Inktober 23 and 24: Whisper's Power

So why does Whisper behave the way he does? Why is he not terrified by a giant snake woman?

Well, frankly, because he's seen things that are MUCH scarier. Whisper has had the ability to see and sense ghosts and supernatural phenomenon since he was a foal. (Go ahead and make your Horse/Ghost whisperer jokes here because I will make none. I do have some restraint)

His power comes in handy a lot since Nikita does not have the ability to sense or communicate with the dead.

Next, we have the non-natural abilities. Nikita is pretty heavy, so Whisper has to wear a magic charm to make him strong and fast enough to carry her. The charm is based on the famous image of Sleipner, Odin's eight-legged horse from Norse Mythology.

Inktober 19- A horse name Whisper

A while back I posted some sketches of the horse Nikita rides in Snakeskin Boots, without going very much into him. Let's change that.

This is Whisper, a quarter horse and Nikita's constant companion through the Wild West. Whisper has two main emotions: deadpan and cynical, a good balance when compared to Nikita's energy and positive attitude. He's unnaturally calm and collected then your average horse and doesn't get spooked easily. Which is a good thing, considering who he travels with. When he does get scared, you know it's time to run.

Due to some tragic events from his life, Whisper has a strong understanding of how this world (and the next) works. When Nikita herself begins to lose hope, Whisper is always there to help her, showing wisdom that the centuries-old gorgon does not have.

Like most characters in the story, Whisper has his own special abilities. But I'll save that for tomorrow ;)

The hardest part about drawing Whisper was to not fall into the trap of the "Disney styled" horses. I wanted Whisper to be drawn like a realistic horse, including the unique pupils horses have. So Whisper mainly communicates through body language. The exaggerated expressions here are just me indulging in some comedic expressions and might not show up in the final story.

Shark Week Aint Over till I Say It's Over

(site update at very bottom)

I'll be honest with you guys. I fucking love sharks. And it just so happens that in June (you know, the month before Mermaid May and July Shark week) I was drawing some lovely shark mermaids... uh, shark-maids? Whatever. So enjoy. These gals were originally going to be part of my art walk series, so you'll be seeing more them them soon (except for the rest of this week cause I'm going camping. Full update at the bottom)

Goblin, Whale, Tiger and Thresher shark concept art

Mako, Angel, and Wobbegong Shark concept art

Hammer Head and Epaulette Shark Concept art

Some of the designs have changed since then, but you'll have to wait for next week for those!

Happy Shark Week!

Hi guys! I'm back! Remember how i said I needed a few days off and it turned out to be a month?! Boy, wasn't that swell?

Okay serious update, my depression has been spiking up and down like a roller coaster. But things seem to be... somewhat stable? At the moment?

So I'm going to start posting stuff. How often, I have no idea. I work at a party store and Halloween is the most insane time of the year. But here's my plan at the moment.

Slug At Work-- There's about 8 or so pages left in the first chapter. So hopefully I can get all of those done before the one year anniversary in October?

Reviews- Since I've been watching so many shark week videos, I'm going to do a v-log type review about the shows and what was the coolest stuff. After that, I have 2 Moana theory videos I want to put out.

Games-really want to get my footage of Night In the Woods up because I just had so much fun with that game. I'm thinking because I don't post letsplays often, I'm going to keep going with the large chunks of videos instead of 20 minute long segments.

However, since we are now in August, my "Year of Blackwell" plan has taken a nose dive. So instead of a year of Blackwell games, I'm just going to keep playing at my own pace, and maybe a couple other Wadjet Eye games, with the goal of putting out those letsplays before their next game, Unavowed, comes out (any Wadjet Eye game that takes place in New York tends to be a connected universe and I have theories about Unavowed that i currently can't share without spoiling Blackwell)

Everything else, from a patreon to livestreams, those, well, I'm flying by the seat of my pants, people. No solid plans for anything else right now.

So I'll see you guys next week after my camping trip.

Speed Draw Redraw: Mantis' Gown

Latest speed draw is up! Time for me to redraw and old favorite of mine! You can check out the original dress here: http://artslug.blogspot.ca/2012/04/mantis-fashion-pt1.html



Honestly, I love this dress and I wanted to see how Mantis looked in it now that her whole body type has changed. Next week, I'll be coloring the dress

Monster Warlord-- She came to me in a dream

I had this quick sketch poking around so I thought I'd post her. If it seems a little directionless, it's probably because this gal is from a dream i had. And the only things I definitely remember from said dream are the not-samurai helmet, the staff, and the notes on the side.

I also think this dream had something to do with me marathoning Star vs the Forces of Evil. Just a hunch.

Quarter Horse Sketches

So the other day, I had 3 hours to kill between interviews. So I sat down in a Tim Hortons and using my brand new touch screen phone, I started sketching horses. Specifically, American Quarter Horses for one of my comic ideas "Snakeskin Boots"

I will be the first one to admit that I am not the greatest at drawing 4 footed animals. Never had much interest in it as a kid either, other then cats. But like so many other things in "Snakeskin Boots", I'm forcing myself to draw a lot of things that challenge me.

So who is this horse? Well, for now lets just call him "The Horse With No Name" ;)

And the biggest challenge with drawing this horse, is not just the proportions or the movement, but keeping it as far away from most animated movie trends where they make the eyes look human. Horses do show emotion with their eyes, but most animations tend to ignore the coloring and the long thin pupil.

Also, none of the images I referenced belonged to me. Sadly, I forgot to bookmark most of them. But I can say that a few of the last ones came from naturalhorses.deviantart.com

And if you want to support me, you can donate right here: https://ko-fi.com/A141IJA

Mantis Outfits part 1

And here is the close up of some outfits for Mantis. It's really just basic stuff to warm up with.
From left to right we have her usual armor, something dressy, swim wear, and for fun, I dressed her up in Torg's uniform.

Speed Draw: Lets Dress Up Mantis!

Woops, realized I posted this to the wrong blogspot site. Sorry!

Witchsona- BlottyInk

For halloween-- My witchsona! I imagine Blotty being an Ink witch, with giant nerd glasses and stains of ink and paint all over her clothes. And a dirty, ink covered moped, hehe

There's also another picture of her with a slightly different outfit in my big character crowd scene from "We Are Open"

-Tegan Dumpleton aka the SlugLady

The Ink Tests

I didn't participate in Inktober this year, but I did decide to test on some new pens on some old drawings. Including some drawings from halloween last year, some character designs and fanart for Steven Universe and Stardew Valley!

Media

Sam and my avatar I've drawn for a while... but I've never revealed this gal before. An upcoming character for Slug At Work. This was the first set of pictures I drew of her, in my tinted sketchbook. I was planning to wait until she showed up in the comic, but, hey, she loves Halloween. So here's a sneak peak.

-Sluglady aka Tegan Dumpleton

Couple Random Character Designs

Some random character designs

This one started out as a test for some new pencil crayons and grew into... this. Let's just call them Nib and Wig for now.

...I'm pretty sure this character was from a dream I had. Something about her being an Earth Spirit given human form so she could bring balance to the planet or something? Hmm.

A vampire design. Love Nosferatu styled monsters

And this... well, I CAN say that it's a poster design for a story. One that takes place in the same universe as Snake Skin Boots, only in a different era. Also did a bit of ink testing here.

Mantis and Mantinetta

Here are the final color tests for Mantis. The one on the left is the chosen design.

And while I'm posting Mantis stuff-- I've been watching a Bayonetta Letsplay and--- this happened. 

What can I say. It suits her.

Week of Sketches Day 2: Iolite the Gemsona

Welp, if you didn't know I like Steven Universe, you do now! 

If you've never watched this show, let me point you over to this fan trailer here that pretty much sums it up without big spoilers. Steven Universe is one of the most intriguing, clever and beautiful shows I'm currently watching. Directed at both children and adults, it goes into everything from different kinds of family units, sexuality, gender stereotypes, different kinds of love, and so so much more. And with the majority of voice actors and actresses being People Of Color, it's also one of the most diverse shows on TV.

And because I love the show so much, I've jumped on the bandwagon and made my own "Gemsona".

(Spoilers for Steven Universe)

This is Iolite. Much like Pearls, Iolites are made to be servents, used in crafting and construction in Blue Diamonds court. Iolites are also work as walking compasess, and can even look directly at the sun to tell exact directions.

This Iolite... not so much. Though is works as a craftsman, her compass ability is never correct, but instead has a great amount of "dumb luck". This put her on a much lower class then her fellow Iolites. Due to this, and her love of Earth's art and nature, she joined Rose Quartz's rebels. After the war, Iolite was believed to have been shattered, but thanks to her dumb luck, she some how was overlooked by the enemy and survived, sleeping in her gem. When she finally woke up hundreds of years and took on a physical form, Iolite was alone. Unsure what happened to the rest of the rebels, Iolite is now stumbling across the earth, trying to understand what happened over the last hundreds of years.

Thanks to her lack of direction, she walks right past the warp pad that would have taken her to her friends.

Now for the drawing. This is not the final design for Iolite, hence why it's not colored.. Below are a few small sketches of newer design ideas, involving two long bits of hair sticking out of her head, bellbottoms and a vest. You can actually see her a more final design in the top left corner of this picture!

When researching the actual gem, I learned the vikings used Iolites as compasses, so of course I had to put that into her origin somehow. However... I can't tell south from east so, yeah.

Lets see, what else... well, Iolite is pretty ditsy, overly friendly, maybe to the point of gullible. Her main music is Electro-Swing, and her dancing is... pretty much whatever pops into her head. Which can make her pretty hard to fuse with.

And whats a Gemsona without a couple of fusions to go with it! The Cow Girl up top is Iolite and Amethyst,with a spiked lasso, the big burly one is Iolite and Garnet, with blacksmith abilities and can breat fire, and the little one balancing on a pole is Iolite and Pearl, who is based on the story of the Monkey King with an extending pole to match. Haven't come up with to much for interactions, except that Amethyst and Iolite get along really well, and well, not so much with Pearl. Pearl sees doens't like fusing with Iolite because, much like the Monkey King, their fusion is a bit of a prankster

Thats it for today! Bu-bye!
Tegan Dumpleton aka The SlugLady

Animation Stills

Yo! Unfortunately every scanner in my house refuses to scan in my sketch books. So instead, you get a peak at another project! These are just a few select faces. What is it for? When will it be up? Will I ever figure out how to properly work computers? These are legitimate questions.

Buh-bye!

Tegan Dumpleton aka the Slug Lady

Snake Skin Boots: Nikita Bust

Ah, the third picture from my "Medusa in the Wild West" idea (well fourth if you count her cameo in the last comic). Now with it's own title: Snake Skin Boots. And Nikita, our "Medusa" for the storyline.

I've developed the idea a lot since then. This here was an experiment in color as I finallized the color scheme, and textures, which were the most troubling things while working on her design. I went through a lot of texture designs and colors before deciding the "keep it simple, stupid" approach would be best.

That's all I can get into for now. Spoilers ;)

Sketch Dump!

Alright, I've got a new computer and I'm back in action at last! Hopefully i'll be getting some more frequent updates for the site going soon. I've got MEH on the way in the next months and I'm working on a little side project for the Sketch-Log.

 

But for now, here's some sketches of htings if been working on over the months, and a couple of things before my computer went capoot.

 

Working on the main weapon/armor for a character. Here are some of the inital designs:

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

Felt like drawing Miyazaki cats. So i looked into one of my favorite Miyazaki films, The Cat Returns!

 

 

Last Valentines Day, I mentioned on the sketchlog that I had originally planned a very very silly article, buuuut it never took off because I got sick. Welp, this is it: My reactions to the Arrow TV show, with a valentines day theme.

 

Working out a helmet design:

 

Tried my hand at some slime monsters:

 

 

And now some random characters that (mostly) have nothing to do with each other:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no idea. I really don't.

 

 

 

 So thats it now. There will be some more refined, finished work in early June.

 

Seeya,

Tegan Dumpleton aka SlugLady28