I made her a dogfish to allude to a character from local tales, he's a wolf who tries to take advantage of people but always get fucked over, and I'm sorry, that reflects Cabo Verde's history somewhat appropriately 😭
At first I looked into wolfish, but they aren't in the region :( however I came back from that wholly convinced they are the cute ugly type
Besides, dogfish travel massive distances, which fits for a country with such a huge history with immigration, also the blue sharks hehehe
Some of them got venomous spines too, so I gave one for her that resembles a volcano
The amount of blue is because a type of fabric historically produced there used to come only in that color and black, I wanted to account for that and for the creator of the flag's vision about blue being the color that represents Cabo the best
Why's there's a censor bar on Bhutan's dress?, is there revealing nudity on it or what?.
Yes
All the traditions involving the Phallus in Bhutan, introduced by a "mad saint" say a ridiculous amount about their character I DID NOT catch up at first
When you make a nice doodle and the paper ends up like this
I used to joke that Bhutan was the easiest country to design because they're basically asking to be a dragon and traditional clothing is regulated
Turns out this might've been precipitated, because I realize now the clothing variety and rules for Bhutan are significantly more diverse and less strict than I first thought
He did need a revisit
Been trying to make sense of what the hell is going on with that illustration in their flag too
Mexico without the sombrero because I think he's so cute with his pinfeathers
Geez this one was such a hassle to make
I'm very comfortable with his design, I had no idea figuring out his face would be so hard, and it still is subject to change ofc
He could very well be a country with a naturally occurring flag pattern, I heard that Aztec warriors painted their faces in vertical stripes, and the colors aren't a far stretch
The current Mexican flag really is just that evocative
besides, coming up with a whole new design for his face that might look like another flag is rather confusing and unnecessary
I'm pretty confident he enjoys face paint to the extent he would probably paint his flag on his face by himself regardless of what was there before though 😭
Everytime I use beiges and browns when coloring them it looks like human skin God help me
I didn't go for the sugar skull mask look because I think it's really ugly, I'm so sorry friends, I want to actually enjoy drawing my characters
However, I really really wanted to get the golden eagle feel, I think he owns it, and didn't want it to get stylized to the point of giving room for it to get mixed up with other birds, which I believe I failed to still
My most recent solution involved resorting to Aztec headresses and how they stuffed animal faces on top of their heads, this is the motive for the diamond shape in the forehead, the intention was for it to resemble a beak 💔
I had once unsuccessfully tried to incorporate a mask on his design too, tried again here, little bit
one headcanon about him I really like is that he has a no firearm rule, although I can't really tell you when he chose to do that
Having Mexico's body colors fall so dark in the spectrum is weird
uhh
Aztec priests did paint themselves full black
His previous colors used to have red and green feathers mixed with the golden ones, it hurt to take them off, But maybe that is so he can wear all his unicorn vomit the way he wants, plus i am aware this design is very cutesy, and I do believe the obscured face look will help to balance it out
I just realized I could ditch the sombrero altogether, which would possibly make me look better for the fandom police
A personal pet peeve of mine are national symbols that aren't native to the country they stand for, so what if every country that does not have a modern wild population of lions are actually all cats, and gaslit everyone into believing they were lions to get away with the cat persecution in the middle ages
I like this. Way more than I was supposed to
This all started with me banging my head against the wall as I had no clue what to do with Luxemburg as a design. I found the red lion in it's coat of arms' look quite amusing, and remembered a couple of european heraldic lions also look like fluffy cats, so I proceeded to embrace artistic liberty and it was downhill from there
They have no right to work as well as they do. Orange cat Netherlands basically allows me to do everything I wanted with his design I couldn't before
Now i need MORE countries that larp as lions
I love the Czech lion tail. I considered making him fully white and now I'm getting fried at the idea Czechia could be deaf for literally no reason
With the whole unflagging project on it's way Macedonia might possibly become a victim of that too, confession time I really don't like the look of Lion's manes guys
My countries can't really be children, but sometimes I draw them like that as a creative exercise
I've been haunted by the considerable amount of material to justify not only that they could've been siblings, but that they would've gotten ALONG for a decent amount of time
That would be a SEAMELESS addition btw it's ridiculous. Not just that, but if that relationship becomes canon it will be a huge thing for my Prussia, because that would be by FAR the most genuine bond she had in her entire existance it's LUDICROUS
The prospect of her having a favorite person she won't raise a finger against is WILDDDDDD I KNOW WHAT SHE'S CAPABLE OF
Guess I finally have a female Baltic....?
Reminding myself that pondering about ethnicity in countries can get. very awkward
I mean I've always seen Prussia as an uncle Ruckus type, and Brandenburg Is there if a token German is ever needed
I'm fine with just sitting with the idea her and Lithuania were just friends who lost touch though
I swear, I get caught off guard every time Prussia displays the capability of feeling anything beyond the emotional spectrum of a reptile
Man, I'm quite enjoying this no flag faces in historcal art thing
One thing I learnt dipping into Ukrainian and Lithuanian history is that Poland is a terrible ex
I pieced together part of the madness that went down between 17th ish(?) century Poland-Lithuania-Ukraine studying each side on its own, gradually filling in the gaps one part left with the other
It was definitely an experience
The first thing I came across were Ukraine's insane crash outs over Poland, and that they asked to JOIN the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth right after?? SINCE WHEN that thing was a threesome????
Then I found out things were more or less not horrible with Ukraine under Lithuania's rule, UNTIL Poland arrived
And that being Polish was apparently very fun bc every aristocrat in there wanted to be one
I got it, so Ukraine really hated being Poland's maid
Why did my article on LITHUANIA kept talking about POLAND'S internal policy
Actual question rn, what do people call the Poland x Lithuania ship? Polith? Lithpol?
I do have a vague feeling i've heard Polith before, but I am not sure, which is a little crazy to me because as far as I know this pairing is relatively common?
I decided to use my unflagged designs when portraying historical events, because the Wikipedia Austro-hungarian flag fiasco traumatized me
It will be a fun challenge because I genuinely have no idea how to translate some of my flag faced designs
Ukraine is an interesting case of this, it's superficial botanical rambling time
I've always wanted her to be a plant lady, but as i prefer to use native symbols, I didn't want to use sunflowers, so i tried to look for other culturally significant flowers. I first got my eyes in the Guelder rose, but as much as I loved it, I couldn't manage to come up with a visual I was satisfied with, so I started looking for more, and found out about "mallows", which led to the current design
The thing is, Ukrainian mallows are pink, and while that would be just fine in a design with a flag face, depicting her as completely pink otherwise felt jarring
When Mallows dry up, they become a more perinwkle tone, so I was like, READY to make Ukraine a withered mallow😭😭😭 except that WHILE I WAS COLORING THE COMIC, I found out the "Mallows" In my research were actually referring to HOLLYHOCKS, which belong to the same family 😭😭😭
Hollyhocks look COMPLETELY different from mallows and have a giganourmus color variety, including blue and yellow, which made me very relieved, until I realized I was facing the possibility of a complete redesign, and found out they apparently were imported FROM CHINA
I nearly lost my mind until I found out there ACTUALLY IS a native Hollyhock species in Ukraine, and not only it has a petal shape close enough to my current design, it is a lovely yellow shade, which Is the color i connect to Ukraine the most.
Apparently the most beloved hollyhock shade in Ukraine is the pink/red one, which i tried to hint at mimicking other hollyhock variations I saw, which I don't mind much because she has been a hybrid plant for a while now
I had a lot of fun researching period clothing for Plc, so I might make a real design for the Polish kingdom soon
I have many ideas for cute Ukraine and Lithuania interactions but I am not sure if they justify themselves, I have the impression these two are way less close to the other than they look
Also i wonder how I will eventually account for Belarus in this mess
The last thing I want for this trainwreck is for it to become a Foursome
Also poking at the werestork Lithuania idea, it suddenly became very appealing to me
I
Really do not have fun painting flags guys As much as I dig the obvious characterization
I don't really like to make my countries half birds because they normally don't give me a lot to work with around the face, and I have this annoying disease which makes me crave for cute elf-like things
So I did just that and called it a bird
I like the visual identity his tree horns give too much to change it anytime soon, but the way it's impossible to make them look good unless I violate perspective does bother me a little bit
The halo things are inspired by Lithuanian crosses, which share design elements with pagan monuments. Besides being an amazing thing on its own it suits my approach, his current tree horns are also meant to resemble them
It's so funny that both of these ideas have motifs often attributed to angels, and the irony of the last pagan in Europe AND Poland's roommate looking significantly more angelic than him is hysterical
This WAS supposed to be for April fools, but I think it works right now too
Has anyone else suddenly felt disgusted by their almost complete artwork and panic deleted it, just to figure out it was completely fine, and now you had to do everything over again?
Yeah
I'm going to wash my hands off this, I got the idea from a prank in a discord server, made by people who actually are from the Baltic. I thought it was way too funny and decided to do something
Estonia with Finland's clothes is actually FRYING me because that's something that would absolutely happen
My sons keep being the pioneers in introducing designs in the most bizarre ways imaginable. Two weeks ago you could've told me half of my Nordic designs would be introduced by the Baltics cosplaying them, and I.
Wouldn't rule it off tbh
This kind of idea makes me wonder what the hell someone without context would think of some things I pull out 😭
Work in progress of my attempt to oc-fy the Mewtwo I captured back in my playthroughs, 'cuz I got super attached to it and don't want to get in the way of the people who are actually making real fanart
The goal is to add unique enough features that can't be mixed up with my cutefied artstyle, with the intent to take after lab animals
It would be smooth if not for the healing factor 💔 the way I found around it and committed to were marks of overhealing
Which we know
Can happen sometimes
Mewmew with bat ears REALLY hit in that place on me, but it makes him look just like humanoid cat number 6874🥀
The blue eye heterochromia too oh boy I do love homophobic cats
Of COURSE it's the traits that make it look like mew 😭😭 I'm sorry boss I failed my task successfully
Did you guys know this piece is actually unsaturated because I accidentally made this MOTHER FLARKER PINK AND REALIZED IT WAY TOO LATE AND HAD TO EDIT IT????
I wonder if the further away he goes from Nintendo isn't actually a good thing
Like please please Nintendo don't charge a lawsuit on me because I'm unusually attached to a cat from your IP
I've accidentally uploaded this 3 times GOD DAMNIT
I didn't like this drawing either, but i wasted too much time on it and did so beacause i wanted to post smmn here
I think he's a blast tho
He has been blind for a good amount of time, but it doesn't really matter because his plant parts nullfy it
I unflagged him because i lowkey hate painting tricolor flags with red in the bottom, they always look super ugly in my character's faces. Not like this is any better, but i felt like risking other approaches to my countries' looks overall.
Super upset with Krita because as you can see, i'm completely incapable of rendering on it and it's STRICTLY a fault of the program and not my skill, right guys?!?!?!?!?
