Oh! I thought I posted this already. Guess not! Well, for Valentines day I’d commissioned Kaz to draw that QW+QW thing. I wanted a follow up, so I thought it might be nice to show QW+QW walking a dog. This is what I got. I got QW+QW Potential Puppy Murderers.
Now, I’m probably reading WAAAY to much into this, but I see a deeper meaning in this. If you associate only with like-minded people, bad ideas can seem like good ones due to the resonant echo chamber effect. In pre-Internet days, everyone watched the same 3 TV channels. That doesn’t mean everyone agreed with the same things – but they saw the other point of view often.
Now you can be so selective in your choices that you don’t even know the other opinion exists. And they don’t know you exist. They become THEM and you become US.
Don’t date yourself. Open up to those with differing points of view a little. And… don’t drown your puppy. It cannot breathe underwater. Not even a little.
Kaz’ original sketch below. Yeah, I found the little happy background on the Internet somewhere. It seemed appropriate somehow. Like something out of MLP.
I’ve had the handle “Blue Dragon” or some variation of it for literally decades. Since people called them “handles”! But in all that time I’ve never, ever had a real avatar/OC. A few weeks back during a stream I commissioned Kazerad to draw “My Weird OC”, describing him as a bit like Dino from the Flintstones.
He’s about the farthest thing from a fearsome dragon as is possible to get. Kaz came up with this, which I colored and shaded today. It’s a simple thing, but having my own Weird OC is just… weird! I like him a lot! Though I identify somewhat as a Furry I guess, I’ve never really had a desire for a personal OC like this, but now that I’ve got one, I’m probably going to have to change my various avatar pics.
Okay, enough blab. Here’s the image:
Blue Dragon getting underfoot of a cat, instead of the other way ‘round.
Mostly I’m just doing these for shading practice which is kinda fun. But poor Kazerad. He keeps trying to de-emphasize Katia’s boobs, and then I come along with my shading and give her DDs. I’m a bad dragon. But happy!
I still do things sometimes. Commission from Kaz that I colored, though I think I just asked Evil Quill Weave’s Birthday Party. Leave it to Kaz to turn it into a pathetic scene of sadness and pathos!
Though it could be interpreted as tears of joy at Faceless Mook throwing her a birthday party at all. (Though knowing Kaz, that’s unlikely. More likely she realizes how pathetic that she had to order her minion to throw her a party.)
This is a commission Rick2tails got from Kazerad. Once I figured out what was happening in it, beyond the obvious Superhero crossover, I suddenly HAD to color it. It kind of sucks sometimes to realize just exactly how much of a pig you really are, but we must all face our demons sometimes.
Here’s the original sketch:
I call them Foxman and Katin. So I found a Batman comic to reference for colors, Katia I already have references for and I found Rick2tails’ FA page and had plenty of references there. SO here’s my flatcolors:
Batman shading is just weird. For the most part it’s done with pretty standard high-contrast hard edges. But his mask is ALWAYS in shadow on the face regardless of the light source. I think the high contrast edges were just an artifact of minimal color support on comics. I don’t do hard edges in my shading mostly, but here’s what I cam up with.
Now before the boob-police come calling about how Katia’s are overly exaggerated, let me just point out that Foxman’s muscles are ALSO overly exaggerated. Superheros get extra enhancements. With one notable exception. Male superheroes, regardless of the skin-tight nature of their costumes, must NEVER have anything whatsoever going on underneath in their crotch area. This is an INVIOLABLE rule. I maintain that maxim here.
Finally I needed some background for them, though I didn’t like any I came up with. But here’s one anyway just to put them SOMEWHERE:
And now a bit of RPing just for fun:
“Oh SNAPP!”
“Apparently Spandex isn’t flexible enough for you, Girl Wonder! How do you feel about Latex?”
“If you’d bought me that bodysuit like I ASKED this wouldn’t be a problem!”
“Oh shut up and get in the Foxmobile, Katin. You’re starting to gather a crowd. Oh NO! Dammit, there’s Johnny with his damned camera!”
<FLASH!>
<SLAM!>
“Did he… GET me?”
“Judging by the way he’s running without looking away from his camera, I’d wager he got you just as you were bending down to get in.”
My first Disqus posting on Prequel was 3 years ago. My first prequel-related work was 4 years ago in February 2013, and I’m sure I started reading it in 2012. I’m not it’s longest-running fan, but I’m pretty well up there in dedication I figure. With the current hiatus still ongoing, I wanted to post why I think I’ve stuck with it so long. But first, a word on the hiatus. It’s often said that it hasn’t updated for well over a year. Depending on your definition, that’s true. But if you include a really impressive sidestory walkabout game, it’s not. Throw in the merchandise run and it’s really not. But it’s been a long time regardless since Katia started throwing away her grape juice.
But why do I still stick with it after so long? I’m not 100% sure, but I’m going to explain why I feel it’s far and away the best webcomic I’ve ever ran across.
1. The writing.
The very first thing that struck me when I started reading it is that most of the side characters are sympathetic. Right when she gets off the boat, the first person she talks to is a guard. He is sympathetic. Okay, the racist elves not so much, but the majority are essentially “good people”. I like that. Katia’s nemesis isn’t Gro-Upp, nor is it Sigrid. They are obstacles. Her nemesis is herself. Her ineptitude, social awkwardness, alcoholic tendencies and self-worth issues. Those are antagonists we all face. (Well, maybe not the alcoholic tendency to sexual promiscuity so much.)
1a. The writing.
There’s no doubt Kaz has improved his artwork since the start – but like bad scifi movies, the visuals are not terribly important if there’s no story to back them up. My favorite thing about it is, this is a SMALL story. It’s not the story of the Dragonborn. It’s not the story of some epic hero on a quest to save the world. It’s the story of a small person just trying to not F*ck up a simple errand. And it’s not easy. She’s already fsked it up beyond all recognition until it’s hard to remember what she originally was trying to do. But she keeps trying. That’s her defining characteristic. She loses it, she screws up badly, she almost gets herself killed, but she keeps trying.
2. The art.
Yeah, I said the art doesn’t matter. Well, it SORTA doesn’t – IF you know how to do bad art well. There’s a truly heartbreaking scene in these four images that’s probably as bad as it gets for Katia:
A: Prideful Success
B: Complete Accident
C: Attempted Recovery
D: Abject Failure
That’s not great art. It’s not. But those spanned several posts, and several frames between them. It was a slow burn, and the final blackout was not only expected, but pretty much understandable. Sometimes it’s just Booze O’Clock despite your best efforts. Kaz captures that feeling of utter failure in a way I’ve never seen before. We’ve all been there. “Don’t drink it!” we scream at Katia, knowing she will anyway. Because we drank it. And it’s not just dejection, but also success. Katia’s working out of the puzzle with Aggy was amazingly done. Again, a slow burn but this time to success instead. You want to scream with her.
3. The Kazerad.
I don’t know how he does it, but Kaz knows his fanbase. What he can and can’t allow. People will always step over the line, but he keeps us reigned in by judicious use of bans and moderators. I’ve been guilty of that myself. By giving us the Disqus outlet and the Fanart booru, we sort of can talk back to him without fear of getting banned (well, mostly!). He also accepts all weirdness (within bounds) and NEVER EVER disses anyone, regardless of their apparent age or artistic ability. In fact, he is only piqued towards his fanbase when one goes against another, or when cliques seem to be developing. Apparently he’s pretty good at herding cats.
3b. The Kazerad
Where the hell does he get that humor from? From what wellspring do you come up with “Peas are the worst fruit”? The fruitytote? “I’d like to sell this spear and I’m very sorry.” Maybe there are other webcomics with similar things that I’ve just never seen – but I’ve seen a lot and nothing like that!
I figure Kaz won’t mind me sending this with his old arts in it. It’s intended as a reminder of just exactly why it is that we’re all waiting for this update so HARD.
Frankly, I was not happy with that last one. I’m going to leave it as-is, but I felt it did a disservice to Kaz’ original sketch. This time I’ve got a pretty important image I’ve been working on, and it was important I get it right. So rather than draw lines over Kaz’ original, I just cleaned it up a bit and used his sketch as the line art layer.
Here’s the original:
This is, in my opinion, one of the best sketches of Katia and QW I’ve seen because I asked him to age them up a lot. Granted Quill would be the really tough one as, if lifespans are constant across races, she’d probably be dead by now. But I’d prefer to think Argonians live longer, whether or not that’s true in TES lore. Anyway, both are instantly recognizable but instantly elderly too, and they’re not wearing their “standard” outfits. Pretty awesome work IMHO.
I felt it very important I not botch this up like the last one. Here’s the end result. I don’t know that it’s as awesome as the original or not, but by keeping his linework I think it’s definitely a big improvement over the last one I did!
In the fanfic, Katia is nearly blind here and is dictating a letter that Quill is helping her write to someone. Pretty crucial image as it sets up the whole thing. Anyway, I like it one hell of a lot better than my last one. I think I’ll stick with this method. 2 more to do before I release the story.
Hey! I just thought of a caption! The Elderly Scroll.
I’m like way overhyping this stupid fanfic with these images, but so it goes. Anyway, I got the other 2 from Kaz I was waiting for. But then he went and barstreamed and I got 2 more!
Without going into detail, this is Katia hiding under a pew in the Kvatch chapel, and being coaxed out from under it by Brother Martin. The original sketch had no background though – not even a hint of one. So I dug this up as a reference from the Prequel archives:
Also I needed Brother Martin to get canon colors, but he doesn’t appear directly in any of the archives. But no fear, he’s there in Excelsior! so I grabbed this screenshot:
After finding this, I was kinda surprised by how accurate Kaz drew him from memory since as far as I can tell this is the only place he appears at all in Prequel!
So here’s Kaz’s sketch:
When I requested the next two the other day, he was wondering how much detail I really needed when I just line-draw over them anyway. But dammit, these aren’t JUST for posting. Hell, I might even frame the originals! So I broke out my whip and demanded top-rate sketches even if I ruin them on my color-jobs. So here’s the line-drawing and flatcolor version:
I obviously added the background and it’s kinda shitty – but gotta be something there right? Then added shading and highlights and this is the end result:
I’m not too happy with Martin’s eyes, but I’m not going to succumb to Perfectionist-Art-Syndrome, so this will have to do. Emperor or no, he’s still a pretty minor character. (I think I gave him jaundice – I needed less-than-white eyes in order for the white highlights to show up at all!)
I’ll yabber a bit more this time. I wrote a Prequel fanfic. Yeah, I know. And yeah, it probably is that bad. But I promise it’s at least mercifully short. Now I know Kazerad doesn’t read Prequel fanfics, and I completely understand why not. He knows his characters intimately – (he IS his characters) and therefore knows what would and would not be possible for them. However, nobody writes fanfics without hoping SOMEONE will read them, and I’m not immune.
However, I also know that no one enjoys Walls of Text. It’s a reality in the internet world that very few want to read a straight story. Why, you’re probably already getting tired of this and I’m only 2 paragraphs in! Here, have a Kaz drawing:
Yeah, I got some Line Drawing in my Scan layer. (Well YOU got Scan Layer in my Line Drawing! Two great tastes that taste great together).
This was my original commission from Kaz for this story, commissioned before I’d even finished it. But no, you may surmise the basic story line from these images, but you don’t get the story till I’m done with all three so I can put them in the posting.
Sometimes I’m afraid I may get a bit too clever for my own good. Here, my finished color/shading job. I thought I’d be soooo smart and use a couple textures to do the path and walls of the inner part of the Oblivion tower. But what I did was make the background too busy. I thought then maybe blurring it would be helpful but couldn’t find a blur that I liked, so I left it as is:
It’s not without faults, but I still like it. Now, in all honesty I have another version that has some VERY minor naughty bits. I’ll probably throw that one up over at e621 since they like that sort of thing. She is, in fact, naked after all. That’s just her paint. Story is PG-13 though, so this version is probably what I’ll actually use.
Anyway, off to post away on the Booru. Consider this an ad for my upcoming fanfic. This is, in fact, the climax of the little story but I still think anyone who’s into Prequel will enjoy it – except Kaz. Kaz won’t like it. He hates everything. 🙂
Last member of the Not-Yet-Ready-For-Clothing Players band. Nah on lead guitar just seemed appropriate to me. Seems she brought a couple friends along too!
This one’s kinda weird. First, Kaz drew her holding the guitar in her elbow and fretting… air. Why? Honestly, I don’t know. Kaz probably does! But wth, I’m going for it anyway even if I don’t get it! Second, there’s no clever censoring arm or guitar strap here. Nah’s just kinda hangin’ all out here.
Now look, I’m obviously no prude. Some would call my stories porn (though I at least like to think of them more as erotica). But really full nipplage on the Fanart Booru is asking for trouble. Even if Kaz allowed it, it’s bound to cause a ton of too-risque stuff by pushing the boundary. So I’ve added a “pasties” layer (which really is just deleting the nipples essentially and making her nip-less.
One last thing – on here, though the blog isn’t marked NSFW, I’m going for it. So if you will be offended, I apologize in advance.
So here’s Kaz’ original sketch of Nah on guitar:
So obviously the first step was lineart. As seems to be common, I stuck some color on accidentally on the wrong layer.
Ok, so I deviated from Kaz’ original here in a couple places so I may as well fess up now. First, I emphasized her butt more than the original. Because I like butts I guess. But that’s my perversion, not Kaz’. I don’t THINK I overemphasized the boobies, though I did smooth the curves out. I also DID outline the nipples but removed the outline later as I felt it looked odd with black outlines around the areola.
Second, I simplified the bats a bit – dropping their feet mostly. Also later I added a 2nd knob on the guitar (later) because… well, no electric guitar has only 1 knob. Ok, next up… flat color:
And then, of course, time for shading. Mostly it went as expected but the hair was the bitch on this one. Just flat colored hair sucks, and I’m SURE if given more time and tutorials I could have done better. But really, it’s a naked vampire playing a guitar. How much time does it really deserve? Even the bats get a bit of shading. By the time I was done, I really liked those bats. They just look so HAPPY!
And then, of course, my standard background…
So that’s the version I’ll post on the adult sites. But I knew the nips would be over the top for the fanart booru at Prequel. So out come the pasties layer:
And that’ll do it for the Not-Yet-Ready-For-Clothing Players. Maybe I’ll put em all on stage together though – if it can be done without looking too wonky.
Got another one! Here’s the original drawing by Kaz:
So I took that and converted to line art, using the new skillz Kaz taught me sorta…
And then removed the sketchwork and added flat colors. Well, I did do a gradient on the drums.
And finally the shading and highlighting. (I must say I do love the eye technique that I learned on a tutorial!) I could honestly have spent more time on shading in the chesticle area, but got tired of it so I’m calling this finished.
So now it’s time to introduce the drummer for the Not-Yet-Ready-For-Clothing Players band. Yes, it’s that surly bartender you all know and love. Somehow the girls have roped him into playing for them, though he seems none too happy about it. But then, he never seems too happy about anything.
Personally, I don’t think he would ever have joined the band until he realized what the view would be like from the back of the band. He does have a thing for Weedum-Ja after all. And the others provide great scenery too. Though, of course, he would NEVER admit it. He just says Weedum-Ja talked him into it.
bdprequel 