A SKETCHBLOG.

Robin. Artist from the UK.

[mynameismad]

SAKANA IS BACK.

That's right, folks. They said it COULDN'T BE DONE. They said it would NEVER HAPPEN. Well guess what, I'M TOO STUBBORN FOR THAT.

Check out Chapter 25, starting September 5th, at 9:30am est! The site got a big facelift too! wow!!

✨🐟https://www.sakana-comic.com/🐟✨

[gateofselidor]

Revised design for the main character of my comic. Not a huge change; I just redid his outfit, adjusted a few things for efficiency, and did a posed shot of him.

[gateofselidor]

Oh right, I didn’t post this here. I finished it finally! Painted in Procreate.

[frayed-symphony]

Part 2 of the OC lore dump for my second self-published picture book 256 Postcards Ago under the cut. This one is mostly about the RPG maker game I wanted to create for it!

I wanted to explore the family's backstory more in the rpgmaker game I mentioned in the previous post; Nicholas is a lonely kid so his dad makes up some friends for him to play with while he's busy at work. In the game you would pick up collectable postcards that explain the story;

Some of the shops are also references to things. For example 'Marble's' is a place in the Gamecube game Tales of Symphonia and 'Charlotte' is a reference to a character from Madoka Magica. I love her cute witch design and made a shop based on her which sells toys.

I also wanted to hint that Charlotte's might be where Digit originally comes from and drew some similar toy designs to him which would appear in the window. Digit is the only friend who Nicholas can actually see and he also functions as a backpack!

The town in based on the English seaside location 'Walton-on-the-naze' I used to visit every summer as a child. My favourite restaurant is the building on the right in the first image and the promenade also makes an appearance during the lunch scene.

I planned to show a more locations of the town and was making a game with a talented artist and programmer Dejan90 but we both had a lot of real life commitments at this time and didn't get too far into making it.

My plan was to have characters from all three books appear in the game as well as some original characters. The idea of the game was to tie all three stories together somehow.

There would also be minigames you could play with your imaginary friends!! I think we were a little ambitious with the scope of what we wanted to do.

Marina from The Midnight Chimes would also make an appearance and be able to join your party. Here's some more of the unfinished sprite work from the game;

While my three picture books are not directly related I also added some visual references between the books; a lighthouse and windmill on Amelie's shelf in HL, a purple dinosaur at the playground in 256 which also shows up with Digit in The Midnight Chimes!

Almost finished now!! Just like with my last book I made a little soundtrack.

The playlist for 256 Postcards Ago is here!

1) Postcards From Far Away 2) Dear Vienna 3) Town of Albano 4) Breezy 5) Point Me At Lost Islands 6) Cycling Road 7) 幸福時計 8) Dark Cave 9) The Elemental Stars

(And last thing! Reminder that you can read the book here;) Amazon paperback; http://amzn.com/1484839765 eBook; https://frayedsymphony.gumroad.com/l/JVgUp

Thank you for reading!

[frayed-symphony]

Part 1 of the OC lore dump and sketches for my second self-published picture book 256 Postcards Ago under the cut;

When I first decided to make another picture book I wanted the entire thing to be done as pixelart because this story was very inspired by videogames that were important to me. I realized early on this would be a nightmare to print and dropped the idea. Here's the pixelart cover!

My biggest inspiration for the book was Majora's Mask which features one boy transforming into 3 different shaped characters. I started to play with the idea of imaginary friends and it bloomed from there.

A couple of locations in the book were also loosely inspired by Majora like the rainbow observatory and tunnels under the town. Nothing too significant but enough that I wanted to mention them.

I based the protagonist on Juni from the Spy Kids movies and his robot bug R.A.L.P.H! I really love those movies and I wanted to see more adventures between the two so Nicholas and Digit were born.

Ollie the elephant cloud was a little inspired by Kirby but mostly I just wanted a third friend who was bigger but still looked huggable and a cloud animal felt right.

In the book there is one female friend is called Ludo. Her name comes from a board game I used to play with my family. I also really love Egyptian designs and based her head on Anubis. Here's some early logo designs too.

Ludo's hourglass represents the time that Nicholas still believes in his imaginary friends, this is also where the title comes from. He has many adventures with these friends which he narrates via postcards. In 256 more postcards from this story he will have grown up.

The postcard the story is based on appears at the beginning of the book and is written by 'Ludo'. At this point Nicholas believes Ludo is real because they've been sending postcards but at the books' end you see his father is the one who has been writing them all along.

Just like the father from Hurricane Lane's appearance was based on an actor from BBC's Merlin so was the father here; this time Arthur. I wanted the two dads to meet someday and become fast friends. The mother isn't shown or mentioned but she passed away young.

Nicholas' dad owns a hotel called Shrublands and his shop sign might look familiar too. The character currently checking in at the counter is my best friends OC who was an amazing support to me whilst making these books. Just a fun cameo!

I also just wanted to take this moment to show the amazing work my friend Lil-Samuu created! She made me little plushies of Ollie and Digit and a hat and scarf Digit as well!!

Aaaaand I went overboard and hit the image limit so I'll put the rest in a part two soon!

(And you can read the book here;) Amazon paperback; http://amzn.com/1484839765 eBook; https://frayedsymphony.gumroad.com/l/JVgUp

[andatsea]

Wanderer wandering.

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[onlytruepain]

[gateofselidor]

Part of a WIP Wanderer piece I’m working on in Procreate. Plenty still to go, but it’s coming along. When I compare with my previous illustration of him from last November, I improved a lot!

[planning2escape]

[gateofselidor]

Fungus ‘tree’ development work for my upcoming comic. Each one is inspired by different fungi and trees, for different types of environment. My favourite is probably the redwood-style one.

[gateofselidor]

Also reworked my main character’s design a little since he was looking a bit desaturated and washed out compared to the more recent designs I’ve done. Also here’s a design for a more minor character, she’s my main character’s cousin. I’m doing the Very Sensible Social Media Thing and not posting anything for ages and then spamming a bunch of things at once. I’m very good at social media, you see.

[gateofselidor]

Additional designs for some antagon-ish characters. I love these three, I had fun with them.

[gateofselidor]

More character designs for my upcoming comic. I still have a bunch of prep work to do before I can throw myself at some actual pages, but I’m getting there.

[gateofselidor]

Character designs for the main characters of a future comic project of mine. I still have a lot of visual development work, and some writing left to go before I actually start making any pages.

[gateofselidor]

Another painting from a class that I finished. I was struggling with the set dressing, and I had one cat in it, so I decided to keep adding cats.

Painted in Procreate over a quick Blender wireframe.

[fossilforager]

Reminiscing about the wooper pond 🌿✨

[gateofselidor]

Some original work, an environment painting I did for a class. Procreate over some Blender work. I still have a long way to go, but I’m improving gradually.