Sketchbook July 2019 - October 2020 + Commentary (Patreon)

I have my most recently scanned sketchbook here for you all today! I did a lot of comics work in this time period which is why the time frame is so long for this one. I drew Red Muscle chapter 7 and was writing and drafting ideas for Weekend With Yuka for a lot of this, and there's even some doodles of upcoming red muscle ideas from chapter 8 and beyond. So let's get into it!

I was still in the planning phase for some print ideas early in the sketchbook, you can see me drawing Brighid and Morag to practice for my print of them. I was also toying more with the Metal Slug idea that I had mentioned in the last sketchbook post but was never satisfied with a composition or how I was drawing the characters. I'll come back to it soon but I knew I wasn't going to like what I made for it back then. There's a few loose doodles here of figuring out Yuka's new look still and a tiny bit of trying to remember how to draw my cashier girl from the magic romance story, but I haven't touched that story since.

I was trying to develop out the scene of Yuka and Ren going outdoors early because I thought it would be fun to have them go on a hike to get to a mountaintop and take pictures there. The scene now is a bit less ambitious with them going out into the forest instead but I think it maybe fits a little better. There was potential there though! It was even going to be a cover idea to have them climbing a bit which would have looked cool but I didn't use it. I was drawing a lot of Rens because I wasn't secure in her new hair shape and how to make it feel more unique, with the bangs starting to get a little bit too similar to Scarlet. They're still pretty close to hers now but I try to keep the bangs thicker and messier.

I don't get particularly risque in my sketchbooks often but I was hitting that point in red muscle where I knew I wanted to have Scarlet and Edgar have a more mature and playful relationship canonically. This is around the time I decided to stop caring about trying to make Red Muscle be an all ages type of story because it was costing getting to express these characters as I really want to. I started pursuing some sexier ideas that were playful but still true to the characters and I think I want that to be a staple in the future but not to distract from the story as a whole. I want Scarlet to be pretty active in her advances towards Edgar because I've been building out that they are both more or less know that they love each other and Scarlet wants to be in a relationship. This idea evolved a bit since these drawings but I originally wanted Scarlet to try to get them both more comfortable with the idea of seeing each other naked so she was going to ask Edgar to take a shower with her. The idea was definitely going to be NSFW and they'd do it in the shower but I think that was maybe coming on a little strong lol. The plan now is that they go to the hot springs that Flip Flops recommended to Scarlet and just hang out naked in the water together and  talk about personal stuff and bond on an emotional level! I still want a scene where Edgar sees Scarlet naked directly and is allowed to look (as opposed to ch1) and he gets a boner and is embarrassed about it but Scarlet plays it cool and feels good about being seen as attractive by the person she likes. I'll have to find a good way to make it tasteful and try to balance the nude screen time between them both so it's not JUST fan service but has purpose, but we will get there when we get there.

There's also a few scenes from ch7 I had to scribble out on paper like the fight scene which was a big deal for me because that whole chapter's goal was to choreograph a good fight. I was pretty dissatisfied with my previous attempts at fighting in the comic to that point and wanted to do something stronger. There's also a few drawings trying to visualize the ideas I was building up for ch8, like Ricki talking to Scarlet in her room. You'll hopefully see that chapter completed before too long, but if not then I'll have some WIPs to post for $5 patrons in the meantime.

There's also a handful of doodles for my ninja girl trying to build out that world more but I never found anything concrete I wanted to grab onto. I was exploring ideas of having some characters from different cultures like some spanish pirates or some european warrior types to contrast against ninja girl's japanese inspired look but I'll have to come back to it eventually.

This sketchbook was jam packed with explorations for what has turned into Yolli, my magical horned woman who controls fire and can manipulate "creativity" which is a broad term that can cover problem solving, personal expressions (usually of love but just all communication) and life. I've mentioned it before on my old patreon post where I made her first design, I was trying to take the things I thought were fun about Ah My Goddess and put the ol' Rudy spin on it to try to make it a little more sexy and give the female lead more agency and personality. I tried all sorts of depictions of civilization's first depiction of a goddess, early religious deities like daemons and djinn, and sort of settled on a not quite goddess, not quite human creature that I forget the specific name of. This was her design for a little while but as I was trying to build out her world and other characters I was starting to feel this urge to start making my work have more mexican characters and aesthetics that felt like was true to me and be something i'd be proud to represent.

Towards the end of this sketchbook I had decided to attempt a new design for Yolli, who was named Xochitl for a tiny bit but it felt like too generic of a name for her. I was thinking of her being a deity with elements of the Pronghorn which is native to north america in my attempt to make the design more fitting to be Mexican. I forget if I mentioned it anywhere but Yolli which is derivative of the Nahuatl word for heart (mostly listed as Yollotl but sometimes Yoli or Yolli), which I thought was a cute idea that fit her. There's a few drawings here of some early attempts at the actual main character (the guy) who I had a vibe of what I wanted but didn't have the visual vocabulary to draw right away. I'm still searching for his final look but I think I've honed in on something that I have a hard time drifting away from. This last page here was some studies from some youtube videos of architecture and apartments in parts of Mexico, trying to learn more about how I want this world Yolli inhabits to look.

This design was really fun for a little bit, sexier and more specific than her first design, but I found that her hair was really not enjoyable to draw and her face was more or less the same as my current trend of sharp eyes and big juicy lips. I decided I wanted to give her a more Mexican or Native American look to her face and drew what I consider her final design because I'm really quite happy with how she looks now. I wanted big and wild hair that looked beautiful but also uncontrolled and stumbled on some refs I had saved of Patti Smith and the look completed her in a way that I love. She's got that messy witchy vibe now that really fits her free and uninhibited personality that I've planned. The jewelry and clothing is still up in the air but her physical appearance is pretty solid, I think.

lastly, I have my exploration for my Tomb Raider inspired idea! The first page was actually just my attempt at my own Lara Croft because I have a weird love of her as a concept but think I would have made her differently if I had the chance. I had that idea floating around in my head for most of the time this sketchbook was being drawn in and I finally decided I wanted to turn it into my own thing, kind of like co-opting the Tomb Raider aesthetic because I wanted it to be mine, haha.

I have an attachment to Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft and wanted that to be my starting point, trying to study her face and find the key elements that I was particularly attracted to. I wanted her to look a little more hispanic and modernize her outfit to make it a little more fashionable while still trying to be practical (even if only a little bit). I knew I wanted all the fixings of the TR/Uncharted world exploration but I wasn't really into turning ancient non-european civilizations into holders of dark magic relics and booby trapped mazes guarded by creatures or terrorists or something like that. The final idea hasn't been honed in on yet but I think it would be cool to have it be some sort of otherworldly object that she is called to find after stumbling on a small fragment of it on her explorations that gives her heightened physical abilities. I also wanted the comic to be sort of a meta thing with how society sort of viewed Lara Croft as a character both as a feminist icon of a strong female lead in a really dry period for good representation as well as blatant Sex Appeal that erases her as something beyond a beautiful body that you get to control. I feel like Lara Croft is both of these things and I thought it would be interesting to think about what that would mean to the woman who knows that she is strong and sexy and isn't trying to be anyone's role model. It's a tricky issue that I want to study more so I can write something strong since I don't think I've formed my thoughts on it fully, especially coming late to Tomb Raider since I never played it growing up.

Anyways, that's all I have for you today! Comics are still on break but I've been gathering doodles over the past few weeks as I try to build my ability to explore "funny" which I can talk more about another time. Next post will be another WWY update!

Also, my PDF was too big for Patreon so I'm just going to post a link to a google drive file i guess LOL:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sCI2pXXtBXd4xSJbx275bplhD910CytI/view?usp=sharing