More Christmas cards.

Only four months late this time! Maybe next year I'll actually get them up before the spring equinox. I'd shoot for getting them ready before Christmas, but that's crazy talk, man.

So there's a lot fewer of them this time around but they're also a whole lot more colourful and elaborate. Quality > quantity, right?

I hand-lettered that! All of it! Although admittedly, my hand lettering basically reproduced a run-of-the-mill Irish-style font, so take that boast with a pinch of salt.

Photo by Klaus Stiefel, reference from this absolute gem of a video.

You'd be surprised how difficult it is to achieve visual randomness, especially with organic things like leafy vines.

Attack On Titan is wonderful and you should all go watch it! Pixel art is fun! Pixel art is great! Maybe if I repeat that often enough I'll trick myself into believing it!

Because adorable. Font turned out so well it multiplied into an entire alphabet, though sadly it's not a proper font (yet?).

Pencilwork.

Once upon a time I was proficient at drawing things in pencil. And by 'once upon a time' I mean 2013, which says something about my motivation to update this blog.

A birthday present for my dad

Plus faces! A mere seven months after I first hinted at their existence.

And sometimes you just want to draw half-otter ladies. The shading turned out well, as did the delicate furred look to her ottery bits (why does that sound worse than it is?), though there's a weird sort of charm to her bug eyes as well.

Miscellaneous things.

Guy with bat. I dig his shoes, mostly because it's very unusual for them to turn out well in my drawings.

I was once told that the key to good character design in videogames is to make every silhouette unique, which I thought was a good skill to practice. And then I ended up basing all of them on animals because hey, what can you do?

Doodles for a map of St Andrews which did eventually get made, but not 100% finished off. You'll be the first to know when it does (I hope nobody actually believes me anymore).

Old Arch Angel stuff.

'Old' because the concept has been updated lately, but that's exciting stuff and still under wraps so y'all aren't getting much more than this for now.

Arch Angel has always been a story about angels and the people who construct them, although the details of how and why have varied wildly over time. Some things, like the importance of feathers and teeth, have stayed constant from the earliest sketches; others – like wings made of stringed boughs and the ability to do strange glowy things with their hands – have not.

The main characters of the story have also pretty much stayed constant all this time. Gabor began as a witch with undefined stretchy powers and the ability to zap people at will, while Zovik remains a shapeshifting brawler with anger issues. Together, they fight crime! Or at least renegade angels and angel makers.

(In the unlikely event that some of you recognise Gabor from somewhere: you clearly need to get out even more than I do.)


But every story needs its supporting characters. Goizeder and Edvin work at the radio station; Todor runs a café; Lenyid is the police chief, and Krisztof is the cautionary tale mothers use when they want to frighten their babies.

Shopkeeper Magdolna and her daughters Alina, Duci, Galy, and Ialen. They were based on matryoshka dolls and traditional Russian sarafan dresses, hence the patterning on Alina's apron (but she's a ~teenager~ so of course there's a slouchy letterman jacket worn over it) and the general peasanty look of the other girls.

And Mariya, the town mayor, back from when I thought Arch Angel would make a great text adventure that needed neutral/happy/angry faces from all of its characters.

And then I thought it would make an awesome point-and-click game, because hey, ambition.