Blog

4/21/2025

Hey hey hey, guess who put up their Etsy shop.

Not much to say today since I already said a lot last time, but my shop is officially up and running! It's a very small start since there's only three sticker designs on there as of now, but we all gotta get the ball rolling somewhere. My batch of stickers I ordered arrived just earlier today, so I got right to work making sure everything's ready. I hope people enjoy it once I spread the news.

There's already a lot of artwork that I'm really excited to make merch for. I have a whole folder dedicated to art I've made PNGs out of just so I can get them in future batches from my suppliers. I'm also hoping to eventually expand my stock beyond stickers, most notably charms and posters. One look at my Skyla art makes me crave a poster of it just for myself. Oh yeah, and the rest of y'all could get it too.

Fingers crossed this all works out nicely. I appreciate any support you give me.

-WB

4/11/2025

It's been a while, eh?

Yeah, I kinda forgot to write stuff for this page all month. I've been busy. Most notably, aside from my usual art output, I've started offering ways for my followers to directly support me through both Patreon and an upcoming Etsy shop (this is why I made that "chibi" Susie art recently, hehehehe). These were my priorities for the past few weeks, which led me to forget about maintaining this site. Sorry, babe.

I initially wasn't super into the idea of a Patreon, but after talking about it with some friends and hearing them yell at me to do it, I've officially taken the plunge. It mostly offers "early access" perks like seeing art a day before it's posted on my socials or getting access to WIPs and exclusive art that stays there for longer. I'd love to make more perks and content for it, but most of it will have to wait until more support is there.

Once I get the Etsy shop up and running, my main priority will be sticker production. I've got a ton of variants for that Susie made already, and I've taken some previous drawings and formatted them to fit a sticker, but the launch will likely be pretty small (ordering supplies for everything at once would put me back, like, 200 bucks lol). Similar to Patreon, I want to keep adding more designs (and maybe some more types of items) over time.

Maybe this is the overthinking part of me, but I do still feel a little weird about setting up two different monetary systems so close together. Admittedly, I do have to find multiple ways of making any bit of extra money I can, because being an artist fresh out of college puts you in a rough position job-wise. However, I wanna stress that if anyone were to take interest in these, there's absolutely no obligation to do so. These will mainly exist for people who just want to support me more directly if they so choose. Don't get me wrong, I'd be beyond thrilled if Patreon and Etsy funds could have me set for life, but that's just not realistic for the time being. I wanna make sure I'm offering these services while also not "selling out," if that makes sense. I hope it turns out that way.

Oh, by the way, the first exclusive art on Patreon will be a phone wallpaper of my Susie with her tits pressed to the screen, specifically at the request of my sister. kthxbye

-WB

3/2/2025

First post of the month. Now we're cooking.

A miracle happened recently, gamers: I got through some of my art backlog that I wrote about a while ago. The Flamberge gijinka is officially back, with an updated design and some extra doodles on the side. Only took a couple years. I'm also making more art of her right now, simply because I can. Hopefully I can give Francisca and Zan the same treatment soon; I ran a poll on Twitter to see if people wanted me to prioritize their respective revamps, and the vast majority really want that, so expect to see some more women in the coming months.

I'm also extremely happy with the reception towards the art. When it comes to gijinkas, I've gotten very used to Susie being my main "moneymaker," so to speak. But Flamberge ended up getting a pretty similar level of attention, and that was a delight to see. As much as I love making Susie art, and as much as I don't actually care about numbers when all is said and done, there is a part of me that knows any art I make that features other characters usually isn't gonna have quite the same reach. I'd love to make my Mage Sister designs more prominent among the group of characters I tend to draw, so maybe this is gonna be a good first step towards that.

Fingers crossed.

-WB

2/25/2025

Finally got another long-procrastinated-on drawing out of the way, and just in time for a special occasion too. A month or two ago, I thought it'd be a cute idea to draw my OCs as if they're recreating the Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe box art, mostly because I wanted to do at least something with them. It ended up being another drawing that got delayed pretty heavily, but it turns out that it was for the best, because the game's second anniversary was yesterday! It was fun having something that, intentional or not, would end up paying homage to one of my favorite games to come out in the past few years. I wasn't even gonna replicate the outline style or the whole-ass background, but one thing led to another, and now we've got another piece I'm super proud of.

Return to Dream Land Deluxe actually does mean a whole lot to me. Admittedly, the original game has been wearing off on me pretty hard over the past six-ish years. The issues I had with it just kept getting more in the way as time went on, and there's so much that I love about the other modern Kirby games that simply isn't there. It's not like I think it's a bad game or something, but by modern Kirby standards, it just feels so plain and barebones, borderline unfinished even. And then we ended up getting a perfect remake that not only addressed just about everything I could want, but also added a bunch of new things I never knew I wanted. I don't think I've ever felt so personally validated by a game's existence in my life, and it feels so good to say that there's a version of Return to Dream Land that I can truly consider on par with (and in some areas, maybe even better than) the absolute juggernauts that are Triple Deluxe, Planet Robobot, Star Allies, and Forgotten Land. Lemme tell ya, that remake absolutely slaughtered any chance of me going back to the original unless I need to for a video project (which I am working on piece-by-piece right now). Even with a remake so definitively better like Super Star Ultra, I can see some merits in going back to the original, thanks to the more accessible multiplayer and the different speedrun tech. Return to Dream Land Deluxe, though? Straight-up replaces the original with minimal compromise. What a game, dude.

If the Planet Robobot remake is real, it's in good hands.

-WB

2/20/2025

Iiiiiiiit's Thursday. It's like Friday, only the day before.

Mostly writing today so I can jot down some future art plans that I'll inevitably forget if I just let them stay in my brain. I always tell myself "I wanna draw this character," then proceed to not draw them for about a year. It's my curse to bear, being a slow artist with a lot of things I want to achieve.

First off, can y'all please make sure I draw some more Guilty Gear characters this year? I finally got Strive a few days ago and it got me in the mood to draw some of the cast, mainly Elphelt and Baiken (go figure). Maybe some more Bridget art is in order too. In particular, I've been meaning to draw Elphelt ever since I started becoming obsessed with her, so maybe the coming weeks are as good a time as any.

I also need to draw Squirrel Girl. She's another case where I've been brainrotting about her since Marvel Rivals came out. I should play the game itself too, but she's all I care about right now, and you guys can expect some art of her this year. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

My Flamberge gijinka is also a soon-to-be target. I promised everyone that I'd finally revive her for Black History Month (my gijinka is Blasian), but we're twenty days into February and there's still nothing for her. I should draw my Mage Sisters gijinkas more in general; the last time I drew Francisca and Zan were for their respective revivals, and I never really touched them again since. At least, outside of a couple commissions. So much for that, am I right? I swear, it's like I have artist ADHD.

Those are all my goals for right now. Maybe I could make this a habit for some blog posts. Either that, or I should just get off my ass, put it back onto my chair, and draw this stuff already. Y'know what? I'm gonna blame Octopath Traveler 2 for my procrastination. Been playing that a lot recently. Excellent game, by the way. Don't sleep on it. Perfect scapegoat for a silly artist.

-WB

2/14/2025

See, I told you this was gonna be a frequent thing.

The launch of the site has been great so far. I'm really glad to have it all out there, and even happier to know that people like it. And we've already got our first update in the form of both new art and this new blog post. We're locking in.

I've been wanting to keep up my annual tradition of drawing Sue, my catgirl OC, for Valentines Day, wearing her outfit made just for the occasion. So, I buckled down and pumped out this year's art in just a few hours. It put into perspective just how long it's been since I drew Sue's proper main design and not her chibi form. Funny, I spent all that time redesigning her and giving her new stuff in 2023, then 2024 flies by with barely anything relating to her. I need to step up my game. Looks like I'm setting all kinds of goals for myself this year.

I guess I can take some time to just talk about Sue in general, because I rarely get the chance to do so in most places. She always had a group of weird little animal friends to hang out with, but she was actually made pretty late in the game; I created each of my critter OCs throughout 2018, and she was probably the fifth or sixth member. Even then, she was only a tiny kitten with a yellow and black scarf, referencing a Hufflepuff cat design my sister got me at that point (it was a long time ago, we didn't become certified Rowling haters yet). I think in around 2019, I was toying with the idea of making human versions of some of my scrimblos, and I guess I picked Sue because her potential stood out to me the most. I had some sketchbook drawings of her that are probably lost to time now, but I eventually started making proper digital art depicting her soon after. She still had the scarf, but she was now a cute chubby girl with fluffy hair, a sweater, and leggings styled like that scarf. There were plenty of doodles I made over the next couple years, and my attachment to her got to the point where she became the new main character of the group.

Something I never told anyone, though, is that I started feeling like something was missing in her design after a while. I figured it was the slightly odd color palette for her outfit, so I started by just making her sweater a nice, soft purple, but still kept everything else about her, including the stripe motif. Although it worked for a little while, I realized I needed to do more. So, I began tinkering around with potential redesign ideas, just throwing ideas out and seeing what sticks. You can see the doodle I made in my gallery; I changed both her hair shape and hue, gave her big cat ears with a nick in one of them, added a yarn ball charm that paid homage to her original inspiration, made her eyes more fitting for her chill personality, and her whole color palette was now purple. I loved it immediately, and the new reference page for her was made soon after, giving her new clothes that ditch the stripes entirely, and a cat tail to complete the catgirl look.

Sue's new design is one that I love to this day, and I don't plan on changing it again anytime soon. I feel like you can infer so much more about her personality and backstory (that I still have to fully write out someday) than you could've with her old look. That original version of her will always hold a special place in my heart, but the way she looks now really makes me feel like she's become her own character. I hope I can do more with her, and I also hope you enjoy her too.

-WB

2/12/2025

Yoooo, first blog post! I think I'm supposed to say "hello world" or something like that. I'm mainly writing this before my whole site goes public just so I have something here, but that doesn't mean I don't have anything of note to say.

If I'm being completely honest, making this site was a perfect mixture of fun and frustrating, though I think that second part can be attributed to me having zero programming experience before trying out Neocities as a site host. It's been satisfying seeing everything come together, but I had to learn a lot of things, and ran into a lot of roadblocks. Finding a good gallery format to use for my art was such a hassle that I essentially spent a whole day making no progress. Once things clicked, though, it's been relatively smooth sailing. I think everything should be functional now.

On a cooler note, I finally got to finish my Skyla art that I've left in limbo for several months. I made the rough draft and outline back when she was still trending like crazy (Shadow is unbelievably based for loving Latinas, by the way), but I only picked this week to actually finish her. Feels great to get it done, and it's honestly a contender for my favorite drawing I've done so far, and I haven't felt that way about something I've made in over a year. I kinda went nuts with the background as if it was its own piece, even if so much of it goes unseen with Skyla in front of it. Still, worth the effort. I hope it gets me into the groove of actually putting time and energy into backgrounds rather than half-assing them after I draw the characters. That's always something I've struggled to do, since my art is so character-focused most of the time. Looking back on my output for 2024, there's way more "white void" backgrounds than I would've liked, so I'm making that a goal for this year.

Hope you tune in every now and then to see what else I write here or put in my gallery. I'm gonna try to make this pretty frequent (every few days, perchance?), and I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. See ya later, gamers.

-WB