I've seen other people starting threads for their artwork, so I thought I'd give it a try. Plus it'll be easier if all of my stuff is in one place, and maybe this'll become a forum where I can get some feedback.

With each piece, I'll provide a link to the submission (if I've shared it on the site), as well as some notes on my thought/creation process; some of it may be in the piece's description, but some of it may be new.

Newgrounds Heads (+ Some Arms)

This was my first submission here, so I thought I'd try to root myself into NG's culture with this collage of some of its characters and mascots. I wanted to get a balance between immediately-recognisable icons like Pico and Tankman, and characters that have starred in frontpage or portal submissions like Ray and Dimon but might not be as recognisable. This piece was pretty complex because it was made up of many, many vector curves and filled shapes. While I was working on my style - a style inspired by Flash files' vector graphics - this was really just an emulation of all of these creators' different styles within the vectorised world of Flash.

Wingdings

The first of several cheesy puns inspired by the "WHAT IS THIS?" questions from Splapp-me-Do's The Impossible Quiz series. Since it was a pun on a font's name I decided to do something with the characters from that font. I really need to feature these in my future work as an inside joke.

In hindsight I probably should've given them bat wings instead of angel wings, so that it would've been a dingbat pun riding on a Wingdings pun. Maybe when we get to October and start getting spoopy.

Melancholy

Another one.

Now is probably a good time to mention that this was before I got a new graphics tablet. I would draw everything in a sketchbook, scan it in, then digitally trace over it with lines (I just can't deal with drawing with a mouse). There's not much else to say about this one, other than that it's a sad slice of watermelon, probably because he got left in the rain. I'm really pleased with the shading on this one, particularly on the rind.

Pawcelain

Getting way too carried away with these Impossible Quiz-esque puns. This is just something corny that crossed my mind one day, so I made it. I enjoyed doing the shading in the compartments, as well as the decorative edging.

Ghostal Service

I would've saved this for October, since, you know, ghosts, but this was a response to a challenge in the forums to doodle a ghost but with a twist (https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1521927#bbspost27663679_post_text). Now I realise that I don't really do doodles. It was still a fun challenge, particularly the semi-transparency on the ghost.

Lava Lamp

I promise this is the last stupid pun (for now). This was the first piece I created with my new tablet, and in Clip Studio Paint. As you can see I was still aiming for the Flash file style, but now it was easier since I didn't have to draw individual vectors on separate layers; now I can just draw multiple on the same layer. Pleased with the lava on the lampshade, not so pleased with that flat-looking smoke. Maybe I should've used multiple shades of grey.

(Animation does not preview here. Please click on the submission link to view properly.)

Mer-Ray

And so begins my descent down the rabbithole to Dice City.

This was a piece I did for Mermay. I figured that Ray would be a shark merman. I could've drawn him as an actual ray, but come on. Sharks typically symbolise power and strength, which Ray has, as well as focus, which is often needed for a hitman of his capacity. If you're referring to a person, a shark excels in a certain field... vigilantism in his case.

Although I've been trying to emulate Flash movies and games with smooth curves and flat colours, I decided to do rough pencil outlines to highlight the danger of a hitman-turned-merman. I also shrouded a lot of the piece in darkness to further convey this. Also I don't typically do cross-hatch shading, but I did here to match the roughness of the line work.

Then came the idea of making it into a gif and drawing other frames of him with a stretching and bloody shark maw, so I did. I think it turned out pretty well, even if the blood may be a bit cliche.

This piece has not been submitted to the Art Portal.

Line Weight Practice (feat. Ray)

This piece was really an experiment to help find my style, particularly when it came to how I outline my work. I made an entire thread where I asked for feedback on how to do so (https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1525125#bbspost27719178_post_text). Special thanks to Skoops for linking a tutorial about line weight, and Austin Batchelor for creating it; I adapted my style from the tutorial, with lines getting thinner for where outlines meet, and for details. I like how the line work on Ray came out here, but added some more elements (the text and background) just to add some more substance.

On a side note I learned that that pattern with the shrinking circles is called a halftone.

to dad from leeroy

I drew this to commemmorate Father's Day (3rd Sunday in June here). This is partly a redraw of the framed photo of Ray's son that's shown near the end of the Part 3 Introduction (https://youtu.be/f0_wBR9ZftE?t=695).

While Ray's parenting may be questionable, he probably does love his his son, and I think Leeroy loves him back. At least, loves him enough to send him that picture. My headcanoned context is that this is Ray opening it after being mailed it.

It was an interesting challenge skewing and changing the perspective of the photo and frame to show it being held at an angle. I also added some minor sun rays to add a bit of atmosphere.

New Life

Thought I'd try emulating a photo taken some time after Leeroy's birth. Part 3 Intro opened up several avenues in Ray's story, but they were never explored further, including his son and military service. This is my attempt at filling some of the gaps left behind.*

Look at me finally learning how to make backgrounds. Got a lesson in constructing furniture and objects by drawing them while looking at reference pics. At this point I've also started drawing characters' heads and eyes with actual circles and elliptics (not freehand), and I think it works better this way.

The vintage photo look was created with some layers of colour balance and HSL adjustments, complete with a date stamp. This was kind of a PITA.

*I was trying to think of the circumstances surrounding this point, bearing in mind that P3 picks up where P2 left off and is therefore probably set in mid/late 2004.

• Leeroy was probably conceived some time after Ray's return from the Gulf War (U.S. retreated on 28 February 1991, final soldiers returned home 13 June), so he would've been born late 1991/early 1992.
• At this point Ray may or may not have still been on good terms with the mother. As seen in P3 there's a lot of tension.
• I imagine he's in his early 20s here, so being a father would probably hit hard.
• This would probably be before he turns to vigilantism.

Soooo there's that.

Not bad at all and some pretty interesting stuff here keep it going

~X~

Thanks I will.

Clocka-Cola

It's felt like forever since I've posted art in this thread (it's been exactly one month).

I knew for a while that I wanted to create a parody of Coca Cola featuring the Clock Crew. It started out with a doodle back in March, then I fleshed it out into a sort of advertisement. I knew all along that I wanted to throw in a reference to B, and along the way, tried to fit in some stupid temporal puns ('there's always time for a Clocka-Cola' and 'Why wait to try?').

The original drawing from March this year.

The logo was an interesting challenging; I had a Coca-Cola font, but it didn't feature the C with the long tail at the beginning of the logo, so I drew my own using the font as a reference.

This was also a good chance to make myself familiar with Adobe Animate. I understand that it's the successor to Flash, plus I'm finding it easier to use than any other program I've used. Suffice to say I'll be drawing and colouring my art in Animate from now on.

Sun's Out, Guns Out

Something for the summer, also something else that revolves around a stupid pun.

I drew Ray's parts and assets while using frames from the games as references, and customised them as needed. At one point I tried to give him more detailed feet like his ex, but I just couldn't make them not look cursed.

I think the background (sand, sea, and sky) is simple but works well. It was also a good chance to practice flora - in this case I tried my hand at a palm tree using this reference picture to understand the fronds and structure. I didn't like how the trunk came out but was pretty pleased with the crown so I had it sticking out of the edge of the picture. The Wingdings were kind of a last-minute feature - if I recall correctly, I said at one point that I wanted my own characters to cameo in some of my pieces. Also I imagine they'd shit themselves if they saw someone brandishing dual Desert Eagles.

At one point, Ray had an outline around him, as did a lot of his parts (hair, head, eyes, guns, etc.) but then I removed them and liked what I saw. Just remember about a month ago I spent ages working out how I want to outline my work and what line weights to use - now I like how slick this looks with no line work apart from minor details.

An earlier version of this piece. The outline doesn't look too bad but I think the piece looks better without it.

After drawing everything and working out the composition, I exported Ray, the Wingdings, and the background seperately and loaded them into Affinity Photo. The rough edges on the background were created by painting a frame using a special grunge brush (link to that in the submission description) and then using it as a mask. I think it works well - it reminds me of the roughness of beach wood, and also the grit of this series. The "sunlight" on Ray and the Wingdings is just a bevel effect without midtones.

Overall I love how this piece came out and I'll likely be taking this direction with my work from hereon in.

Continuing on from the last post, here's the palm tree. Like I said, I'm not really a fan of the trunk and I'll probably redo it at some point.

While I try to work out some perspective issues in my upcoming piece, here's a sneak peek: a cooler I drew from reference.

Share a Coke with...

This is my piece for Clock Day 2023. I thought I’d do something off the back of the Clocka-Cola advertisement I made.

The characters may look whole (drawn altogether on one layer), but they’re actually composed of multiple symbols. It helps me to draw the characters in stages and just works for me.

Of course I had to have Edd chugging two cans at once, because he loves cola more than life itself. Originally, Ray was handing Pico a can of apple Clocka-Cola and Pico was hesitant about it, since I saw a headcanon (can’t remember where) that the events of Pico’s School gave Pico PTSD and an aversion to apples. While making it, I came up with the idea of Ray bringing coke in a bag instead of a can, since he gets involved in all kind of illicit activity, including drugs. In addition to the cola, I added some Clock Crew hot air balloons to tie it more to the occasion.

For the grass and shrubs, I replicated a couple of the foliage brushes in Clip Studio Paint. The grass at the characters’ feet and the cooler’s base were drawn separately from the plain. The shrubs consist of several layers, where I used the same brush in different shades of green.

In post, I added sunlight to the characters, cooler, shrubbery, and balloons with the same technique I used in Suns Out, Guns Out. I also added the “CLOCK DAY 2023” wording and turned the O and 0 into clock faces.

I never realised how pale Ray is compared to some other Newgrounds characters.

Looks like I've been scouted.

Creating this thread seems to have helped.

This piece has not been submitted to the Art Portal.

Gearaffe

My entry to the Coglab hosted by @53xy83457

Of course I submitted a pun for my entry. I created a cog shape and transformed the top spokes into the ears and horns. It really helped to draw the features on different layers. I think that the fur texture came out really well. Iirc the shadows in the ears and around the eyes were all one colour with different transparencies. Love that little shading trick.

The drawing was submitted to the collab without the background.

For the background, I just drew a simple sandstone wall, to frame the gear. Used the same shading technique there (semi-transparent black).

This piece has not been submitted to the Art Portal.

Crescent Moo

My entry to the Creature Collab hosted by @OneDude20

I guess I could copy the description I provided in the Discord server:

Something that randomly crossed my mind the other day while trying to figure out what to draw for this collab.

That's pretty much the long and the short of this piece's conceptualisation.

Like regular cattle, Crescent Moos are often found in herds. They tend to graze on asteroids and other space debris. They are the pride and joy of many a space cowboy. Their milk is so good, it's out of this world!

I drew the moon body and exported it separately from the cowbell and udders to add unique effects to it in post.

The drawing was submitted to the collab without the background.

I added an inner and outer glow to the creature's body, and added an inner glow to the cowbell to emulate moonlight.

This piece has not been submitted to the Art Portal.

Webdings

My entry to the Spider Collab hosted by @fe3l1ngsk1lledd

For my entry, I created something of a sequel to this piece:

It's simply a redraw of the spider character from Webdings with the Wingdings smile.

The drawing was submitted to the collab without the background.

For the background, I added a cobweb like the one found in Webdings, and used a simple stone background dark enough for the spider to stand out.

I love Crescent Moo and Gearaffe. You definitely have a knack for digging up associations between two otherwise unrelated things and then portraying them through your art. Which means you would probably kill it as a Pokémon designer. :D Keep up the great work!

Thanks, I'll certainly try my best.

Posting this because I didn't mark this thread as NSFW.

I might start sharing doodles here as well.

I just doodled a rosy palm.

What the fuck am I doing?

These past few days I've been trying my hand at a tileset, specifically one for Knytt Stories +. I got inspired to get into it after watching Proton Jon's old-but-gold Let's Play of Don't Eat the Mushroom. Nearly 16 years on it's still Internet gold.

Knytt Stories tiles are 24x24 pixels, but I knew that I couldn't draw at such a small size, so I drew them in Adobe Animate at 96x96, using a grid made of guides to help me keep things in proportion.

The original tiles in Adobe Animate.

The dirt and its details are separate layers, and then I drew the grass and its shadows on another layer on top. It was important to make the shape of the grass seamless on both sides, so that the tiles could be pieced together seamlessly (not that you can really see it at 24x24, mind!). I also decided to add some bare dirt tiles by removing the grass and rounding off the edges, as well as some transition tiles so that I could blend the two. I also added some small grass on top for an extra touch. The trees were drawn by first drawing the trunk and branch system, then drawing the foliage and its shading on separate layers. It was important that I fit each one into a 3x4 grid, and ensuring that at least the top half was foliage so that they could also be used as shrubs.

When exporting the tiles and creating the tileset to be used in-game, I shrank each tile down in Gimp as that program allows for resizing with no interpolation (blurring and such). Then I started piecing them together.

The tileset as it stands.

Obviously this is nowhere near finished and I have plenty of room to add other elements. I plan on creating some hedges, and will probably make them seamless like the ground tiles so that they can be mixed and matched.

Continuing on from the last post, here's how the tileset looks in Knytt.

The background is also custom, and totally not stolen from one of my pieces.

I decided to flesh out this doodle.

Ok that was some unfortunate wording.

Chainsawww

I’ve been doodling this week. This started out from a doodle I did the other day.

The original doodle.

I developed the character art by drawing over the doodle and shaping it accordingly. Drawing the character at an angle was an interesting little exercise in perspective. I went back to the glossy eye look that I had used a few months ago.

The background was difficult to decide on. Originally I was going to use some shape made of lumber, and switched between a pine tree, a love heart, and a circle (a regular wooden log). Even by adjusting the colour and darkening it, the character was difficult to see against it. In the end, I opted for a love heart with a gradient, shaded edges, and a halftone pattern, which was added in post.

Bonus: New watermark!