doodlemancy: a drawing of myself i use as my avatar (Default)

i didn't really get to finish OC-tober because Things Kept Happening and my drawing hand kept hurting in between those things. but i did get this started during it and it was a really fun composition! i've always wanted to do one of these anime/game box style illustrations with the Iron Company cast.. i re-drew ALMOST everyone here several times (Petra (cigarette), Erika (outstretched arms ghost) and Naomi (bird corner) behaved well and i only had to draw them each once) and re-arranged the composition... countless times.


i didn't really get to finish OC-tober because Things Kept Happening and my drawing hand kept hurting in between those things. but i did get this started during it and it was a really fun composition! i've always wanted to do one of these anime/game box style illustrations with the Iron Company cast.. i re-drew ALMOST everyone here several times (Petra (cigarette), Erika (outstretched arms ghost) and Naomi (bird corner) behaved well and i only had to draw them each once) and re-arranged the composition... countless times.

i would also like to thank the color purple today; this illustration is brought to you by the color purple because it ended up being the color i used to get everything else to play nice. i don't have a screenshot of it because i was TOO BEWILDERED at the time, but there was a first color draft of this that was just awful, and not in the fun 90s Sailor Moon poster way where the colors are kind of awful but in a way that rules, like this:


i looked at a lot of sailor moon group illustrations while i was planning this lmao

here are some progress shots: the initial sketch, an early draft, and a mostly-monochrome draft from before i started coloring (and i continued changing my mind about things). Carson (big) and Maddie (glasses) gave me the most trouble-- i don't have their proportions nailed down yet as much as i do the other characters and they kept coming out kind of Not Quite Themselves. you can also see the way i use 3D models to compose stuff! thank you Clip Studio Paint 3D models for my life. my goal with this one was basically not to settle for "good enough" and to keep going until every character drawing made me go "yeah! THAT'S THEM!" (i cheated with Ryfka because i had already drawn her lil' Carmen Sandiego Outfit Hat Tip sketch and ended up pasting it in from another canvas after i realized i already had a usable drawing of her i liked lol). you can see all these characters' profiles and stuff on my toyhouse btw.



i also made this version when i was stuck on coloring. it's one that's more appropriate for just chapter 1 (WHICH YOU COULD PLAY RIGHT NOW. YOU COULD DO THAT. YOU COULD PLAY CHAPTER 1 OF IRON COMPANY FOR FREE.)




this illustration was a really fun puzzle. putting together something like this a few years ago probably would have just made me cry, but now i already want to do more of them, haha. it's really difficult, but once the pieces start to fall into place it's like HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH all the way to the finish line.. i should really get back to work on the visuals for the novel now, but i wanted to have some like... "key art" kinda stuff to promote it with instead of just the old sloppy placeholder sketches.

please hold for the inevitable PS2/Gamecube box versions i wanna do as a joke. all the elements are pretty scoochable and i have a printer, so... there's really nothing stopping me except my willingness to put time and effort into bullshit.

speaking of putting time and effort into bullshit, i also drew this Sonic Adventure Box Art Pose Petra as a goof and i like it so much i might make it into another sticker LMAO

doodlemancy: a drawing of myself i use as my avatar (Default)
✨new this week!✨

(suggested listening 🎢)

i have devised various ways for you to give me money. SUCH AS:

notebook with a cover design of an angel sheltering a mouse from the rainpile of wooden keychain charms of a pink-haired girl in a green tunic with a sword and shield

these really cute A6 notebooks and wooden legendary girl charms!

restocked! πŸ“¦


cute charms reminiscent of a classic Game Boy, one has a starry night-time motif and the other is pink and pastel with a friendly little creature of indeterminate origin on the screen photo of a small pink bag containing mysterious unknown stickers
the sleepy boy charm, friend boy charm, and oopsie sticker grab bags are restocked! (oopsie sticker grab bags contain
stickers that are intact enough to be loved, but not quite intact enough to be sold at full price due to various manufacturing incidents.)

get 'em before they're gone!πŸƒ


sticker design of a witch and her cat familiar chasing after a silly cauldron that has grown legs and started running away. it's cheerfully sloshing potion behind itself.the "friend boy" game boy design but with a halloween color scheme, and the creature on the screen looks ghostly

the runaway cauldron sticker and the haunted friend boy sticker won't be restocked again this year,
so if you've been wanting one and you don't wanna wait for october 2025... now's the time. ;D

also... new digital items on ko-fi! πŸ’Ύ

preview for a pack of various heart-shaped clip studio paint brushespreview for a pack of various star-shaped clip studio paint brushes

these heart and star brush packs are made with flexibility and simplicity in mind.
(you can also find them on the clip studio paints asset store-- see links in their descriptions over on ko-fi.)

preview for a rainy mouse and angel phone wallpaper setpreview for a phone wallpaper of a princess and a friendly dragon hanging out in a gardenpreview of a Legendary Girl wallpaper


...and last but not least, i FINALLY got around to making some more phone wallpaper packs out of some finished
pieces from this year. (there's a sampler pack you can try out if you're not sure they'll work well at your phone's resolution.)
 

doodlemancy: a drawing of myself i use as my avatar (Default)
some things that have happened this last week-ish:

• my mom got a new job! so we are in less financial peril. for now. the car almost decided to ruin that by having a tire pressure issue the day before her first day but it was super fixable so it's fine. it's fine. it's fine. IT'S FINE

• i started cleaning up 7 months' worth of "i'm scared and depressed and i never get enough time to myself so i have no energy literally ever" mess. got through the first layer of kitchen gunk. pulled some things out of the back of the fridge that were, frankly, unidentifiable and trending toward sentience. i haven't done this much laundry and cleaning in one day since literally last year. it's a race now to get things deep-cleaned (or at least better-than-surface-cleaned) before the seasonal depression comes crashing through my brain like the kool-aid man lol

• i submitted my first round of Faire listings for review and they got approved, so i'm officially open for business there. highly specific call to action: do you own a brick-and-mortar business in the united states, or do you work at one where you have some sway over what products are stocked? do you need cute stickers? well just click this here handy dandy hyperlink: https://faire.com/direct/doodlemancy

• wrote down my out-of-control to-do list now that i finally have more brain again. i have so much to do before mid-november. a taste of not even all of it:

☐ schedule November/December shop social media posts
☐ fill Pink/Shiny Envelopes for ko-fi
☐ hard drive & phone storage cleanup
☐ more merch photos
☐ process vograce/acornpress charm orders
☐ clean all the things
☐ replace computer chair (seriously) (you've been putting this off all year) (why do you love back pain)
☐ shop restocks
☐ use up the 60 eggs you accidentally purchased
 
• no but for real. due to the Car Incident, we could not go grocery shopping that day as planned. so i had to doordash our groceries (sigh) and i was stressed out and tired and i didn't look hard enough. the price didn't tip me off because shit's always stupid expensive on doordash, so over a dollar more than usual for what i thought was going to be 18 eggs rang no alarm bells. and that's how i ended up with sixty eggs. sixty of them. SIXTY!!! i guess i'm going to be making quiche. (and a lot of other things. people on bluesky had many suggestions.)

• my carpal tunnel syndrome has been trying to ruin OC-tober for me but i'm back at it... this one's gonna take me a few days though ;D (poor Carson is still bald here because i keep re-drawing him and Maddie dsflkghfds)


• i'm working on a Fun Secret Entry. it's Sailor Moon related. you'll see it eventually.

• i finally updated the main graphic on doodlemancy.com to a fun slideshow.

• oh also: here's the packaging/display design i did for the Mystery Sticker Bags (Retail Version). very pleased with how these came out. i'm really learning as i go with this stuff, always, but my 7 years in retail helped with a lot of Considerations.



sorry i haven't been very good about responding to comments here IT IS THE CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME LMAOOOOOO
doodlemancy: a drawing of myself i use as my avatar (Default)
third anniversary shop update
okay, we'll get the blatant advertising out of the way first. it is my shop's third anniversary! i've added some new stuff: lots of prints! a few stickers! a notepad! plus there's tons more stuff there that was there already. notably, there is Potion Stand Story and Iron Company merch now. my first official merch for my visual novels!!! it's only a hop, skip, and a jump from here to nendoroids, right?!



 
it's OC-tober, NERDS
i say, nerdily. OC-tober is one of those 30 day drawing challenges like inktober and swordtember and mermay and whatnot. you draw your OCs (original characters. like your characters from your projects or your RPs or whatever) every day. i do it real loose and wiggly. i don't bother with sticking to a prompt list, and i don't even actually draw every day. sometimes i just repost or touch up old stuff. I DO WHAT I WANT. LOOK AT MY CHARACTERS. I LOVE THEM. HERE IS SOME OC-TOBER ART.

Day 1: a Petra sticker design (available in my shop above, as you can see) + a silly edit



Day 2: i described Erika as "the Navi to Sykes' Link" in the group chat and then had to draw it. love drawing my very serious little man in cosplay.



Day 3 & 4 (sketched one day, colored the next): a suggestion by [personal profile] kayin from the request post. and i mean yes obviously Utena Petra. obviously. i'm not sure why i hadn't already done this. princely women...



i can't promise i'll draw of them, but if you have any OC-tober ideas you wanna drop in the request post comments, please do so. ;D i enjoy playing to the audience.

my very important anime opinions from this week's Anime Day

Dead Dead Demons DeDeDeDe Destruction (completed) - a companion for the manga imo, this adaptation clearly had to make some impossible choices between quality and length, and some of the choices they made were... baffling. "episode zero" covers some of the END of the manga?? but i still liked it overall. finish the manga, then watch the anime lol. content warning for this one if you end up checking it out: a teacher/student relationship is in there; no laws are broken and it's certainly not framed as ideal. Inio Asano is not here to make you comfortable all the time ok

Uzumaki (episode 1) - one of my fav manga and another "that's gonna be hard to adapt" situation, the pacing feels WACK but idk how else you could have done it-- other than maybe splitting it up into 2 chapters at the commercial break, which i think maybe would have felt less confused? the choice to keep it greyscale is A+, and the surreal never-quite-still animation style is working for it.

Dan Da Dan (episode 1) - since this is new... content warning for Relatively Silly Alien Rape Threats in the first episode if you pick this one up this season, which i expect won't be the last time because this is not my first rodeo with Science Saru lol. that aside-- the animation is wild, it's very funny and charming, i like the premise and our two weirdo main characters, hope this one turns out to be a banger

Monster (episodes 13 & 14): Monster is good. i have nothing insightful to say about Monster. it's good as hell. i love Kenzo Tenma with my whole heart and soul

Hellsing Ultimate (episode 2) - high-grade schlock. Alucard is my husband and Integra is my wife; so it has been since my teens. kind of impressed by how well it cleans up the manga's storyline, which i barely remember but which i do remember being A Nonsense Mess a lot of the time lol. content warning for Hellsing is pretty much everything, and you're not allowed to be mad at me if you go watch it because i said i liked it. actually that last part applies to every anime i post about. i'm tired of feeling like i can't mention my favs in public without some people assuming i endorse every sin committed, i already had to put up with that when i was a child trying to enjoy things during the tail end of the Satanic Panic okay. oops sorry this turned into a rant sorta oops i've been thinking about this a lot lately sorry

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (episodes 14 & 15) - i love The Batou Show. i don't have anything insightful to say about GITS that hasn't already been said, at least not yet. i just think Batou is a Type of Guy and i like him. i wish the future still had discs and things that go click. i think i maybe said this all before

No Guns Life (episodes 7 & 8) - i think it has a cool premise and some cool aesthetics/worldbuilding, but i also haven't really been wowed by it yet. i'm hoping it'll show me some teeth. i like when gun man become funny scribble like Alphonse Elric though

Hare + Guu (episodes 17 & 18) - this is a 2000s comedy anime that i don't think most western anime fans have heard of, and it can be pretty hit-or-miss (with the expected Discomforts you'd get from... like i said, 2000s comedy anime) but when it hits it fucking hits, episode 18 was a riot. this would have been the LOLZ TEH RANDOM!!11 anime of my teens had i known of it back then lol

other things that are happening

  • i'm attempting to read Hellboy. this is surprisingly difficult because i'm used to shoving manga into my face constantly and i keep reading the pages in the wrong order. i want to absorb the minimalist backgrounds and learn how to incorporate that energy into my own work!!
  • Tia jumped from the windowsill onto my boob at 5:45 AM today and it hurt really bad/startled the shit out of me but it also woke me up right in the right part of my sleep cycle to actually feel refreshed upon waking (which simply has not happened the last... 9 months) so i can't even be mad. i will definitely get sore boob tomorrow and be convinced i have cancer (i can't tell you how many times this has happened it's ridiculous)
  • it's cold enough to wear sweatshirts again! i'm sad about cohost though. i bought my current crop of big pullover sweatshirts the first winter i was on cohost and i ended up associating them with cozy cohost-and-cat-and-chill-and-draw time BWAAGGHGHGHG COHOST AAAAAAAGHBBHGH BUHUHUHUH HHUHhhh sniff snorf wehhhhhhhh
  • in cohost's wake i am posting in All The Places, truly. i've dusted off pillowfort and made a new mastodon account. i had weird times on mastodon.social (people yelling at me for not cwing things like literally mentioning a very small injury... c'mon) and mastodon.art pretty much just ignored me when i was last trying to post there, but i don't want to write off the whole concept because cohost taught me that smaller, quieter spaces are worth something too, and pursuing the Biggest Possible Audience is not only not always great for your mental health, it's not even actually better for your sales if you're like me and you have to hustle online all the time lol. i'm hoping i can find a good balance-- i can't possibly keep up with the feed of every website and discord i have some presence in, but i also don't want to be the person who posts and runs and never interacts.
...and why not also an excerpt from chapter2.rpy

chapter2.rpy
erika "Honestly, I don't see why you don't just ignore him. You're leaving in the morning anyway."

sykes "(Good chance we'll keep running into him if we come through here regularly... I want to know what he's up to.)"

erika "Eh, that's a good point, I guess."

erika "Keep your friends close..."

sykes "(...and your enemies within strangling range.)"

sometimes they're on the same page (about guys they hate that you, the readers, don't know anything about yet). go play my visual novel demo if you wanna meet these characters!
doodlemancy: a drawing of myself i use as my avatar (Default)
here are some finished pieces i've made in 2024!

Princess Serenity standing on the moon, with the earth behind her.

i drew this Sailor Moon fan art when i was just first starting to feel better after a few weeks of PT!

an angel sheltering a mouse from the rain with an umbrella

the same angel and mouse from the previous image, but the storm has passed and there's a rainbow

two of my favorite things to draw... cute angel wings, and little mice.

a friendly meeting between a princess and a dragon in a castle garden

"what kind of bird are you?"

Elly's two forms from Potion Stand Story

some art of Elly, and also some other girl, who knows who that is??? from Potion Stand Story, a visual novel i made!

Lum Invader on the sparkly streets of a city

i drew this one as a sticker design in 2022, but i glitzed it up recently with a background.

Elly and Petra having a tea party

Elly from Potion Stand Story and Petra from Iron Company having a tea party. they're from different universes but would definitely be the bestest friends-- they're both spellcasters and huge nerds. they'd like, go to the library and stuff.

Naomi at the gate of a garden, surrounded by birds

Naomi, also from Iron Company, though she won't appear until later chapters.

(miraculously, despite everything that happened with my wrist, i also managed to do art fight this year. if you want to see all the art i drew for that, click here. i've learned a lot in 2024 about the power of taking Little Breaks Frequently instead of... going ham for 6 hours.)
 

Style Credit

Page generated Jan. 7th, 2026 05:50 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios