sarracenian

sylia stingray but in Hardsuit

I like drawing these a bit too much

Baroness Ruby (based on Cyclopic Bricks' MOC)

As voted by my patrons, the topic was my friend Eero AKA. Cyclopic Bricks' Lego MOCs.

The winner was Baroness Ruby! Was fun to draw, I think people have by now figured me out as the person who would draw characters like Ruby hahaha.

Maybe I should hold more polls like this based on friends' or other people's characters.
I do have a Samus one that has been in mind for a while, maybe I'll do one next time if there is interest in it.

MOC Art Poll winner WIP

The winner of the Art Poll has been determined!

Its the Baroness Ruby! I'm not actually too surprised, since she is one of my top favs as well. And she just so happens to already kinda fall in line with the sort of characters I draw anyway hahaha

(WIP) let's fly some kites Qi Dandan!

I should rethink what color the sky and grass should look like.

I actually forgot there is the Weifang Kite Festival that's coming up in 20th-25th this month. Hopefully I get to finish this by then, that'd be cool.

Art Poll MOC special (feat. CyclopicBricks)

Hullo! For this art poll, I wanted to pay tribute to the work of a long time friend of mine, Eero AKA. Cyclopic Bricks, whom I asked if I could draw one of his excellent Lego MOC characters.

The options are thus, you can find more pics on each one on his blog https://cyclopicbricks.blogspot.com/ or Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kumipallomaa/ and just enjoy his work overall if you haven't seen them before!

Reiko Kujirai!? From Kowloon Generic Romance?!

I still haven't gotten around watching the new anime adaptation of Kowloon Generic Romance. I hope its as good as the comic. I recommend it if you like the cut of its jib, esp. if you're a fan of those old-school modern Chinese romance films! Wong Kar-wai and Stanley Kwan films and whatnot, as well as your Zhou Xuan and Ruan Lingyu films (though those are pretty tragic mostly). And y'know Reiko is great too (y'know, if you are into that...)

Another illustration based on the Shanghai calendar girl posters, for like the third or fourth time I believe. Its just where my mind goes to when I think of qipao nowadays I suppose. Maybe I should've reversed the reading order of the text? Ah well.

(WIP) Whoa hey they made a Kowloon Generic Romance anime?!

(I've actually forgotten it was coming hahaha

I really like the comic so...)

Black Swan Ace cover mockup

Was looking at a lot of cari.institute's archive and some of the old graphic designs from 1920s-1930s Chinese book covers. They're really cool and that gave me an idea. I've been meaning to find more chances to pick up more design cues from the latter.

Funnily, whenever I think back to the late 90s-early 00s, all I can think about is this abstract image of people with heavy shadows set against very blue cityscape, all very high contrast. Does anyone else feel what I'm talking about?

Black Swan Ace short comic 2

Having another go with these characters. Its always good to have another avenue to test things out in, like weird creatures and halftones.

I still have another idea with these, which will get more elaborate.

REQUEST: Nelvana ver. The Rani and Beltorchika Irma (in concept uniform)

First Requests of the year are here.

Its Nelvana's cancelled cartoon version of The Rani from Doctor Who, and Beltorchika Irma in her concept art for Char's Counterattack before being cut.

Kinda funny how I ended up with two concept designs to draw this time, I quite like that. I always find beta designs of things super interesting. Maybe I should ask people to request more of these next time hahaha.

I've never seen actually seen any of the Rani episodes in full (partially 'cause they're kinda bad lol) and I think Beltorchika was OK, but my memory of Zeta Gundam is mostly hazy now outside of a select moments.

its priss again

Just normal Priss Asaigiri of Bubblegum Crisis fame.

late 80s-early 90s Kenichi Sonoda style is actually quite fun to imitate, and surprisingly easier than I anticipated compared to Kousuke Fujishima in my experience.

1st REQUEST thread of 2025

Because I realized I haven't done one yet, so hey a Request Thread it is! This is where you get to make an art request by commenting below!

I will do one or two characters of my choosing, and if no requests are made, I will make an art poll instead where it will be six options of assorted characters of my choosing..

Please comment below!

NOW its the Dirty Pair

Yuri is here. The The Lovely Angels are together again.

You think they'll ever bring the Dirty Pair back at some point? Or is has that window closed permanently? I dunno. Not that we really need anything new tbh, Dirty Pair's had a full life. Though stranger things have happened; Deedlit got a whole game while no one was looking.

wow its Kei

you ever just feel like drawing Kei from Dirty Pair? Y'know to pass the night?

I should prob draw Yuri next.

LEAKED screenshots of Sakura Wars X 100% REAL! (fake)

Ho hoo, found these cool looking CRT stuff on Blender that I wanted to try out. I didn't know which one I liked more, so there's two versions (one by https://mrmotarius.itch.io/mrmocrt, the other from here with some attempts at customization)

Drawing these sprites while then implementing the CRT filters and cross-referencing the results makes for an interesting workflow. As we all know by now, these were designed for CRT monitors originally, and you really learn first-hand how and why even through this rough digital simulacrum.

I think I talked about this before, but in my mind, whatever fake Sakura Wars game the Shanghai Combat Revue are from is basically spun from the Sakura Wars 2 engine (hence the interface & that blue-pink meter here) and would be insanely jury-rigged and just barely functional under the hood, a la apparently how Fallout 2 conversion mods are like. Apparently ST2 also is a very finicky engine based on what the fan-translators say, which is perfect for my imaginary scenario. It gives it personality!

Maybe I should write a fake design document about it all. Am I that crazy? Probably yes. At some point I'll probably draw a properly original UI & backgrounds too, if you guys are interested.

ohoho more of these sketches

Yo, been in a funk after working on commissions for so long consistently. I'm not out of it yet (which isn't really a problem, mind!), but I still got some stuff I can show.

Finally going to start doing those faux screencaps I've promised, plus some other misc ideas I wanted to draw, first by sketching out the character sprites (just Yue Ying & Qin Bailing for now though). I've forgotten how small the resolutions for older games are lol.

 Seems kind of a no-brainer to draw Guan Qinglang in period-appropriate changshan + hat combo, plus a hechang-looking overcoat because apparently that was actually being proposed as a new national attire along with a revival of what looks like a daopao or a zhiduo when the Republic of China was first founded. Man I know too much about these things.

some black swan ace in these trying times

Been swamped by commissions + Finnish January lethargy. I mean, not that I'm complaining about the former ofc, but does mean I don't draw as much in my off-hours as much as I'd like. But once I get back in the groove oh boy just you wait (I hope)

These are the new toys I now play with. You always want to vary things up what you wanna draw. I guess this is why people online always talk about how many OCs they have. I've been looking at a lot of older Shanghai and Hong Kong aesthetics + more modern Sinitic stuff, which I hopefully get to slowly but surely integrate into this new thing.

NOTE: "方士" just means "method-master". I actually don't know if that's the official actual translation (such is the difficulty of CHN->ENG translation), but I liked the sound of it.

Composition daily practices

So a while back, I did these daily illustration practices, based on jjhoa's dailies. These aren't usually things I'd show to people, since I don't think most people would be as interested, but then I figure if nowhere else than at least I hope you guys can find enjoyment in them.

Haven't done these in a while though, I should prob pick this back up again. 

First Shanghai Combat Revue art of 2025

Another team pose illustration, the whole crew with their weapons drawn. My roommate was checking how long I've been drawing this and its been almost 2-3 years now. Man, time flies.

Space Cassette Moumou - Star Prowess (faux anime laserdisc cover #2)

There she is, the new queen of the ring is here!

As voted by patrons, finished a lot later than I would've liked but here it is. Have you learned more about joshi puroresu in the mean time? Its OK if you haven't, this isn't homework hahaha

I draw Moumou pretty scrawny, so I have no idea how she actually fares up in the ring. But then again she is also an alien, so she probably has something up her sleeve. You never know what happens in space. She also has Macho Man glasses because everyone likes Macho Madness.

EDIT: Forgot to add the other version

Joshi-Puroresu Moumou WIP 2

Got a lot of commissions this January. Not complaining of course, but does mean some stuff is going to be a little slower for a bit.

So here's another progress image of Pro-wrestler Moumou. Also an alternative composition which is probably gonna be the version I will go with, since I like how it looks. Maybe not, who knows. We shall see how I feel afterwards.

Black Swan Ace (test short)

The full short comic, where I test the waters with this new character story concept, where I get to work out my newfound interests (Weird Fiction, 60s-70s Showa aesthetics, Chinese horror stylings, Ranma, the character of Naoto Shirogane, etc.). This was done kind of out of a whim for experimentation purposes, to see how fast I can get this done and to try out a somewhat different style.

I'm planning to work out a longer story after, so I hope people find enjoyment in it!

Please don't hesitate to comment!

EDIT: Added a new ending and a dialogue in a previous page (pg. 6) to round out a little.

Prowres-Moumou WIP

the poll has a winner, and hopefully so will there be on the ring.

I often marvel at the fact that Japan has this whole history of women's pro-wrestling being the top most popular things esp. in its heyday. So its pretty appropriate to go from Sukeban to the real actual high-schoolgirl favourite of watching wrestling in the 80s-90s. And it got us Dirty Pair, so that's great too!

If you wanna know more, this article and Kim Justice's video detail some of the history behind the joshi wrestling popularity (and if you are interested, why things also went badly for US women's pro-wrestling in contrast these articles)

(WIP 1st half of) BSA minisode

So hey, another new set of characters and ideas to play with. I've posted about them prior on September. To put it in short; Played Persona 4, really liked Naoto Shirogane (like everyone did), and decided "what if I want something else done with this idea of a young-girl-as-the-old-school-pulp-detective-character?" (well to be fair to me, its also a lot of other stuff that's been floating around in my brainspace in regards to Weird Fiction, 60s-70s Showa aesthetics and Chinese horror stylings, etc.) Because hey, it worked out for Corman hahaha.

Anyway, this one is mostly done to test out the waters with new brushes & character+story, done as quickly as I can in between other stuff to see how it would turn out. I'm posting the first half now because the second half is still too unfinished & would only be legible to basically just me. For example, second-to-last page:

But hey I bet I have also posted way worse and I just can't recall, so you can tell me if you are interested in seeing that regardless.

Go Team Go (wip)

Sorry for the lack of updates. Been focusing too much on just commissions + comics, which aren't something I can just show. Well I guess I can show the comics, but then I also get stuck argueing with myself whether its too early to show something that needs more context..

 But hey, did got around to chip away at this one.

Unfortunately getting that "huh, does this actually look good or not?" bouts of self-doubt, you know how it is, but we shall see once I color everyone else and figure out the exact sizing of everyone (also remember to add Yue Ying's mudan flower to the shoulders).

I've been drawing these for almost 2 years now I just realized, and only just realized I never made any proper faux game screenshots using them. I should get around to it in the future. That'll be a fun thing to tackle.

Moumou outfit special Poll ... 2!

Because everybody likes a sequel right.

(I was supposed to post this at the end of November, but I forgot to check if I had posted it until now, sorry about that)

Same rules as last time; We decide what kind of outfit to have Moumou dresses up in, in the style of anime laserdisc covers or splash arts (examples seen here)

The poll options are mostly the same, except now the sukeban is replaced with another, popular women's genre in the 80s-90s Japan.

(As before, the pictures are more for illustrative purposes mostly, not necessarily the literal outfits I'll draw Moumou in)

周穆王谒见西王母 (King Mu of Zhou meets Queen-Mother of the West)

In the ancient Chinese history, specifically the Shang and Zhou dynasties (and even in early Han dynasty), the depiction of gods and folklore is very different from what it is now.
Xiwangmu, or Queen-Mother of the West, the matron goddess of the xianren or Immortals, was a bestial goddess of disasters, while the xianren themselves were visibly more inhuman and birdlike (because immortality and divinity was associated with flying aka. "ascending to the heavens").
Even immortality was seemingly something that people had to ask from these ancient mystical beings rather achieved through self-mastery like it was in later Chinese folklore and religions, hence the story of "Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven", where King Mu of Zhou travelled west to meet with Xiwangmu.

Always thought that contrast was an interesting idea. Even when King Mu met Xiwangmu, she was living in the wilderness outside the borders of the Zhou Kingdom, surrounded by wild animals. As human society moves forward, what if those things outside of it still reflect those more primordial times that humans lost their familiarity to.

 Plus I just like the idea of a weird old god-crone hahaha

I've included some of the references I've used in the attachments.

周穆王访西王母 (WIP)

Based on the story "Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven", with just one key change.

Back in the ancient times, Xiwangmu, or Queen-Mother of the West, the matron goddess of the xianren or Immortals, was chiefly known as a bestial goddess of disasters, possibly of death as well, with tiger's fangs (or even tiger's body), scraggly hair, wearing sheng 胜 (which is an ancient Zhou-Han dynasty jewelry shaped sort of like an hourglass) and lived in the wild with animals like tigers and leopards.

I always thought a lot about that description, plus how pre-imperial times in general a lot of gods and spirits were a lot more animalistic than they would belater down the line, including the famous xianren who originally were feathered and had almost goblin-like features.

So I imagine the Yao-lake that the Queen-Mother resides at is a lot more unsettling place for normal humans like King of Zhou hahaha

Now to just figure out how to color this.

a variety of sketches

Recently hit a huge slump, but am slowly coming back from it.

Just putting up some sketches that hopefully I will probably do something with later. One or two of these I know I will do something with later on (progress updates coming soon).

I hope people actually do enjoy these, because I quite like having a place to share this with people in my own time and privacy.

Videl quickies

Sometimes I miss Videl.

"But she's still in new Dragon Ball stuff-"

I know what I said.