box at 50% opacity over the main colors, the colors of the hair accessories were created by placing a black box with the hard mix effect over the main dress colors, and the colors of the lace accents on the aprons (and Margo’s glasses) were created with a white box at 50% opacity, once again, over the main dress colors.
The socks and shoes the Tetrad are wearing are bobby socks and saddle shoes, respectively. Both of which were popular among females in the 1950s. And I used a similar method to come up with the colors for them; the black- and white-skewing colors of their shoes were created by placing blocks of their hex values at 20% opacity, over F2F2F2 and 1A1A1A. The eyelets and soles of their shoes, however, are all the same.
Notes for the Black-and-white version I just took the color version and turned it black-and-white, right? Yeah, no, that’s too easy. When I work in black-and-white, I always try to make the light and dark values look a certain way. With the Victorian Gilda piece, I deliberately made it look overexposed and washed-out, as I’ve noticed a lot of Victorian photographs tend to exaggerate light and downplay shadows, as well as have smudges on them, probably due to many photos of the time (particularly the first half of the Victorian era) being printed upon metal surfaces and glass plates. Both of which give the photo a washed-out appearance.
And for this piece, I thought in terms of how I know black-and-white photography of the 1950s tends to look. Namely, that the contrast between light and dark is significantly greater. I made two black-and-white versions based on the original color version: one with the contrast set to 0, and one with the contrast set to 100. The zero-contrast layer had a ‘lighter colors’ effect applied to it, and then the two layers were merged, creating the black-and-white look I was aiming for, one with a light scheme (not color scheme; black-and-white is about light values) that wouldn’t look out of place if put amongst actual 1950s photographs.
Notes for the Filtered version As I said before, the filtered version is made to look like a painting, like that of Norman Rockwell. After studying some of Rockwell’s paintings for a while, I’ve noticed a lot of them, not all of them but a large portion of them, have a muted color scheme, sometimes skewing sepia, sometimes skewing grey, sometimes even skewing a gray-green. And I sought to imitate that with the filtered version, giving a sepia tint to the image that reminds me of The Godfather and for some reason October Sky. Which is weird considering I don’t recall the latter movie looking sepia-tinted. Maybe I’m thinking of the poster.
But the sepia tint isn’t all I added. I also added a blur effect I’d not seen before, one that I felt made it look more like a painting and whose name currently escapes me, to two copies of the image. I also added some noise filters over the image, to make it look like it was painted on a canvas. The result was an image with softened linework, but colors and textures that I feel emulate the Rockwell style well, at least from a color perspective. It makes me want to draw the next pin-up artwork of Sally Hynde in a Rockwell-inspired look. Not a full-out emulation of his style, of course, that’d involve drawing humans. But emulate the textures and colors present in Rockwell’s work, for another 1950s-inspired pin-up artwork of Sally.
Conclusion And that’s all I’ve got to say about this artwork. Just a cute, 1950s-inspired piece for Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to all my followers, and if you’re reading this the day after Thanksgiving, then Merry Christmas. And if you don’t celebrate Christmas, then Happy Holidays. And if you have a problem with Happy Holidays, then Happy Shut the Fuck Up. I’ve got a funny idea for a Christmas/Hanukkah-themed artwork, but I’d like to run it by some of my Jewish friends first before I go out and draw it. It’s not meant to mock Hanukkah or the Jews anything like that, in fact, if anything, it’s meant to make Gilda, Margo, and April the butt of the joke in front of the Wylers. I’ll not say much else about it publicly unless I get the approval to draw it, but I will say it involves caroling.
Until next time, take care, and Happy Thanksgiving… and Hannukwanzmas.
Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it. Pleasantville is owned by AT&T through WarnerMedia and New Line Cinema. I have no idea who owns the portraits Andy Warhol made of Marilyn Monroe. Probably his estate or the owner of the collection it’s currently apart of. Grease is owned by… ViacomCBS through Paramount Pictures. The musical was written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. Elvis Presley is owned by Sony Music Entertainment through RCA Records. This artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a somewhat recent hypothesis in scientific history, in fact, it was first theorized and studied in 1999 by the namesakes of the hypothesis, David Dunning and Justin Kruger. It describes a cognitive bias, in which people with low ability think highly of their own. You might have this bias yourself about certain things. I might even. And you don’t even know it. The only people who know it are the ones who witness your ability.
That’s what I’m illustrating with this comic. Margo, the least intelligent of the Tetrad, overestimating her ability to speak publicly about her favorite food, submarine sandwiches, as she watches Gilda speak about citrus fruit. Which leads to her embarrassing herself and buckling under pressure, including singing “Yellow Submarine” to calm herself down.
Now to the piece! But first, since my college professor is strict about us showing professional behavior and not making stupid mistakes, and also because she expects us to submit this assignment as a link to its entry in our portfolio, I better put this paragraph in bold so she sees it.
No, professor Thomas, ‘Istallion’, ‘Amareican’, and ‘New Jerbosey’ are not typos, they are animal puns. ‘Istallion’ is a portmanteau of ‘Italian’ and ‘stallion’, ‘Amareican’ of ‘American’ and ‘mare’, and ‘New Jerbosey’ of ‘New Jersey’ and ‘jerboa’. If you follow my work, you’d know that many of the place names are animal puns. Again, they are not typos, they are puns. Please do not take off points for me spelling those words “wrong”, they are spelled that way intentionally.
Okay, now that that part’s out of the way, let’s get to the part for the general audiences.
For this comic, I sought to make the lighting play a role in the way the story is told. In regards to the most prominent example, Panels I and III are lit similarly to each other, to show that Gilda and Margo are confident in their public speaking abilities. Of course, the difference between each other is that panel III has a vignette around it, indicating that Margo only imagines herself as good at public speaking, while panel I does not, indicating Gilda actually is good at it. The setup of these panels makes a return in panel VI, which features much harsher lighting on Margo than in panel III to emphasize that she is uncomfortable with public speaking.
Gilda’s misspeaking in panel II, where she begins to mistakenly say ‘outside’ before correcting herself, was something I thought up on the fly. I initially, accidentally, typed ‘outside’ instead of ‘inside’, but decided to leave the typo there in spirit and have Gilda correct herself instead. Figured it’d be a cute way to characterize her, especially with her being on the spectrum and thus quirky with the way she communicates.
Panel VIII was actually the first panel completed. If you analyze the text closely, you’ll see that the black outlines around the dialogue are thicker than in all the other panels. I initially went back to change it for consistency, but after finding that the thicker outlines made it stick out from the background better, I decided to keep the text as it was.
Finally, all the facts about citrus fruit and sub sandwiches mentioned in this comic were fact-checked; I even looked up to see if the Holland I was an actual thing, as I’d never heard of it before. But after making this comic, I won’t forget it. Probably.
Anyhoo, that’ll be all for this one. Until next time, take care.
Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it. “Yellow Submarine” was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney for the album Revolver, owned by… okay, I’ll be honest, you’d be surprised how hard it is to track who owns the Beatles’ music. The most I can find is that Paul McCartney is the current rights holder. But the label under which Revolver was recorded is Parlophone, which is now a subsidiary of Warner Music Group. All eight panels of this artwork were made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).
You know what kind of promotional materials I love? The author pictured with their characters. So I made one of myself and the Tetrad!
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Once again, this was done as a college assignment, where we had to do a self-portrait in a unique way. Namely, integrate several elements that make ourselves… well, ourselves. And this is what I came up with; a selfie I took with my iPad and modified in ArtStudio Pro. It’s a bit simplistic for what I usually do, but I still feel it represents me well. Let’s go over the process of making it, and all the little details present in this piece.
First of all, there’s me. Not only did I make the mistake of taking the selfie after I’d showered at night, but I also sat in front of my main light source, when it would’ve been easier to take it facing it. Especially given that there was about a dozen feet of open space behind me. I don’t care about the ‘sitting in front of the light’ part, though. In fact, as a fan of many artists known for implimenting backlighting into their visual style, including poster artist John Alvin and cinematographer Roger Deakins, I actually love backlighting in art. The issue was more with masking out the background; it was complicated during the threshold-masking portion, when it came to judging what was the background and what was my hair. And because hair is inherently hard to mask, the result came out… pretty spotty. Which may have actually worked out in my favor, for reasons I’ll get to later.
Standing behind me is the Tetrad, with Gilda Grime, my central character, placed front-and-center, and Margo, Wendy, and April peeking out from behind her. Full disclosure, this’ll probably be one of the few times Gilda is placed front-and-center in OTOG promotional material. One of the things I’ve studied for my Digital Media degree, is marketing. And after researching the way things are marketed, I know that rabbits/leporines are one of the most marketable kinds of anthropomorphic animal, if not the most marketable. Which means if I want to sell my work, I need to place Margo front-and-center. So where does Gilda go? To the left of Margo. And yes, there is an explanation for this too.
One of the things I like to bring up when it comes to marketing for media, is that, if one actor/character is more marketable than the main actor/character of the work, that more marketable actor/character is placed front-and-center, while the main actor/character is placed to the left. The specific example I bring up when it comes to this, is Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese’s 1990 masterpiece. Those who haven’t seen the movie and/or know nothing about it, might look at this poster and think Robert De Niro is the star of the film, and Ray Liotta is some secondary player. Those who actually watched the movie, though, would know it’s the other way around. After watching Goodfellas for myself, I came to admire the poster’s design. Even while following that not-so-well-known rule of film marketing, it still is effective in telling you what the characters are like. It works from a marketing standpoint since De Niro is indeed a more recognizable and more popular actor than Liotta, and it works in advertising the film since Henry Hill (Liotta’s character) works under Jimmy Conway (De Niro’s character).
By the way, if you haven’t seen Goodfellas, go see Goodfellas any way you can. It’s one of those films I think everyone should see at least once in their lives. If not for its quality, then at least because it’s considered one of the most culturally important films ever made.
Anyways, that rule of marketing is why I’ll be placing Margo front-and-center on most Grunvale promotional material. Because rabbits/leporines are indeed more marketable than raccoons/procyonines. Besides, Margo is basically written to have most of the funny moments in the stories, so she was bound to end up front-and-center, leporine or not.
And finally, there’s the background… a solid blue. Which seems pretty amateurish, especially given the detailed backgrounds you’ve seen me make before. Well, there’s a reason behind that, too. You see how there’s also a bunch of lines running through this artwork? Those are for the same reason as that blue background. And also my logo being a vibrant green. And the picture as a whole being slightly blurry. Did you catch on yet?
This whole picture is supposed to resemble an inactive VCR on its blue screen, as it would look on a CRT display. A nod to my love of retro culture and technology that has influenced the anthropomorphic animal world that I created. I was tasked to do this portrait in a 1:1 aspect ratio, and by the time I thought of this way of showing my love of retro stuff, most of the canvas was already taken up by myself and my characters. I initially thought of a vaporwave-inspired backdrop, but hardly any of it was visible. And in retrospect, it didn’t do that great in showing my love of retro stuff. Then I thought of the blue screen, one of the most nostalgic sights from my youth. And from there, I thought of the CRT filter, making my logo green, and then blurring the picture slightly. It’s a simple way of showing my love of retro stuff, but it’s effective. Plus, since a lot of chroma key effects from the era of VHS tapes are known to be… pretty laughable by today’s standards (just look at how cheap the chroma key effects in Ghost look compared to today!), I figured a VCR-inspired backdrop gave the selfie part of this portrait, an excuse to look somewhat cheap. Stylistic suck, as TV Tropes puts it.
Anyhoo, that’s all for this one. Until next time, take care.
Grunvale 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 2000×2000 (aspect ratio 1:1).
Hums of the Oddballin’ TetradHighway to the Ganja Zone
Original DA Upload Dates:
Hums of the Oddballin’ Tetrad: August 1, 2021
Highway to the Ganja Zone: September 11, 2021
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As a pilot chapter of sorts to The Oddball Tetrad of Grunvale, New Pork, StormArts presents…
THE 50,000TH TWEET ARC PART I OF XII “HUMS OF THE ODDBALLIN’ TETRAD”
It is the middle of summer, sometime around the end of the Zs and beginning of the Alphas. The Oddball Tetrad, a group of preteen mammals of privileged backgrounds consisting of the nerdy procyonine Gilda Grime, the tomboyish leporine Margo Hynde, the punkish sciurine Wendy Wyler, and the fashionista mephitine April Lowry, have gathered at the house of Wendy’s sister and brother-in-law, Dolly Wyler-Voronov and Gregory Voronov, to celebrate Margo and April coming home from their vacations in Dublin and Glasgow respectively, with another one of Wendy’s sisters, Nicole, tagging along as part of her trying to prove to her parents that she’s ready for babysitting. After Gilda finds Gregory’s old PlayStation, along with a multitap, several controllers, and a copy of Crash Team Racing stored away in a closet in the living room, the Tetrad have decided to play through all of the game’s 18 courses after getting the console hooked up to the TV.
Downstairs, Dolly is helping her lifelong friend and fellow cosmetologist, porcine Stella Svampsson, prepare for a show at the retro-themed restaurant and arcade, Marilyn Springsteen’s, at which she is to sing “Downtown” by Petula Clark. Prompted by Dolly to sing something from the 1960s upon getting in her attire for the show, Stella sings another classic from the decade, “Summer in the City” by the Lovin’ Spoonful. Her singing has unwittingly reached Gilda’s ear, inspiring the next entry in a long-standing tradition...
And…
PART II OF XII “HIGHWAY TO THE GANJA ZONE”
After the Tetrad has decided to do something 60s-themed for the next entry of their tradition celebrating every 10,000th tweet, Dolly drives the Tetrad and Nicole down to Margo’s home, Hynde Manor, where Margo’s rock star grandfather, Angus, is staying, as he takes advantage of the break between the spring and fall legs of his most recent tour. While Nicole goes off to make a sandwich in the kitchen, Margo, Wendy, and April go into the basement to look for music to get them in the mood, while Gilda, having picked up one of her mix tapes (conveniently containing songs from the 1980s by 1960s artists) from her home at the Redfeather Commune on her way to the mansion, follows them, as she listens to said mix tape her Walkman.
While searching through the records, Wendy remembers that all the previous 10,000th tweet specials were 80s-themed, and casts doubt on the idea that the 60s theme they decided upon could work. Angus, who is in the room with them smoking marijuana and watching TV, invites the Tetrad for a joint, so he, as somebody who lived through both the 60s and the 80s, can spill his knowledge of the popular music of both decades onto them…
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You’d think that, considering that these comic are a whopping eight panels long, that these would be worthy of one of my signature, 1000-word-plus essays that I like writing for my artwork. And yes, it would be, if it were a stand-alone piece. But it’s not a stand-alone piece. It’s only the first eight panels of one comic, in a 76-panel, 12-comic storyline, that I decided to write and illustrate, both to test out my graphic novel abilities, and also to celebrate my 50000th tweet, which, funny enough, seems to be on track to drop around when I said it would all the way back in November.
“Anyways, that’ll be all for this one. See you for the 50,000th tweet special in… probably late summer/early fall of 2021, given how fast I tweet. Hopefully Donald Trump will be in prison and most people will be vaccinated against COVID by then!” – The description to Smug (40,000th Tweet Special)
…might be more on the fall side, though, given I’ve been trying to slow down my tweeting lately after realizing my behavior on social media has been problematic. Unfortunately, Donald Trump’s not in prison yet despite proving to the world thousands of times over that he’s a danger to humanity, and the Delta variant of COVID-19 is starting up another major wave of the pandemic. Ugh… Zeus help us if the GOP ends up taking over the presidency in 2024. I don’t know if Trump would run again, but I have a feeling that we could end up with something just as bad if not worse, like DeSantis/Greene. And let me tell you, as a Floridian and resident of Jacksonville, I am embarrassed that DeSantis governs my state and is from the same city where I live. And the less attenton I give to Greene and how much she embarrasses herself, Georgia, and the government of the United States, the better. Instead, I’ll just link you to Randy Rainbow and have him describe to you through Barbra Streisand parody what a shithead she is.
Anyhoo.
I’ve not got a lot to say about this artwork other than the story I wrote above, because I’m saving most of it… for something very different. Something far outside the scope of any DA description I’ve ever written. What exactly? Well, how about a documentary?
Yes, you heard me. A documentary. I don’t know how long it’s gonna be, all I know is that it’s gonna be a long one. Three hours, if I can manage it. And, if it can be made, it’s gonna feature speed-draw segments of me drawing the comics, and a soundtrack of video game tunes that I’m gonna take advantage of fair use for to include in my video. I know the general vibe I want the documentary to be; Summoning Salt meets ThaRixer, with some sprinkles of Blameitonjorge. I’ve ran into some recording trouble while making the documentary so I might end up going off on tangents during it for filler, but rest assured, if I can get this documentary made, it’ll be my magnum opus. Among videos. The Oddball Tetrad of Grunvale, New Pork and the series to be spawned from it, is still what I’d like to see as my true magnum opus.
That’s all you’re getting for this one. Until part III, take care.
Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it.
Crash Bandicoot is owned by Activision; the original PS1 version of Crash Team Racing is owned by Sony through Sony Computer Entertainment.
PlayStation is owned by Sony through Sony Computer Entertainment.
V8 is owned by the Campbell Soup Company.
“Summer in the City” was written by John Sebastian, Mark Sebastian, and Steve Boone for the album Hums of the Lovin’ Spoonful, owned by Sony Music Entertainment.
“Come Dancing” was written by Ray Davies for the album State of Confusion, owned by Sony Music Entertainment through Arista Records.
All eight panels of both of these artworks were made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).
Did you remember? It’s the 21st night of September. Again! Bah-de-yah!
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Last year, I made an artwork celebrating Earth, Wind, and Fire Day. It was one of what I’ve started to refer to as the ‘pre-Gadgetbarē’ works, that is, the artworks I drew before anime-style Grunvale and toking Gadget led to an inexplicable but very welcome skyrocketing in viewership in my artwork on DeviantArt. To this day, the original “Earth, Wind, and Fur” has less than 400 views, as opposed to the consistent thousands my artwork now racks up, even the Grunvale/OTOG stuff. But despite its low viewership by my 2021 DA standards, I’ve always wanted to make a sequel that either improved or expanded upon it. I decided to do the latter… by affectionately poking fun at the original music video for the song, and its use of black for the chroma key color. It causes weird transparencies in the original video, like in the shadows on the band members’ hair, and in this comic featuring the Tetrad, it causes Gilda’s nose to disappear. Not in a stylistic way like Big City Greens, a goofy if horrifying way reminiscent of this half-assed Photoshop job replacing eyes with mouths. Which is not something Gilda wants to happen, given she wants to improve upon the previous EWF Day celebration.
Now to the piece.
As you can see here, Roz and Maddie Wyler have been redesigned, to better fit their roles as a mad scientist and lab assistant respectively. Roz now has messy hair and deranged-looking eyes, and Maddie has moles, messy hair, and deformed eyes, with one permanently blackened, either by physical trauma or an accident. Probably both. And yes, this is a permanent change, the final big one needed (for now) to flesh Wendy and he sisters into actual characters. Wendy is an intelligent rocker, Dolly is a kind-hearted fashionista on the autism spectrum, Nicole is a nerdy tomboy on the autism spectrum, and Roz and Maddie are a mad scientist and lab assistant who like going around causing mischief. Now all that needs be done is to flesh out Donovan/Don-hoon and Judy, and the Wyler family is… mostly all set.
Every panel has some visual trickery and planning involved in it in one way or another, and it begins right on the first panel. The background of panel I is not solid black; it’s very slightly off-black with some very faint lighting applied. That, and I actually thought about how Wendy’s dye hair would look against a black screen; even with the recent color update making her hair ever so slightly lighter, it’s still darker than April’s fur. I only wanted Gilda’s nose to fall victim to the chroma key effect, so I decided she’d forgo her hair dye for her natural blonde hair for this artwork.
Panel II; the CRT background and the table. The background is essentially just a bunch of blurred blue 4:3 rectangles, but with a gaussian blur applied to make the effect look less obvious. It’s a basic cinematography detail; keeping the objects in focus not blurred, and everything not in focus blurred. I’ve actually done this as early as Wendy’s sisters’ first appearance in my artwork, but I’ve not really thought to do it again until recently, as I go through my final semester of college, and work to make my artwork look more professional. As for the table, I painted a bunch of brown circles on it to look like coffee stains, to mark repeated places where the twins have put their coffee mugs. Speaking of the coffee mugs, those aren’t drawn lines you’re seeing as steam, it’s a smudge effect.
Panel III; the shelf on which Roz’s computer mouse lies. Even a simple shot like this requires detail; in fact, especially a simple shot like this, because it’s a close-up. And as a close-up, details are magnified. In this case, the scratches on the wood from the mouse being dragged across it so many thousands of times. This was my first time doing such an effect; here, it’s a bunch of overlayed lines against the wooden shelf.
And finally, panel IV, the panel on which the chroma key effect from the original music video is paid homage to. It’s done the same way as in the first “Earth, Wind, and Fur”, this time taking into account that Gilda’s black nose, and the unlit part of the floor, would come out transparent if black were used as the chroma key. And because Margo is not very bright, she’s trying to make it look like she’s picking Gilda’s nose. She’s gonna be disappointed when she finds out the camera only recognizes two dimensions, and that her hand just went behind Gilda. The transparency was achieved with a thresholded image used as a mask, where all but Gilda’s nose and the very darkest wood panels were white. So how did the outlines not come out transparent? That’s easy; I used 1A1A1A as the hex value for it, instead of the usual 000000, or pure black.
Overall, another fun piece for celebrating the 21st night of September. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you enjoyed this year’s EWF Day. Until next time, bah-de-yah!
Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it. All four panels of this artwork were made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).
The ability to spec does not make you intelligent… even when dealing with other speccies.
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Gilda is a big-nosed blonde nerd on the autism spectrum. Nicole is a big-nosed blonde nerd on the autism spectrum. What could possibly go wrong when these two communicate with each other?
…quite a lot, actually. Gilda’s not very good at understanding all the little details of what others say, and Nicole’s not very good at speaking. And this can lead to some misunderstandings between the two, that end up getting each other frustrated with the other. And themselves. Like here, when Gilda misunderstands what Nicole wants for her suit, due to her not being specific enough. Nicole’s continued reluctance to speak results in the two twinning, which was not what the Wyler sister wanted.
I drew this piece as a way of illustrating my experiences with people on the autism spectrum. As a speccie myself, I often times find it awkward interacting with others on the spectrum. Specifically because autism is, well, a spectrum. I misunderstand what people on the spectrum mean or are doing, other people on the spectrum have misunderstood me. And because of that, it’s often been frustrating trying to interact with them, especially because it’s unpredictable how they’re going to act because of the misunderstanding. I know people are frustrated with me when I misunderstand something, even for others on the spectrum. So I drew this as a way of illustrating that autism struggle, with Gilda Grime and Nicole Wyler, two of my characters who are on the autism spectrum.
Now to the production of piece!
If you zoom way into the piece, you’ll notice that everything is dithered. That is, pixels of various different colors are used to simulate colors that aren’t natively possible. If you’re viewing this image, you’re viewing it on a monitor with a 24-bit color display. That is, a monitor that uses 8 bits, or 256 values, each for red, green, and blue, to create its color palette. That’s 256^3 colors, or, written out as an integer, 16,777,216. To put that into perspective, that number is bigger than the populations of New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, combined (as of the 2020 US census). However, as strange as it may sound, even 24-bit displays have their limits. And I’ve somehow managed to push them myself; whenever there’s complex lighting happening in my artwork, say, a glowing effect, it often creates what I like to call a ‘halo effect’, that is, rounded color banding that is distractingly visible when viewed at full resolution.
Dithering is a way of masking color banding, and also artificially creating detail. And it’s used on basically everything in this piece that isn’t Gilda or Nicole. And the panel of Gilda polishing Nicole’s shoes even has it on them, by mistake because I didn’t think to dither the background on it until partway through. In some cases, the dithering only made the scenery look blurry, however, in the case of the lighting on the couch in the first two panels and the sunlight in the last two, it drastically reduced and even eliminated any evidence of color banding. I’d give my compliments to the curtain, too, but… let’s pretend those accidentally erased shadows aren’t visible.
As for what it did for the textures, the gritty texture of the wall looks better than usual, in my opinion, thanks to the simulated detail. I think I’m gonna use this technique for detail when the situation calls for it.
So… how did I create this dithering effect, you may be asking? Well, that’s easy. I made two copies of the background, applied a checkerboard mask to the top copy of the background, offset the masked copy by a few pixels, applied a ‘dissolve’ effect at 50% opacity, and then finally, merged the two layers and scaled it by the same amount the top layer was offset by, with the resulting anti-aliasing further masking any obvious color banding.
That’s how you use anti-aliasing as a tool, people.
Anyways, that’ll be all for this one. Until next time, take care.
Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it. Panels 1, 2, 7, and 8 of this artwork were made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1); panels 3-6 were made at a resolution of 2538×2160 (aspect ratio 1.18:1).
I was gonna call this something along the lines “So Hot She’s Cold”, but then I remembered this isn’t a Pop Tarts ad, and decided to turn it into what is probably Gregory’s catchphrase when he sees Dolly in her winter clothes.
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If you’ve been following my art and the descriptions for a while, you’d know that Sally Hynde is the character I like to push the most as the hot one. I’ve drawn her as a 40s/50s-inspired pin-up girl on several occasions, canonized that modeling is her secondary occupation to being a personal injury lawyer, and even described her as a MILF. However, one idea that’s been in my head for a while, is to draw Dolly as a pin-up girl in the same style, complete with victory-rolled hair, bright red lips, and a pearly smile, like the models of yesteryear are known for. But of course, being shy, she’s not the kind that would advertise her business this way, or even show her pin-up pictures publicly. This is more for herself to feel beautiful, to have a photo to be proud of. And it just so happens that her way of feeling beautiful, happens to be similar to her sister’s friend’s mother.
Dolly does know Sally, by the way. And her mother and sisters-in-law, too. Dolly is actually the reason Margo, Wendy, and April know each other; she was the Hynde triplets’ and Lowry twins’ babysitter. She’s not their babysitter anymore, though. Both because they’re too old, and because Abby repeatedly mocked her for being on the autism spectrum, including by repeatedly calling her a ‘sperg’ and asking if she stuffed burgers up her ass. Because, yes, she really is a female mephitine version of Cartman with Min Min’s hairstyle.
Speaking of which, I actually think the designation of “Asperger’s” is one that needs to be retired. Its namesake is a literal evil scientist, who had children on the spectrum murdered during the Holocaust. I’d personally like to see it renamed to “Aykroyd’s” or “Hannah’s”, or at least after someone else better than someone who aided and abetted in the murders of people with my condition.
Now to the artwork!
One of the shortcuts I like using in my artwork that I don’t usually talk about, is using color-shifting filters or transparent single-color layers in combination with the eyedropper tool, to select colors. I usually use the latter method for selecting the colors of stockings and panty hose, as it was done here for Dolly’s dark stockings. However, here, I also used it for the trim of her dress. Dolly usually wears a dark blue dress with white stripes, and the same hex values for that dress are used here, albeit inverted as to what’s the main color and what’s the pattern color. However, in keeping with the 1940s/1950s aesthetics, it is now a polka-dotted dress, and the trim color is a combination of the white and the blue used for the dress. The blue is also used for Dolly’s high heels.
There’s also a few colors that were intentionally recycled. The red of her lipstick and nail polish is the same red used for her lipstick in Gettin’ Dolled Up (albeit with a few highlights added), and, although Dolly isn’t wearing her trademark magenta blazer here, the hex value for it is used for the strawberries of the ice cream.
Now, you’re probably looking at this, maybe have even checked the hex values, and are saying to yourself something along the lines of, “What are you talking about? These colors are darker than the ones you’re talking about!”. And… yes, they are. I actually made three different versions of this artwork; one version with the colors I’m talking about (albeit with noise applied), one filtered to look like a photo from the 1940s, and one in black-and-white. All of which you can view here, in that order. Because I felt that it was the one that looked the most appropriate to present as a 1940s/1950s-style pinup image, the second version is the one I decided to post here as the ‘official’ version. Probably a controversial move, but it’s the one I’ve come to prefer. If I get enough demand for full-quality versions of the version in the original colors and the version in black-and-white, I’ll post them here.
Also, as of this piece, I’ve decided Dolly’s favorite fruit is the strawberry. I mean, her favorite color is red, and she likes fashion. It only makes sense to me that she likes strawberries, given their red color and how visually interesting they look. She will eat cherries, too, but they aren’t as aesthetically pleasing to her as strawberries. Plus, cherries always come out dark in ice cream, unlike strawberries which retain their color.
Anyways, that’ll be all for this one. Until next time, take care.
Grunvale 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).
English title: “Dancing the Tarantella in the Field of Roses”
Original DA Upload Date: September 9, 2021
A dance a day keeps the spiders away.
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You know what? Gilda + Nicole is an awesome pairing. Probably will be considered the most underrated pairing outside of the Tetrad. I’ve long said that Gilda’s closest friend within the Tetrad is Wendy, who she shares intellect and popular music fandom with. But with Nicole, Gilda shares both of these things, as well as a nerdy personality, a homely physical appearance (they both have freckles, a big nose, and Scorsese eyebrows), and being on the autism spectrum! Not gonna lie, Gilda inviting Nicole to her birthday party to fill Margo’s absence was kind of meant to be a one-off. I don’t know if this is an experience that varies from person-to-person, but in my experience, kids, especially in elementary and middle school, usually only have friends their own age. They know who’s in the grade above and the grade below in their own school and may talk with them, but that’s about it. It’s not until around age 16 when they start more openly hanging out and being friends with the kids in the grades directly above and below them. And even then, that’s mostly because they sometimes end up in their classes. Gilda is 11 years old and Nicole is 13. Normally, the only reason a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old from two different families would speak to each other, let alone be friendly to one another, would be if one had a sibling the other’s age.
Which is the case with Gilda and Nicole’s friendship. Nicole’s 11-year-old sister Wendy, is Gilda’s friend. Which is how they got to know each other. And wouldn’t you know it, Gilda and Nicole get along very well! They both like video games, they both like going to the mall, and they like taking part in the other’s interests. Gilda has taken an interest in baseball from Nicole; she likes watching her play on her team, watching baseball games on TV with her, and has even invested in various baseball games for retro systems from the third to sixth generations. She mostly keeps the games at home because the Wylers don’t have anything more retro than a PS2, but when invited over to one of the Wylers’ households (Donovan/Don-hoon and Judy’s, the Voronovs’, and the twins’) Gilda often likes to bring over one of the PS1 or PS2 games she has, so she and Nicole can play together. As for Nicole, she’s taken a liking to a centuries-old part of Gilda’s Istallion ancestry… the tarantella dance.
Now to the artwork!
Because I imagine Gilda having the same voice actress as Ronnie Anne Santiago (Izabella Alvarez), this artwork began with the idea of drawing Gilda in a baile folklorico dress. However, because Gilda is Italian/Istallion and not Hispanic/Horspanic, I thought it would be a bad look. Especially in this post-George Floyd world where anything that can be taken as racist, is frowned upon. Hell, even The Casagrandes has taken several measures to make sure the show is as culturally sensitive as possible, down to the point of recasting many of the voice actors to be the ethnicties of the characters they voice. Although, they still have the major elephant in the room of Maria Santiago, a major character in this Hispanic-led show, being voiced by the Thai- and Filipina-American Sumalee Montano instead of a Hispanic or Latina voice actress. Furthermore, Maria wore a baile folklorico dress! I know the character is still Hispanic, but still, it isn’t a very good look for the show if it wants culturally sensitive casting, and yet has a character voiced by an Asian woman as a baile folklorico dancer.
Anyhoo, since I figured Gilda as a baile folklorico dancer was a bad idea, I decided to look up cultural dances of Italy to see what I could do for Gilda. Which was when I learned of the ‘tarantella’, a folk dance dating back to around the 14th or 15th century, that originated as a cure for tarantism, a form of dance mania that was believed to be caused by the bite of a tarantula wolf spider. The tarantula is named after the Italian province of Taranto, where I have now decided Gilda’s Italian/Istallion ancestry comes from. With this new establishment of Gilda’s character, I have also decided that tarantella dancing is one of Gilda’s hobbies, alongside taking in pop culture, shopping, and baking.
While doing research on the tarantella, I learned that, unlike the baile folklorico, dresses for the tarantella are generally all the same. There are occasional variations, but how you see I’ve drawn them here is almost always how they look. It’s considered bad luck in modern times to dance the tarantella alone. Neither Margo, Wendy, nor April would be interested in the tarantella. Especially not Margo, because it involves wearing a dress. But Nicole, though I do describe her as a tomboy, her streak is not as strong as Margo’s. And because Gilda was willing to pick up some of her hobbies, as well as sharing many traits with her, Nicole would love to dance the tarantella! It’ll help her learn about the cultures of others, as well, beyond just the French, Korean, and Jewish cultures she already knows, from being all those things.
As for the technical aspects of the artwork, the roses were originally drawn as a bunch of red smudges, stacked layer-upon-layer atop one another, and with interior shadows applied. Most of the roses were made out of three layers; the petals at the front, the big petal in the center, and the petals in the back. Then the stems were drawn on a separate layer from those, and then layer with the red roses, unmerged with the stems, were turned white. From there, the red and white rose petals were copied until I felt they pulled off a convincing illusion of kilometers of depth, and then a blur was applied to make the roses far off in the distance appear as if they were out of focus. Oh, and there is also a layer of distorted and wavy greens, to give the illusion of several rose stems and leaves. The prominent greens, whites, and reds, are a reference to the flag of Italy, fitting for the theme of this artwork.
The tree-filled mountains in the background are Mount Hatcher; the waterfall feeds Proboscis Creek (also known by its former name ‘Fly Kill’ and popularly referred to as the ‘Fly Kill River’), which itself feeds the Hudson. Its former name is a reference to Vly Creek and Normans Kill, two real-life creeks in upstate New York which run through Albany county. Growing up in upstate New York, I always thought those creeks had weird names. And now in my adulthood, I thought naming a body of water that runs through Grunvale and Hatcherwood after them, would be a fun little touch. And ‘Fly Kill’/’Fly Kill River’ is the name I thought up for it, combining both names and also turning the result into an animal pun. Of course, due to its name, it would be very contronversial in-universe, due to the dipterous population taking offense to it decades before the events of OTOG. Hence the official rename to ‘Proboscis Creek’.
And that’ll be all for this artwork. Until next time, take care, and stay tuned for more Gilda + Nicole art, as they’re quickly becoming one of my favorite non-Tetrad pairings to draw. So much so that I now consider Nicole to be an honorary Tetrad member alongside Auggie Lowry.
Grunvale 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 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).
Introducing a new side to the character you and most of the rest of Grunvale had only known as a boar named August… the more feminine side of the enby mephitine Auggie Lowry.
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I’ve had quite well-established by now that April Lowry, the mephitine fashionista of the Oddball Tetrad, is a lesbian. However, she’s not the only LGBTQIA child of Carol Moss-Lowry and Johnathan Lowry. Now’s also time to reveal that her twin sibling, Auggie, born August, is non-binary. Specifically, genderfluid. They use any pronouns, including he/him, she/her, and they/them. Sometimes they feel more male and thus more comfortable identifying as ‘August’, sometimes more female and preferring ‘Augustine’, and sometimes they feel somewhere in between.
Only a select few members of the Lowry and Moss families know Auggie to be genderfluid, all the more politically liberal ones. Among them, of course, is their twin sister April, the only member of the Tetrad who knows about Auggie’s gender identity. Auggie plans to come out to the rest of the Tetrad next, but is most afraid of the reaction on Margo’s side. Not from Margo herself, though. Auggie knows Margo is accepting of the LGBTQIA community. Why else would she be friends with their sister, after all?
No, it’s Margo’s extended family from the Ketcham side they’re worried about. They know for a fact that some of them (not all of them) such as Sally and Richard Sr. have conservative views, in some cases including views that would be regarded as transphobic. They don’t know yet if the other Ketchams are accepting of transgender and enby individuals, let alone the idea of one of their own dating one. So until Auggie finds the right time to come out to the rest of the Tetrad, they’re gonna wait until the rest of the Ketchams, or at least those close to Sally, have gotten to know them better than they do.
On a side note, Auggie isn’t worried about Margo’s great-grandfather, Charles. He may be 99, but Auggie knows about what he did whenhe landed on Rhinormandy. And what he did, is enough to convince them that he wouldn’t mind his great-granddaughter dating an enby.
Anyways, now to the piece!
The idea of Auggie being an enby has actually been headcanoned by me for a long time; their longer hair and eyeliner from four years later was meant to be an allusion to that, and set at a time after they had come out publicly. Of course, April knows long before most others do, and is the first Auggie comes out to, due to her being a lesbian, which they assume (correctly) would mean she would be accepting of them being genderfluid. Auggie has worn things like dresses and make-up and high heels before, but mostly for April to see how it would look on herself, since they’re twins and she doesn’t like wearing anything she knows won’t look good on her. However, Auggie likes how they look in feminine clothes, and sometimes would prefer to wear them. And their sister April is here to help them with a feminine outfit all their own!
The usual tricks are all here; the floor skewed to resemble dimension, parts of the shag carpeting drawn over the feet to add realism, and the mirror pulled off with a few effects to resemble smudges and scratches, like those you’d find on an actual mirror. The wall is even perfectly selected to show where a reflection would realistically be. As for the wall decorations, they’re a pixelated version of what is probably April’s phone background, and a logo I thought up for the Tetrad, that was originally part of an ambigram combining all their names. I decided to use only the first character as the Tetrad’s logo, and here, the part of the logo representing April is highlighted in cyan. It’s supposed to be shaped like the letter ‘A’. You… can probably find the G, M, and W on your own if you look hard enough.
Anyways, that’ll be all for this one. Until next time, take care.
Grunvale 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 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).
The Gallery of Stormy Adler 
