The Gallery of Stormy Adler

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.

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.

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.

A Bundle of Sticks

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.

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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).

Hynde-sight is 20/20

Original DA Upload Date: May 31, 2021

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!

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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’.

That’ll be all for this one. Happy Memorial Day!

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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).

The Four Doofuses

Original DA Upload Date: May 23, 2021

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!

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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:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVtOcS…

That’ll be all for this one. Until next time, take care. Nyuk nyuk nyuk!

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).