Sketch Sunday 3

by on September 1, 2019 at 7:19 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

Woah hey guys, looks like it’s sketch sunday time! Skipped last week due to fatigue, but I’m back on track with some cool(?) sketches and a scrapped lineart to show. Nowadays, I’m posting links to instagram since it’s probably the easiest way to share them.

First up, we have the scrapped Gwen lineart from last comic. I wanted Gwen to have a happy reaction to something for once, so I drew this. Later on I realized that Whitney would be more in character having this reaction, so I drew over it. I kept the Gwen lining just for this.

Next, we have Gwen in a trash can, thrown in there by Maria, who is spraying her with a bottle of hand sanitizer. Inspired by a conversation/halfhearted RP where me and Gwen’s biggest fan (prove me wrong) somehow got on the subject of Gwen getting dumped in the trash by her sister. I mentioned her sister spraying her hand with hand sanitizer, but made it look like she was spraying it at Gwen in the trash.

Next up is Fiona and her Pa, who will be formally introduced in the next issue. I’m still waiting on his design to be finished so it’ll have to wait before you see his face.

Fourth we have the Engirls dressed up as the Harvey girls from the Netflix show Harvey Street Kids/Harvey Girls Forever (seriously what is this show called, asking for a friend). I mostly drew it since I saw the insane similarities between my characters and the characters in HSK/HGF, espeicially Lotta and Whitney. Unfortunately the pic I drew of both Lotta and Whitney isn’t here.

Instead, we have number 5! The Engirls when they were ~10-11. I drew this mainly as a speculative idea and to practice the difference between UK and US school uniforms. Most primary schools in the UK so far as I know wear uniforms and they are a little more sophisticated than American uniforms, which are mostly just a polo and a knee-length skirt with maybe a suit if you’re on the east coast or sweater on the west coast. I’m no expert in uniforms, my only sources are Derry Girls and Hilda.

Anyway, you can follow the Engirls over on the NEW instagram at https://www.instagram.com/theengirls/ or @theengirls. Catch you next time!

Comments Off on Sketch Sunday 3

Sketch Sunday 2

by on August 18, 2019 at 7:44 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

Hey everyone! It’s sketch sunday! I have some sketches from earlier this summer since I wasn’t able to sketch during this busy week. Anyway, here they are.

Apparently the giants are winning?

Not much to say here besides Gwen – being adopted into Bouginess – is a giants fan. Yes, she can afford those tickets for garlic fries at whatever-tech-company-is-buying-out-San-Francisco Park

NO FIONA

No, Fiona is not a fan of Dropkick Murphys. Little known fact: Fiona is actually a naturally born American citizen. She was born in Boston at some point in the early 90s that I am vague about for no reason. Thus, even though she almost immediately moved to Scotland with her Pa, she has dual citizenship.

Legally Engirls

I got this done around a few weeks ago when I was bored at my minor job as an assistant. I had tons of legal paper around me and a vacant drawing hand, so I just idly sketched out Whitney. Amazed at my apparent getting Whitney’s proportions right on a pen, I decided to move onto Gwen, to varying degrees of effect. Next up was Fiona, who I feel like might have been a bit too short. Welp.

Woah, Fanart?

If you guys haven’t seen Twelve Forever yet, I’d say go check it out! At times it could be a bit too childish for me, but Reggie’s social struggles really hit home with me. Also, Esther and Todd remind me of some of my friends and it’s really funny to see their antics (woah, a word that’s shorter and much easier to understand than shenanigans! Maybe I should rebrand…) in both the colorful world of Endless and the Iowa-esque land of Bethune, Iowa. As for why I drew Reggie in a dress, let’s just say her mom might have been involved a little bit.

And for the last gallery image, it’s Fiona and Gwen in Swimsuits! Fiona here rocking the twin buns and swimsuit skirt, which is unfortunate because she can’t see the little kid trapped in the sand in front of her. Gwen over here rocking the 50’s era hand me down probably and the wish that she could wear something that wasn’t going to give her a farmer’s tan (or farmer’s burn if you’d prefer).

That’s all I got for you this week. The page is going strong and is scheduled to come out tomorrow still. See you then!

Comments Off on Sketch Sunday 2

On Hiatus (until 8/19)

by on August 16, 2019 at 7:29 am
Posted In: Uncategorized

Hey everyone,

This week I decided to take a break because I’m temporarily going up to 40 hours. Basically, I’m trying to take this as an opportunity to get some rest and focus on work for a week before I get back on track. I am still lining the page, but the page should come out this monday, August 19. Afterwards, I’ll get back to my regularly scheduled Thursday release.

This shouldn’t affect the status of Sketch Sunday, as I’m planning on maintaining my sketching as practice. In the meantime, may I suggest some other webcomics for reading? Here’s some of the webcomics that got me inspired and helped me get started.

  1. Questionable Content.
    The long running comic by Jeph Jacques is one of my go-tos when it comes to demonstrating art evolution and the importance of sticking to your guns as an artist.
    The story itself stars Marten, a disgruntled post-grad living in Boston in the early 2000s who ends up meeting a girl – Faye – at the bar. One mishap with a toaster later and Faye ends up needing a place to stay, and who does she turn to? Oh, and also Marten’s computer is a havoc causing tiny little robot named Pintsized.
    It’s a pretty basic slice of life comic that’s easy to get sucked into if you’re bored for several hours.
  2. Scandinavia and the World.
    Remember Axis Powers: Hetalia? Hopefully you don’t, but if you do, then you probably love world events being portrayed by humanized Countries and cross-cultural misunderstandings. Thus, you should probably check out Scandinavia and the World!
    Denmark is a frequently drunk but free willed party animal. Sweden is your nerdy techno geek. Norway loves nature and is pretty laid back over all. Together, they make for some funny scandinavian dudes, reacting to everything from Eurovision, to territorial disputes, to world wars, even just to random interactions between tourists. It also has the US, who is shown as a loud, obnoxious guy who randomly gets a tan because the author found the US’s demographics. It’s a fun comedy webcomic that you don’t need to read in order.
  3. Bobbins/Scary Go Round.
    If you know me in real life, there’s a chance I might have tried to gush to you about John Allison and how great his comic Giant Days is. Selling a slice of life comedy is pretty hard (I should know), so why not read one of his other series?
    Bobbins is a pretty standard Slice of Life comic, mostly featuring the characters Shelley Winters and Tim Jones interacting with friends. Allison himself doesn’t recommend the comic to others, and seeing as it’s been out since the 90’s, it can be pretty hard to read. I managed to finish it in 3 months and is to date the only finished webcomic I’ve read to the end.
    Scary Go Round, on the other hand, takes some of Allison’s funniest characters, namely Shelley Winters, Amy Chilton, Ryan Beckwith, and super spy Fallon Young, and throws them into a much less forgiving but even more britishly hilarious plot. It mostly centers around Shelley and Amy working through various supernatural problems across the town of Tackleford in western Yorkshire. This can be anything from uncovering a secret satanic cult to Ryan falling in love with a french woman living in a trailer only for her to get assassinated and sent to hell, to Shelley herself uncovering a secret plan by the Portuguese Man O’ War to take over the world. Needless to say, it’s pretty dense with wacky plotlines.
    This is also where many characters seen in future John Allison comics make their debut, like Esther De Groot from Giant Days and Lottie Grote from Bad Machinery.

I’m always open to new suggestions for webcomics and regular comics to read. Why don’t you suggest some to me?

Comments Off on On Hiatus (until 8/19)

Sketch Sunday 1

by on August 11, 2019 at 10:32 pm
Posted In: Sketch Sunday

Hey everyone! I wanted to try something new. Now, besides the normal weekly page that you all see every thursday, I do a lot of sketching on the side. A lot of it is conceptual, like planning outfits for the Engirls or other characters to draw, I also feel like posting them, yet I feel like they’d belong in the scrap pile of DeviantArt if anything.

So, I decided to start Sketch Sunday – where I post the little things I draw on the side. Now, this can be anything from my own fanart to some cool sketches of the Engirls to some of my old, old, old, old drawings. That simply depends on what is available at the time and if I drew something new I feel like sharing. Anyway, here’s the first entry:

The Engirls at an A’s game

When it comes to sports, I’m more likely to ignore anything and everything. However, I have a special place in my heart for baseball. I used to play in little league back in the day and loved just watching games. I was never any good at it, but I managed to really get into it as I grew up. Then, my home team, the San Francisco Giants, won a World Series in 2010 – the same year the Engirls was first thought up. I rejoiced and shoved it in the face of my cubs fan friend and proceeded to celebrate it by buying a Minnesota Twins and Kansas City Royals hat. Yeah. I’m lame.

Anyway, that Twins hat really stuck with me, because a lot of Whitney’s backstory was about her coming from Minnesota. It also helped that I was first getting into the Replacements and the movie Fargo, so Minnesota seemed like this mystical midwestern wonderland. Even to this day I have a special place in my heart that I will so dearly appropriate when the time comes for Whitney’s backstory to happen.

Anyway, enough backstory. I drew other pictures of the Engirls in Baseball regalia, so maybe I can post that at a later date.

A badly drawn background picture of the Engirls on a hike

This summer I rekindled my love of hiking – by going on two hikes. Now, I’m not at that point in the comic yet, but eventually, the Engirls are going to have some outdoor adventures. Expect a lot of sunburns, dehydration, and panic amongst the crowd as they scale mountains and traverse marshes. It’s the Bay Area after all, they might just get a breeze or something.

I mostly wanted to draw this to have Whitney suffering there in the background. I don’t particularly enjoy it when she does, it’s just extremely relatable.

And finally…

Now this is something I’d like to do more often: the Engirls just doing stuff while I practice new poses. I drew these at work on my tiny sketchbook, so I could carry it around my bag with ease.

The first is Gwen taking a selfie. The reason: why not? It might also be a super common angle for me in the future.

The second: Whitney eating a burrito. The Taco queen herself is very much a fan of mexican food in general. When she is especially hungry, though, she loves the hulking burritos her local taqueria sells. Stuffed with onions and salsa verde, they’re guaranteed to make your mouth burn, but Whitney loves how stuffed to the brim with carnitas and rice they are. Based on a true story.

The third: Fiona in a highland great kilt and a claymore. Everyone knows Braveheart was a terrible movie that bore no resemblance to history (especially since William Wallace wasn’t the braveheart, that was Robert the Bruce) but the Kilt was probably one of the first clothes I loved. Everything, from the tartan pattern, to the odd plural, to even the accessories like the sporran and hose just seemed nice. Fiona is my excuse to experiment with their wear.

Anyway, that’s enough of waxing lyrical about the Kilt, I’d like to thank you all for reading what is going to hopefully be a weekly blogpost. May this blog section reign with terror over my actual comic!

Comments Off on Sketch Sunday 1