Just a cute filler piece I drew showing Wendy surprising Dolly by cosplaying as her.
—–
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.
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).
Hey, did you know I have an Instagram account? No? Well, I do. And I recently crossed the 100 followers mark on it.
—–
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.
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).
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).
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?
—–
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.
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).
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.
—–
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).
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)!
—–
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).
—–
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.
Original DA Upload Date: June 13, 2021. This was written prior to Auggie being revealed to be genderfluid.
That song’s one of the weaker ones on Brothers in Arms, anyway.
—–
Though one of the most iconic songs of the 1980s, Dire Straits’ “Money For Nothing” has become quite controversial in recent years, due to its use of the word ‘faggot’, a racial slur derived from the term for a bundle of sticks, also called a ‘faggot’. In olden times, faggots were used to burn several groups of people at the stake, including homosexuals. In modern times, the term has become a slur against gays, which has also been reclaimed by some members of the LGBTQIA community themselves.
In the case of “Money For Nothing”, I consider the song to be a product of its time. It’s important to note that the song was released in the 1980s, during the height of the AIDS crisis, when LGBTQIA people came under attack from right-wingers spewing misinformation about AIDS, such as that it could be transmitted from casual contact with a homosexual. As much as I like to paint the 1980s as ‘the good old days’ with Grunvale, the sad reality is that homophobia was much more accepted at that time, possibly more prevalent than it was in any other decade of the 20th century. My own interpretation of “Money For Nothing” is that it’s sung from the perspective of a worker who has homophobic views. Homophobia was wrong then, and it is wrong today. But the song’s lyrics are an unfortunate product of their time, and it’s for the best that it’s edited versions (either censoring the slur or entirely removing the verse containing it) that play on radio stations today.
I’m gonna be honest, I never thought of “Money For Nothing” as one of Dire Straits’ better songs. The music video was groundbreaking for its time, and the synthesizer build-up to and including the guitar solo early in the song is awesome, but the song is waaaaay overplayed. Not to mention that the song at full length is 8 minutes and 22 seconds, which is about twice as long as it needed to be. It’s not as egregiously shoved into every possible 80s-set piece of media as “Don’t Stop Believin'” or “Take On Me” or “Never Gonna Give You Up”, but the media often acts like “Money For Nothing” is the only song worth associating with the Dire Straits. When I can name several songs by the band that are better than it, including off of Brothers in Arms. If we’re to stick to Brothers in Arms, there’s “So Far Away”, “Walk of Life”, “Your Latest Trick”, “Why Worry”, and the title track, the latter of which even has a rotoscoped music video in the same style as the aforementioned “Take On Me”. And outside of Brothers in Arms, their self-titled debut has “Sultans of Swing”, Love Over Gold has “Industrial Disease”, and On Every Street has “Heavy Fuel”. Basically, “Money For Nothing” doesn’t even crack the top 5 best Dire Straits songs for me, and I bet it’d even fall out of the top 10 if I were to give their discography a full analysis. Not a bad song, just overrated, overly long, and incredibly overplayed. If you want to fill eight-and-a-half minutes with a Dire Straits song, just listen to “Why Worry”. It’s from the same album and one of their most underrated tracks.
Now to the piece!
I’ve already stated before that I imagine Abby Lowry to be one of the more profane characters in Grunvale. Basically the Eric Cartman of the franchise with what a disrespectful little shit she can be. Even though she’s okay with her elder brother and sister being a cross-dresser and lesbian respectively, she also will do anything to justify using profane language and slurs, like if the word appears in a song she likes or if the Tetrad says them. Well, here we see August has had enough of that, and washes his little sister’s mouth out with soap for singing along to the uncensored version of “Money For Nothing”. Knowing how profane she is, she must’ve at this point got to be quite a connoisseur of soap. I wonder if she’s been punished with Lifebuoy yet, heheh. Seeing the color of that soap bar, though, it’s probably like Bluechip or something.
Don’t worry, Abby being a disrespectful, female version of Cartman with Min Min’s hairstyle is just a phase. She eventually learns it’s never okay to say slurs in any context. Except maybe ‘polecat’, since I imagine that as being the mephitine N-word. I mean, how else would she later become friends with Gilda?
Anyhoo, that’s all for this one. Stay tuned for the other two #PrideMonth2021 artworks!
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).
To cap off May, here’s another 80s-inspired artwork, this time featuring the Tetrad making over somebody that was actually born and grew up in the decade Gilda worships so much!
—–
I realized I hadn’t really drawn the Tetrad interacting with Sally, other than Margo, who, of course she’d be seen a lot with Sally, she’s Sally’s daughter. So I decided to change that with this piece, featuring Sally getting made over to look like she came from the 80s! Which isn’t that removed from what Sally usually does as a model. She usually likes dressing in 40s- or 50s-inspired getups when she models/advertises her business. The 80s, on the other hand, is not a decade she usually takes inspiration from for her attire, casual, formal, or modeling. In fact, on the strict timeline, she was born in 1982, so shoulder pads and neon colors and big hair are something that she remembers first-hand, and not just through the nostalgic filter those born in the triplets’ generation would be provided with to see the 80s. And early 90s, for that matter. Aesthetics from one decade often last a bit into the next one. In the 80s’ case, the aesthetics we’ve come to know the 80s for took until like 1992 or 1993 to finally give way to the grunge and darkness and obsession with the EXTREME!!! of the 90s.
Sally’s aesthetic is not 80s neon or 90s grunge, obviously, it’s more the flowers and pastels of the 40s and 50s. I imagine she watched a lot of 1950s sitcoms and Technicolor movies in her youth, as well as movies about the era. And that’s a large part of what influenced her aesthetics and morals… basically her entire personality and ideas. Minus the 50s idea that females belong in the kitchen. She looked to the 40s and saw the ladies that took over the workforce then. And that’s (part of) why she decided to become a lawyer!
Now to the piece!
Anyone who’s been paying attention to my work would know that the Hynde family isn’t really all that tall. But part of the reason this was drawn was to show just how short they are… Sally is barely taller than Gilda! Which was something I knew was to be the case even before I settled on a design for her and Harry. Sally is 5’2″/1.57m compared to Gilda’s 5’/1.52m. And Gilda as a teenager and adult is 5’4″/1.63m, same as Harry. So basically, yeah, if Gilda looks surprisingly tall in this image, it’s actually Sally who’s surprisingly short. You just didn’t have a reference before of just how short Sally is.
Once again, April doesn’t like wearing shoulder-padded suits, so she’s just chilling out, being anachronistic by looking at her smartphone. April giving attitude, that’s a bit out of character for her, isn’t it? Heheheh. Maybe I should give her more moments of attitude. It’d help flesh her out as a character.
Finally, there’s also the detail of Gilda saying ‘rad’, because I thought it’d be cute to have her drop a bit of 80s slang. She loves the 80s, after all, it’d only make sense for her to adopt some of the slang of that era. Not ‘tubular’, though. Even as a kid, I thought ‘tubular’ sounded stupid. I don’t know how the term came to even be associated with 80s slang, I’ve never heard any piece of media from or about or even parodying the 80s use the word ‘tubular’. No, Gilda’s more the type that’d say stuff like ‘gnarly’ or ‘righteous’ or ‘totally’ or ‘wicked’ or ‘[insert any word that sounds like something Bill and Ted would say here]’. Pretty much anything other than ‘tubular’.
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 Oddball Tetrad as the Three Stooges (from both of the most famous lineups), because I’ve been watching a lot of Hats Off Entertainment lately, which led to me also watching a lot of Three Stooges. Which then led to me drawing the Tetrad as the Stooges! Gilarry, Moendy, Shempril and Curgo!
—–
I’ve been looking into how I can integrate more old-fashioned humor into Grunvale. Like, really old-fashioned. Stuff you’d expect from comedies and cartoons of the 30s and 40s and 50s. Of course, Looney Tunes-inspired humor would go over well with audiences, but then, during a recent sleepless night, I decided to watch some Three Stooges shorts I found on YouTube. I’ve known about The Three Stooges all my life, of course, but I’ve been watching a lot of a YouTube channel called ‘Hats Off Entertainment’ lately. The user behind Hats Off Entertainment analyzes a lot of decades-old comedies, as well as the careers of deceased comedic actors such as Gene Wilder, Leslie Nielsen, and John Candy. And talks about what made them work so well. He is also a major fan of The Three Stooges, having made several videos on them. Which led to me doing my own research on the Stooges, as well as watching several of their shorts and analyzing some of their more famous bits.
Then one day, on a walk, I got the idea to draw my own characters, the Oddball Tetrad, as the Three Stooges. As well as put my own spin on the idea I’m sure some fan has had, of what the franchise would be like had there been four stooges, with Shemp and Curly having been part of the lineup alongside the constant members, Larry and Moe. And this was the result of the idea!
Now to the piece and my thought process behind it.
I chose to draw April as Shemp due to the former basically being the mature one of the Tetrad, and Shemp himself being the eldest of the Stooges. Wendy is actually the eldest of the Tetrad, but let’s be honest, April is the most mature of the group, so it’d make sense that, if she were cosplaying as a Stooge, she’d cosplay the eldest one. And Margo is Curly, due to both being the youngest of their respective group (who are Joe and Curly Joe?), as well as the most marketable characters of their respective franchises. Also, good luck getting any of the other Tetrad to cut their hair as short as Curly’s. Even teenage Wendy wouldn’t shave her head to look like Curly.
Gilda is Larry, because… many reasons. Firstly, as HOE analyzed, Larry is often an unfortunate victim of the slapstick of The Three Stooges, often getting slapstick-ed just for trying to break up a fight or even just being there. Similarly, I picture Gilda as the kind of character who’d fall victim to slapstick antics the most, due to often being oblivious to her surroundings, or being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Hell, during the time I was writing the web novel, Gilda’s impact-caused nosebleeds were a running gag. A gag I’d like to continue for the graphic novel in some way. Second, while Margo, Wendy, and April are lifelong friends, Gilda takes a while longer to find and join the group. Much like how, with the Stooges in real life, Shemp, Moe, and Curly were brothers, while Larry was a friend who was discovered by the Howard brothers, and would end up joining… well, Ted Healy and His Stooges, as the act was originally known, later on. And third, let’s be honest, out of all the Tetrad, Gilda would be the one to mind getting a pie in the face the least. She’d at least like the taste of the pie, since she’s got such a strong sweet tooth.
And finally, Wendy is Moe because… well, she has black hair. That’s it. Funny that whenever I draw the Tetrad cosplaying, Wendy ends up filling the open spot by default. It happened when they were the Citrus Squad, and it happened again here. I don’t even think of Wendy as a lesser member of the group or anything, she just ends up filling open spots for no other reason than ‘by default’. Heheh.
As for technical notes, you’ll notice this time that the upload is in black-and-white, without a color counterpart. Truth be told, this actually was drawn in color. I even uploaded the color version to Twitter. But I decided to make the black-and-white version the main version, because the original Three Stooges shorts were in black-and-white, so I figured that it’d only be fitting that this artwork’s main version would be as well. The color version is and… probably will always be, a Twitter exclusive. So if you have a problem with this being in black-and-white, to that I say:
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).
Sunday WorstYou May Now Kiss Any Hope For The Wedding GoodbyeGilda’s Birthday, or: Balance in the Party WorldHynde Triplets’ Birthday, or: Cio Che Va, Torna
Original DA Upload Dates:
Sunday Worst – May 9, 2021
You May Now Kiss Any Hope For The Wedding Goodbye – May 12, 2021
Gilda’s Birthday, or: Balance in the Party World – May 14, 2021
Hynde Triplets’ Birthday, or: Cio Che Va, Torna – June 23, 2021
—–
And now for the Ricky’s Wedding arc, presented in its entirety for the first time on the internet!
—–
“Sunday Worst” is just another piece of artwork inspired by my sessions of playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. On April 30th, I dressed up my avatar character (who my followers would know is modeled after Margo Hynde) in an old-fashioned looking green outfit, to prepare for the birthday of one of my villagers, Clyde, the following day. And then I took this screenshot of it and posted it to Twitter. Because of how hilariously out-of-character it is for Margo to dress like this, I thought to myself how funny it’d look to have her wearing this outfit. So I did, and this artwork was born. Pffft!
While the ACNH context is that my avatar character was dressed like this for Clyde’s birthday (birthday parties are treated as formal occasions by the villagers in the game, like weddings and New Year’s parties), the Grunvale context is that the Hyndes are headed to the wedding of Margo’s cousin and Richard Ketcham Jr. and Ivy Snowfield-Ketcham’s son, Richard Ketcham III, aka Ricky Ketcham. And Margo is shocked and disgusted that this goofy-looking ensemble is what she has to wear to the wedding. To her, it’s more like something Gilda would wear, or even her own sister Molly, who has a similar-looking purple outfit.
The blurred green things boxing off the image are supposed to be plants that are in the foreground and out-of-focus. It’s just a bunch of blurred green lines. I think they frame the image pretty well.
I’ve got three other artworks that are set in this same continuity. I’ve said all that needs to be for “Sunday Worst”. So let’s move on to part II, “You May Now Kiss Any Hope For The Wedding Goodbye“!
Richard Ketcham has been established as a stern father figure, but I don’t think I’ve made it clear that his personality was likely born out of rebellion against his father Charles. Even as a child, he’s considered him to be irresponsible as a father, with how much he drank and partied and embarrassed him with his attempts to seem relevant and cool to the youth, even during important events in his life (for example, telling the story of that crazy thing he did on D-Day at his wedding).
Richard is a minority in his family. His siblings have and had a carefree, not-to-serious view on life, his wife Joan does, most of his children do, and most of his grandchildren (Molly being a debatable exception) do too. The carefree lifestyle is also a majority among his nephews and nieces and… grandnephews and grandnieces. His serious demeanor and lack of ever being in a party mood is a recessive trait.
Speaking of having a serious demeanor and being embarrassed by family, those traits ended up rubbing off on Richard’s youngest child and only daughter, Sally Ketcham, known for the past 14 years as Sally Hynde after marrying the musician Harry… who she considers to have the mentality of a child, as she does his famous father Angus. She’s also not proud of how her children, particularly Margo, are turning out. After 11 years of raising them, she basically knows when they’re gonna do something that’ll embarrass her. Like now, when the Hynde family is in Sally’s hometown of Boarston, Massachusetts for the wedding of Richard Ketcham III. Margo complaining about her dress, already taking to social to complain about having to spend the day at a wedding, Molly teasing Margo about having to wear a dress and the latter tattling about it, it’s all building up to an explosion of embarrassment, and Sally is not ready for it. But it’s gonna happen whether she likes it or not.
Now to the piece!
Aside from the sunlight on the asphalt looking like a giant piss stain, the scenery I feel is one of my better attempts. A lot of detail went into drawing the tree closest to the Hyndes, but sadly, Molly and Margo are obscuring a lot of the detail. The trees in the far background I think came out well, though.
And of course, Sally once again looks amazing in mid-20th-century-style attire. I’ve been pushing her as a character to appeal to furries lately, and… well, maybe I should rewrite her character to have a second job as a model. I’ve long loved the idea of her being an injury lawyer (and she still is), but I think it’d be funny if there was a running gag of Sally’s law services being advertised with… fan-service, and characters who have been injured hiring Sally as their lawyer based on the ads they’ve seen of her.
Anyhoo, that’ll be all for part II. Now let’s talk part III, “Gilda’s Birthday, or: Balance in the Party World“!
Did I mention before that Gilda and Margo are rivals as well as friends? Well, this artwork is meant to illustrate that. Story time! Well, the in-universe story, regarding these two rivals’ views of the whole thing.
Margo has been in a bad mood lately due to her having to miss Gilda’s birthday party for the wedding of her cousin, Richard “Ricky” Ketcham III, and his bride, Iris Vandergras, in Boarston. Her attempt to justify missing the wedding by saying she doesn’t know Ricky as well as Gilda failed, with her mother Sally saying that it’s a family obligation to attend the wedding. When Gilda got news that Margo couldn’t attend, she decided to invite Wendy’s sister, Nicole, in her place, reasoning that she has gotten along well with Nicole before, and because she thinks Nicole, being a tomboy, would bring a similar vibe to the party that Margo could have brought.
At the reception for the wedding, Margo, bored by the ceremony and the entertainment at the reception (for instance, the song for Ricky and Iris’ dance being “Wonderwall” by Oasis, a song that Margo hates with a passion), gets her hopes up when she sees that apple cider is being served. Unfortunately for her, the cider was hard cider. Like alcoholic cider. And she ends up getting drunk from it, so drunk in fact that she ends up vomiting… on Iris. In front of the entire Ketcham and Vandergras families. Yeah, because that’s a good impression for a bride to have of her new husband’s family. Getting vomited on by the rowdiest of the bunch. Oh well. At least Charles got a kick out of the spectacle… even if the rest of his family is horrified, with his granddaughter Sally in particular now being too embarrassed to show her face after witnessing what her daughter did in front of dozens of others.
Margo’s drunkenness was recorded by… well, I pictured it as Molly, and was uploaded to social media, where it went viral. 180 miles away back in Grunvale, at Gilda’s party, Nicole has seen the video. She already gave her an actual gift (an LP of True Stories by the Talking Heads… whose lead singer is the aforementioned May 14th birth David Byrne!), but as an additional gift, knowing that Gilda and Margo take delight in watching each other do stupid things, she decided to show the video to Gilda, who, as expected, took great delight in watching it. When Ricky’s wedding got ruined, the birthday party got even more fun and made up for Margo’s absence. Thus bringing balance to the party world.
BTW, that hand-shaking thing is how Gilda stims. She usually does it when she’s laughing or excited.
The top layer took a long time, with all the characters that needed to be drawn. Aside from Margo, Iris and Ricky in the foreground, the background has, from left to right: Sally Hynde (face obscured by her hat out of embarrassment), Shaun Ketcham, Roxanne Sumner, Charles Ketcham, Richard Ketcham Sr., Irene Vandergras (Iris’ sister; they’re from a set of quadruplets), Richard Ketcham Jr., Ivy Snowfield-Ketcham, and Ricky’s twin sister Orchid Snowfield. Most of which make their first appearance in that panel, with this being Charles and Richard Sr.’s first appearance outside of photos in the background. The lighting in that panel was done with a mixture of threshold effects, masking and gaussian blurring. The crowd beyond who we clearly see are just a bunch of blobs, the front one of which (second layer of crowd in general) had blurred colors clipped onto it. To give the feel that this was a video being viewed online, I put a black gradient over the bottom of the panel, and a red scrubber bearing my logo. How was the video recorded in 2.35:1 when phones can usually only record in the aspect ratio they display in? Shut up, that’s how.
That was all I was going to make for this arc… until I decided to make a follow-up, because, if Toy Story is any indication, quadrilogies (the actual word is tetralogies, BTW) are the new trilogies. So now, the description to part IV, “Hynde Triplets’ Birthday, or: Cio Che Va, Torna“! Which also doubles as a 30th anniversary dedication piece to the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, a major influence on my art style.
As strange as it may sound, my best memories of the franchise are *not* with the first game. Actually, my favorite 2D Sonic game is Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and my favorite of the 3D games is Heroes. Of course I know that the first Sonic is the signature game of the Sega Genesis. That doesn’t mean it’s a flawless masterpiece. In fact, it’s actually quite a bit flawed. Sure, it’s fun to run around Green Hill Zone, but over half of the rest of the game is slow platforming. Which is ironic considering the game is called Sonic the Hedgehog. You’d think a game that has speed as its main selling point, on a console that had processing speed as an advantage over the SNES, would try to build the entire game around speed. But no, only a handful of levels do, and the rest of the game is slow platforming. It’s especially a nightmare going for all six Chaos Emeralds, since you only get 12 chances every run, and only if you bring 50 rings with you to the end of the first two acts of every zone.
Sonic 2, on the other hand, does not have these issues. You have ample opportunity to get all the chaos emeralds (if you bring 50 rings to a checkpoint), and almost every level is made with speed in mind. It only slows down toward the end, with the Sky Chase Zone (an autoscroller) and the Death Egg Zone (two bosses that must be defeated on one hit point). It feels like the game the first one was trying to be, and it’s always the Sonic game I gravitate towards. Yeah, I know Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the one society considers the best, but you know what? I’m not society, I’m a singular person, and as a singular person, I say Sonic 2 is the best of the Genesis titles, and the best 2D Sonic game I’ve played.
I have not played Sonic Mania at the time of me writing this.
Now to the piece!
More elements from the graphic novel transcript are making their way into my artwork. I’ve decided that, for the graphic novel, the Hyndes live in a mansion, instead of just a nice house in the Malick Park neighborhood. The above-ground portion is three floors tall, and has pillars and shrubs designed and arranged to resemble carrots. And the ‘basement’ has a maze-like layout with no clearly defined levels, and is modeled after a warren. The latter of which, of course, is where this artwork takes place. As for dialogue, that’s another thing the graphic novel transcript is influencing. I decided a while back that it’d be cute for Gilda to drop a few Italian words into her speech, to differentiate her dialogue from other characters. I have her saying ‘perfezione’ (the Italian word for ‘perfection’) in the transcript for OTOG, and now I’m having this newly-thought-up trait of hers making an appearance here, with her saying the Italian words for ‘bullshit’ and ‘bitch’.
The ‘zip glitches’ that are being referred to here, are in Marble Zone. Both Act 2 and 3 have well-known ‘zip glitches’ that basically teleport Sonic to the end of the stage, which are used by the speedrunning community at top level. I’ve attempted these glitches before, specifically the Act 2 one, but I only ever end up glitching through the floor and losing a life.
I know how and where I’m gonna introduce all the characters shown here in the graphic novel, except for Scarlett, who I honestly only drew here because Paddy’s here, and I’ve established them as being in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship before. I’ll figure something out. It may be in a sequel since she only has a third-hand connection to the Tetrad, but I’ll figure out how and when she should be introduced.
Anyhoo, that’s all for this arc. Hopefully my essay on it wasn’t too long for you, heheheh.
Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it. Part I was made at a resolution of 3996×2160 (aspect ratio 1.85:1); parts II-IV were made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).
The Gallery of Stormy Adler 