WM's Art

Wendy Lian Martin. I draw the webtoon Castle Swimmer! This blog is mainly for answering asks! Please no spam asks!

[wendylianmartin]

How do they wash themselves when they can't have showers or baths underwater

They use a scrub daddy.

[wendylianmartin]

Wait since arp is your pfp and you still post castle swimmer Will you change it to mouse's beetle ( i forgot his/her name lol) once castle swimmer ends and you make bird boys' webcomic?

I’ve been thinking about it. So many people know me by the little arp image tho 😂 so I’m not sure if I wanna change it.

Mouse’s beetle is Peep!

[wendylianmartin]

As someone who really wants to make their own webcomic, what would you say are the most important things to do to get started?

Figure out what your goals are for the project, how long the story is gonna be, what’s a realistic update schedule for you and maybe do some test pages to figure out how you want everything to look.

Make sure the level of work and how long it takes you to draw the panels lines up with your ‘update schedule’

Also maybe consider if you even want an update schedule at all and would rather just draw it at your own pace and take a more laid back approach.

Idk, I think the most important tips will be different for everyone.

For ME, I’ve always obsessed over making comics and tried to make it my job so I would treat it like a job and tried to always update on a schedule and strive for growth. It involved putting a lot of extra effort into building my social media so my comics could reach more people and be active in the community.

But I’ve also had times where I was just making comics for fun and messing around and not putting much effort into things which helped me grow in a different way.

Anyways, the hardest part and the part most people never get to is actually starting the comic so if you get to that point, you can call it a success 😎👍

[wendylianmartin]

Idk why but I feel like Arp might be your self insert in castle swimmer lmao

Possibly or I sometimes just possess his body 🤔

[wendylianmartin]

How do you find all your posts to draw characters in??? I draw your mer people all the time and it's SO HARD to find mermaid-specific poses :(

Have you just like figured out well how to translate human poses to merpeople or what?

Basically I just draw them as humans first then try to match the proportions.

It’s not a perfect method, sometime I have to resize stuff depending on the pose but it’s a good starting point. (Might be different depending on your art style.)

[wendylianmartin]

Hi Wendy I'm like 50% sure I submitted this question already earlier today but my memory is terrible so I'm unsure whether I actually did or if I just thought about doing it, sorry if I did already 😭😭😭

Can we get some fun fact about Skiff?

I love skiff but I don’t actually have any facts about him that aren’t already in the comic lol.

[wendylianmartin]

How old was siren during those little flashbacks with Skiff? I've always imagined him to be like ~9 or so

Yes probably between 6 and 9 though I never picked a specific age.

I know a lot of my readers get frustrated with me when I don’t say the specific ages and heights and birthdays of the characters but with CS I really just wrote the story without focusing on those details.

[wendylianmartin]

Does harpy still has that one human lover from the past, where he doesn't know it was unhealthy or no?

I’ll include this in a brainstorming update at some point but I’ve actually edited that concept a bit to make it so Harpy has an unhealthy relationship with all of humanity rather than an ex-human lover.

Lately I’ve been trying to squish all my past ideas together into a more concrete story so I’ve been making edits here and there.

[wendylianmartin]

Bird boy question: what is the texture of the colored parts of the boys arms and legs? Is it like skin or more like the legs of a bird?

More like the rough texture of bird legs!

[wendylianmartin]

Are the bugs from your bird boys comic inspired of Heaven and Earth bettles from Steven universe? I find them very similar to each other

I haven’t watched Steven universe so I didn’t know that was a thing!

They were more inspired by the snails from one piece lol.

[wendylianmartin]

Hi there, Wendy. I know this is not necessarily a spot for self-promotion, but I've seen some folks post fan-art here, so I figured I'd give it my best shot. I'm Ian Philip Reeve, an aspiring composer and songwriter. I was reading through some of your posts on Insta, and I felt bad about the pressure you were experiencing upon pushing back the release date of Castle Swimmer. I just wanted to convey, as a fan, that we support you and your work no matter what you decide to do. Take your time and enjoy the art of it. As a musician, I know that as well as any digital artist. To make up for it, I wanted to share early access to one of my songs from Castle Swimmer Season 1: The Unofficial Soundtrack, which releases later next month. I'm really excited to share all the original music I made; I have been incredibly inspired by your work and the romance you created for Castle Swimmer. I really hope you enjoy this song. I hope it boosts your spirits! :) https://youtu.be/i2HXiHoedak?si=1V4VcJ7w6D5eryC-

Sorry for the late reply, thank you for the kind words and it’s very cool that my comic inspired you to make music!

[wendylianmartin]

Does the bird boy still have powers in your newest version of the story? (still love the concept thow)

Yup!

[wendylianmartin]

Hi Miss Wendy. Hope you are doing all right. I don't know if you have answered this before but, what would you say is the thesis of Castle Swimmer? And how different is that thesis from the one you will do with the bird boys?

I don’t know if there is a ‘thesis’ per say but in terms of general themes, in Castle Swimmer I wanted to explore the concept of expectations and the responsibility of those expectations placed on characters who are incapable of meeting them.

And it’s ultimately an allegory for being Queer when you’re expected to live as a straight person.

With my next comic bird boys, I’m not sure how the themes will develop as I start creating it but at the moment the main theme is about finding worth and value in the broken. The characters are living in a destroyed world and many of them are traumatized and incapable of self improvement or bettering themselves, however they still deserve to live and have value as they are now. (Also it’s a poly romance so there’s a lot of romantic themes too lol)

[wendylianmartin]

Ngl i love how u draw the pilots in ur bird boy comic pretty butches

I love me some pretty butches 😎💖

[wendylianmartin]

hi wendy! whoever was that anon speaking “for the fandom” isnt right. i think you should take as much time as you need with the break and put your health and peace above comics. ofc i love cs very much but i care about your health more🙏 hope you didnt let the negative words affect you and take care❤️

Late reply, but thank you so much for the kind words 💖

[wendylianmartin]

Wendy, do you like my poorly made ARP/Worm that I painted

Also I really love your work and I want you to take your time on Castle Swimmer and hope you have a wonderful day ☺️

He is adorable and I wish to cradle him in my hands 💖

[wendylianmartin]

What is the release of bird boys looking like? I’m super excited to see the finished comic, and I can guess around 2028 is when it gets released. Do you have any progress updates for us?

Bird Boys is gonna be posted for free online (it currently does not have any kind of book deal) so I’ll start creating pages right after Castle Swimmer ends. At the moment I’m just doing a bunch of prep work for it since I’m still drawing Castle Swimmer.

So it’ll come out next year some time!

I’ll post early pages on my Patreon and then it’ll be on webtoon canvas and its own website. Thanks so much for your interest!