SCRAPS: MLaaVND Commission #1g - Pteresa

When designing new characters and revisiting old ones for Toonspew's fic, I couldn't help but toy around a bit. I usually took at least one day off from commission work every week to do something unrelated, but in the end I couldn't really steer away from it.

This is one of the results:


What you're seeing here is essentially a combination of my fascination towards a minor character in MLaaTR and a reference that probably no American gets. To put it short, I essentially had Pteresa dress up as a character from an obscure British soap opera. Yes, I think Viv was a total MILF.

I will soon release the actual commission itself, which is a single character sheet containing all the inkings side by side. I'm also aiming to release a layered version of it so that those of you wishing to colour these have a ready template with removable placeholder lines and backgrounds.

SCRAPS: MLaaVND Commission #1f - Brad and Tiff

These took a bit longer than expected since I had to do some redrawing from scratch.

Brad and Tiff are now spacefarers, and while they're reminiscent of some of the more famous pop culture icons of our age in this picture, they will be going through wardrobe and hairdo changes throughout their adventures... or at least Tiff will. Brad is sporting a modified JST-44 "Bradster" with a folding flash suppressor, while Tiff prefers a less powerful but more accurate Chi-9N scout pistol with with an incoherence limiter*.

More coming soon.


*) I'm such a goddamn nerd... and a fan of Dark Forces

SCRAPS: MLaaVND Commission #1e - Misty

Expect her to pwn some hearts in the upcoming fic.

I actually finished this one three days ago, but I have a policy of not publishing the final pic until I've shown it to my customer and gotten a reply about it (this way I can make any possible "last minute changes" incase there's some minor issues that need to be fixed). The good news is that while waiting for a reply I managed to catch up with the remaining characters, so I now have only one character left to ink! However, the next one's going to be a double feature so it'll have to wait a bit... but not much.

The "lightning bolt" on Misty's hair is supposed to be an "anomaly" of some sort that appears on her hair in a more lighter colour and is not meant to have any visible ink lines if coloured. Once again I've supplied the published version with some placeholder lines for guidance purposes. When I'm done with all the characters, I will post versions that lack these lines. These may be used when properly colouring the characters.

In blog-related news: I'm aware that the Hottie Appreciation Box is lagging behind schedule. I'll try to update it ASAP (read: in a few days)...

SCRAPS: MLaaVND Commission #1d - Mr. and Mrs. Lee

Sorry about the delay. I recently caught a nasty flu of some sort (thankfully not of the 'swine' variety) but I'm already getting better.

Anyway, here's the most recent pic, this time featuring two characters, Mr. and Mrs. Lee:


Next one will have Ms. Fanservice (or at least that's how I see it).

SCRAPS: MLaaVND Commission #1c - June (XJ-9)

Another pic depicting June, this time as an XJ-9. She's supposed to look like a mold between Jenny and The Silver Shell. Again, there's some placeholder ink lines that are meant to pinpoint where to add shining effects. June's hands are currently coloured pitch black (just like Shell's), although this is likely to change in the final character sheet pic since we haven't decided about her colour scheme yet.

This is actually the very first character I drew for this commission.

The next pic will be a double release and will hopefully appear here in two days.

SCRAPS: MLaaVND Commission #1b - June (XJ-8)

Another one for tonight:


Meet June, the newest addition to XJ Series! She's in the original My Life as a Von Neumann Device, although her role will be much more prominent in the upcoming sequel. It will also explain why she's wearing a rather familiar-looking beanie.

Toonspew wanted me to try out an alternative design for the originally hulking Model 8 and suggested that I try out something in the vein of "ax-crazy loli".

Note that the visible "shine lines" are actually just rough placeholders, indicating the position and type of shine (think Silver Shell from the original series, the shining here is meant to be somewhat similar).

This marks the very first time I've actually illustrated an OC by someone else than me. Yup, exactly.

SCRAPS: MLaaVND Commission #1a - XJ-10

Change of plans. But first, some art as promised:


Some of you might be familiar with the fan fic called My Life as a Teenage Von Neumann Device, written by Toonspew. I reviewed the said fic last summer and found it to be enjoyable to read (which is quite rare for a guy like me who doesn't care for fan fiction that much). Anyway, when I informed that I was taking commissions, Toonspew ordered multiple pics based on the his fan fic and its possible sequel. The very first one was to be a character sheet, depicting eight characters from both fics (but mainly from the upcoming sequel).

Of course, you might wonder why it took me over three months to pump out a single black-and-white inking. The short answer is: stuff happened. The longer answer would be a tediously boring story about various real life events that conflicted my working schedule, various health problems I've had (conflincting medicine = ouch) and so on. But that's a thing of past now.

Now about the whole "change of plans" thing. The reason why you are seeing a single character instead of the complete character sheet is because Toonspew wished that I first release every character separately and then release the complete character sheet after that. I guess this is a good thing because that way you don't have to wait until I've inked all the characters.

This pic depicts Jenny in her XJ-10 form, which appears very late in Toonspew's fic. I based the pic heavily on the unfinished XJ-10 blueprints briefly visible in the MLaaTR Christmas Special and this piece by odaleex, with some of my own ideas thrown in the mix. For more info, check out the fic itself.

It's good to be back.

SCRAPS: dlt at work

In case you wonder how my time-consuming "manual outline cleaning" looks like, check out this pic of #18b in works:


This is not the best possible example, because I often scan my inkings in "line art" mode, then go straight to Illustrator for automatic vector trace and then clean up the malformed parts that showed up after the trace in Photoshop. This time I decided to ignore the automatic trace and directly use the original inked pic, which is why I've been digitally removing pencil marks and other unwanted artifacts. To demonstrate this I've placed a black layer underneath the working one which then proceeds to show all the spots I've scoured with "clear" line tool and eraser.

Feel free to guess who the character is (which is pretty much impossible to guess from such a vague image). Two hints: first of all, it's a webcomic-themed pic and second, that's his backside (with a t-shirt) showing.

SCRAPS: Fairy Fishes

The upcoming TFOP pic has been slightly delayed. I do have good news, though: it has finally entered colouring phase! This is usually done pretty quickly, although I'm still preparing to give it three more days to be finally done.

In the meantime, here's a teaser of the pic: a black and white, inked, vector traced and digitally polished version of Cosmo and Wanda from the pic!

Note that all the stuff in gray is just placeholder shit.

Edit (14/9): some things that need to be announced... first of all, I won't be drawing a comic about two pseudo-goldfish having sex, nor there will be loli. Second, I'm delaying the pic even more, make it five or six days! This is because I think I'd like to try a new colouring/shading method.

SCRAPS: Why is she so bald?

Beats me.

Actually this is just something that came up to me when I was reading Toonspew's MLaaTR fic My Life as a Teenage Von Neumann Device. That, and browsing Macrochan.

Note the old school Scott Kurtz-esque mouth on Tiff. Now that I've mentioned Scott Kurtz, I also have to say this: KURTZ IS A HACK! :P

Time for sleep!

SCRAPS: What is he seeing?

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SCRAPS: Some MLaaTR sketches

Good evening, morning, whatever.

I've been taking a few days off from creating new art. Between watching anime and and classic TV series from 1970s and 1980s I've also tried something I thought I'd never do again: read lemon fics. For those few who don't know, lemons are basically a subsidiary of fan fiction, meaning unofficial stories which put chosen characters into erotic situations. I've currently been reading two very good My Life as a Teenage Robot lemons: the first one is called My Life as a Teenage Von Neumann Device by Toonspew and it goes into detail how Jenny learns all about sex (yet the fic manages to avoid becoming a boring "owner's manual"). The second one is Sadarax's fic Alien Urges and Affections - When Misty Fell for Shell which pairs Misty with Sheldon, exploring more of these two characters and creating some nice sexual tension between them before they eventually get it going on.

I've yet to finish reading both since they're huge in epic scale but it's pretty safe to say that these are quality work. The first fic is essential to everyone who's interested in either writing or drawing MLaaTR erotica as it gives us information about how Jenny's "private parts" work. The second one is a must for all Misty fans, most of who were disappointed at how the character was handled (or should I say derailed) in the episode Mist Opportunities. While I'm not a big fan of erotic fan fiction, these fics have thus far managed to keep me interested. If you can imagine the characters acting with the given dialogue and situations, then the fic has succeeded. If a person who's not into lemons can still be entertained by these stories, I'm pretty sure that those of you who dig erotic fan fiction will adore these two stories!

Infact, they've already affected me. I tried to do some sketches for a Sedusa-themed piece but I felt uninterested about it. Instead, look what I scribbled. I did check out the official character design sheets but I tried not to use any ready poses. You'll probably notice that Vega looks a lot cleaner than the other characters - I was a lot more motivated with her ;) I also couldn't figure out which way her hemline should go if she's having that sort of pose.

Remember when I mentioned changing my mind again? I just did. Now I feel like doing MLaaTR art next.

BTW this is the first time I've drawn Jenny.