❝ Sketchtember "Books"


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inspiration SSRPG character Paige Harden ( née Skeeter) (sweetpinkpixie)
materials Ohuhu brush tip markers, copic fine inking pens 0.3

Yet another obvious one from the random generator, Paige is my little author (to date she has two poetry books published and a handful or articles and short stories in various magazines and anthologies) and it was a complete coincidence that her name is a homophone of 'page'. As a student at Hogwarts, she was always writing in her journal (she had a few for various purposes) and read often...so there is a very obvious connection between her and books. I did not just want to draw a stack of books and leave it at that, even if they are meant to represent her own journals, so on top of the open book is a sprig of jacaranda flowers. Another totally unintentional coincidence is the symbolism of these particular flowers which I happened to stumble upon long after I had started playing her as a Hufflepuff first year.

Paige is also a Seer and has struggled with this ability for the majority of her life since it began manifesting itself. At first she was drawn to some 'power spots' of prophets, oracles, and seers from the past...she first found a calling to Greece and the Temple of Apollo. In Harry Potter, we know that magic always leaves traces, so when Paige visited the temple her Inner Eye resonated with the ancient energies of the Oracle of Delphi. There are also some loose connections with the goddess Athena, who is a goddess Paige always felt a connection to...mostly because she was always depicted with an owl and owls are her favorite animal.

Years later, while struggling even more with her Sight and who she was, Paige began feeling a connection to Argentina for some reason and spent time volunteering there during the summer. The allure to the country only grew over time and once I started doing some research into things I found out about the jacaranda flowers and how they bloom in November and Buenos Aires its just covered in a blanket of purple. Paige has always loved flowers (one of her best subjects in school was Herbology) so this was a really nice little coincidence to stumble upon. Paige is also extremely interested in the language of flowers, so I naturally had to look up information on these flowers and what I ended up finding was just...I couldn't have planned it better if I even tried :lol: Turns out these flowers have a connection to an Amazonian goddesss who is sort of an equivalent to Athena...and so it was Paige's Inner Eye also guiding her in this direction and towards another sort of power spot to help her come to terms with her Sight.

I was absolutely mind blown that all these little hunches and instincts for where to take her in adulthood accumulated into this completely coincidental series of deep cross cultural and continental connections from ancient civilizations and just...RPGing is a crazy ride, isn't it? :sprinklelove:

❝ Sketchtember "Clown"


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inspiration SSRPG character Joshua Miller (sweetpinkpixie)
materials Ohuhu brush tip markers, copic multiliner (brown) 0.3

Josh was a character I received from the one and only ArianaBlack a character swap event during the 2019 Wrackspurts and Roleplays event. One of the many things she is known infamously for is her insistence that when having a bowl of cereal you must pour it milk first. As a bit of homage to her, as I received him from her, I made one of his character quirks that he pours everything milk first...including tea. Right around the time of his creation there was a little meme floating around asking how people take their coffee/tea and there was a color gradient based on how much milk you do or do not put into it. Such an outcry was had from our UK members about the lighter shades of tea...that it was just too easy to make my confused and disaster prone American nugget one of THOSE people. So now it is a running gag with him that he never knows how to brew a proper cup of tea (and many of attempted to teach him...but he just always gets it oh so wrong).

So, nothing (er...actually...let's not go so far as to say nothing :lol:) makes Joshua Alphonse Miller look as much like a clown as a cup of tea.

This doodle shows the triumphant return of nubs for hands and an attempt at doing a different form of chibi mouth - the lip bite. I think my favorite part of it is the coloring and shading on his skin. I also gave my other line art pens a go and the brown really does soften up things a bit. I have grey and magenta as well, so you can expect to see those pop up at some point. I never thought about different colored line art other than black until I saw DrawingWiffWaffles use these same brown pens and it was just like :bcscience:

For the record, science has proven that there are more health benefits to pouring your milk first when it comes to tea and having the leaves steep in the tea. But that's for neither here nor there.

❝ Sketchtember "Prince"


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inspiration SSRPG character Sachiko Shiradou-Morrison and once was Black (sweetpinkpixie)
materials Ohuhu brush tip markers, copic fine inking pens 0.3

So...Sachiko. High fashion model located in Paris who is incredibly high strung, selfish, and pretty much emotionally closed off. Once divorced and a true empress at self sabotage when it comes to any and all of her relationships, it is crazy to look back at the little girl she was when I first started playing her. Born in the Leaky Cauldron (her dad was my shopkeeper character and somewhere in the archives there are posts of him running through the streets yelling about his girlfriend Harley (then assistant at the Leaky and played by pundantic) going into labor. As a little girl, she loved pink and dreamed of all the ways her life could unfold like a fairy tale. She would dress up her dad's pathetic looking white cat to look like the Beast and the family dalmation would turn into a handsome steed with a prince riding on his back. She was a super girly girl, but she also liked catching frogs and getting muddy in the process. She was the sort of little girl to find a frog and give it a kiss just to see if it would turn into a prince. She is also in the Diagon Alley archives doing just that at a festival at some point in her pre school age days.

And then...the fairy tale came to an end and she stopped believing in romance and true love's kiss. Jaded, petty, and toxic, Sachiko is ... :upside:

I am very pleased with how the little frog turned out as well as her profile. I usually only draw my chibi's head on or with a slight tilt of the head, so it was a little lsdkfjslfjs doing so in profile and getting that little pucker to work. But I am the biggest fan of the frog and his little crown :frog: The Ohuhu skin tones set is truly amazing and I love how they blend (there are three shades use for her skin).

And with that...page two of my sketchbook for this challenge is complete:
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❝ Sketchtember "Cocktail"


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inspiration SSRPG character Eiji Rasting (sweetpinkpixie) & featuring Missa Renaldi (Samia)
materials Ohuhu brush tip markers, copic multiliner (brown, gray, magenta) 0.3, white uni-ball signo pen um-153

This is another RP moment inspired piece. The prompt of cocktail for Eiji was easy to make instant references to potions and alchemy, his forte, but when approaching this particular piece I really wanted to focus on something revolving these subjects of interest that really really stuck out and impacted Eiji and his development...which instantly brought to mind a scene from the early days of his relationship with Missa.

Eiji was known for being a very gifted potioneer even as a first year, but one year his little sister (Becky Rasting, previously featured here) broke into his private potions stores and misread his coded labeling while taking a potion. She had meant to make a Cheering Concoction to slip into the dough of the cookies she was making everyone for Valentine's Day (naively just wishing everyone to have a happy day) and took instead a love potion...mass chaos ensued. Eventually things were pinned back to Eiji seeing as Becky was terrible at potions and the fact that Eiji had a love potion in his possession sent Missa's mind in a tizzy. Young love is overwhelming on its own and especially for a couple as co-dependent as Miss and Eiji are, and for Missa these intense and new emotions developing so quickly caused her to question whether they really were real or whether, MAYBE, Eiji had fabricated them all and that was why he was in possession of a love potion.

So...Missa asked.

The above depiction looks rather comical, which is more a reflection of them now looking back (thankfully they can laugh at themselves....ish) rather than how it felt in the moment because it was intense. Eiji was insulted and put off by the sheer notion that Missa would even think him capable of doing something so deceitful and Missa was so overwhelmed with how strongly she was feeling. The, uh, heated argument turned out to be the first time Eiji would say the words 'I love you' to Missa and he poured the rest of his love potion out and promised never to brew one (just to see if he could manage it) again.

Just like with the time I drew Eiji for Seektober last year...I love how his hair turned out :xd: He absolutely hates how dramatic his surprise and upset look, since he really does not emote that way, but it basically is how he had been feeling on the inside during the whole conversation. Missa's little scramble egg eyes are a favorite aspect too and I just love that style to depict weeping eyes. And again, as always, praise be to my Ohuhu skin tones set because...I am obsessed.

❝ Sketchtember "Now"


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inspiration SSRPG character Victor García Massey (sweetpinkpixie)
materials Ohuhu brush tip markers, copic fine inking pens 0.3, white uni-ball signo pen um-153

[how it started] Abandoned as a child and thrown into the system from a very young age, Victor grew up without attachments to any one place while also being in love with cities and places he had never been to. Born in Spain but eventually making his way to America where he found some semblance of stability in a group home. A Thunderbird with a restless heart and spirit, he dropped out of Ilvermorny and packed everything he owned into a backpack and took off into the world and wandered wherever fate seemed to want to take him. Everywhere he traveled, he was sure to leave some memory of the location on his bag whether that be a patch from the area or a local textile from it. Over the years, these mementos became necessary to fix up all the wear and tear his backpack endured from his travels and very little of the original material of the bag remains. For nearly two decades, his entire life was contained in this backpack that he never unpacked and only took out of it what he required in the moment. Not knowing where he came from and feeling no desire to become attached anywhere, Victor lived exclusively in the present - the past was over and the future would get here whenever it got here - and would only stay in the same location for a few months, the most a year, and then move on to somewhere else and adapt to his new environment.

Victor being assigned the prompt of 'now' was an incredibly emo assignment. His backpack being a literal map of everywhere he had been up to now was an easy association. It is more than just a record leading to the present and it along with its contents a sort of physical manifestation of 'now' and was utilized in whatever means necessary to deal with the present as well...like using it as a pillow while sleeping on the ground and benches due to having no where to call home, not enough money to pay for somewhere to stay, or simply being off the beaten track so far that there were no other options.

What is especially emo is that now, in the current timeline, after being consumed by his wanderlust the majority of his life and after tipping over into his 30's...is that he had finally found somewhere (rather, someones) who he has made a home in and there are attachments to places and people (Stemp House, its residence, its staff, and his girlfriend) that have encouraged him to reflect and let go of only living in the present so he can consider the future. Just this last IC year he, for the first time since he was 10, unpacked his backpack of almost everything (some things were still kept in there - old habits and all that) and did not feel the itch to just take off and remake himself somewhere else. He likes where he is...and thinks about his future with what he has and what he wants - which is a WHOLE other little emo spiral :butshy:

I am particularly proud of how the weathering look on the bag turned out with the various shades of brown mixed in with some gray tones. It could use a lot more (this bag has been THROUGH it) but I was getting worried about the paper being able to take on more of the ink and still blend nicely. It has really been a lot of fun experimenting with using grays to create other shades and effects:pea:

❝Yumeki Kawatani

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inspiration SSRPG character Yumeki Kawatani (Uncle Moose)
materials Adobe Photoshop Elements 9

A private request from Jay for his new-to-site character for Term 61 :sprinklelove: This basically gave me permission to play around with pink tones as the prompt was ~cherry blossom vibes~. There are actual cherry blossoms in the background, though as a texture they have been modified a bit and then all the color adjustment layers turned them into a very subtle effect. Quite pleased with how these turned out and could not decide on a layout so...there are options :lol: Kind of give me shojo manga turned into a live action movie poster vibes :rotfl:

❝ MerMay "egg"


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inspiration prompt #29 "egg" and a tadpole
materials Ohuhu brush tip markers, copic fine inking pens 0.1, Gelly R@ll White 1.0

It has been a moment since I picked up a pencil and sketched something that wasn't ice cream for my online students, so there was a lot of erasing involved before I felt like body proportions and especially the tail looked the way I 'wanted' it to. I had messed around with her hair for a bit too...and then the spiral just stuck and it seemed to flor with the rest of her body position and the round shape of a tadpole's head...so it stuck :lol: The sketch itself did not take all that long, surprisingly, and instead of inking my line art first...I put the color down and then inked. This was a recommendation from a couple of YouTubers that I watch and, honestly, it did take a lot of pressure off when it came to the line art because the color was already there and the process went much smoother.

I've tried to participate in MerMay in the past...drew a couple of fruit mermaids two years ago and entirely missed doing anything in May last year. Not sure how much I will be able to accomplish this May, but going to give it a solid go!

❝ MerMay "bubble"


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sketch phase

inspiration prompt #23 "bubble" and a bubble bath
materials Ohuhu brush tip markers, copic fine inking pens 0.1, Gelly R@ll White 1.0

First thing that came to mind with the word bubble was that scene in The Little Mermaid where Ariel is taking a bath and she catches and blows bubbles. I hate with a fiery passion drawing hands...so I wasn't about to attempt hands cradling some bubbles...but I couldn't get the bubble bath image out of my head so stuck with that and hid the hands :lol: She almost looks like my character Candela if she were a mermaid. Almost. I think her inspiration is certainly in here though.

And a nice long warm bubble bath is precisely how I like to wind down my days. With Tea. And Netflix :lol:

❝ MerMay "swamp"


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inspiration prompt #22 "swamp" and a bubble bath
materials Ohuhu brush tip markers, copic fine inking pens 0.1, Gelly R@ll White 1.0

Falling behind, horribly so, with keeping up with MerMay content...but mostly just glad to have some time to doodle a bit and to be playing around with my Ohuhu markers again and making more of a dent in my first proper sketchbook. Astrid (astrocat) gave me the framework of 'mermaid swamp princess' so I found some palette references and settled on this one for coloring and some shapes. I had initially thought about combining prompts, so her tail is based on some hippocampus art...but I feel like it is not representative enough of a hippocampus to count as two prompts. In any case, tail shape comes from those creatures :lol: Probably could use some more browns :hmm: I think whatever prompt I tackle next, I really want to dip into my brown markers more :pea:

❝ MerMay "coral"


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inspiration prompt #22 "coral" and R1 coral pink Ohuhu marker
materials Ohuhu brush tip markers, copic fine inking pens 0.1, Gelly R@ll White 1.0

I have a favorite shade in my OG Ohuhu markers that is 'coral pink'. For it being such a favorite color...I rarely use it. SOOOOOO, then the prompt or coral came up...I had to use it. Everything else is basically based around that one color and it really gives her a warm tone. She also seems to be rather inspired by Candela and her FC actually has photos where her hair looks something like this...so I guess my little budding fashion designer is just meant to be a mermaid. Her interests lay more in air and flight, butterflies to be exact, or flora when it comes to design...but maybe she needs to lean into her love for the beach and ocean a little more :lol:

Anywhoo...with four mermaids on this page..I don't think I will be doodling anymore or else colors bleed a bit and it get crowded...so at least I have one page done for MerMay.
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