Corpsephage

Cartoon Gothic and Horror Pop

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If something gives you a lot of ideas, I guess you can say you enjoy it, can't you? Just not in the way the creators might have intended?

This is not related to my last post...

...much.

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Finally got around to watching that quirky indie rpg cartoon show about depression

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Generic Adventure Cartoon Villain Starter Pack

I tagged this as "OC", but this isn't really an OC. He's a pre-existing character. You'll find him in every single adventure cartoon show ever made.

PNGs available on my Newgrounds

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You've been Scouted!

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It's soberingly dawned on me that I draw other character styles better than I draw my own.

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Is this you? Then check out this tutorial I made on my blog about shading in characters:

Digital Art Shading for Dummies

Shadows are formed when an opaque body comes into contact with light from a light source. We often think of the Sun and lightbulbs as the ch

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Look, I'm not saying 2000s Amy was a crazy obsessed stalker. I'm saying she was part of a unique archetype whose closest English approximation is "crazy obsessed stalker".

For irate Sonic fans, I go on a full "why they ruined Amy" rant here on my Newgrounds (or my DeviantArt, if you can stomach the place).

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A 250th birthday present for the United States. Like every birthday present I give, it is haphazard and ill-thought-out.

The impetus of this was me trying to remember the presidents' names. The Animaniacs song is great, but it goes by really quickly, so I made my own version that concentrated on their most infamous moments... except James Monroe. I just plain couldn't find any dirt on him.

(It goes without saying this isn't a substitute for an actual history lesson. Madison wasn't killed in the White House fire, he died of a heart attack at Montpelier; and the whole Harding-lobster thing was a misdiagnosis at the time.)

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Anyone else seen that "this time I'm really gonna do it" smile Vox has in his Pride standee?

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Your bra strap is -

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I colored in a doodle I made years ago of the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. I was trying to pin down my own building-drawing style. From the looks of it, I still am.

I was a little bummed to hear about the passing of Tom Kane. He's who I have in mind whenever I try to do the "wise old man" voice.

I know the coloring isn't great, but it was gonna be a lot worse until at the last second I accidentally added a bluish overlay to everything. That's not me being clever, it really was an accident. But it immediately raised it from "eye-gouging" to "almost bearable".

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Coming across this Aegosexuality Bingo on Twitter was a real big "there's a name for it?!" moment.

Thing to bear in mind this Pride Month: pride labels like asexual or pansexual are "descriptive", not "restrictive". It's not like picking a class in World of Warcraft that sets you for life. If you find your sexual/gender identity changing in the future, that's not you being flaky, that's just you discovering more about yourself.

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Sorry for scarin' ya. Three years back I made a Meet the Artist meme for my birthday (be warned, that link takes you back to the forsaken land of DeviantArt), so this year I made a new version that's a little (but not a lot) more honest.

I've not been idle during the radio silence these past three months. I've been honing my art skills and learning new techniques. That's why this Meet the Artist is all so cluttered - I'm not trying to be big-headed, I just wanted to showcase how I'm doing.

I'm well aware my hair looks like Rukia Kuchiki's.

And because I know someone will ask...

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Maladaptive Daydreaming (VENT)

Night falls and the world disappears

I lie in bed and wait for you to come

I smile slightly when I feel your ever-faithful hands

You hold me like I’m something worthy of love

And you bear me away

A kingdom of marble castles and magic rivers

Cities of light and steam and hi-tech

Full of familiar people

Who tell me things I never get told elsewhere

Compass rose points onward

The distance of a thousand seas doesn’t seem so big now

Black flag; outlaws on my side

Voices from the graveyard

The baying of night-creatures from other worlds

Others would turn and flee

But you make me braver

Knowing there’s more to the world than the world

In a dress of starlight

I step gingerly into the debutante ball

All applaud, enraptured and proud

Finally, I am beautiful

The night of that bad breakup

Sitting on the park bench; you were weeping

I was weeping too

Even though I knew you would find love again

I told you my heaviest secrets, my most fraught doubts

I already know all of yours

You tell me over and over that I’m not alone

Abed, she lies on top of me

She runs a hand down my cheek

No judgment

No judgment in the world

I never imagined someone like you would be here

You came into my world and set to work making it yours

Might I say, I loved your show

I was always your biggest fan

Across the rooftops she runs, a streak of night

Assassin, trading blood for freedom

She lights upon me, dancing with a knife

I thank her for the release

Death doesn’t last here

My feet ache from the following

But I’ll follow wherever you lead me

Running with you hours at a time

We talk endlessly

You always get so much out of me

And you have so much to say

And when we’re apart

All I want to talk about is you

The great beast lies in wait

On the edge of the valley

Great scourge of the kingdom

Fear turned to beautiful scales and onyx wings

You’ve all reckoned with the titan

You stumbled, struggled, doubted, fell

I cheered as you got back up again

We charge right in, fearless

There’s so many people beside me

Heroes, villains, creatures of my and others' dreams

A surging tide of light

Then I trip through a gap in the reverie

And I’m back in this lousy place

The gray world of pain and uncertainty

Of what’s real and what doesn’t give a damn

Just some pathetic thing who doesn’t know how to live

Met with silence, or platitudes and other falsehoods

From people who I won’t bother trying to make understand

Through the tears I still glimpse vistas of home

Of magic and beauty and second chances

The only place I’m understood and understand

Screw this, just yank me away again

Rushing through the valley

All of you by my side again

Swords raised in the air, yells of defiance

And we triumph

We always triumph

But the grayness is still there

It doesn’t seem to care

That I kill it in my head night after night

I know this is wrong, and sometimes I even care

Chain-smoking waking dreams

Because I suck at being human

Five more minutes; let me believe

That the world isn’t my home

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Spanky the Dwarf, my Dungeons and Dragons character... *sucks through teeth*

You know, I probably should give it another try. It’s really annoying, because there’s a lot about it that I like. As a kid, I probably would’ve loved it. As an adult, I certainly like the idea of it.

I’ll tell you where it went wrong, alright? I’ll tell you the moment I realized this wasn’t going to work. So we were fighting a harpy or a griffin or a pigeon or whatever… and I have a rope in my pocket. So I decide to tie it into a lasso and use it to wrangle the beast to the ground. I don't remember exactly what happened, but I think I spent two turns tug-of-warring it before it broke free.

What I wanted to have happen, of course, was that I wanted to go flying. I wanted it to go spectacularly wrong and I wanted my character to be thoroughly humiliated. You know, like in them cartoons. 'Cause that's how I was playing a game I'd never played beforehand. That's when I realized I was That Guy™ .

None of us were really playing it serious; we were newbies going through the motions to see what it's all about. And I guess I just found "vanilla" really boring. It got to the point where my fellow party member said (not wrongly) that every time I try and do something flashy or weird it doesn't have any effect, so I might as well just whack the octopus with my sword every time.

I played DM as well, twice, but it was just the same problem - the material was just giving me nothing to work with. It got to the point where I was just describing the story to them and their characters didn't have any agency.

The annoying thing is that DnD is something I really want to like. It's perfect for wannabe storytellers. I've seen other people play it and it looks like a lot of fun. You can literally do anything you want. Maybe that was the problem - there's so much you can do you just sort of freeze up and wait for someone to tell you what to do. Maybe I was looking more for a tabletop Final Fantasy than actual literal roleplaying.

Look, you don't need me to give you the whole "different opinions disclaimer", but I have to put it, so I'll do it in Pig Latin: if you ikelay omethingsay that I don't ikelay, that's erfectlypay inefay. Oremay owerpay to ouyay. Ifferentday okestray for ifferentday olksfay.

But like I said, maybe I should try it again. It's not fair to judge something like this after the first experience. Maybe if we had a session zero where we planned out the whole thing beforehand, I'd know a bit more what my "script" is. Then again, campaigns are long, and I have the attention span of a gnat ("Are we still trying to kill this octopus?!")

Spanky wasn't the character I used, by the way. I just used a pre-built elf character, which if memory serves I drew like this:

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STOP THE PRESSES! HOLD THE PHONES! One of my all-time favorite obscure games is finally getting a remake! After 22 years, GHOST MASTER IS BACK!

...IN AI FORM!

Let me explain. Ghost Master is "SimGhost". You have a whole bunch of ghosts and monsters, you put them in a location, and you used their powers to scare all the humans away. It's a little janky, but it's made for the Halloween crowd, and is a jewel in the crown of childhood villain simulators, right up there with Dungeon Keeper and Evil Genius.

It and spooky media like it are inspirations for my own work, which is why it took until today to learn of Ghost Master: Resurrection, a remake of the original with all-new features. On reflex I had to check it out, and... my feelings have never been more mixed.

One look at the key art and you can tell AI's been involved. Now, I've been staunchly anti-generative-AI for some time now - it's why I stopped posting art on Twitter. So it being the first thing I see when I look at the game is really off-putting. The only AI I want to see in a video game is the NPCs' behaviors.

I also don't quite know where the game stands copyright-wise. I don't know whether the original necromancers behind the first game signed off on it (the company went bust, so I'm not sure who owns the IP now). The remake was released in early access last October, and no one's seemed to stop them yet, so I assume it's okay...

It's a shame, because there's some really cool new features in this remake - things like mad carnivals and pirate ghosts - but I really struggle getting past the whole AI thing. It's so much better to hire real artists to put a personal stamp on it. Hell, if I had more skill, I'd do it myself. I'd do ritual blood sacrifices to get a Ghost Master 2.

Anyway, this is Harriet. She's the best ghost in the game - she can't harm humans directly, but she can create new spawn points for other ghosts, so you'll be taking her with you every level after you unlock her. Whether you're a furry or not.

You know, it's like a monkey's paw thing every time an old obscure favorite game of mine gets remade. First Drawn to Life, then Ghost Master... for heaven's sake, PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ZACK & WIKI

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My favorite scene from the Grinch book is when he makes Cindy-Lou a cup of water before sending her to bed. It's a little thing, but it says a lot about the Grinch's character. He could've just thwacked her with the tree or something, but the fact that he took time to reassure her, then went to the trouble of getting her a drink, suggests there might be an altruistic bone in him after all.

I wanted to use the color palette of the original story in here. What color is the Grinch? Green, of course. So what's the only color that appears in the original book? That's right - red.

Anyway, enjoy tomorrow's knee surgery, everyone.