deviantART: gallery:veloxiraptor/52750

Xerneas and Yveltal

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 19:38:00 PST

Look at me being all topical! Here are gijinka of the two new legendaries from Pokemon XY: Xerneas and Yveltal!

EDIT: Official art of these two is now available, so I made a few adjustments for accuracy!

Pokemon is ©Nintendo/Game Freak.

Bringing the Gorgon Back

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:36:09 PST

M:tG fanart! This was my first real attempt at using SAI. It.....was not the most auspicious of beginnings.

There's very little fanart of Vraska the Unseen out there, but I think pretty much everyone who has drawn her has missed the big stone RTR-set-symbol beltbuckle thing she has.

The real highlight of this image is the three assassin tokens which are very obviously drawn in CHANxCO style. Which I love. <3

Vraska is © Wizards of the Coast...

Dracaena PUNCH!

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 22:03:04 PST

I took last night's image and fleshed it out a bit more.

Dracaena, You Are the Quarry

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 21:49:11 PST

More Solstoria giftart for of her witch Nirinel! She is frustratedly trying to catch what could be construed as a tiny Dracaena. Maybe she wants to prove that dragons really exist!

Catching dragons in butterfly nets is recommended only for true professionals...

A Firm Handshake

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 21:31:54 PST

Well, not much to say about this one really. I wanted to experiment with a faster lineless style and analogous-color shading (which I don't do often enough). And hey I managed to work a bit of MC in there too. As a dragon, Dracaena can shrug off status effects like, oh, mind control or petrification. But as long as she's in human form she's much more susceptible to such things...

Dracaena's transformation into dragon form can be a little mana-intensive and risky in the midst of a fight (it's a pretty lengthy henshin sequence, I guess), but she can win a lot of battles just by rapid, partial transformations of her arms, legs, or even her head.

Level Up! Alternative

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:29:11 PST

...So I also did this version. XD; It was done MUCH faster than the original version, but I didn't want it to look too effortless, so I changed the facing and redrew all of the parts that needed to be redrawn to keep left/right consistent. You'll notice that I also changed the color of the flame. Why? Because magic in the Relic Breaker universe obeys the rules of "handedness". Rosalind is left-handed, so if she casts magic with her right, the spell will come out weaker! In this case, the flame is not as hot.....

Level Up!

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 21:17:18 PST

Here is a much, much better picture of Rosalind. My portfolio needs drastic improvement and I can't settle for any image that would fall short of "pro". This image still probably needs a bunch more work but I feel like it's at a pretty decent stopping point right now.

Cave Crawl

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 13:40:35 PDT

for , her heroine Samantha.

Dracaraptor

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 23:10:01 PDT

I just couldn't hold back the tide.

A while ago I did some scrap of Dracaena as a four-legged dragon, the idea being that I wanted her to have a form that would let her carry a rider. But I like this two-legged "raptordragon" mode better. (What else would you expect from me.)

Dracaena's rider is named Rosalind for now. She is the main character of the story! Ho ho, I led you to believe it was Dracaena this whole time, but no. She is just SECONDARY. (And admittedly kind of more fun to draw overall, what with all the configurations...) Rosalind is a young mage/soldier in Alabanth, a low-tech and highly religious society. She is part of a unit called the Relic Breakers, whose job it is to track down and destroy magical artifacts that may be dangerous (or heretical). Stuff like golems, crazed magical tomes, etc. As someone who didn't want to join the military and who doesn't have a natural affinity for the required magic, she's very jaded and a bit distrustful of her leaders. Which, in some small part, leads to her meeting Dracaena...

A Plethora of Volcara

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:53:55 PDT

I'll just leave this here.

If you can't read the tiny letters, just hit Download!

Bipedal to the Metal

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:41:55 PST

Dracaena in her bipedal dragon form. As I'm trying to get back into the swing of drawing again I'm starting with some art that's very quick and dirty. (Emphasis on dirty.)

Alright, time for my usual info dump! All dragons are mechanical to some extent, but blue dragons have by far the highest percentage of inorganic parts. This is largely thanks to Cyderia's influence; in fact, the majority of the blue dragons that exist today were produced in her biomech factories.

Cyderia has been responsible for many of Verity's technological advancements over the years, but perhaps her most vital contribution was the discovery of a chemical compound that could draw mana to water, turning it into a cheap fuel that could power just about anything. Including dragons!

Female blue dragons have been engineered to store plenty of this mana in their "breasts" so they can have a tremendous supply for their higher functions (like spellcasting). These mana-batteries recharge themselves slowly over time as long as the dragon drinks enough water. But sometimes that's just not fast enough, so dragons also have the option of visiting a mana station (like a gas station!) and filling up.

It is possible for dragons to actually feed this mana to someone else that needs it, but generally speaking no one is so desperate as to drink from a dragon's chest.

Bustin' Mad Rhymes

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:29:48 PST

I am probably more of a Perceptor fan than most people...there's just something to be said for having a poindexter on hand. In the cartoon Percy is depicted as being pretty useless in a fight, but his tech specs tell a different story: 7 strength, 8 firepower! Dude is JUICIN'.

Ultra Magnus here represents my attempt to redraw Fansproject's City Commander Armor from memory. I wasn't TOO far off!

Warpath Is a Ninja

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:51:49 PST

You'll probably have to hit DOWNLOAD for this one.

As my F/SN comics would demonstrate, I LOVE gags that revolve around panel layout.

Vortex here is straight-up G1 style while Warpath is basically a midgety version of his Animated self. Don't wanna limit myself to any one canon!

Rank and File

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:32:14 PST

This one pretty much sucks, but introducing the characters to each other (and you, the viewer!) felt like a necessary evil.

I figure that in the Transformers universe, the tech specs would have to be written by other Transformers. Why does Skids write Shortwave's bio? Because Skids DOES NOTHING ELSE.

First Day on the Job

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:26:04 PST

I thought up like a dozen of these at work yesterday (yes, a dozen comics in a matter of a couple of hours, so you KNOW they've got to be quality), but I doubt I'll actually get around to DOING most of them. Storyline ideas include Shortwave training for communications work under Blaster, and Ballista having to temporarily fill in as the left arm of Bruticus.

I wanted to set a couple of goals for myself with these comics. With my Fate/Stay Night comics I tended to over-rely on cusswords and 4chan memes. This time around I'm holding myself to a PG rating and seeing if I can still put forth something entertaining. It's a challenge alright, and I'm not optimistic.

Transformers, as ever, belongs to Hasbro and Takara.

MOE than Meets the Eye, Part 2

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:30:03 PST

This is Ballista, and she's a Decepticon fire-support specialist. She actually has a great deal of skill and accuracy, but she's very skittish and has been known to freak out in the middle of heated engagements. Her altmode is something like an Apache Longbow helicopter but her rotors are only two-blade instead of four.

Owl or Nothing

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:33:21 PDT

Having access to two DSes and two Pokemon cartridges will invariably lead to some truly awful trades.

EDIT: Got rid of the Griseous Orb when people on here and 4chan pointed out that it would make Giratina untradeable. I strive for accuracy!

And the Technicolor Dreamcoat

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:15:20 PDT

Commission for of his cute cyborg Kei. I'm sure she'd be very flattered to know that someone has a targeting reticle on her!

Kei and Dracaena were friends at one point so I figure a little bit of Kei's fashion rubbed off on her.

Character Creation Challenge

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:46:33 PDT

I got tagged. What can I say?

Watch as my art degrades horribly over the course of the seven questions.

Quintuplets

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:47:16 PDT

Betta download, foo'!

Among the things I'm working on is a reference sheet for Dracaena of the various outfits she wears. I only made it about halfway through the sketch of her casual clothes before I decided I was going to make this monstrosity. "The Norm" is Drac's base colorscheme, "The Desolator" is Crucilla's, but the rest of them are from...other sources.

As it happens, Drac's Administrator is named Sam, so that middle one worked out very well.

ACX - Abyssi's Onsen Episode

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:05:43 PDT

I recently got involved in an artist-trading-card community, and this was my first assignment. Front and center is Abyssi, the sneaky shadow-beast who's permanently infused with smugness. On the left is Tsuki, his tiny daughter. Both of them belong to .

I think the key to Abyssi's predatory expression is the dark spots around his eyes. I swear he looked totally guileless until those spots were put in.

Upper Echelon Dragon Forms

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:40:06 PDT

Y'all better download this, it's a big'un!

Dragon forms for the Upper Echelon! I've been thinking of new names for the Echelon because referring to them as "the Echelon" doesn't make a whole lot of sense without the Upper part, and I don't like that. I've determined that a group of dragons is called a flight, so the new name would have to be "____ Flight" while still reflecting this team's sense of superiority. Like Apex Flight or Paragon Flight.

I purposely arranged the characters in WUBRG color order, but it seems like it could also be construed as "Worst Design ---> Best Design" order. I would really like to get someone who actually knows mecha design to redo these and make them better.

Something Borrowed

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 15:20:27 PDT

Unfortunately, what she borrowed was some possessed jewelry...

I started this a long time ago and forgot about it. Quite obviously, it's just an extensive edit of my old "Stoned on Her Wedding Day" picture. But in addition to adding details I wanted to mess around with colors, and before long I had a corrupted Dracaena.

EDIT: I've revisited this one to make her transformation more monstrous. It, ah, ended up looking pretty silly! I shelved the Trypticon color homage for now but I'm sure I'll bring it up again in something else.

Nendoroid Dracaena

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 21:36:42 PST

Dracaena as...a Nendoroid doll. Fortunately for her, such transformations always wear off.....in time.

In the most rudimentary, unfinished sense, this is one of Drac's outfits. She's like a little police officer! Dracaena knows she was hatched from a stolen egg, which she believes makes her very existence a crime. Thus her top ambition is to be a police dragon, as a way to compensate. However, all of the police-employed dragons are ones that were commissioned and bred specially for that purpose, and Drac meanwhile is just a mutt, so she pretty much has no chance.

Her gun is a Recher Laboratories P-4 Staticizer (or "Stat") and it's a common police weapon in the city of Verity. It shoots a nonlethal bolt of mana that can completely paralyze a human target for up to ten minutes. (It's considerably less effective against other races.)

Nendoroids are © Good Smile Company.

Prier, High-Kickin' Cleric

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:08:13 PST

won my contest and wanted Prier as his prize. I ALMOST drew her Demon Overlord form instead, as I'm more of a Disgaea fan myself, but I figured I should stick to the references I was provided.

La Pucelle's artist is Ryoji Majima, who is known for drawing girls with gigantic.............legs. What does a girl with huge legs do? Why, KICK people, I imagine. (There's a sketch done by the hentai artist Errors, of Star Ocean 3's Maria Traydor kicking sort of like this, and I guess in a way I was trying to draw that picture from memory.)

I checked the reference pictures many times and I'm still not actually certain whether Prier wears anything on her legs. In most art her legs do seem darker than the rest of her skin so I decided to interpret that as meaning she was wearing SOMETHING there. She's still awfully indecent for a priestess, though. Bare shoulders!

Anyway, Prier and La Pucelle Tactics are © Nippon Ichi / Atlus.

All Hail Gardenia

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:28:31 PST

This is my entry into 's contest. I wasn't originally going to post it here and there's a good chance it won't be here for long, so...um...enjoy it while it lasts!

I had the picture of the evil hypnotic Gardevoir (her name is Gardenia, if you couldn't tell) stewing on my hard drive for a while and her victim was concepted to be a Mismagius-girl. I wasn't happy with it, and once I saw Jin's contest open I decided the picture needed.....re-concepting. Enter Misty and Alexis.

I rarely have the audacity to put two things from disparate franchises together unless it's for comedic effect (see: all of my F/SN strips). To me there's something funny about the idea of Yu-Gi-Oh existing in the same universe as Pokemon, because the YGO players would be, like, total losers there and would be pressured to rationalize their hobby. "Battling real monsters is so geigh! Y'know what's REALLY cool? A CHILDREN'S CARD GAME."

A Brief History of Dragons

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:06:23 PDT

For this article I wanted to play around with the idea of an "unreliable narrator". This piece is not quite as off-the-rails as The Dragon User's Manual, but it may, MAY, be more accurate to my story universe overall.

Undoubtedly, this article was written by a dragon. Which one? Probably Crucilla...

O RYLLI?

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:17:18 PDT

I had it in my head to draw a girl who wears jingly bells, but it took a while before I reached the conclusion that she could be the third gorgon, Amaryllis, who I alluded to in "Gorgon Tug-o'-War".

Well, it's time for another lengthy post. Recently I decided that gorgons didn't actually have the power to de-petrify people. Any time they want to turn someone back to normal, they need the extract of a special plant called gorgonroot. Because Abelia and Azalea bicker over statue poses and stone types all the time, they tend to waste a LOT of gorgonroot. So it's the job of shy, skittish Amaryllis to tend a gorgonroot garden for her cruel cliquemates. Usually Rylli only uses the gorgonroot when her sisters order her to, but sometimes she uses it just because she feels bad for the victim.

For quite a while, Alex didn't know there was a third gorgon in the clique, until one time she woke up from being a statue and spotted Amaryllis peeking at her from around a corner. Alex tried to go after her but Rylli just kept hiding and telling Alex to stay away. On subsequent opportunities, Alex eventually coaxed Rylli into talking to her, though Rylli still wouldn't let Alex see her. This picture represents the moment where Alex finally gets to see Rylli up close...

See, every gorgon is surrounded by a sort of "petrifying aura". Those who have been gorgons the longest, like Abelia and Azalea, have very short-ranged auras and can only petrify people by touch. As more and more human girls are transformed into gorgons, though, the auras are becoming more and more powerful. Amaryllis is one of the newer gorgons, and her aura is so strong that she uncontrollably petrifies anyone who gets within a certain radius of her. Thus, she wears the jingly bells so she can warn people that she's near!

Alex and Rylli are friends now and Rylli is slowly opening up to her, though the two of them can only converse from the opposite sides of a room. Sometimes Alex will dress up, pose, and LET Rylli petrify her so Rylli can draw her and submit the pictures to gorgon art shows. As Alex would say, "Unlike her sisters, she lets me choose the clothing."

Full Metal Drac-et

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:04:53 PDT

Latest design for Dracaena's dragon form. It was getting pretty cluttered so I broke it up into different color areas.

I think I made her actually too tough-looking this time. I want her to be equally tough AND cute, and the example I like to cite of such a design would be Hikaru from Angelic Layer. Hikaru's adorable, but you can still tell she's a fighter.

If I had to do it again I would probably take some of the armor away from the body and add more weight to the limbs, Digimon-style. Dracaena is actually supposed to be one of the weakest dragons in terms of physical defense.

The Dragon User's Manual

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:16:47 PDT

A while ago, someone on MZDM pointed me to a book entitled "How to Care For Your Dracaena" (Dracaena is the name of a type of bamboo, as well as the name of my foremost character). Much later, I thought to myself, "what if I tried writing that book?" This is what resulted. Some of the information is accurate to my story universe, but most of it is bollocks.

This thing really needs some adorable chibi illustrations, but I haven't felt like drawing in a long time.

Gorgon Tug-o'-War

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 23:26:41 PST

While I'm at work, my brain gets an awful lot of free time to come up with bizarre concepts like this. At first I just wanted to draw a gorgon who had tough, plated tendrils instead of hair (like they do in Magic: the Gathering), then I thought it might be cute to make the gorgon act like a pretentious pain-in-the-ass artsy type as she petrifies someone, then I wanted to add a second gorgon to take issue with her assessment, then I decided their dispute would be about which type of stone to use.

And it just snowballed from there until I started coming up with a backstory.

Gorgons, much like the myths, don't occur naturally. The first three gorgons, known nowadays as The Originals, were three human girls who were cursed and turned into hideous (okay, well, they're not that hideous really) monsters to guard some cruel wizard's keep. The transformation, aside from the obvious physical impacts, had a number of effects on the girls' minds. It wiped their memories of their human lives, it drove them just a wee bit insane, and unexpectedly, it also made them very, very SMART. Before long they killed their master and roamed free to begin giving the gift of gorgon-ness across the land.

Gorgons, as an all-female race, have no means of reproduction except to transform other human women. Practically speaking, it's actually pretty easy for them to spread the curse, but gorgons are total elitists and are EXTREMELY finicky about who they will allow into their ranks. (And the humans aren't exactly beating the door down to get in, yanno.)

Gorgons live in groups of three to five, appropriately called "cliques". The leader of a clique is the Elite. Cliquemates regularly refer to each other as "sister" even though it's extremely rare for two gorgons to be actual sisters. The gorgons' main pastime is what they refer to as "live statuary," which is the art of petrifying hapless victims in such a way as to create a pleasurable composition.

In this picture, we see our old friends Alex and Azalea from "Gorgon and Victim" (Azalea's design has seen significant changes), as well as Azalea's chain-smoking older cliquemate Abelia, the Elite of the clique. As her thought bubble might imply, Alex has been stuck with these gorgons for a long time now...the gorgons like her so much that they keep petrifying and re-petrifying her with different poses and stone types. (I think that by the time I do another picture involving these girls, Alex will be a gorgon herself!) Abelia has commandeered Azalea's necklace and is using its control magic to pose Alex by force, since gorgons give the highest praises to statues that suggest the victim was willing. (Terrified-looking victims are passé; they're just too easy!) If the rest of the gorgon art-world found out about the necklace, they'd ostracize its owner immediately; use of control magic or other magical aids to pose subjects is considered EXTREMELY poor form!

Incidentally, Abelia's clique has a third member named Amaryllis ("Rylli"), a shy, well-meaning gorgon who usually fixes the mischief her cliquemates cause. I don't have a clear picture of her in my head; all I know is that she's purple and has glasses.

Upper Echelon Color Reference

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 21:26:43 PST

Unfortunately, I didn't exactly have the foresight to draw all five of these guys from the same perspective. But I think the point gets across: Mal is so tall he looks goofy, and Cyderia, the most powerful of all, is tiny. (She is "The Deceiver" after all.)

EDIT: Now we have basic colors. (Crucilla looks so delightfully undead.) I don't think I'll be going any further with this image; the lineart quality is much too poor for this to make a decent finished piece.

Canon Upper Echelon: Cyderia

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:47:53 PST

5 of 5. God damn! I didn't spend a lot of time drawing Cy, but I sure spent a lot of time TALKING about her.

...I think my favorite part of this picture is Malachron's portrait.

Canon Upper Echelon: Golgrim

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 20:05:49 PST

4 of 5. Cyderia, being the leader, gets to show up last.

Canon Upper Echelon: Crucilla

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 08:46:59 PDT

3 of 5. Next is Golgrim.

Canon Upper Echelon: Malachron

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:38:44 PDT

2 of 5. Next is Crucilla.

Canon Upper Echelon: Volcara

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 19:31:53 PDT

1 of 5. Here's hoping I actually draw all five!

This is sort of what my old deviation "Baby Steps" has evolved into. These characters are a nod to an archetypical set of villains in anime that I can only refer to as "The Four Bosses". Good examples of this would be Talpa's Dark Warlords from Ronin Warriors, or the Four Heavenly Beast Kings from Gurren-Lagann. They're one step below the final boss but still tough enough that fighting them is a big deal. Obviously, I have five of them, but Volcara here mysteriously disappears early on to reduce the batch to the more traditional four.

The group of five, led by Cyderia, makes up the Canon's Upper Echelon. What is the Canon? Most associate it with the religion known as Canonism, which has a firm hold over many of the world's less-advanced human societies. But the true core of the Canon is in the towering CanonFire Corporation, a high-tech manufacturer that secretly exploits Canonism for its own ends. The Echelon members are all dragons, but most of the Canon's employees/missionaries are humans, predominantly women. (Cyderia: "An employer must have standards.")

My Life as a Teenage Statue

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 16:59:00 PDT

Jenny (XJ-9) from "My Life as a Teenage Robot" has caught a nasty techno-virus! requested this image, and while I normally don't touch requests with a ten-foot pole, this one was just so deliciously odd that I had to give it a shot. I'm pretty happy with it considering I shat it out in just a few hours.

Originally the tool in her arm was more gunlike, but as I went on I changed it to evoke a sort of cutting torch. The implication is that Jenny was seriously considering chopping off her own limbs to halt the spread of the affliction. It's the Bleedman approach to fanart: take a cute beloved character and make it dreadfully morbid!

Jenny is © Nickelodeon.

KEKEKE ZERG RUSH

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 21:38:05 PDT

I too have succumbed to the pixel ID craze that is sweeping the nation!

Only three aspects of this image remain unembellished: 1) I have blue eyes, 2) I have blue pants, and 3) you can't separate me from my soda.

Something from Nothing

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:40:57 PDT

I uploaded this image last week and took it down shortly thereafter, as it had some...rather unsolvable problems. (And it still does.) But with the amount of time that went into it I couldn't waste it, so I figured I would slap together all of the in-progress shots and make a "behind the scenes" sort of collage. Marvel as a picture rises up from the void!

This picture was all about doing shit I don't typically do. I drew a guy, in a Western style, and I made a serious effort at a background. All things that were pretty much alien to me.

This is more or less a Westernized version of my earth-dragon character named Golgrim. He's an artificial lifeform, as all dragons in his continuity now are, but he's fascinated by the natural world and ultimately becomes its most vehement protector. He lives for the seconds of battle frenzy that come from a fight with a tough opponent, as he believes that that momentary abeyance of rational thought allows him to be one with nature. He's an odd fellow.

Terror on High

Mon, 21 May 2007 17:48:56 PDT

This is a year-old piece of lineart that I liked enough to salvage, but didn't like enough to color. I really like the pose and the look of the head, but everything else is a failure in my eyes. (Especially the wings.) I want my dragons to look MUCH cooler than this.

I don't remember which of my characters this was intended to be, so we'll say it's some kind of nameless "mass production model" dragoness.

That Boy Needs Therapy

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:32:50 PDT

For my birthday last year, drew me a picture of Dracaena turned into a boy.

Well, today is Seby's birthday, and I have retaliated by drawing her character Ellos turned into a GIRL.

Know, all ye artists, that there is no shortcut to painting good wings. God knows I looked for one, and in the end, the wings in this picture ended up looking like they're made out of hair. :/

Drac-in-the-Box

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 19:55:07 PDT

She gets no respect. ;_;

Halfway There

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 20:35:31 PST

Drac in her half-dragon mode, with her spear/magic staff, the Spellstar. Most of her combat time is spent in this form; even as a halfie she's a devastating force. If she ever goes to her full dragon mode you know she's really in trouble.

Most likely going to redesign this at a later time.

Down in History - An Excerpt

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 10:42:22 PST

Way back when I was six or seven years old, we had compulsory Creative Writing sessions in elementary school. One of the subjects I tackled most often in my writing was what Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer did during the other 364 days of the year, like playing major league baseball or flying fighter jets or solving murders. Ridiculous shit. (Many years later, I would learn that what I was writing was called fanfiction.) Alas, I no longer have the original manuscripts; I presume they were purged ages ago, hopefully by fire.

Well, one day at work this week, during an extended session of sweater-folding, I thought about these old stories I wrote and I for some reason had the idea to make a new story about Rudolph. But this one would be a gritty, cynical sci-fi satire where the simple act of delivering toys to every girl and boy had become so dangerous that the reindeer had to pilot giant mechs called Slayers (from "sleigh", get it?) in order to complete their mission successfully. Santa Claus himself, his heart hardened by the depths to which the holiday had fallen, wouldn't even participate in the delivery any more; he'd just watch from his ivory tower and brood and in general play the role of the frigid Gendo Ikari-type commander.

The story is told from the viewpoint of Vixen, a spunky, ambitious female member of the Eight...yes, the reindeer squad is called the Eight, even though with Rudolph they have nine members. (It could be argued that none of Santa's reindeer are female. But considering the way reindeer grow - and drop - antlers, it could also be argued that ALL of Santa's reindeer are female. For the sake of argument I'm mixing things up.) Every reindeer is a cliche...Rudolph's the disgraced veteran who comes back from retirement, Dasher's the young guy who tries desperately to hold the team together, Dancer and Prancer are the twin sisters who are nothing alike, Comet is the cowboy-hat-wearing devil-may-care nutjob, Cupid is the flamboyantly gay guy, Donner is the nerdy genius girl, and Blitzen is the big fat insecure guy. I haven't given too much thought to Santa's elves, but I want them all to have ridiculous names.

...LOL, I call this "an excerpt" even though I'd be way too embarrassed to actually write the rest of this. It is far and away the most Gonterman-like idea I've ever had, right down to the reindeers being anthro.

Dracaena, the Pyreborn

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 20:08:08 PST

was having a little too much fun designing evil versions of her characters, so now I've held up the mirror to Dracaena and turned her into a mean-spirited (and noticeably more shameless than usual) fire dragon. The fear was that I was going to end up liking Evil Drac's design more than Actual Drac's design, but it didn't turn out that way at all. D: The yellow button-things on the suit look really stupid to me now, but I wanted some more cyborg-like details (like the earpieces that her horns come out of, and the little vent-like attachments on her sides) and all I could think of was the yellow-buttoned uniforms from "Cyborg 009".

I would really like to get this picture into a more finalized state, but lord knows how long that's gonna take...

Baby Steps

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:11:19 PST

If I'm having a real tough time committing to a new character design, I draw a chibi of it first. Yes. Baby steps.

These are my five main dragon characters, along with stats for each, to give an idea of how they compare. When I first wrote this description, these characters were just a few individuals in a world that had loads of dragons, but recently I've decided that these should be the only dragons in the world, to make them, well, more of a threat.

One story idea is that in ancient times, dragons were plentiful and they ruled over the various human countries, but the dragons had different ideas on how to rule and were constantly fighting. Sick of dying for the sake of their overlords' arguments, but unable to kill the dragons by fighting them directly, some bright humans eventually engineered a plague that was fatal to the dragons.

Five of the most powerful dragon rulers, known as the Prodigals, were dying from the plague but still stubbornly sought a way to rule on and simultaneously resolve their dispute. (Preferably violently!) So they got together to engineer a powerful magic spell they called the Arena. Each dragon sealed their essence into an indestructible orb, and when the time was right (hundreds of years in the future), the five of them would renew their fight by possessing the bodies of humans. Once possessed, these new Prodigal Avatars would have a limited time to destroy each other...once the time was up, there would have to be one winner, or EVERYBODY lost! (Classic Battle Royale.)

Some countries looked forward to the return of their dragon leaders and protected the Prodigal orbs as if they were sacred; Dracaena, for example, was born into a society that guarded one of the orbs for centuries, and it just so happened that the Prodigal chose to make Drac its Avatar. Other countries merely dumped the orbs somewhere, glad to be rid of the tyrants; in Crucilla's case, she was near death when she heard the voice of a Prodigal calling out to her and she found its orb buried underground.

So anyway, the five Prodigal Avatars are:

1) Dracaena, the Freeborn - Dragons do not have family names, but titles. (If you're a dragon that hasn't earned a title, then you ain't shit.) "The Freeborn" is actually a derisive title, referring to the fact that Drac was born into wealth and is seen as having a carefree life. (This title was given to her by her older brother Dracaeden, who is INTENSELY jealous that Dracaena was chosen as a Prodigal Avatar instead of him.) Her design doesn't change much any more, but two things of note are that she's given up her sword to become a spear knight (she has crap defense, so she needs a long reach!), and that her horns (those headphone/antenna things...we are calling them "horns" now) droop when she's upset/flustered.

2) Crucilla, the Devouring Darkness - A notorious thief living in the secluded realm of Mydden. Crucilla is an assumed name...just six years ago she was Viletta, a Royal Knight of Mydden, but her kingdom was invaded and enslaved by the Strateans, the people once ruled by the storm-dragons. Nearly killed in the invasion, Viletta heard the call of a Prodigal, whose powers restored her. She went into hiding and emerged some time later with a new identity. Unknown to the other Myddenites, Crucilla's thievery is mainly in the interest of taking care of her five-year-old son, Cidian. Her twin chainsaw swords are actually a pair of shadow-beast familiars named Grimtooth and Goreclaw.

3) Golgrim, who Sunders All - This guy was pretty small and unknown until he became a Prodigal Avatar...now he's seen as the symbol of the might of his country, the Geodetian Republic. The Geodetians live in vast underground cities, and they dislike sunlight...hence the visor on Golgrim here. Normally a personable enough dragon, Golgrim nonetheless is fiercely loyal to his superiors, and he'd probably kill his own mother if asked to. The tubes on his shoulderpads can give him boosts of magic energy to really get him motivated. As an earth dragon, he's flightless, and he's secretly jealous of the other Avatars, who can all fly.

4) Tryphectis, the Ascendant - A deceptively deadly Stratean soldier, Tryphectis knew right away he was destined for greatness when he became a Prodigal Avatar. He led the invasion of Mydden and has since become the realm's dictator. In dragon form, he has three heads: one main head and two that act like memory extensions. Yes, he has tremendous amounts of RAM, ahaha. (He claims that his two extra heads don't have any thoughts of their own, but this is not entirely true.) As a result, Tryphectis is exceedingly smart, but as psycho as they come. During the invasion of Mydden he raped probably a dozen females. (One of whom was Crucilla.) His name is a reference to Trypticon, my favorite Transformer. There are a few such Transformers homages at work here.

5) Volcara, the Immolator - A priestess of the Kremati Protectorate. Like Dracaena's people, the Kremati took good care of their Prodigal orb, but no one witnessed the Prodigal choosing Volcara as its Avatar, and Volcara told no one. After falling in love with a policeman, Volcara started using her new dragon form as a sort of superhero disguise to fight crime. Unfortunately, her way of going about it usually involves incinerating the perpetrators. Volcara's shoulder-mounted guns are inspired by Starscream from Transformers. I always thought those were his coolest features.

Gorgon and Victim

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 01:09:15 PDT

YO! HIT THE DOWNLOAD BUTTON!

...I've been on a petrification kick. Much like Apple Jacks, petrification is appealing for reasons that even its fans typically can't explain. (So I shan't embarrass myself any further by trying.)

The snake-girl here (I'm calling her Azalea, and so she joins Dracaena on the list of "Reptile-Girls Named After Plants") isn't a traditional gorgon; she lacks the snakes-for-hair thing and she can't petrify with her eyes. No, she has to touch her target to stone them. (Maybe she's a lesser gorgon.) Fortunately for her, she has in her possession a magical necklace that can control people's bodies. Convenient, yes.

Her ill-dressed victim is tentatively named Alexessandra. The clothing she's got on was most likely something that the gorgon made her wear...

It Thinks It's People

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 20:58:15 PDT

This was a quickie. Maybe later I'll go back and define it a little better, but for now.....

"You wear a disguise to look like human gals, but you're not a girl, you're a dragon, Drac~"

Stoned on Her Wedding Day

Sun, 11 Jun 2006 17:26:59 PDT

I heard someone at work mention someone being "stoned on her wedding day". I was...inspired.

I really like how Dracaena looks in a wedding dress, even though it's very hard to imagine the little dragon girl ever getting married. I suspect this isn't the last we'll see of Bridal Drac.

I could probably come up with a short story for this, but.....nah.

Dracaena's Transformation

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 19:05:36 PST

Inspired by one of Dizzy's pre-battle animations from Guilty Gear X, here's...well, a pre-battle animation for Dracaena. Knowing I was going to animate this, I took a lot of the detail out of Drac's design and cut her battlesuit down to a...dress of some kind. Doesn't look too bad actually.

Radiant

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 20:20:09 PST

Well, I guess it still goes in the Anime section.

Though she might look innocent, Radiant is a cruel, two-faced, laser-beam-slinging, were-phoenix villainess who has a major hate-on for dragons. At the moment she's suffering from an extreme case of...well, death. But those phoenixes have a nasty tendency to rise again.

Tail Chasers - Droxysma

Fri, 11 Nov 2005 09:49:07 PST

My entry for 's contest, because I don't enter nearly enough contests! (I'm taking the complete no-glitz approach, here.)

You can see that my dragon-girls really don't vary a whole lot.

Name: Droxysma "Droxie" Delgado
Age: 23
Skin: Purple
Bike: "Gestalt"

Born with a condition that keeps her wings frail and underdeveloped, Droxysma was the subject of much ridicule as a child. Not one to let it get her down, though, she decided that if she couldn't master the air, she'd master a more terrestrial pursuit: the T-Chase.

A self-proclaimed pragmatist, Droxysma drives "Gestalt", an awkward-looking bike cobbled together from spare parts and considered by many to be the ugliest vehicle on the racetrack. It's hard to argue with its speed, however.

You've Come a Long Way, Baby

Thu, 19 May 2005 12:05:02 PDT

So I said I would remake her, and I did. It certainly looks more suitable for Unreal Tournament this time.

Old version: 2,998 triangles
New version: 5,784 triangles

Made in 3D Studio Max 7.

Demon Vassal Etna

Sun, 17 Apr 2005 23:01:42 PDT

Etna from "Disgaea: Hour of Darkness", all grown up.

This marks the first time I've ever made a picture entirely in Photoshop.

Etna is © Nippon Ichi / Atlus.

Drac Gets Unreal

Tue, 08 Mar 2005 20:35:20 PST

omg fullview plz

You'd Be Surprised

Tue, 30 Nov 2004 10:16:28 PST

My friend Finley asked me to design a cover for his album, and told me he didn't care what I drew, so I came up with this. I decided to call the picture "You'd Be Surprised" because the basic theme of the image is "you'd be surprised by the lengths a person will go to just to be an asshole." Take the guy in this picture. He's going to all this work to paint a pretty girl just so he can dump turpentine on her!

Sythria, Terminus's Champion

Mon, 22 Nov 2004 19:36:46 PST

The villainous Sythria and her symbiotic shapeshifting shrimp-lizard friend Gauche. The fourth in my concept art series, and far and away the worst, this picture damn near got stuck in Scraps. Getting graded to draw your own characters is definitely not as fun as you'd think.

Andraya, Feore's Chosen

Fri, 19 Nov 2004 21:33:26 PST

The third in my digi-paint concept work series. This character was once Lacerta, a redheaded swordswoman...and oh MAN did she get overhauled! Now she is Andraya, irritable blonde technomancer and chosen champion of Feore, goddess of wisdom. Andy fights by summoning a ten-foot-tall war robot named Gideon...or simply by swinging at people with her naginata/magic staff.

Moloch the Terrible

Mon, 01 Nov 2004 08:45:00 PST

And by "terrible" I refer to his design. @_@; Moloch has been around for a couple of years, but he was never actually drawn until now. He's a pretty major character...the first of the dragons (Dracaena is technically the fifth), and one of your party members in my game concept. He covers up his eyes as a ritualistic/compulsive thing...he witnessed the death of his creator through his right eye, so he keeps it blinded unless he thinks he's about to witness another atrocity. He's quite nuts.