Trick or treat! (the process post) (Patreon)

Welcome to the promised Precocious Costumefest process post! Like my group shot attempt?

To repeat the premise, the goal was to test my recovery from my last big crash by giving myself a mini-Inktober challenge: One completed piece of art a day for 14 days. (I posted the art in pairs, because it looked better.) I'm not sure I got a great grade on this, because my body did break down from overuse, but I GOT PASSING MARKS! (Living the C- life!)

The idea came about when I was idly talking to myself, in the form of idly talking to EVERYONE on my Twitter account. Soon enough, I took to my sketchbook to work through ideas, and what popped out was neat enough that I wanted to share the pages!

Suzette as Spinel was the first idea to pop out of my head, but it was Quincy's goose doom that convinced me to go ahead. You can already see many of my dumb jokes weren't spontaneously written while posting, and you get your first glimpse at a rejected costume idea: K-pop idol Vincent! (Inspired by this comic.)

A big page of rejects! Jacob began as the botched "Monkey Christ" restoration before he got his harlequin styling. Suzette got an alternate look as Animal Crossing's Isabelle. Bud attempt #1 was a sorcerer. Ursula was the other side of "Not Ursula." Finally, we see that Dionne was the original owner of the Picasso costume, before Vincent ended up getting it. (The abstract art theme better matched his poofiness, and the angles in his ears/tail.)

Page three is when things were coming together enough that I began excitedly planning! (See now why I accidentally put Bud/Kaitlyn's update third?)

Bud actually has three costume ideas on this page. He began as a king, but then I decided to upgrade his megalomania to GOD. As I began to hash out his form, I decided a wrath of god angle was more about Tiffany's city-stomping dreams than Bud's dictator styling, so a few swipes of an eraser led to Tiff's rightful place on the clouds. Only at the very end did I figure out Bud's outfit, forcing me to make a tiny doodle in the remaining page space, before hashing it out for real on the next page.

Kaitlyn *also* gets a triple costume trial. I abandoned the Lapis Lazuli idea quickly, then jumped right into her final look of Mabel Pines. But I did waver slightly, contemplating going super meta with Kaitlyn's beloved cartoons. That little scribble at the bottom is a "Why would a sun need to wear sunglasses" gag that self-aware toons inevitably fall for. A few of those gags are fun, but leaning too hard on it results in irony poisoning, which isn't helpful for entertaining. Yeah, it's something cartoonists thing about, but most others would not get or care about it. Good riddance to that joke!

And here comes the refinement! Bud's Dennis the Menace and Vincent's borrowed Picasso style were both drawn strong enough that I ended up tweaking the sketches in Photoshop, printing them out, and used a light box to trace the final art onto my Bristol board. At least I re-drew Dionne and Max, for better or worse??? (And, look, here's my struggle between the on-brand Voltron look, and the secret ego/waving pilot finale version!)

And that was it. I had my ideas. I had my plans. I had hope. I still had to EXECUTE IT. Can you believe I did?!?

What's next for me on Patreon? A lot will depend on tomorrow's doctor appointment, but no matter what I'll return to my "building up strength" practicing to start. I have a few pet pictures, fursonas and original characters from Patrons saved in my phone to start with, but not many, and I would love to have more options. If you've been holding back, please submit! Aside from it making you folks happy, I'm in a desperate financial situation, and doing furry commissions will be the first step of money making available to me. I am still WAY too unreliable to take real commissions - and I need PRACTICE to build myself back up. I have some projects I need to finish, and I need to build myself back up before I can tackle them!

But, really, I'm still so broken that I'll settle for whatever my frazzled brain lets me do. Be my prop until I can reliably hold myself up! I'm so out of it right now that I'm gonna go crash without proofreading. I really hope these last couple paragraphs make sense.