dubiouslog

perfectionism is remaking a picture three times before being pleased!

This is also the first artwork of Margareth to not be a sketch. And with this one I can consider the series finished. I may or may not remake Hydride, but in either case I’m more or less finished. Well - there’s John too, but I have yet to introduce him and I’d like to work some more on his design, so he can wait. These pictures will be used as illustrations for the character section of my new art site (btw, it’s almost finished).

And since I’m at it, there are some further developments as for what concerns this yet unnamed saga. I realized that my first priority is not weaving a fictional future. What I really want to show is this time in this place. Whenever I watch the news, all I see is the disgusting pit of filth that is this society. Things that in any other country would be considered unacceptable are the norm here. I may be happy about my own life, but when I stick my nose outside this safe space… At this point, I should know better than to hope for change. In fact, I don’t. But I’m not accepting this reality either. I can’t change it, but I can show it. I can disguise names and facts, twist the plot and add my characters to it. There is this idea I’ve had for a while and now I may just know how to use it.
It’s a pity that I have to throw away all the background I had written, but I didn’t just, you know, feel it? like this one.

I actually made another pic of him earlier before but it sucked 8D

bonus:

illustration for the background information page
this was ridiculously easy and fun to make

ah thank you thunderstorm. now I don’t have to die in this fire anymore

that’s the artwork I was talking about the other day :> If you remember his first pic, you may notice the lack of the bionic hand; he still has it, though - it’s just that he can swap his “normal” right hand (which is still bionic, mind) with the other one. How would you like to roll in bed while asleep if your hand was made of knives? also, washing his dishes. even if his dishes were unbreakable, it would have still been a symphony of horrible screeching noises. D:

When I first introduced him, I stated that he would have been a villain in my story. Since then, he’s turned into the main character. I’ve figured out his whole backstory and the reason why he chose to go cyborg, but I can’t really disclose the details since that will be the focus of the plot. I also previously said that his story would have taken place in an alternate present; it will actually take place in the year 2076. Or, at least, that’s when Hydride becomes a cyborg. He’d be 25 or 26 by then, being born on August 31, 2050.

In the year 2076, the Earth is mostly at peace, the poor are few and everyone has stopped polluting the planet. This turn of events, however, doesn’t happen because everyone suddenly decides to be nice. In the twenties, scientists from all around the world are warning the leaders that, if pollution levels aren’t lowered in the next ten years, the sea level is going to rise causing a global-scale catastrophe. The governments hush them; however, these warnings reach the people, who get more and more alarmed. In 2028 the disaster happens, and the aftermath is colossal. There are riots everywhere and most governments and all kinds of powerful lobbies are taken down. Anyway, the world recovers pretty fast from this blow, and in twenty years most things are back to normal; the new governments are of course a lot wiser than their predecessors, and won’t repeat their mistakes. At the time in which the story takes place, we have a world in which Europe has turned into a federal nation, the Middle East is powerful and no longer a war zone, Africa can finally fend for itself, Asia is very powerful and North and South America are more or less the same as now.
Between the sixties and the seventies, groups of scientists are focusing on the research of cybernetic parts for a better treatment of diseases; as such, many private clinics are opening up just about everywhere in the world. This also means that people cannot just go YOU CHOSE TO BECOME A MACHINE! PFEH! on people with bionic parts because they are most likely people who suffered from terrible injuries and it’s not really their choice. However, this is not true for everyone; some clinics allow healthy people to have implants built in them for cosmetic or other reasons.

As for Hydride, he belongs to this last category. He chose to become a cyborg for his own reasons, and his friend John (you’ll see him later) helped him throughout this process. Hydride’s implants may look flashier than needed, but that’s because he designed them himself and he likes to wear them like a modern-day person would wear a tattoo, and he likes it when people look at him funny.
Of course, Hydride is also not his real name; it’s his Internet handle. His real name is Robert Cross. He adopts his nickname when he becomes a cyborg, although I can’t say a lot more about it right now. Another information that I have to put down but that I can’t really write about is that he’s an hacker. I’ll just leave this here.

A few notes about his appearance:

• The wires look metallic, but they’re actually elastic and very resistent. Not a good idea trying to cut them - they’re so sturdy you’d break your scissors.
• You’d think that with those wires he’d be always tripping, but no. At this point, they’ve become a part of himself. His proprioception includes the wires.
• The arrow-shaped piece below his neck is an exposed part of his inner workings. It’s on the outside because it’s the intersection of several parts and it would be too bulky to be placed beneath his skin.
• The top wire on his left arm goes into the back of that open collar.
• The wire which goes behind him begins in his right shoulder. In a profile, you’d see that the front wire and the back wire pierce him like they were a single piece, though they’re not. I should really draw him like this.
• The wires in his pants. I know. I know. But I just can’t say where do they go. Let’s keep this secret. At least for a while.
• I already wrote that he’s wearing glasses instead of having his eyes fixed because he likes how they look on him. Other than that, they’re actually part of his head. When he has to take them off, they slide into the sides of his head. They are also water-repellent. By the way: Denise! I just discovered that this technology is ALREADY being used on glasses. I saw a few water-repellent glasses in a shop earlier today :D wow, the future is apparently NOW.

As for what concerns his ethnicity, Hydride is half-arab. In his first pic he was white; scratch that, I like him better like this. I have yet to decide where will this story take place, but whatever.
His personality, well. The pose should already say a lot. The only non-spoiler information I can give for now is that he’s insane. Not crazy or weird, insane. As in, his reasonings are not of a sane person. There is going to be a lot more subtlety than just that, though; we’re talking about a grey character here. His development is also going to be a crucial point of the story, so you know.

And that’s all for now. Whew.

I WAS WORKING ON THIS PIC OF HYDRIDE
AND THEN
HE STARTS WINKING AT ME

WHAT THE…

GIGANTIC ARTWORK POST!
still without laptop, but since I’m currently at Jacopo’s I can use his awesome computer and do stuff! yes!

This was made at the same time as the Xivilai painting, so we’re talking about stuff that’s already two months old. Oldest joke ever, but still cute. For me, at least. :>

stop complaining, you’re just 257 and that bedroll was pretty comfortable too

playing with pencil shadows. naked because he looked silly with underpants.
…lol I forgot the chair
HE’S LEVITATING ON HIS MAGIC MAGIC BUTT

I don’t even know why I made this

Isaac Clarke from Dead Space
well this could really be anyone else with a RIG, but since I used his figure as a reference we’ll say this is Isaac

then I played Riviera yet another time and wanted to find a way to draw the characters in my style, and this is what I got. Here we have Serene and Cierra. In case you were curious, the note on the second page is the name I wanted to give to the shrine to Serene I was planning to make, but as you already know I ended up falling in love with Malice instead.
I’ll never stop repeating it: drawing in anime style is
SO BORING

These are the artworks for the test I’m making for Angeltower Page. The space on the left is where the text will be.
I think they turned out great 8>

Now to something completely different. This painting is a gift for Cercatesori and was inspired from the song Rachel by Klimt 1918. It’s a very moving song written to a true story, you should really listen to it. The painting was based on these lyrics:

Death is down at the end of the street, it brings me on my knees
But I live in a world where nobody loves, nobody hopes
“Please hold me now, don’t let me fall” She says, her skin dirty with mud
“I hold you, love, like a wounded bird, I won’t let you fall!” I scream with pain
Rachel knows her blood still runs, the ground turns red so close my arms
I see the sun going down her eyes, she won’t forget to sleep with me tonight

The blood in this painting is actually not paint, it’s my blood.

Now back to something less intense. When Cercatesori came, we spent part of the evening drawing silly stuff. Here, have a Pelipper.

After that Pelipper, crack ensued.

Chingling is useless, hence this pic

penises and bowties make everything better
Mantine’s cry is hilarious
also check that sexy Lopunny out

hi, I’m the Left Hand Snorlax

Carnivine’s Platinum sprite is silly

tiny wingull

Cercatesori asked me to make the opposite of this infamous pic
I’m so going to hell

Back to my head

Sheila makes a comeback with a new design. I think she’d look great in a digital work, but NO COMPUTER HURR HURR
For a few days, I toyed with the idea of actually making a comic with her as the main character but then scrapped it because I couldn’t make any other characters in her same style and because I really don’t want for this to be my first “serious” comic. I don’t want to give people the wrong impression about my work, since Sheila is my only anthro character and I don’t really care about furries and such, if you catch my drift. Well. Sheila lives on, though.

there’s no such thing as not enough Daevion

Classic!

this is really for my own amusement
you could say it’s fanservice, except this is not a fan art so I don’t know
I left a blank page after this one so that Daevion can cry in there when I’m not looking

At this point, Daevion is not a derivative character anymore, so it wasn’t fair to keep drawing him with the Oblivion outfit and to have his backstory fit with the Elder Scrolls canon. He’s really my own creation, so I wanted his outfit to be my creation too.
This is Daevion’s final design. He no longer lives in a fantasy universe; he now lives in an alternate present. Alternate, because how else could he still be an elf then XD I still have to write his new backstory, but he’s the same as before as for his personality. I’ll have to draw a better reference picture with colors, but as you can imagine his sweater is crimson and grey, his trousers are grey and his shoes are black. As for his necklace, the actual design is the one under his right hand.
He looks so elegant :> I like him even more now.

This is Hydride. Here we’re talking about another alternate present in which people are beginning to modify their bodies using cybernetic parts. Hydride - which is not his real name, of course - modified himself so to enhance his physical capabilities. He had a very strong reason for doing so. I don’t know what this reason is yet, but I know that, since he implanted a cyber hand on his dominant right, he had to learn to write with his left hand. The wires on his upper body don’t allow him to wear anything on his torso anymore, thus why he’s half naked. The rest of his clothing is very practical. As you can see, the upper part of his trousers is a bit larger than how it should be so to not rub against the wires down there, but they are also very tight on his legs and tucked into his boots so they won’t fall down. One could ask why didn’t repair his eyes so to stop wearing glasses, but he likes them, and that’s all about it.

Concept sketches. The colored sketch is his very first concept; the glasses were added later. I spent a good day working on his design, in case you were wondering. The first idea was to make him into an enemy for Sheila, but that was very silly since he’s a human and Sheila is an anthro fennec. This idea was dropped for good right after sketching him here.
I should really write a more detailed entry about my creative process, but know that for me is very important to understand how a character feels into his skin and to have his design making sense rather than being just pretty. For this, I even spent a few days wearing wires all over me to understand how does it feel. One would think that all those wires make walking hard and tripping easy, but I found out that’s not true and that after a while you end up considering them a part of your body. I also found out that people is more prone to notice someone who walks in a weird way than a person covered in wires. How else could I have made these discoveries?
But I’m getting off topic. Anyway, Hydride will probably be something like an evil guy in his universe. He seems to be such an important character, so I’m taking my time to write his story.

Margareth Stone belongs to the same universe as Hydride. She’s 31 and works in a cybernetic parts research center. She’s not brilliant at all, though; she just makes some components and that’s it, the big projects are in the hands of her superiors. Margareth is very average in everything, actually, and she’s not a beauty either. Her fashion sense is also questionable.
Her husband left her a few years ago because he realized his life was boring and that he could have much more. He was really one for adventure; he married Margareth before he could understand that part of himself. Margareth even let him have his way with other women without objecting, but in the end he couldn’t cope with this lie anymore. The problem is, he left his wife alone with their three-years-old child. All that’s left of Margareth’s family is her old mother and a sister who lives far away, so she had great problems in taking care of the kid, who had in the meanwhile become her only reason to live.
Luck turns to her side when a project for enhancing the brain’s capabilities with the help of technology comes to the human testing phase. Offering herself as a test subject, she has the right to work a lot less and be paid a lot more for only being in the project, with the downside that of course it’s her brain, so if something breaks down she’ll have to run to the center and get fixed as soon as possible. But even like this, the risks are not very high - she was also among the people who made the parts for that project, so she knows how the whole thing works.
So, she undergoes surgery and the top of her head is changed with a metal dome that can be opened to check what’s going on. Because of that she can’t have hair anymore, but since she doesn’t want to freak out people she always wears a wig. Now that she’s a test subject she has got enough time and money to take care of her kid, but she’s also become a lot different from before; she can now memorize and learn everything without effort, retrieve information from any part of her brain at any time and think a lot faster. So, her way to see the world changes as well…
And that’s when her backstory ends and her story begins.

You’re going to hear a lot more about Hydride, Margareth and their universe. There will be new characters and new details. For the time being, every post in which I’m mentioning this alternate universe will be tagged as “unnamed saga”. I’m going to rename the tag in the future, of course. It’s just a placeholder.

LOOK WHO’S BACK
this didn’t turn out as planned but well it’s still cute
There would be two more pics with them but they’re suggestive so I’ll be posting them in another entry, another time.

Phew, I’ve finally finished writing this epic entry, to bed now