It's Nearly Christmas!

I can't believe how quickly this year has gone! Admittedly it doesn't feel like Christmas/December yet. I keep hearing rumours of a horrible snow storm about to hit England, which I am dreading a little. This country doesn't cope with snow very well so it tends to grind to a halt when it hits. I try to avoid driving at all costs but with some sources implying the snow could last upwards of a month I may have to.

Saying that I can't say I'm looking forward to this Christmas. It'll be the first one since my gran passed back in June and I know her spot at the dinner table will stick out like a sore thumb. Likewise it also means the tradition of "Mum gets my gran, we open presents, have lunch, I drive gran home (my mum has had a few drinks by this point), relax with family, repeat on Boxing day minus presents" obviously won't happen so that will feel weird. Saying that, as a friend once said to me, that does mean it's time to create a new tradition.

Additionally this week has also been a bit meh so far. For starters I found out a close friend lost one of his cats to a car accident and his loss has been playing on my mind a lot since I heard the new. I'd even say it's been weighing down on it more so than my grandfather's funeral, which happened on Tuesday. As said before, thank you to everyone who'd offer their condolences before. The funeral proved to be a tad more difficult than I expected, mainly due to it reminding me of those I've lost over the years. However I also learning more about his difficulties growing up, which in turn may better explaining some of supposed horrid tendencies he had in later life. And of course there was the "joy" of interacting with members of my family that I'd prefer to stay away from them, especially in light of a few things I learned.

Finally I also got an engine warning light in my car when I was driving to the area the funeral was being held. Knock on wood it's not come back and I've driven a good 100 miles since, so I'm hoping it's just a glitch. Still it is going into a garage on Tuesday to check it over, so hopefully they won't find any issues and I'd rather the car go in before any issues become series. This does mean I'll be holding off doing any more commissions until after I either know the full scope of the issue or I next get paid.

Monthly OC Challenge

My self imposed Monthly OC Challenge has begun, with this month's focus being Theora "Snow" Daemond. So far I have re-drawn the "Stairwell Battle" piece, trying to incorporate feedback I got on the previous versions, as well as fixing anything I felt didn't look right before. I have the rough body drawn so it should be a case of adding in the detail and then inking, colouring and then making a digital version.

I wanted to write a few trivial points about the characters in each of these journals, as well as posting links to some of my favourite pics of them, so...

• Snow has quickly become one of my favourite OCs to work with, which is funny when you consider I never planned to revive her. She is often the first character of mine I'll ask an artist to draw
  
• As mentioned before, the current version started life as two separate characters - one I created many moons ago during the "FF Fan Fic days" but rarely used and the other I adopted from a friend. I randomly got the idea to combine them into a new character and have felt this accomplished so much more than I initially expected, opening up ideas and plotlines I don't think would have been possible with the previous versions.
• The constant re-naming was due to me wanting to make the Theora side more prevalent, especially as it's one of the first ones I created. However everyone, myself included, is so used to calling her Snow I don't think it would have the desired impact.
  
• I never planned for Snow to be bisexual. While it did evolve from her friendship with Janine Odonic I was initially unsure about making them lovers. However the idea did naturally flow from there.
• Likewise I never intended to make Snow and Velvet lovers, partly as the main reason I revived Janine was due to her relationship with Snow. I always viewed Velvet as Snow's counterpart in Galvatronus' roster, even paying tribute to her by having Snow wear her clothes in a scrapped pic. As with Snow and Janine, "Velvet Snow" (or "Vow") was a natural evolution after I adopted my friend's old character.
• Snow's design has been heavily influenced by others, namely toonartist, PactMaker and CMBaggs. The fact her current design is a hybrid of their ideas is one of the things I love most about working with and interacting with other artists; I love seeing aspects from their points of view and their ideas, then bringing them together to see what I can make from all of it.
• The blue nipples was a joke idea I came up with many moons ago but in turn has quickly become one of my favourite aspects of her.
• While the axe is her weapon of choice, as per CMBaggs' suggestion I do also plan for her to use hammers and maces.
  

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Mature Content

Mature Content

Mature Content

ART FOR OTHERS

Over the next couple of months I hope to draw some OCs for some of the other artists on this site. Now these won't be as high of a priority as some of the other art I am working on an due to my "month of Oc" idea, but I'm sure I'll work something out. As someone who loves other people's OCs, I am keen to draw these characters and dip my toes in other people's ideas. Currently I have in mind:

• User-2018225d's Athena and possibly his Egyptian woman
• Galvatronus' Scarlett Robyn
• DEADMANNARTWORKS's Azure
• kagato007's Ceira
• kaeveris' Qareveris
• StaciNadia's Illia

I'll also speak to toonartist about a character or two I could draw for him. This list will likely grow but as I've said before, it's priority will be less than my aforementioned "Art Plan", especially as I've struggled to get pictures for others done in the past.