The Shrubbery

Nature, cartoons, Pokemon, Undertale and even art sometimes. Header by @tatsupyon ❤

[taffybuns]

i can feel your heart beat

[shrubsparrow]

Käreitär - The Waning Fox is back from hiatus! Updates once a week every Wednesday!

[shrubsparrow]

I'm so sorry but I have been playing Tomodachi Life and I don't know how anything can top this development

[shrubsparrow]

hey i was just poking around to see if you were still alive in the new year, glad to see you are. I'm here from Käreitär btw.

i was wondering if you would be okay with telling me how it's going with the comic? no pressure obviously, i was just getting worried since it's month 3 int he new year and no word on a schedule for the comic. obviously if you're busy with real world stuff, that comes first.

I'm working on Käreitär in chapters with breaks in between, so I'm going to finish drawing all of chapter 2 before I start posting it. I'm currently about 2/3 done with the chapter, so it's going to take a bit longer. Real life just keeps me busy, and I don't want to burn myself out by worrying about the length of the breaks too much. I'm soon moving to a new city and starting a new job, so I'll likely stay busy, but I always try to work on the comic whenever I can.

I had plenty of breaks with my previous comic, including a hiatus that took close to 2 years, but I still eventually finished the comic, it just took over 11 years. So the comic will get made, there's no worry about that, it's just more of a marathon than a sprint.

[shrubsparrow]

Just finished now! I think I must’ve made the body a bit too long, as you can see the hind leg has to be widened a little- Still deciding whether I wanna add colour or not…

Aww, thank you! ❤️ It looks really good! I'm happy to see fan art for the comic already!

[shrubsparrow]

Heyy, you may not know me but I found Käreitär, The Waning Fox recently from DeviantArt and I’m obsessed! I finished it all in one sitting and it’s like I can’t get enough, I keep coming back! I just wanted to say that I would LOVE LOVE LOVE it if you actually got that one published, because it’s really good and even better than some animal graphic novels I know! Please consider, an actual copy would be amazing and no screen time as well ❤️❤️

Aaaa thank you so much!! I'm very happy you're enjoying Käreitär! It's a comic that's been on my mind for a long long time and it's great to finally get it started! I'm constantly working on Chapter 2, but it will still take a little while before it's finished and I'll start posting it. I do want to print a physical book of it as well! My current plan is to wait until the first 5 chapters are finished and then print them as one book. At my current pace that may take two years or so, but it will happen eventually!

[shrubsparrow]

Secret Santa with characters from the webcomic I Didn't Know! It's an absolutely lovely comic and I was so glad to get to draw all my favorites!

[shrubsparrow]

I recently started a new webcomic: Käreitär - The Waning Fox. Here are the first ten pages, and more will be posted on Wednesdays and Saturdays on the website. Check it out if you like nature and Finnish mythology! It's also available in Finnish!

[shrubsparrow]

Are you ever gonna post on your YT again???

Funny you should ask this, because I have in fact been recording audio for a new YouTube video lately! I do have a lot of ideas for videos, but working on my next webcomic is my first priority, and juggling two time-consuming hobbies like comics and video essays is really hard. But I definitely want to post a new Undertale/Deltarune video before the next chapters of Deltarune come out!

[shrubsparrow]

People have been making teasers for their comics again, so I was emboldened to make one for my next comic!

Käreitär - The Waning Fox, coming (hopefully) some time before the end of 2025!

[shrubsparrow]

I've started working again on the webcomic that I've planned for years! Still on the scripting stage, but I hope I can start drawing pages soon. It'll be a while before I can start posting it, though. In the meantime, here's Kita! She's the protagonist of the comic!

[sanngart]

Some LONG overdue appreciation fanart for

@shrubsparrow , and her PMD-E team, Team Rowanberry! Thanks for the adventure! And (a late) congratz on concluding their story!

[everydaylouie]

more pokemon netsuke

[shrubsparrow]

It's in the eye of the beholder

[shrubsparrow]

hey! I really loved your bird, art tutorial! This might seem a little specific, but do you perhaps have any advice for drawing a mourning dove, specifically the head? I have really loved these guys!

Hello, and thank you! I ended up getting inspired by this question, because when I googled some reference photos of morning doves, I discovered that there is a wikiHow article called "How to identify a mourning dove". And the illustrations in it are, ummmm....

This is really rough. The text was written by an ornithologist, but it barely helps because it feels like the illustrator has never drawn a bird before this. Doves and pigeons usually have a very distinct body and head shape, and based on this image, I couldn't even tell this was supposed to be a dove of any kind, much less a mourning dove. So I thought that we could learn by looking at what went wrong here!

(Keep in mind that I'm only being this critical of these illustrations because they are attached to an article that's supposed to help you identify a mourning dove, and they do not help in this matter.)

There are multiple issues here, so let's address the general ones first. The legs are too straight for a dove, and also so far back in the body that this bird would end up falling on its face. The feathers are very strange and almost look like fur. And I don't know how they missed the most distinct feature of a mourning dove, which is the long pin-tail. Here is a quick redline to make it actually resemble a dove!

You can probably see that the head has the most issues. The head is what gives doves and pigeons a very characteristic silhouette, so let's focus on that in more detail!

You can compare the head of a mourning dove to something like the head of a thrush to see what makes it distinctly dove-like!

Doves and pigeons also have quite a bit of body mass, but their head stays small, so the head looks comparatively small to the body.

Some more tips for drawing the head!

Like in that wikiHow article, I sometimes see people draw doves with too much curvature in the beak. Doves and pigeons have a relatively thin and short beak, and it curves less than you think!

That's all I have for now. I wanted to keep it kind of general so you can use the same advice for other doves and pigeons too. I hope this was helpful!

[shrubsparrow]

Hi! How are you doing?

What is your favorite kind of bird and why?

( Also pls marry me, your guide to drawing birds is amazing)

(I'm very late in answering messages again, sorry. Also, I'm flattered, but I'm not accepting marriage proposals at the moment)

This is always a tough question... There are so many amazing birds in the world!! How could I choose! But I have a soft spot for some extra cute birds that can be found in my country.

Long-tailed tits are super cute and fluffy, and they have such pretty colors! Seeing one is always a treat!

Siberian jays are very curious and friendly, it's always fun to see one! I really like the rusty orange color in their tail, too!

Cranes have such a cool voice that echoes through the air in the spring and autumn. Hearing a crane's call has a very mystic feeling to it, I think

[shrubsparrow]

Howdy there, i really like your bird drawing tutorial, but i wanna know if this would work for flightless birds like ostrichs or other extinct flightless birds, if not could you send some tips on how to draw them?

Hi! I was thinking about mentioning flightless birds in the tutorial, but I decided I didn't want to open that can of worms, since there was already so much to talk about. But in short, some things in the tutorial still apply to flightless birds, others less so.

Especially the parts about feathers don't apply as well to flightless birds, because the general anatomy of the wing has evolved to maximize flight efficiency. In flightless birds, the general bone structure and the shape of the featherless wing is still similar, but since the wings aren't used for flying, the feathers can be completely different.

Ostriches use their wing feathers for social and sexual displays instead, so their wing feathers are big, poofy and less "orderly". In other flightless birds like emus and kiwis, the wing is very tiny and the feathers on the wings are very similar to their general body feathers, so they are basically invisible.

Penguin wings have evolved for swimming, so they are more robust. In general, flightless birds have heavier bones, since they don't need to reduce their weight in order to fly.

Flightless birds also don't have much of a tail, since the tail is the most useful for balancing flying.

While the leg anatomy is the same for flightless birds, the feet have usually lost a few toes, since there is no need to grab branches. Ostriches have only two toes.

That's just some general things that came to mind! I don't know of a good tutorial going into more detail than this, but if anyone has recommendations, feel free to share them!