Hi everyone.  Sorry, I wrote a response a while back, but it didn't go through when I thought I'd hit 'reply'.

Thanks so much, @RainbowFaceProtege!  I haven't been as attentive here as I should be, but it's always a delight to talk to you.  A.C.O.-E. New Bim took several months.  I had a little help for some of the backgrounds.

It was a pleasure, @The jewelstone queen.  I love how Emily turned out.

Thanks, @gutza1!

I gasped when I saw this!  You really nailed the feel, and took into account all the pertinent details, from needle/sword slinging to eyes that glow when he's closing in on a target!  This is a great first look on the character, and the more detailed rendering is quite moody and atmospheric.  Great poses too.  Thank you so much!

The Mr E: "When a fanfic is written in a play script style, Shakespearean format.  Minus points if there's zero wordsmithery to back it up!"

Also, inaccurate ratings.

Whoa ... you are incredibly fast!  I take considerably longer to make something like this.  Very cute!  From what I've seen of Firepaw, most people interpret him as a generic ginger cat, but you gave him a really good, unique colour scheme!

Oh, and the art trade: I'll PM you about it.

Edited by Rhombus to consolidate a double post.

Thanks so much, jewelstone queen!  That's okay.  I'm so glad you like the characters and art style!  I wish you all the best for your future web series.  Speaking of which, you mentioned a comic called 'How to be a Human's Pet'.  I know it's not a web series, so I'm guessing it's a single-entry comic so far.  Is there anywhere I can read it?

Whoa ... this art is quite masterful!  Love the glow on the feathers.  It's pretty much Disney tier!

My entry to the October 2022 Character Design Challenge, 'Fighting Clowns'.  Meet ...

PARTY POPPER THE BALLOON ANIMAL



ArtStation Link: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Ze8W41

Harkening back to classic platformers like Cly Clopper and Ratty and Spank - definitely not parody rip-offs - Balloon Animal: Party Popper is 1UPStation 5's totally real, next big game, available April 1st!

Story: Kidnapped from his home world by an interstellar mega circus called 'The Ring', the balloon-like Party Popper is forced to become the ultimate clown.  Like a living cartoon character, he squashes, he stretches, he shape-shifts and blows himself up to massive proportions.  Unfortunately, there's more than one way to 'blow up' in this circus.  When he learns that his final act involves 'The Big Pop', he sets out to escape The Ring and all its miniature worlds, but there's a catch.  We fall down, he floats up.  Even with the power to fire and swing on ribbons Spiderman-style, there's always a risk that he'll fall into the sky.  Luckily, he's not alone.  Joining him is Yumi the Cottontail Candy, a rabbit-like creature who speaks the language of flavour that can only be heard by those who eat her sweet fur, sadly overharvested as a snack.  Hunting him is Fyre'wrrk the animal cracker, who grows from a cub to a lion-like beast with firecracker mane when he is set on fire.  Standing in his way are dangerous performers such as the electric Joy Buzzer, the unicyclist Unipsycho, champion fighter Jack in the Boxing Gloves and The Ringmaster behind it all.  Even the mysterious voice narrating his adventures isn't exactly on his side.  With a handful of friends and a whole lot of enemies, Party Popper becomes the hero of The Ring as he frees its captives, tries to find a way home and discovers daunting secrets about his origin and purpose.

Rant: Shortly after I finished the sketch, my Wacom Intuous decided to malfunction for some reason, losing pressure sensitivity and refusing to draw without freezing at the start of every stroke before jerking into a straight line.  Was that meant to break me?  BAH!  I used MS Paint with nothing but the mouse and trackpad for several years, including multiple college projects with simple animation!  Do you know what kind of savage, ignorant tenacity I unleashed upon this Earth!?!  (Seriously, a whole lot of ignorance - I had no idea there were better, free programs like Krita *ahem*).  Anyway, finishing this was a little painful (IT TICKLED!) but I somehow managed to do it within record time and acceptable quality.  With more time, I would have fleshed out the concept and quality some more, but no one's gonna notice the difference, right? ... Right ...?   

Thanks, Rainbow!  I'm glad it's not just plain ol' boring.

To be honest, that wasn't a call-back to the screech in the cave  , but now that you mention it, I might find a way to work it in.  My Rainbowfaces use a lot of obscure sciences, though taken to a fantastical extreme.  This helps them feel more alien in my opinion.  Two recurring themes are low temperature and, of course, acoustic tech.  For instance, cold fire is really nanotech that drains energy (including heat energy) until molecules just don't have the strength to hold themselves together - forced entropy.  Then, it puts them back together differently ... or just leaves them in pieces.  That gives cold fire the power to create and destroy pretty much anything.  'Healing the sick' as the female Rainbowface said is just the tip of the iceberg.  Low temperature is also great for their superconductive tech, such as quantum computers.  As for acoustics, sound and vibration in general can do incredible things that we don't really hear much about.  They are dark horses of science.  Magnetism can only levitate and move around metals, but acoustics can grab almost anything.  That's why it comes in handy for abduction tractor beams, propulsion and perhaps even telekinesis.  Dinosaurs affected by it may hear an otherworldly sound called 'The Hum'.  My Rainbowfaces also have acoustic weapons which affect specific targets by hitting their resonant frequencies, the same way glass shatters when blasted with the sound it resonates at.  Rainbowfaces might call the use of acoustic tech as 'singing', with specific effects being different 'songs' (much like fruit bats).  They also have more familiar sciences, but often applied in alien-looking ways.  Even their machines and architecture made steel or plastic have organic-looking shapes based on generative design, since these shapes seem superior to the angular, geometric shapes we mostly use in modern times.  I'm still developing these ideas.  They've evolved a lot since I started coming up with them, so I wouldn't be surprised if some things change later.  I'm not sure if I'm using the right scientific terminology in some areas ...

Anyway, SCPs are engrossingly bizarre creatures, objects, phenomena and such.  The acronym stands for 'Secure, Contain, Protect'.  They're part of a writing community that focuses on The SCP Foundation.  They're like the Men in Black, except they deal with any anomaly ... or try, anyway.  A while back, Sneak's profile pic was SCP-173, 'The Statue' - an entity that can only move when no one's looking, but it's EXTREMELY fast.  All a victim needs to do is blink and they might be a goner (like weeping angels from Doctor Who).  Most SCPs are monstrous, but some are harmless, or would be harmless if handled with care.  A handful are friendly or even cute.

Fruit Bat and Microraptor would fit right in with the SCP world, but I hesitate to propose them as SCPs because I'd sort of give up ownership of them to the community (or at least that version of them - it's complicated).  The SCP world can also be very unsettling ... it's at the edge of my threshold.  I suppose that depends on the writer, as there are many takes on the SCP universe.  It's like fanfiction, but without canon, though some elements recur enough to almost be canon.  There are a lot of YouTube channels dedicated to sharing SCP-related content.

In the spirit of GoF, meet the world's smallest dinosaur ... type ... thing, the covid-eating 'Microraptor'!  He's my entry for the September 2022 Character Design Challenge: 'Hybrids'.



Not to be confused with the prehistoric microraptors, these organisms will take on traits of prey and hosts, such as the flagella of bacteria (tentacles) and the green, plant-like cells of phytoplankton (tail). From covid and tetanus to cancer and parasites, they eat anything that threatens their territory ... namely your body. Microraptors would be diseases themselves, but they are smart enough to know not to destroy their home. However, without prey, they may turn on a host's gut bacteria, mistaking it for a low-priority invader good for a backup food supply. Once they've eaten all of that, they will start tearing bacteria-like mitochondria from your cells to devour it. Yes, that's ... pretty much as dangerous as it sounds. If you have a microraptor infection, eat plenty of probiotics in the early stages, keeping up the gut bacteria. It is not advised that you live unhygienically just to feed microraptors, although ... that could work, if they are good enough to handle whatever you throw at them. Eventually, microraptors will settle into your body enough to realise gut bacteria is off limits. Domesticated raptors will even develop fondness for their hosts, refusing to eat mitochondria whether they're hungry or not.

Microraptors can survive on the nutrients in a host's bloodstream, but they cannot reproduce without prey. How, you never asked? Their claws are actually embryo-like organelles that grow into new raptors, and yes - the claws have eyes before developing. Once a claw infects a microbe, it grows and bursts out as a young raptor, which is totally not a callback to a certain sci-fi horror movie. Microraptors can either produce brand new packmates, or grow an empty body and transfer their own nuclei to it to live longer. That last part is important for them, since a microraptor's body has a one-to-two-day lifespan. Only the long-lived nucleus survives after that, if it's transferred to a new body in time.

Humans have never noticed microraptors until recently, due to the sheer vastness of the microscopic world. Though they are relatively rare, there are countless packs with different ways of life. Some will tweak your body to peak performance for better chances of survival, though you'll need to eat more. Others will grow fat cells in your body as a backup food source in case they run out of prey, making you gain a little more weight than you'd like and have a hard time losing it. Others live like freeloaders, only hunting when necessary and surviving on the stuff that you eat, forcing you to eat more but without the benefit of extreme fitness. Some will make special efforts to build a relationship with you, using a neuron-based raptors that talk to you through your nervous system. At least one pack has managed to give their human microraptor avatars, allowing them to run with the pack and coordinate defenses. Microraptors almost always have a health benefit, from moderate/mixed to extreme. Some packs will take care of you so diligently that you could live forever. However, if two microraptor packs end up in the same body, they just might go to war and catch you in the crossfire, causing sickness. Of course, there's always the chance they'll get along. However, there are whispers of a hostile pack dubbed 'Flesh Masters', bent on infecting all humanity. Slowly, they make their hosts as monstrously dangerous as a human can be, manipulating them to spread the infection without necessarily knowing.  On the flipside, if you form a strong connection with your microraptors, you can ask them to make slow changes to your body. The microraptors can never turn you into Superman, but they can make you an Olympic class athlete, an Einstein level genius or a Tom Cruise-rivalling looker. However, any key change is best made before teenagehood ends, as a fully grown body takes longer to optimise.

Like humans, microraptors are a mixed bag, but do not fear. Most would rather be your friend.  After all, a happiness does the body good. Who knows? One day, they may call you 'alpha'!

Wow, I wouldn't want to get on Emily's bad side.  She's somehow managed emanate a strong air of intimidation despite the cuteness.  That thing she's doing with the orb reminds me of this.

Your friend's pretty lucky to have you draw the OC!  It a lynx?  It came out really well!