The Gallery of Stormy Adler

Confection Obstruction of Affection Deception

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

Margo attempts to prank/surprise August by kissing him, only for him to prank her himself.

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You know, it’s funny. Margust is well-established as canon at this point, but I don’t think I’ve ever drawn them kissing or even having anything to do with kissing. I don’t think Sally nor Carol would ever want to hear about their daughter and son kissing each other, at least not at age 11. But of course they’d try to sneak a kiss onto their partner, only for the other to foil them in comedic fashion. As happens here when Margo tries to surprise August with a kiss, only to be surprised herself with a cupcake.

Now to the piece!

I’m very well familiar with the old cartoon cliche where a girl prepares to kiss the boy they’re after, even putting on lipstick to prepare for the kiss, only for the boy to turn the kiss down. This is the Grunvale version of that. Although here, Margo doesn’t mind having her kiss blocked off, since she got blocked off with a chocolate-flavored and chocolate-frosted cupcake, her favorite kind, and which she always requests when Gilda bakes cupcakes. And August has tried to kiss her before, and was foiled in a similar way. It’s a bit of a running theme between them, the kiss fake-out.

There’s not much to say technical-wise about this piece, other than with the fridge magnets. They were inspired by the Casagrandes segment Guilt Trip, which also had a fridge whose running gag was spelling out words relating to the scene, such as ‘SORE’ after it was used as a dance partner by a sumo wrestler.

…it makes sense in context.

Anyhoo, I loved that gag so much, I decided to integrate it into this comic. And I might even use it as a running sight gag in the Grunvale graphic novel. My Twitter followers’ reception to the fridge magnets has been positive, with AnimationFan15 even identifying the Casagrades segment as the inspiration. Also, it’s a Maytag fridge, as you can tell by the logo.

The panels of comic were made in ArtStudio Pro just as always, but for some reason, it couldn’t export the comic in the full 5076*15120px resolution (combined aspect ratio 2.35:7) in which it was intended to be made. So I exported the comic in two pieces, the first three panels and the last four, from ASP, then imported them into GIMP to create the whole piece as it was intended to be viewed. I’ve already used GIMP for pixel art done in the palette and style of the Sega Genesis, but this was my first time using it for my comics, which also makes this one of the few times I’ve used a program other than ASP to make one of my major artworks. I’ll continue using GIMP for anything ASP can’t do on its own.

And that’ll be all for this one. Until next time, take care.

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Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it.
Maytag is owned by the Whirlpool Corporation.
All seven panels of this artwork were made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).

The Ketcham Wives, or: Ready for Leporine’s Day!

Original DA Upload Date: April 4, 2021

While the Christians and Kirk Cameron types are celebrating the ressurection of he who is without sin, let’s we secular folks honor the pacifist vegetarian hippies of the animal kingdom!

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‘Leporine’s Day’ has been part of Grunvale lore since pretty much the beginning. I always knew I wanted it to be the Grunvaliverse’s secular alternative to Easter, except they celebrate the accomplishments of leporines, and to a lesser extent leverines (hares) and ochotonines (pikas). However, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, I decided to also make Leporine’s Day the celebration of the in-universe eradication of the myxoma virus, the real-life virus responsible for myxomatosis, a disease that affects rabbits and is often lethal.

Yeah, that’s right. Angus’ band is named after a virus. A bit of dark humor for ya. 😋

Anyhoo, in the Grunvaliverse, I canon that the myxoma virus was a pandemic that deeply affected leporine communities around the world for nearly twenty years after WW2 (coinciding roughly with our universe’s polio pandemic and introduction of the Myxoma virus to Australia in the early 1950s). Then in the early 1960s, a Myxoma vaccine was introduced by Jonas Salk (the same figure who, in our universe and the Grunvaliverse, developed the polio vaccine), and, thanks to worldwide immunization efforts, the disease was eradicated across the world soon after.

However, as myxomatosis only affects leporines, just as it does in our world, it didn’t cause the societal shutdown that COVID-19 has. However, leporines were only allowed to go out when there wasn’t a local outbreak, and when they did, were often attacked by ignorant racists who bought into anti-leporine conspiracy theories. And as a result, life was misery for them. But they always tried to seek joy, whenever it would come up, and in whatever form it came in!

On a strict 2017 timeline, Joan Ketcham would’ve been born in late 1949 and thus be old enough to remember the days of the myxoma virus. Or maybe not, because I see her as the type that’d do drugs and drink excessively. As a twenty- and thirty-something, of course. It’d probably kill her to have that kind of lifestyle in her old age. But Sally and her sisters-in-law were all born after the era of myxoma the virus, and during the era of Myxoma the band. And in Sally’s case, she even ended up marrying the son of the band’s drummer and co-lead singer.

Speaking of Sally’s sisters-in-law… well, you’ve figured out they’re the ladies standing behind Sally and Joan. Let’s talk about them, from left to right!

Roxanne Sumner – Shaun’s wife, a track-and-field coach. She prefers to be addressed as ‘Coach Roxy’ and often shows affection in aggressive manners like noogieing and tight hugs, which neither Sally nor Shaun particularly likes. However, Sally still loves her, even seeing her as the sister she never had. After all, she was the lucky lady who ended up with her twin.

Ivy Snowfield-Ketcham – Richard Jr.’s wife, a theater manager. She has a passion for the theater, and has even directed and wrote a few plays herself. She is also a huge Andrew Lloyd Webber fan, which Harry and Angus often mock her for.

Amy Ketcham – Russell’s wife, a police officer on the Denver, Colotterado police force. She is one of the most respected officers on the force, both by her colleagues for her keen observation skills, and the public for being opposed to the use of brutality. She is one of the few members of the Ketcham family who is not a leporine (she is an ochotonine/pika).

Ebony Forrester-Ketcham – Randall’s wife, a roller derby racer, and Margo’s inspiration for getting into the sport. Her skate name is ‘the Crimson Bruiser’, and she is one of the few members of the Ketcham family who is not a leporine (she is a leverine/hare).

Since Leporine’s Day is now also a celebration of the race conquering a virus prevalent in the 1940s-1960s, all of the Ketcham ladies are in period-appropriate attire. Both because it’s traditional to the holiday, and because I love ladies in retro attire. And Dolly Wyler-Voronov is taking their group photo, as she’s the one who’s done all of their hair and make-up for Leporine’s Day. I felt I would throw in her reflection in the mirror for a little attention to detail. Doesn’t she look cute in a bunny costume?

That’s all for this one, everyone. Happy Easter!

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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).

Animal Crossing – Reimagined

DA Upload Date: March 31, 2021

A piece I made last month that I decided to upload now, to celebrate my one-year anniversary playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, one of the few silver linings of the ocean of diarrhea that was 2020.

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I’ve seen video games as a potential art form for years, but Animal Crossing: New Horizons was truly the point where I began to really view the appeal of the medium on the same level as cinema and television. When the theaters went dark and the sets went empty, the pop culture community turned to video games, one of the few forms of escapism left as COVID-19 made its way outside of China and ravaged the rest of the world. And one of the most popular games to turn to, was Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the fifth mainline game in Nintendo’s life simulation series that began on the N64 (in Japan) and GameCube (everywhere else). The series had been steadily rising in popularity since New Leaf, but New Horizons‘ tone of calm and escapism at a time when society had turned upside-down, skyrocketed the series into a cultural phenomenon. Over 31 million copies of ACNH have been sold worldwide as of this writing, placing it as one of the top 20 best-selling video games ever made. I myself have logged over 240 hours of play on the game since I started playing this day last year.

For anyone that hasn’t been paying attention to my Twitter or these descriptions, my island is called Elavnurg, and my current villager lineup is: Clyde, Drake, Hopper, Paolo, Raymond, Mott, Winnie, Leonardo, O’Hare, and Canberra. The latter of whom is my birthday twin, and got to agree to settle on my island on March 20th of this year… the one-year anniversary of ACNH! Yay!

There’s not much to talk about regarding the artwork. I did it as a college assignment where we had to reimagine a company branding or fictional character in our own style. I chose to reimagine Tom Nook, Isabelle, Blathers, KK Slider and Redd as characters fit for the Grunvaliverse. And I got positive reception on all of them! They especially liked my take on KK Slider, with the long hair and soul patch. Which he would totally have if he were imagined in an art style similar to mine, and don’t act like I’m wrong.

I am planning on doing a sequel piece to this, so be on the lookout for that. But for now, I’m gonna focus on April. Which is Autism Awareness Month, and considering that Gilda is neurodivergent, I am going to be making an artwork addressing autism. Probably an anti-Autism Speaks comic. But until then, see you next time!

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Animal Crossing is owned by Nintendo.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 6480×2160 (aspect ratio 3:1).

A Single Piece

Original DA Upload Date: April 2, 2021

My artwork for Autism Acceptance Day. Because you already are well aware of it. Now time for the accepting of autism!

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When I decided to redesign Gilda to be overweight, I also decided to make her neurodivergent. I actually wanted to write Gilda as neurodivergent since I first publicly revealed her on New Year’s Eve 2017/New Year’s Day 2018, but I abandoned the idea for a while, until I noticed there to be a lack of neurodivergent characters in the media, especially ones created by neurodivergent content creators. Luckily for me, I myself am a neurodivergent content creator, and my decision to start Grunvale over from scratch was the perfect opportunity to reboot Gilda into a neurodivergent character. I feel it’s especially important to make Gilda neurodivergent, as females are tested and diagnosed far less than males.

It’s also not helpful that the ‘experts’ the media often turn to for autism research are Autism Speaks, a self-proclaimed advocacy group that’s actually more of a hate group. They see autism as a disease that must be cured, and those on the spectrum as a burden to society. They also popularized the symbolism of puzzle pieces to represent autism, and “Light It Up Blue” to spread autism awareness.

To those uninformed, we do not appreciate this. Autism and people with autism are not puzzles in need of solving, wearing blue perpetuates the idea that most neurodivergents are boys, and, as I already said, we don’t need awareness. Autism has been known about since 1911, it’s been known to be a spectrum since 1943, and most of developed society has been aware of autism’s existence for nearly 30 years. We prefer the rainbow infinity symbol, and that you wear red instead. I am wearing a blue T-shirt as I type this, but that’s because I like the color blue. I’m not wearing it to further Autism Speak’s propaganda.

I’ve pretty much said everything I need to say. Autistic people are not a puzzle, Autism Speaks is a hate group, and Andrew Wakefield should be forced to take the acid bucket challenge for the damage he’s done to the medical and autism community. Happy Autism Acceptance Day, and see you next artwork. Bye.

DON’T FORGET TO FOLLOW ME ON OTHER PLATFORMS:
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Discord: Contact me by my tag (Phoenix of Grunvale#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 2880×2160 (aspect ratio 1.33:1).

A Panel of Lowry-Brow Humor

Original DA Upload Date: March 18, 2021

Another several-years-later Grunvale artwork, set around the same time as the New Year’s artwork.

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Four years later, 12-year-old Abby Lowry has become unnaturally tall at a height of 6’6″/198cm, towering over her already-tall 15-year-old siblings August (6’4″/193cm) and April (6’1″/185cm). Nicknamed “The Smoke Pillar” by her peers, she is the star player of Davis Junior High’s basketball team, and is also following in her late father’s footsteps as a musician, mainly inspired by soft-rockers of the 1980s like Phil Collins and Richard Marx, as well as bands like Foreigner and REO Speedwagon. When 15-year-old Gilda Grime hears that this is Abby’s favorite era of music, she of course takes it upon herself to introduce the big little Lowry to everything the 1980s has to offer in terms of pop culture, and the two quickly befriend each other over their love of this most radical era of history.

By the way, don’t expect a Gilda and Abby friendship to happen in the main chronology of Grunvale. Abby during the main chronology is a bit of a bully that takes any opportunity she gets to insult the Tetrad and August. It’s only during the four years between then and this piece that she matures and actually starts being friendly, accepting, and even a participant in their antics. Oh, and I will never write her to be LGBT-phobic. Even at age eight, she is well aware and accepting of April being a lesbian and August being a cross-dresser. Even bullies have standards, and LGBT-phobia is where Abby draws the line.

Now to the piece!

You’ve seen 15-year-old Gilda and April before in the aforementioned New Year’s piece. Let’s just talk about the characters whose aged-up versions debut here.

I thought it’d be fitting that, after dressing somewhat conservatively during his pre-teen years, August’s aesthetic would take a turn for the emo in his teenhood, complete with him growing his hair out and wearing eyeliner as part of his usual attire. It seems like a natural evolution for him. I myself wore my hair short up until I was 14, and have since worn it… pretty much as long as I do now. I’m not as extreme as I used to be with hair, though. Long-time followers may know that I used to wear my sideburns all the way down my face, like Joe Cocker or Ray Dorset. I… I guess you could call that my rebellious phase, heheh. And adopting an emo aesthetic is August’s rebellious phase!

As for Abby, I’ve had the idea in my head for a while that she ends up even taller than her already six-foot-plus siblings. She’s already as tall as 11-year-old Margo at age eight, and since August and April are already pretty far-along in puberty at age 11, I thought it’d make sense for Abby to be an early bloomer as well. Fun fact, the Lowry kids being early bloomers is autobiographical. I hit puberty so early, that at age 12, I had so much leg hair that one of my peers told me I should shave my legs. And Abby’s height situation is something I relate to as well; I’m also the tallest of my siblings despite being the youngest.

Anyhoo, since I love and am even part of the trope of the youngest/smallest of the bunch eventually becoming the biggest, I’ve written it into Abby’s character. Yeah, I know six-foot-six is tall for an adult, let alone a 12-year-old. But you know what? I love the idea of Abby being insanely tall. It adds a lot to her character, both narratively and comedically.

Not much else to add, other than me addressing the minimalistic Rita Hayworth image in the background. I was bound to reference Gilda the movie in Grunvale eventually, and you know it.

That’s all… you know the rest.

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Discord: Contact me by my tag (Phoenix of Grunvale#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.
Gilda is owned by Sony through Columbia Pictures.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 2160×2880 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).

This Shouldn’t Still Be a Rivalry

Original DA Upload Date: February 27, 2021

Another Pokemon Day/National Retro Day hybrid artwork. Because the universe knows that I love both Pokemon and retro things.

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Nintendo vs. Sega is perhaps the silliest feud to come out of video gaming. Ever since the Genesis came onto the North American market in 1989 to challenge the older and less-powerful NES, people have delved into petty arguments about whether Nintendo or Sega was/is the better company, especially after Nintendo put out their own 16-bit console to challenge Sega. And with companies such as Phillips, Atari, and The 3DO Company putting out their own systems claiming to be more powerful, it was a period in gaming history known as ‘the Bitwars’.

Which were stupid then and it’s even more stupid now. Anyone who spends any amount of time researching would know that there’s much more to a console’s power than bit count. In fact, if we measure a console purely by CPU bit count, the N64 and PS5 are both 64-bit consoles. Of course, the PS5 runs on hardware far more advanced, and contains 256-bit components. Bits were and are mostly just a marketing thing, and I’m glad nobody in the 21st century is still trying to push them as a selling point.

As for the SNES vs. Genesis war, well, SNES has the better graphical effects and sound, but the Genesis both runs faster and is better at sprite handling. Both of them are great consoles with tons of great games, but putting down one or the other is just pathetic, especially in 2021 when the games are easily accessible through emulation.

Speaking of Sega Genesis, I’m gonna plug my YouTube account, where I mostly speedrun that console’s version of Lemmings. I even hold the current world record on the Fun difficulty, with a time of 31:31. I’m gonna try to get it down to 30 and possibly even 29 soon, as well as run some of the higher difficulties. My WR run is at this link for your viewing pleasure!

Now to the artwork!

As part of my recent effort to draw better-looking environments, I used a lot of different brushes and textures to create the living room, as well as add some outlines to the environments to make them look more like something that the characters are actually in, and not just placed on. Also, like on the 700 followers special, I added a few ‘paintings’ to the walls to dress up the scenery. Which are actually last year’s Pokemon Day/National Retro Day artwork, my personal favorite artwork of Dolly, and a color-distorted artwork of Margo, all pixelated beyond recognition (although AnimationFan15 noticed the Zigilda and Wendirisu easter egg when I showed off the first panel in private).

For the retro theme, Dolly’s sisters are all dressed as characters from retro Sega and Sega-owned franchises. Roz is Blaze Fielding from Streets of Rage, Maddie is Gilius Thunderhead from Golden Axe, Wendy is the classic version of Amy Rose from the Sonic the Hedgehog games, and Nicole is Jack Frost from Megami Tensei. As for Dolly herself, her outfit is both retro and Pokemon… she’s a shiny Mawile from the Gen III Pokemon games! Surrounded by fireflies trained by Gregory to follow her around, because the term ‘shiny Pokemon’ comes from the sparkle effect around the differently-colored Pokemon when they appear on the battlefield. I thought about drawing her as a Bellossom or a Spinda (the latter being a reference to the shiny Spinda I found in Pokemon Emerald, the only shiny I’ve found against the original 1/8192 shiny odds), but I thought a Mawile would be more appropriate, due to their feminine appearance and being found rather early in Ruby. Which, if Grunvale is strictly placed in 2017, Dolly would have grown up with (a 2017 setting would mean she was born between October 22-November 21 of 1993). It’s halfway between a Disneybounding style (Pokebounding?) and a full-blown cosplay, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t see Dolly as a full-blown cosplayer, anyway.

That’ll be all for this one. Happy Pokemon and National Retro Day!

DON’T FORGET TO FOLLOW ME ON OTHER PLATFORMS:

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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.
Pokemon is owned by Nintendo.
Sonic the Hedgehog, Golden Axe, and Streets of Rage are owned by Sega.
Megami Tensei is owned by Sega through Atlus.
Both panels of this artwork were made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1).

Limited Palette Oddball Tetrad

Original DA Upload Date: January 31, 2021

To close out January, here’s something completely different and experimental.

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Earlier this month, I came up with a Limited Palette Randomizer challenge, or Lipara challenge for short, similar in concept to that comic with Rowan Rudyard that I made on Leap Day last year, but more restrictive. I let a number generator choose thirty random integers within a sixteen-number range (0-15 or 1-16), with every group of six representing the hex value of one of five colosr that I would use to create the image. When I used the 0-15 range, numbers 10-15 would represent A-F respectively. But then I made it easier for myself by using the 1-16 range, in which the 10 would represent ‘0’, and 11-16 would represent A-F. After the thirty numbers were converted to the five hex values, I then would get to work creating the posters, with the palette with which I was provided. And this is what I came up with!

Because I thought the posters gave off a retro vibe, I constructed a font modeled after Milton Glaser’s ‘Babyteeth’ to go with them. It’s not an entirely new font, the ‘A’ and ‘M’ look exactly like how they appear on the single cover for ‘Mama’ by Genesis, and the ‘N’ looks like the NBC logo from 1975. And I’m sure there are other sources this font takes from, those are just the two I could think of. If I could sell this font (might run into some trademark issues with the ‘N’, though), I’d probably call it… “Englishman’s Teeth”. Because it’s a retro-looking font and Brits have been known as a driving force in popular music, especially in the 1960s and 1980s, both decades that this font is inspired by.

“Full version of Englishman’s Teeth coming when?”

When I design a full set of letters, numbers and punctuation. Which I don’t know when that will be.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this experiment in artwork, and I can’t wait to see what other people come up with for the Lipara challenge! All you need is a good digital art program, any program where you can choose numbers based on hex values. Then go here, set sample size to 30, range to 1-16, allow duplicates, and work with whatever it generates for you!

DON’T FORGET TO FOLLOW ME ON OTHER PLATFORMS:

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

The Artist Became an Invader Zim Fan While Drawing This

Original DA Upload Date: February 14, 2021

…and also Margo and August are madly in love with each other. Emphasis on the ‘mad’.

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On February 9, 2021, after long having blamed Nickelodeon’s Invader Zim for destroying my standing in Twitter’s animation community and believing that the fans would flip their shit at me over the slightest negative criticism against the show, I decided to finally give the show another chance when I saw that a marathon of the show would be airing on the Nicktoons network all day. And I’m glad I decided to put my bitterness aside, because I finally saw the light. Invader Zim makes nearly every show that has ever aired on Nickelodeon look like a Nick Jr. show, and I mean that in the best way possible. The mature tone, the subversive writing, the humor that strikes a perfect balance between goofy and dark, the animation that still holds up today (minus the 4:3 aspect ratio). There was no Nickelodeon show like it before, and there hasn’t been one like it since. Another marathon is airing this Tuesday (February 16, 2021), and if the quality of what I’ve seen from the batch that aired last Tuesday is the kind of quality I can expect from the whole show, then I’m looking forward to this marathon, and looking forward to watching Enter the Florpus again. Looking forward to watching Enter the Florpus again… I went from having a mental breakdown over the movie, to wanting to see it again. Talk about a 180!

So what does that have to do with this new Margust comic for Valentine’s Day 2021? Well, look at that last panel. I loved what I saw of Invader Zim so much, that I had a MIGHTY NEED!!! A mighty need, to take inspiration from the show to draw Margo’s and August’s expressions. And it worked out perfectly! Invader Zim provided that missing piece my art style needed all along. I needed Invader Zim inspiration to draw angry expressions, and I didn’t even realize it until drawing this comic.

Now to the rest of this piece!

Victory Rolls Sally is awesome. Just putting that out there, Sally Hynde with her hair in 1940s-style victory rolls is one of the individual best Grunvale-related things I’ve ever drawn. I can’t explain why, maybe it’s just because I’m a furry who loves mid-century aesthetics, but the hairstyle suits her so well and I need to draw more of her with her hair like this. Um… next time I have an opportunity to draw the Hyndes in semiformal attire. Good things are better when they’re that white unicorn pony with the purple mane.

Oh, and this comic took me double-digit hours to complete. There’s a lot going on here detail-wise; Charles and Richard Ketcham (Sally’s grandfather and father/Margo, Paddy, and Molly’s great-grandfather and paternal grandfather) making their debuts as portraits that themselves took about two hours of the drawing process, Carol Moss-Lowry (the Lowry matriarch) appearing physically for her debut, every individual grey hair of Harry’s, complicated lighting on both the shots of the Hyndes and the Lowrys, the work put into the final panel (which went through several redraws before I settled on that distorted Giygas-style spiral), and even the deceptively simple appearance of the shots of the door. Speaking of which, let’s talk about those door shots, because I even have a video to show of a shortcut I used to make them.

Since they’re on opposite sides of the same door, Margo’s and August’s panels have the same background. The separate assets and textures for each’s panel were split into two groups, one for Margo’s and one for August’s, that I was able to change on the fly whenever I needed to compare the two, and when it finally came time to export them. The dialogue was written after exporting both panels; I imported the PNGs back into ASP when it came time to add the text layer for the dialogue.

Anyways, I’ll end the description on this, to bring it full-circle. It started on something seemingly unrelated to the artwork, and I’m gonna end it that way too. Also, I don’t feel I’ve gushed about Animal Crossing: New Horizons enough in these descriptions, so I’ll take the opportunity to do so now. One of my favorite villagers, and a current villager on my own Elavnurg, is Drake, a lazy fuliguline who was the last of the original ten to come to my island. I didn’t have any crankies at the time, so when I first saw Drake on one of my island tours, I assumed him to be a cranky due to his angry-looking eyebrows. Much to my surprise, however, he was a lazy villager with the play hobby, just like Clyde (my favorite lazy) and Biskit (a former Elavnurgian who was on my island at the time).

For some weird reason, I find the villagers’ uncommon bouts of anger, like the lazies hating wind chimes and the peppies’ anger about DIY work, to be adorable, especially when they start stomping about. I never abuse my villagers to make it happen, however, because… well, that’s a total dick move. Also, contrary to popular belief, it does not make villagers any more likely to leave. I let the anger happen on its own. Drake’s angry expression is one of my favorites, not because of how pissed he looks, but more the fact that he looks more annoyed than angry when he… well, gets angry. It’s adorable; even Weber looks legitimately pissed when he gets angry, and yet Drake’s is more, ‘ugh, so annoying!’

Anyhoo, Margo’s angry/serious expression in the first panel of this comic, is based on Drake’s angry expression. I don’t care that Animal Crossing thinks personalities are gender-exclusive, I think that, if Margo were a villager, she’d be either a jock villager with the play hobby, or a lazy villager with the fitness hobby. Both are fitting to her canon personality in Grunvale, and the idea that females can’t be jocks or lazy is just silly.

Anyhoo, that’ll be all for this one. Hope y’all had a great Valentine’s Day!

DON’T FORGET TO FOLLOW ME ON OTHER PLATFORMS:

Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you link me to it.
All five panels of this artwork were made at a resolution of 5076×2160 (aspect ratio 2.35:1). However, the first four panels have been scaled down to 2538×1080, to avoid compression.

Enjoy the Silence

Original DA Upload Date: January 30, 2021

Wendy is back as her mime-sona Blackbean, and she’s brought her sister Dolly up on stage to preform with her!

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I’ve been wanting to draw Dolly Wyler-Voronov again, and I got the idea to draw her and Wendy preforming as mimes! I’ve always imagined Dolly as a Fluttershy type of character, the shy and quiet type who hates crowds and has trouble asserting herself. And with her being the shy sow that she is, I think if she were to do public performance of any kind, it’d be as a mime. Since she doesn’t have to talk! But what should her mime name be? Since Wendy’s is ‘Blackbean’, I’m gonna say Dolly’s mime name is… uh… well, she married a Russian, so I guess ‘Chernyy’. I find it doubly fitting, because the word looks like ‘cherry’, and Dolly’s red-painted cheeks remind me of cherries.

There isn’t much to be said about this, I mostly just used the same techniques used in Jethro Tilly to create the spotlight, and stuck mostly to black, white, red and pink for the color palette of the whole artwork. Those are pretty much the only colors mimes ever have, after all. Also, the Depeche Mode referencing-title doesn’t have anything to do with the artwork. I just chose it because mimes are known to be silent. But hey, if you’re enjoying a mime show, aren’t you enjoying the silence? Heheheh. Lame jokes are fun.

That’ll be all for this one. Post below what you think!

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

Couldn’t Think of a Name, But Ain’t Sally Hot?

Original DA Upload Date: January 3, 2021

Just a fifties-style pin-up of the matriarch of the Hynde family.

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I’ve been wanting to draw some retro-style Sally for a while. Actually, I already have. For Instagram. But this one I feel looks better on a visual level. Navy-blue has been the color I’ve used to associate with Sally the most, but recently, I’ve felt purple is more her color. Purple, like gold, is a color associated with wealth. Gold is pretty self-explanatory, you all know what’s special about that. But purple has a bit of a historical reason for being the ‘color of wealth’, that has been largely forgotten since the Victorian era. Ladies, gentlemen and all those in between, strap yourselves in, you’re about to get a history lesson.

From the days of Ancient Rome up until around 1856, purple dye was extracted from snails, using a very intensive and largely unrewarding process. They had to crush and kill thousands and thousands of snails, extract their mucus, then expose said mucus to the light for a precise period of time, just to get a small amount of purple. And when I say small, I mean over 100 pounds, not 100 snails but 100 pounds of snails, would produce only a gram of the dye. Because of how expensive and labor-intensive it was to produce dye, pretty much only royals would wear purple.

That is, until 1856, when the young chemist William Henry Perkin, while trying to develop a cure for malaria by synthesizing quinine, ended up creating a black powder from aniline and potassium dichromate. Believing this result to be a failure, he attempted to clean the powder from his flask with alcohol… and in the process, accidentally created what would become known as mauveine, the purple dye that made him famous.

To this day, however, purple is still associated with wealth. Though many have forgotten the reason, unless they know the story behind purple dye. Which you now do.

Anyhoo, while I’ll probably still use navy blue in Sally’s wardrobe, I’ve come to associate her a lot with purple as well. Since she is a wealthy lady, a personal injury lawyer married to the son of a rock musician. Margo, Paddy, and Molly are headed to great things that their parents will help them nepotism their way into!

Now to the piece.

What is it about 1950s attire and everyone looking good in it? Like, seriously, every fictional character, if they have a 1950s-style alternate outfit, it’s one of my favorite outfits they’ve worn. Even Rita of The Loud House. I was certain I didn’t want to see her dressed in 1950s attire, and yet Write and Wrong presented me with what is probably my favorite outfit of hers.Even my own characters aren’t immune to my they-look-better-in-50s-garb opinion! And of course, it turns out Sally does too. My only regret with drawing Sally in this outfit is that I wish I hadn’t done it sooner. XD

The car was traced from a photograph of an actual Thunderbird. For the colors, I used a posterization filter on the reference image, to give the car a flat, 2D look. And the car’s branding was changed to the fictitious ‘Electroavian’, partially because I did take some liberties with the linework on the Thunderbird. It’s not a perfect trace. Besides, I suck at drawing cars. I need more practice with it.

I imagine this image takes place on or near one of the arboreous mountains surrounding Grunvale, probably Hatcher. The grass (which was done with a boar fur-textured brush) looks fine, but the forest background… I’ve done better.

Overall, though, I still think this piece turned out well. And to answer the above question, yes, I do think Sally is hot. Stay tuned for more great art! 2021 is already shaping up to be better creativity-wise for me than 2020!

DON’T FORGET TO FOLLOW ME ON OTHER PLATFORMS:

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