HAPPYSumme- HALLOWEEN FROM THE PINES FAMILY! (click to embiggen)
I’d been meaning to revisit these cryptid costume designs, and thought Halloween would be a good time to do that!
Especially because, when designing, I had in mind to offer each of the Pines individually as stickers… and in some cases in groups as well.
To that end, all of the designs above (plus a couple of groupings), including the original piece from Summerween, are now up in my shop on Redbubble! They’re available as stickers (often in two sizes, small and large), and on whatever other merchandise it seemed like it might look good on.
(If you would like some other combo of the figures than what you see there, any merch you don’t see there, or a background color other than black, feel free to contact me and I can try to upload/edit what’s there.)
I would also like to take a moment to thank @coughsyrup-cosmonaut, who created a spectacular Mothman cosplay that provided some inspiration to me when I was designing Ford’s costume. They graciously gave me their okay to continue using the design it inspired in this merch.
In addition to Mothman Ford, of course, we have Jersey Devil Stan, Mabel as a Jackalope – sorry, Antelabbit! – with Waddles in a hand-knitted mer-pig tail, and Dipper as a pterosaur/thunderbird. (Being Dipper, he’s of course doing a cryptozoology Deep Cut – not just an homage to the pterosaur they encountered in Gravity Falls, but, to 19th century legends and rare photographs of people posing with what appears to be a pterosaur that was dubbed a “thunderbird” at the time. There are some fun mysteries involving these photos, and it’s been covered on various documentaries.)
The MYSTERY TRIO in “Not, In Fact, a Ghost Story”!
WHEW.
This comic has been a long time coming, as folks who have followed this blog and seen the various teasers over the past year will know. Actually I’ve been working on it even longer than that!
This was done as a trade for @pirably, in exchange for the wonderful Portal Ford plush he made! (Seen here.) The characters of Aru (big skull-faced monster) and Marun (the cat with the interdimensional-projection abilities) are two of his OCs who are friends of Portal Ford (see links to his tags for more of them!). This story took shape between us, and all through the process, he gave me invaluable feedback and really made this better. (I’ll say right now: the brilliant Bill-eye layout of page 8 was his idea; my original sketch was much more boring.)
While I’m terribly overdue in finishing my half of the trade, it’s probably fortunate I took so long, as this would have been 10x harder to do without being able to work digitally in CSP, and probably wouldn’t have come out as well either..
I realized at the end that the theme and atmosphere of the story was just spooky enough to make for a good Halloween post. So, also:
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
What with various things, could not get something new done for Halloween this year, so here’s a re-run of my big project from last year! (Originally posted 10/31/2020.)
It can also be found on AO3 here (where the pages might be a bit bigger than the view on Tumblr.)
Just, working on some stuff, but didn’t get it done before I’ll be traveling for a week. So here, have one of the preliminary studies. I think you can see where this is going. ;-) More to come.
Finally - the piece I did for the cover of “So Many Falls”, the Gravity Falls AUs zine!
The zine cover was laid out in a bunch of wedges, and someone suggested that we do a rainbow effect.
I wound up with orange, but I’d already been assigned the Portal Stans AU (that is, I gave a list of some AUs I’d like to do, and that was the one the zine organizers chose). So, no nice autumn scenes for this one! Instead I just used the color for dramatic lighting in a scifi setting, came up with some poses to make use of the weird shape of the wedge.
As much as I love the idea of the Stans being, like, space adventurers together, I really haven’t done much with that to date! I want to come back to these designs and do some more with them at some point.
Did you know that plaidypuses change their coats in the winter, like weasels and snowshoe hares do? Yeah, I just made that up, but I thought it would be a fun idea and make for a nice winter outing scene as a secret santa present for @mercury-falls :) (Thanks so much for your patience! And if I’d finished this closer to when I should have, it would look a lot more seasonally-appropriate, too! Although, I live in New England, so never say never when it comes to March or even April snow; I might get one more snowshoeing opportunity this year!)
The main thing I used refs for was the snowshoes (greatly simplified, but still). Now I kinda want Dipper’s sweater.
Like last year, I decided to mark this year with a redraw of a poster sketch by GF development and storyboard artist, Alonso Ramirez Ramos. There have been a number of versions by various people over the years, who inked and colored his sketch, but I wanted to try to do it in my style. Above, a detail view, plus the original, classic sketch.
It’s that time again! Time for an Art Year in Review!
Ehhhhhn. On the one hand, not as productive a year as 2020. Started out well! Went to hell in the third quarter. But I’m pretty happy with the things I did get done? Boy, I sure did draw Ford a lot! (This is not a negative, just an observation.)
49 total pieces of art; 107 individual figures.
Truly hoping to get a grip and get back in the swing of things as this new year starts!
Goodbye to 2021. I don’t think anyone will miss you. A cautious greeting to 2022. You’re on probation.
I realized today that I had nothing to show for December, art-wise. I wanted to mark the end of the year somehow, and I needed to get back into the swing of drawing, too. So, a small offering. (Tumblr will not show it was posted in 2021, but I’ll know.)
Today is the shortest day, and the longest night. Welcome Yule! Today the year turns, and we start once more towards the light.
Today is also a very special solstice, because it is accompanied by another rare astronomical phenomenon! Look to the southwest sky just after sunset, and you will see the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. These two largest planets in our solar system will appear so closely together in the sky that to the naked eye they will look like one very bright star. (Through binoculars or a telescope, you will be able to see both in the same field of view, along with all of their moons.) While this happens approx. every 20 years, this year will be the closest observable conjunction of the two planets since the year 1226! The next time they will appear this close will be in 2080.
This is, of course, just the kind of thing that would get the Nerd Twins excited. ;-) If it’s cold where you are, be smart like the Pines, bundle up, and bring some hot cocoa out with you for some planet-spotting.
(original posted Dec.2020.)
Unfortunately, I didn’t get anything new done this year, so here’s a rerun.
No Great Conjunction this year, I’m afraid! Although Jupiter, Saturn and Venus have been putting on a show for the last month or so, appearing distinctly in a slanted line along the moon’s path (also Uranus? But I don’t think that’s visible to the naked eye in urban areas, like where I am). Their setting time is getting earlier, though, and thus it’s harder to catch them.
Screw the complainers. Let’s do another draw challenge. This time it’s Stan quacking like a duck. Bonus points if you get crazy-looking Mabel in there, too.
Look, I know I should be working on my story, but—
Someone please explain to me why I love this idiot so much
quack
QUACK-QUACK! QUAAAAACK! (why isn’t he quacking?)
(i may or may not have walked around trying to get my arms to do the thing, so i could figure out how I wanted to do it.)
So here’s my full piece for the calendar! Monster-fighting is festive, right? SO FESTIVE. Yeah, you go ahead and fight that Krampus, guys. I’m sure there is no way that could go wrong.
(The krampus is based on several of the traditional costumes actually worn by krampus figures in Austria for the Krampusnacht festival, which was December 5th. Lots of fur, lots of alpine cow bells, I gather.)
Kick the Old Year’s Butt on the Way Out (keep clicking through for full size!)
Symbolically, anyway; being a play on the fact that this is the last day of the year, and the last day for my December calendar page for the 2017 Hunkles Calendar.
So here is an updated / sequel version, which I have been intending to do ever since finishing the official one. This is basically the composition I’d originally wanted to do, but couldn’t make fit well enough into the square format of the calendar. I figured it’d be appropriate for the year’s end.
As many folks suspected, Stan and Ford have their hands full fighting the Krampus. ;-) Best of luck, boys.
An ancient being with a jolly title. A demon in need of slaying. Ford’s first holiday season back with his family is an eventful one.
When the boys get and unexpected visitor on their boat it’s up to them to help Dipper and Mabel save a holiday, even if they don’t celebrate it. Perhaps Ford can find a little joy and self-forgiveness along the way.
I was inspired by these wonderful pieces here,here, and here by the amazingly talented @eregyrn-falls I thought “Why would the boys find themselves in that situation?” and the resulting story turned into 10,000 ish words of Pines Holiday Fluff.
Read it here! I should be posting a chapter a night. hope you enjoy!!!
Chapter 2 is up!
Chapter 3 is up! ACTION! DANGER!
Chapter 4 is up! flufffffffffff (and a little action)
Happy Krampusnacht! I didn’t plan this but it turns out that it’s Krampus night tonight. Very fitting for Chapter 5 to come out! I hope you all have enjoyed this fun little story.
