Kogarashi-art - Summoner's Sketchbook

Wouldja' look at that? It's a chapter link! Appropriately titled "Answers" because I finally give some (though props to anyone who guessed beforehand).

For anyone curious, this story was initially based on a dream I had way back in high school that stuck with me. More below the cut to keep this from being too long on people's dash.

For anyone who isn't aware, I'm on the older end of the Sonic fandom. I was almost into double digits when the first Sonic game was released. I grew up with the franchise, and my favorite piece of media (aside from Sonic 2, which I got pretty darn good at even without memorizing the cheat codes for level select and Super Sonic) was the Saturday morning cartoon, Sonic the Hedgehog, also known as "SatAM." At some point I had a weird dream that involved the basic premise of the answers in this chapter (I won't go into details because you should really read the chapter first). That idea stuck with me, and after I was introduced to the concept of fanfiction in college, I decided to finally use it in a story. I changed a lot of the surrounding details, but that core premise remained intact, leading to this story here.

Next chapter preview. It's a two-illustration week again!

I'm not entirely sure about the coloring job on the first picture, but I had to tell myself to stop fiddling with it or I'd never finish it. These are supposed to be quick-and-dirty illustrations, after all. Not slow-and-dirty. But hey, playing with some starker shadows to imply a harsh single light above them.

The other picture, by contrast, was much simpler. Just three sections to shade, only two of those to add highlights, and then playing with some overlays and coloring the lineart before quickly painting in a background.

Tune in Monday for the chapter link!

The next chapter is posted! It's a short one this week.

Also, "fun" fact (that's also in the notes for the chapter): this chapter is the last one I wrote and posted during the story's original run before going on a ten-year hiatus due to losing steam, getting distracted, general life stuff, etc.

TEN YEARS.

Don't worry, I'm not doing that to everyone reading now. The story is done. Has been for over a decade now, so there's no reason not to keep up the posting schedule. You don't have to wait ten years, just one week.

But yeah, I wrote this chapter, posted it, and then...got married, had three kids, graduated college, moved states twice...lots of things.

So if you see a marked improvement (I hope!) in the writing for all the following chapters, that's why.

Hey hey preview time! This is the last of the one-illustration chapters (the rest have either two or three).

Can't say as I'm super happy with this, but I had to tell myself to stop touching it, so it is what it is. Again, I blame not having formal training (I make do with online tutorials and fudging around with Photoshop settings). I do like how the "lighting through leaves" effect worked on the tree trunk. Wish I was better at it on other surfaces. Oh well.

Say hello to two of my chao (yes, I have them in my SA2 Battle chao garden)! Angel is the neutral flying chao attached to Knuckles' leg, and Frost is the hero swimming chao in the water.

Here's a treat this week: three illustrations! Including one that is my absolute favorite of the set so far. (More info below the cut to keep the later reblog short.)

So first we have just a simple Freedom Fighter meeting, but I like it for the quiet moment it shows (with a soft gradient in the background to help sell it), and a good image of Bunnie as well. My color choices for these illustrations have been a little bit SatAM, a little bit Archie Comics, but Bunnie's colors are pretty much all SatAM because I love her colors there. Also don't worry about the blue bird guy. He's just a random Freedom Fighter I drew to fill space.

The second image is the one that's my favorite. The colors and the lighting turned out so nice, and I love how the background texture came out. I originally contemplated skipping over this lineart (I drew a fair bit more illustration sketches than I ended up inking for coloring purposes), but I decided to keep it because I wanted a nice contemplative picture of Sally, and it turned out spectacular in my opinion.

Finally we have a mirror to the "robot vision" illustration from last week, but things are a bit more...chaotic this time. It's the fault of the events in Chapter 10, especially the...repairs. But hey, the glitch effect was fun, and the words in the border weren't part of the original lineart, but were scribbled in digitally.

Tune in Monday. The pace is going to pick up again!

reblog this if you’re a sonic fan over the age of 18

I’ve done this before but I need more reassurance lol

Two preview images for this week!

Both of these turned out pretty decent. The spotty leaf shadows on Knuckles look better than my previous forested images, so I call that a win. And the scribbly shading on the scenery works.

As for the other, I'm glad the shading still shows through because I like how the shadows on Snively turned out. I shaded it normally and then used a gradient fill layer to mostly colorize everything red like "robot vision," so the colors of everything kind of disappeared (except for where I very specifically faded out the gradient). I also had fun with the interlacing lines and messing with the text (it actually says stuff, but I used a symbol font to obfuscate it because it was distracting in readable English).

See you Monday with the chapter link!