occasionally subtle
Stranger Things
d e v o n
Misplaced Lens Cap
blake kathryn
No title available
we're not kids anymore.
Product Placement
Show & Tell
trying on a metaphor
gracie abrams
Noah Kahan
bliss lane
pixel skylines
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
ojovivo
shark vs the universe
noise dept.
Xuebing Du
Love Begins
seen from United States
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@mgartist
I will be posting more on my substack blog account more than any of my social medias from now on! Link to my blog via my website www.MaryGogliaStudio.com! You can join my subscriber list via email and get my posts straight to your inbox! :)
Mary Goglia
Hi, I don’t use this site much anymore but my new website is https://marygogliastudio.com Hope you like the new art and projects that I have on there!
Mary Goglia
We're so excited to see a new generation of memories forming with SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS. Thanks for continuing to run alongside us after all these years!
Sound on! Practicing animation and sound effects. Upcoming characters from my sci-fi/fantasy Let’s Go Now! comic. Volume One now for sale in print. www.letsgonowcomic.com
Omg it's Keanu Reeves
"What did you do?" "What I had to..." SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 (20.12.2024)
Shadowy Scientist: Doctor Starline by JoeAdok
my BOY
WOW WHAT A STUNNER
Yo, I have some questions about the IDW Sonic comic character design if you don't mind! When you're designing characters like, say, Dr. Starline or Tangle, how much creative freedom do you have? Are characters' abilities determined before or while you're creating design concepts? If their powers are determined beforehand, do you get to pick the species or do others get a say? Lastly, roughly how many versions do you go through before the final design is picked?
Hello! Sure, I can take a stab at it.
First off, I should clarify that so far I have designed Starline and Whisper for IDW but I didn’t design Tangle-- that was Tyson Hesse.
In my experience with Sonic books, I’ve always been working with one or two editors, and Ian Flynn as the writer (or me as the writer, but checking my creative decisions with Ian to make sure I wasn’t contradicting his future plans for the world). The material I’m given to work with can range from a short bio blurb to a rough design and reference sheet (drawn by either Ian, the editor, or Aleah Baker, Ian’s wife and collaborator). They almost always contain a few key points:
-Character’s name, approx. age, and their species
-Their immediate role in the story (usually not backstory)
-A rough description of their personality
-Their abilities, and any special requirements in the design (such as Starline’s glove with the Warp Topaz on it, or Whisper’s Variable Wispon)
Other than that, I’m left to my own devices to gather inspirational material and start roughing things out. I’ll draw not just from pre-existing Sonic media, but from any outside source that feels interesting to me.
I’ll usually to one initial pass to send in, then everybody involved gets to throw in their two cents and I’ll split the design off into a few variants, combining and including as many ideas as possible. Then we reconvene and pick the one or ones we all like, and I’ll mush those together. A round or two of that usually gets us something good, then we send that off to Sega/Sonic Team to see what they think! They’ll give us some notes on changes to make sure it fits in with the world and doesn’t break any of their design preferences. Once their notes are applied, I’ll make a detailed reference sheet and we’re good to go!
Here’s how it went with Starline:
STEP 0: Collect reference! Starline's original style inspiration board. I also looked at real-life platypuses, and references from other Sonic media.
STEP 1: The first pass! I was angling for a mad scientist thing, I didn’t know he was more of a psychologist type of doctor. I’m throwing all the spaghetti at the wall at this stage.
STEP 2-3: Diversify! After checking with the crew, I reeled it way back towards normal Sonic-y proportions and made variants emphasizing different elements of his personality. There are pages and pages of ideation sketches that lead to these. Note that I label everything clearly, so we can call them out easily in email conversations.
(Version 3 consisted of different combos and color palettes, and testing them alongside Eggman. 1C down there is my favorite from this pass, but it doesn’t really fit Starline as we know him in the books)
STEP 4: Refocus! After batting around the design above and nobody really feeling it, I took a couple steps back and pulled some of the energy from the original into the later designs. I also knew his character better at this point, and I knew how I liked to draw it. As you can see, this is really close!
Oh, Sega gave some suggestions on version 2-3 that led to this one. You can actually see their suggestions listed by me on the sketch: pallid complexion, thin/tall build, intellectual-shorthand props, and a sleeker glove. I realized that these notes were leading back to the first pass, so I went with my gut and leaned into that!
(This is when he got his signature Benjamin Franklin/Jareth the Goblin King energy. Very important.)
STEP 5: Cleanup! Sega gave some more minor notes on do’s and don’ts to tidy up the design, and I did a few final fixes of my own. He was gonna have the zigzag-cut boots but they were HELL to draw so I made new ones at the last second. Also, fixed some color stuff and put the hair stripe back in.
This whole process can take a while, with stuff getting bounced around so much. It’ll often take several weeks to wrap it all up. My last few designs have gone through around 4-5 iterations, though certain elements may get more attention than others; I like to pick a few features that won’t get changed with every go-round, so the design stays focused.
Sometimes I get to have some input into the character’s backstory or personality, depending on how I design them-- this happens organically as we’re brainstorming design options. Whisper is a great example of this; in the design prompt, she didn’t have a mask at all. That was something I added as a costume option, and Ian, and I came up with the idea that it’s a tool that she uses alongside her Variable Wispon. It’s also become a huge part of how she expresses herself, and emblematic of the character in general!
I hope that helps!
I’m back sorta
I might post more content on here I think. Stuff about my comics. :)
I don’t use this account anymore but for anyone curious you can find my social medias and comic on my website.
An all-ages sci-fi and fantasy comic by Mary Goglia.
I guess I’m back to this again. I rarely get people to interact on here and stuff so why bother using tumblr anymore? I’m on Instagram mostly, “@marygoglia” is my username on there.
A short comic within Yashuhiro Nightow’s Trigun manga. I can relate to this lol. I like making comics but the amount of time and work just to make a single page can take a while and test my patience once in a while lol.
Scanning in copics/alcohol markers and Editing them
It’s a real pain to get scanned in marker images to look like the originals and to this day I still haven’t found an easy, fast, sure fire way to get it right. I am very guilty of over saturating images using the contrast & brightness method and the levels method…
I’ve tried many methods and I am just not great at getting the saturation right but the black and darks intense at the same time.
These guides seemed to help somewhat:
How to scan and edit your copic art
Editing scanned drawings
If you guys think of any really good guides, let me know as I really need to master these tricks to get my copics looking like the originals.
…I especially need to get this right as I plan to be doing maaaaany comics in the future.
NOTE - Just because I use Copics, doesn’t mean it has to be a copic guide. Letraset guides or any other marker brand guides will also work I reckon. (Hint, I also mess about with the Tinge markers that The Works make as they’re like 50p a marker. They’re naff but they’re fun to mess about with and encourage me to be less precious with my work)
I had said I’m not active on here anymore but here’s a copic marker drawing of a character from my Let’s Go Now! comic. I wonder if there’s a way to adjust the colors in the procreate app.
I don’t use this account anymore but for anyone curious you can find my social medias and comic on my website.
An all-ages sci-fi and fantasy comic by Mary Goglia.
The next page of Let’s Go Now! has been uploaded! The first issue of the remastered monochromatic version of Let’s Go Now! is now available
Please subscribe to my blog for the latest news and updates about my #LetsGoNowComic! :)
Someday I’ll be a #comicartist for the #soniccomics! That’s one of my #career goals! :)
@sega @segaforever #sonic #idwsonic #sonic #sonicthehedgehog @procreate #sonicfan #sonicfanart #sonicfanartdrawing @idwpublishing #comic #comics #idwcomics #sega #segadreamcast #shadowthehedgehog #shadowhedgehog #shadowfanart #sonicthehedgehog30thanniversary #sonic30th #sonic30thanniversary #videogames #segadoeswhatnintendont #sonicmovie #supersonic #classicsonic #sonicmovie2 #classicsupersonic #sonicmania #sonicmaniaplus
Here’s a preview of my #letsgonowcomic. You can read more on my website, www.letsgonowcomic.com! :) Interested in buying the first volume? Please email me: [email protected]! :) Thank you for reading!
An all-ages sci-fi and fantasy comic by Mary Goglia.
