The Gallery of Stormy Adler

Unoptimized Specs

Original DA Upload Date: September 19, 2021

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.

DON’T FORGET TO FOLLOW ME ON OTHER PLATFORMS:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StormyAdlerPoG
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phoenix_of_grunvale/
DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/phoenixofgrunvale
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCEtCO…
Discord: Contact me by my tag (Stormy Adler, P.o.G.#1752) for an invite to my server.

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Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it.
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).

It Suddenly Got Hot in the Freezer

Original DA Upload Date: September 13, 2021

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.

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Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 2160×2880 (aspect ratio 1:1.33).

Ballando la Tarantella nel Campo delle rose

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.

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

Their Name is Auggie Lowry

Original DA Upload Date: September 7, 2021

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 when he 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.

DON’T FORGET TO FOLLOW ME ON OTHER PLATFORMS:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StormyAdlerPoG
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phoenix_of_grunvale/
DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/phoenixofgrunvale
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCEtCO…
Discord: Contact me by my tag (Stormy Adler, P.o.G.#1752) for an invite to my server.

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

Sisterly Bonding, Wyler Style

Original DA Upload Date: August 14, 2021

Just a cute filler piece I drew showing Wendy surprising Dolly by cosplaying as her.

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For a while, Wendy’s parents have been the only Tetrad parents that I haven’t thought of names for. There’s been Theodore and Gretchen Grime (Gretchen’s maiden name being ‘Griswold’), Harry and Sally Hynde (Sally’s maiden name being ‘Ketcham’), and Johnny Lowry and Carol Moss-Lowry. However, now I’ve thought of names for the Wyler parents, both of them: Donovan Phillips, a Siberian chipmunk geologist born ‘Phil Dong-hoon’ from which the sisters get their Korean ancestry, and Judy Wyler, an Eastern gray squirrel homemaker from which the sisters’ French-Jewish ancestry comes from.

Donovan and Judy live in a high-crime area on the border of Grunvale and Albaneigh, where Donovan runs a meth lab in the Wyler’s bomb shelter, mostly selling his drugs to Asia and the Pacific Islands. This, along with his racist anti-European rants, have made the Wyler sisters feel uncomfortable around him; Dolly and the twins Roz and Maddie have moved out, and Wendy and Nicole mostly stay at one or the other’s place. Nicole prefers the twins’ place for all the technology they’ve made and have installed, such as robot servants, but Wendy prefers the Voronovs’ for its warm atmosphere, and because she finds Dolly fun and relaxing to be around.

Anyhoo, because it was a cute idea that came into my head, I decided to draw this simple piece of Wendy cosplaying as Dolly in front of her. What’s the in-universe reason? I’d like to think it’s because Wendy knows that Dolly understands that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and Wendy’s way of showing appreciation for her eldest sister is by imitating her style for her to see.

Production notes!

A keen-eyed viewer will notice that the black part of Wendy’s dyed hair is ever so slightly lighter here. It’s a yellow-tinted black (as Wendy herself is a natural blonde), and the hex value is 1A1304. This will be a permanent change; I’m putting out a character note sheet on Wendy, and I feel like choosing a more off-black than the nearly-completely-black 0A0700 I’ve been using, will make her easier to draw, as the black outlines will be more visible. However, I still used the old hex values for the curls in her hair, mirroring how Dolly’s curls are darker than the rest of her hair.

The portrait in the background is a minimalist representation of all the Wyler sisters, shown by blocks of the colors that represent them. The blue box, representing Maddie, is twice as wide as the others as a reference to her obesity, and, at full resolution, all the boxes’ heights in pixels are their height in inches times ten. Of course, Wendy does get taller than 4’11” (I imagine her being as tall as Dolly [5’3″] in adulthood), so it’s not going to age well, but hey, at least it’s accurate to the regular continuity. It’s like a family portrait, albeit in a different sense.

Anyhoo, that’ll be all for this one. Until next time, take care, and if you’re not vaccinated already… get vaccinated, you stupid dipshit.

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Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 3996×2160 (aspect ratio 1.85:1).

A Peculiar Piece of Furniture

Original DA Upload Date: July 15, 2021

Hey, did you know I have an Instagram account? No? Well, I do. And I recently crossed the 100 followers mark on it.

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My Instagram account has been up for a long time, but I don’t post on it very often. I mostly stick to DA for posting my artwork, and Twitter for actually growing an audience. Instagram on the other hand, is basically a bit of a third wheel. I don’t use it nearly as much as Twitter or even DA, which… may be for the best. Sure, the long descriptions I use for my DA posts aren’t there, nor is it an in-depth look into my view of the world like Twitter is. But it’s also much less cluttered, and I mostly show the work I’m actually proud of there, none of my cringe old stuff from 2016 and 2017. But of course there is the somewhat cringe 2018 stuff from when it was the web novel I was working on, and notthe graphic novel OTOG. I did start that account up in 2018, after all.

Finally, though, I actually passed a bit of a milestone on Instagram: 100 followers. Which I decided to celebrate by drawing this piece of Gilda sitting on a C-shaped couch! ‘C’ being a reference to the Roman numeral for 100, of course.

Now to the piece!

It’s established in this version of Grunvale that Gilda lives in ‘the Redfeather Commune’, a 12-acre (522720sqft/48562sqm), permaculture-focused farming commune established in the late 1970s (on the strict timeline) by several hippies who pooled their money together, choosing Ralph Redfeather as their leader and namesake due to his Native Amareican heritage. And since it is a farming commune led by someone of an ethnicity often portrayed as having a deep connection to nature and treating everything as sacred, I figure the commune would have a lot of earthy tones throughout, like brown and green. Easy with Gilda since she already wears green, but the brown hues and tints on this piece I feel really sell the idea that this is a community of farmers.

And since this would’ve been the 1970s that the Grime/Griswold house was built, I gave the carpet a 1970s-inspired pattern and color scheme. For the record, Gilda’s grandmother, Sharon Griswold, is imagined to have been born in 1955 (again, on the strict timeline). So old enough to own a house around the same time as the commune was founded, albeit probably barely. To be fair, though, Redfeather is imagined to be the one who actually owns and pays for the commune, with the money from the crop output and everyone else’s rent. Sharon’s just living there, growing the lemons and… some other crops I haven’t assigned to her yet.

BTW, Gilda’s grandfather is dead by the time the story takes place. While expressing his anger about Theodore leaving Gretchen to restart his film career, he had a fatal ‘widowmaker’ heart attack, and has since been preserved in a secure freezer in the Griswold/Grime family basement, as per his wishes to be revived or cloned when the technology is made and/or refined.

The text around the couch was supposed to be typed in Englishman’s Teeth font, but when I found warping the text to be too difficult due to how the warp tool in ASP works (the top portion of warped assets often bend in directions you won’t want it too, including onto the rest of the asset), I decided to just mark where all the letters were to be, and then wrote the text by hand.

Also, once again, I’ve attempted a hand-drawn look. Not just by filtering the colors and overlaying a paper texture as I’ve done with previous attempts, but this time, also with a brush of my own creation meant to imitate pencils. Which is proving to work very well for my artwork lately; the entire girl group series except for Wendy’s was done with said custom brush. So far, while of course nothing beats actual traditional animation, this is the closest I’ve come yet to making digital artwork look traditional, thanks in large part to the use of the pencilesque brush. As for the portraits on the wall, in addition to them being used to make the scene look more authentic, they’re pixelized versions of a fake logo I made for The Conjuring: It’s a Full Moon and I’m a Werewolf, Bitch!, a joke sequel title thought up by Animated Antic of Twitter, and a color-distorted version of girl group Gilda, as a reminder of the scope of the 50000th tweet special.

And to tie the scene together, we have Gilda doing one of her cute smiles for the camera, complete with flashed teeth and rosy cheeks. I swear, Gilda looks infinitely more adorable and goofy when her cheeks turn red. I oughta have the Tetrad tease her about it. In a friendly and playful matter, of course.

Anyhoo, that’ll be all for this one. Thank you to all who helped me cross the Instagram milestone, and until next time, take care.

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Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it.
The Conjuring is owned by AT&T through WarnerMedia.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).

August Will Prom-ise Margo Anything

Original DA Upload Date: June 29, 2021. This was written prior to Auggie being revealed to be genderfluid.

Whoever’s playing the sax over this scene also plays at bar mitzvahs.

—–

I’ve been going through the Tiny Toon Adventures franchise on-and-off lately, as I await the HBO Max reboot. I’ve watched a large chunk of season 1 so far, as well as played some of the video games Konami made of Tiny Toons during the show’s original run. And generally, I’ve found the show to be a lot of fun. As a sequel/reboot/successor series to the original Looney Tunes shorts of the Golden Age of Hollywood, the writers certainly understood what made the original series work so well, and made the humor translate well to the zeitgeist of the early 1990s. Shirley the Loon was my favorite character early on because of her valley girl personality and the fact that she’s literally psychic, but as the show progressed and… decided not to have her as a major character, Babs ended up becoming my favorite. I’ve said before on Twitter how I consider her to be the true successor to Bugs despite the show mustly focusing on Buster, but I haven’t gone into detail of just how well-written and funny and gosh-dang adorable she is. On top of her having Bugs’ style of humor down to a tee, Tress MacNeille’s performance as Babs is enough to hold a candle to Mel Blanc as Bugs, almost every scene with Babs as a focus has me either laughing or applauding her, and… her relationship with Buster is just adorable, and reminds me of my own characters Margo and August.

Which is why I drew up this artwork, which doubles as a redraw of a scene from what is, of what I’ve seen so far, my favorite episode/segment of the series, Prom-ise Her Anything. In particular, this screenshot.

Why is Prom-ise Her Anything my favorite episode of the show? Because it features all the show’s principal characters at their funniest, and their best-written. The episode somehow even managed to make Li’l Sneezer and Elmyra, characters I usually can’t stand, funny, or at least tolerable. And on top of that, it even establishes continuity between this show and the original Looney Tunes, by having Buster learn his dance moves from the 1948 Bugs Bunny short Hot Cross Bunny. While I have been disappointed with how Buster is written to be more of a fan of Bugs than a successor, this time I actually didn’t mind it. In fact, I think the episode made great use of his admiration for Bugs, and if this is how he’s gonna be written, then I think I’ll get used to him being a Bugs fan, especially if Babs is who the show’s writing as Bugs Junior.

Anyhoo, since Buster and Babs’ relationship remind me so much of that of August and Margo, and I found the screenshot to be such a good visual representation of what my own characters are like together and as characters on their own, I decided it’d be the perfect inspiration for this piece.

Once again, not much to say production-wise. It’s just a redraw of a Tiny Toons screenshot. However, that doesn’t mean I have nothing to say this time, because there is something I’d like to go over that some of you might find interesting. I tried out a new technique for the scenery, inspired by a pixel artist on YouTube I’ve been watching a lot of lately, Brandon James Greer. Greer recommends, at least for pixel art, drawing objects and scenery that have a lot of detail, in monochrome/black and white first, then overlaying the color. That way, if a poor choice of color is made, it won’t require the sprite/tile to be painstakingly recolored pixel-by-pixel.

I decided to take that monochrome-first advice, and apply it to this piece for the scenery. With the exception of the night sky in the far background, the skewed layer of grass that Margo and August are standing on, and the flowers on the patch of grass in the foreground, the entire scenery was done in grayscale first, and then I overlayed the colors onto them. Some may argue that it’s just adding an extra step, and I could just use adjustment layers to get the desired color. Well, what if sometimes, you want more than just a uniform color overlaying everything? Adjustment layers are powerful tools, but they can’t just make colors appear from nowhere. They’re not a substitute for coloring. So that’s why I went with that method this time. Maybe it is more useful for pixel art, but it doesn’t hurt to try it on something more complex. Besides, that famous Santa Claus MS Paint speedraw started out in black-and-white before the artist added color, so there’s obviously some use for the monochrome method.

Anyways, that’ll be all for this one. Until next time, ALOOOOOHAAAAA!

Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it.
Tiny Toon Adventures is owned by AT&T through WarnerMedia.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).

Gilda Grime – Classic Sonic Style

Original DA Upload Date: June 24, 2021

Since Grunvale‘s art style was inspired by Sonic the Hedgehog, why not embrace it and draw some Grunvale art in the style of Sonic the Hedgehog?

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That was the mindset that led to this artwork. I wanted to do something different for this one, even more different than what most people do when it comes to Sonic and Sonic-style fanart. Most people go for the Adventure/Advance art style when drawing Sonic-style art, but I decided to do something different and try my hand at the art style of the boxart of the Genesis and Game Gear games. And after three hours, this was the result!

This artwork was inspired by that of a Twitter user who goes by ‘DocShoddy’, who has been doing art series of the Smash Bros. cast in different styles: ‘Ultimish’, the fighters of Ultimate in the art style of animated properties they appeared in or fit into the art style of, and ‘Meleeesque’, the fighters of Melee drawn in the art style of the first game they appeared in. Gilda didn’t first appear in the Sonic games (of course), but my art style is derived from Sonic‘s, so why not draw a Sonic-style Gilda? So was born the idea of this artwork.

Drawing this was a lot more difficult than you would probably think it to be. The Genesis-era Sonic boxart places very little emphasis on linework, and in some cases none at all. And I don’t think I’ve ever done outline-less art before. Ironically, thought, the first step of drawing this was, ironically, linework. Linework that would not be used in the final product, and instead be used to map out where all the colors and boundaries would be. I had to tweak Gilda’s design quite a bit to come up with something fitting for the Sonic universe. Aside from drastically altering her dimensions, there was also: placing her ears on top of her head instead of on the sides, turning her pigtails to bunches, removing the irises and pattern from her eyes and skirt respectively, and of course, giving her white gloves.

My main references for this were Tails, Sonic CD Amy, and Marine the Raccoon, even though the latter is a 3D-era character. Some of the artwork I took inspiration from included images from Sonic the Hedgehog the Screensaver for Windows 95 PCs. Most of my audience is probably too young to remember the images as screensavers, but I remember them as gallery unlockables on Sonic Gems Collection.

Overall, I think this turned out pretty good, and I may even do more of these if there’s enough demand. But until then, if the demand is real, take care.

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Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 2160×2160 (aspect ratio 1:1).

Jazzed Up Yuppie

Original DA Upload Date: June 28, 2021

Final LGBT-themed artwork for June of 2021! Gilda gave Jazz a suit in the same style as her girlfriend April’s, except in a salmon color instead of a light blue. She likes it… but of course, April doesn’t, and neither does Jazz’s twin sister Raqi.

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I said all the way back in the description of the very first Japril artwork that she had a twin sister named Raquel, and I didn’t forget. In fact, the only thing that’s changed is the spelling of her nickname (‘Raqi’ instead of the original ‘Rocky’), which I did to keep consistency with the number of letters, and also because I thought it was more fitting for a character of a species originating from South Asia. Also, in case you’re wondering, I’m on the fence about the Daniels twins’ ancestry. I don’t know if I want to make them half-Indian or quarter-Indian yet, but I know I want to make them partially Indian. And to be clear, that’s ‘Indian’ as in somebody from India. I never refer to the indigenous people of the Americas as ‘Indians’, because I’d rather not bring the idiocy of Christopher Columbus down to another generation. We’re making great progress in erasing Columbus’ name from the history books, except in reference to the fact that he was a genocidal idiot. To call indigenous Americans ‘Indians’ is honoring Columbus’ idiocy, and I’d rather not do that. The term ‘Indians’ should only refer to people from India, and that is the only way you will ever see me using the term.

…anyhoo.

I know that Jazz and Raqi are part-Indian, I just don’t know yet how much Indian blood they have in them. I haven’t even come up with an animal pun name for India, or if I’m just gonna go the Canada route and just not use one and just have them be India.

But enough about the ethnicities of fictional characters, let’s talk about the artwork. There isn’t really much to go over.

Since Raqi is a girly-girl and it seems to be a trope for girly-girl characters to hate 80s attire (which is already shown and established with April, at least with the suit), I decided to have her be critical of her sister’s suit just like April. As for Jazz, her dialogue and pose is a call-back to Padding It Out, hence April’s annoyed reaction when she sees that her own girlfriend is teasing her. I even have Padding It Out as the pixelated portrait on the wall.

Sorry if the description seemed short this time around, I just don’t have a lot to say about this one. It’s just a funny piece and that’s all there is to it. Tomorrow’s upload is a Tiny Toons reference, and then I’ll upload the character notes on Margo to close out June. Can’t believe it’s already halfway through 2021! Which has proven itself way better than 2020, even if that isn’t a high bar to clear. It may have started off shit with the lingering effects of COVID-19 and the insurrection at the US Capitol, but things have only gone up from there. We’ve even seen the deaths of Phil Spector, Rush Limbaugh, and Bernie Madoff, all of which were deaths that I have no problem saying were and are morally correct to celebrate.

Anyhoo, that’ll be all for this one, until next time, take care, and I hope you all had a great #PrideMonth.

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).

Love Stinks! Yeah Yeah! (Love Stinks!)

Original DA Upload Date: June 22, 2021

The second of three LGBTQIA-themed artworks I have for this month. This one featuring bonding between the two LGBTQIA members of the Tetrad, Gilda (aro) and April (lesbian)!

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You’ve probably seen the most recent edit of the pride flag, the one that drag queen Nina West sung about for a Nick Jr. video about the pride flag. And if you’ve seen it, or even done research on the LGBT flag itself, you know what all the colors mean. Red is life, orange is healing, yellow is sunlight, green is nature, blue is harmony, purple is spirit, light blue, pink, and white represent the trans community, and black and brown represent ethnic minorities in the LGBTQIA community. Personally, though, I think there should also be gray, for asexuals and aromantics such as myself. I’ve known I was aromantic since 2018, after falling out of love with my ex-girlfriend. And then after thinking back, the only reason I wanted a girlfriend was because I assumed everyone in high school had one. I still consider myself heterosexual, I know a hot woman when I see one. But the romance part of attraction, I now find to be stupid. In fact, hearing my parents argue all the time, ever since I was a kid, I think I always did.

“What people call ‘love’ is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed. It hits hard, then it slowly fades, leaving you stranded in a failing marriage.”
– Justin Roiland/Rick Sanchez
But back to the point about aro and ace people.

The ‘A’ in LGBTQIA has many interpretations, some say it stands for ‘allies’, others say ‘asexuals’. Personally though, I think it should stand for ‘aroace’. It may not be attraction to the same gender… or any attraction at all, but it is different from the societal norm of heterosexuality and being in love. And of course, aroace isn’t exclusive. Well, it is. But that’s where the Venn diagram intersects. Not every aromantic is asexual, and vice versa. I myself am an aromantic who isn’t asexual. But I still fall under the aroace umbrella, hetero or no. And so do you if that describes you.

Also, why gray to represent aroace people on a pride flag including the aroace? Because there are gray stripes on both the aromantic and asexual flags, and aroace flags in general use pastel/faded colors immediately after and preceding the more vibrant hues. Plus, the straight ally flag is black and white (with an A-shaped rainbow), and also it makes sense to me that, if difference in romantic and/or sexual orientation is represented by color, a lack of orientation is represented by a lack of color. Especially with pure black and pure white being taken by the allies on their flag, and by LGBTQIA ethnic minorities and trans people respectively on the 11-color pride flag.

Now to the artwork!

There hasn’t been enough bonding between Gilda and April other than that time they went glove shopping. So I decided, since it’s Pride Month and these two are canonically LGBTQIA, I should draw them bonding! A sleepover between just the two of them, as they watch a movie and eat popcorn that April made herself. Which movie? I say they’re watching True Stories, the Talking Heads’ movie from 1986. Since Gilda loves 80s stuff like the Talking Heads and April is Scottish like their lead singer David Byrne, I imagine it’s their special movie.

Nothing much production-wise with the artwork, except that I added the lesbian and aromantic pride flags behind April and Gilda respectively. Funny enough, Gilda usually wears the colors of the aro pride flag, in top-to-bottom order no less (minus the skirt). Dark green hair ribbons, light green polo, white socks, silver buckles, black shoes. She’s a walking aro pride flag! I didn’t even intend it that way, it was a mere coincidence. The only reason I decided to make Gilda aro in the first place is because I am myself.

Anyhoo, that’ll be all for this one. It’s June 23rd tomorrow, and you know what that means! The 30th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog. But you know what that also means! Margo’s birthday! Happy both anniversaries tomorrow!

Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it.
The modern iteration of the lesbian pride flag is in the public domain. But it was designed by Emily Gwen, so I’m going to credit her because it’s the right thing to do.
The aro pride flag is designed by Tumblr user cameronwhimsy.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).

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I found out while writing this that David Byrne is on the autism spectrum. More reason for Gilda to love her! At this point, I think I’ll also make David Byrne her personal favorite musician. James Taylor is her least favorite and David Byrne is her favorite! Perfect yin and yang.