Something I Drew Forever And A Day Ago

[Image Description: A reference sheet of a fat, dark-skinned character with curly black hair that is tied back. He are wearing glasses, a black hoodie, pink t-shirt, gray pants, and black shoes. His name is written at the bottom of the image: Alex Anderson. End of Description.]

An old reference sheet for an updated design of my character Alex.

[Image Description: A fat, dark-skinned person wearing glasses, dressed in a loose pink shirt and pants, and with their dark curly hair tied back in a bun is standing on a balcony, their back to the viewer. They are calmly viewing the row of forested hills in front of them and the sky that is bright and partly cloud. End of image description.] Wanted to practice drawing backgrounds, so I tried my hand at doing some hills and a daytime sky. The character was originally going to Matonne, but decided to draw Alex again instead.

Some drawings of ART/Perihelion, or rather what ART looks like to other machines. ART usually takes the bottom middle form, but its appearance varies based on its mood and/or what it’s doing.

Do augmented humans see it like this too? I’m not sure yet, but right now I am leaning towards “some of them”.

Based on an ophanim (those wheel/ring angels), planetary systems, and Bohr atom models.

Bonus spoiler character from Book 5: Network Effect under the cut

Murderbot 2.0

Exit Strategy - Murderbot

Alt version with a different quote and blood under the cut

Network Effect - Bharadwaj

Suburban Wyvern Wrangling

An intro I wrote over a year ago for a story I’ll likely never get around to continuing, at least not for a long while. I’m still pretty proud of this though so, thought I might as well post it. (And yes, I know the title sucks.)

Chasing after a dragon in the edge of town was the last thing Latisha wanted to be doing at 9pm.

She could be resting at home, watching some adorable parrot videos on her phone, but no, she just had to get a call from her boss telling her how there had been sightings of a cat-sized, lizard bat soaring over Minchester Park. She could be driving to her job’s local office to drop off the creature, but no, it just had to be a skittish wild dragon, rather than a more approachable domesticated one. She could be tackling the reptile to the ground right now, but no, it just had to be a British wyvern, one of the swiftest species out there. How in the world did a British wyvern even get to central Indiana? At least it was a dwarf species. But then again, if it were any larger, then a fully-equipped cryptid-catching team would have been called in to capture the beast instead of a single woman in an old hoodie.

Well, fuck then.

But Tish didn’t have time to dwell on that any further. She had to focus on catching up to the beast while maneuvering between lamp posts and flowering trees. She swerved around a picnic table, not taking her eyes off the dragon for even a second. This creature was fast, remaining a few strides ahead of her, and it didn’t show any signs that it would be landing soon. Tish silently pleaded that it would at least descend a bit just to give her neck a break from craning upwards.

The powers that be must have heard her pleas and decided to troll her, because the dragon ended up soaring past the entry arch of the park and straight into someone’s neighboring yard. It wasn’t just any yard though. It was one of those thousand square foot yards with a mansion-esque house in the middle of it.

“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” Tish groaned as she skidded to a halt. There was no way she could trespass on such lavish private property and get away with it. Even though it may have been nighttime in a part of town where most residents would be in bed by now, she still imagined the homeowners wouldn’t take kindly to finding a black woman in dusty attire sneaking through their property in search of an animal that, as far as they knew, was as fictional as magic wands.

Maybe the residents were hidumans and not visumans, and she could explain the situation to them. Oh, who was she kidding, the nearest hidumans who could afford to live in an apartment-complex-sized house most likely lived in Chicago, not in the suburbs of central Indiana. Tish knew that if the dragon remained over there much longer, there was going to be some sort of a ruckus tonight, no matter what action she chose to take.

Tish darted back and forth along the edge of the park, mirroring the dragon as it zigzagged over the lawn. Pushing back a few stray curls from her face, she took a quick glance at the digital watch on her wrist. It was 9:06. If she didn’t capture this dragon soon, she may end up having to just leave it behind. British wyverns were passive enough that she didn’t mind leaving it be, where it would at worst only spook a few people. What Tish didn’t want was a stern reprimand from her boss and $300 less in her paycheck for all her trouble. Considering how low the dragon was flying now, she may end up having to do so.

Much to her luck, surprise, and relief, the dragon ended up swooping out of the property, gliding towards the adjacent sidewalk. Tish immediately sprinted onto the walkway. The wyvern began slowing down as it continued to descend, allowing Tish to close the distance between her and the beast. A few moments later, it finally landed in a field of tall grasses bordering the sidewalk.

As soon as the creature had set foot on land, Tish crouched low to the ground. Her steps were now soft and slow as she snuck up on the dragon. The wyvern folded up its wings and sat down to rest, unaware that its pursuer was still nearby. Latisha crept ever closer to it, pausing for a moment after each step. She could not afford for it to go flying off again, not when it was only a few feet in front of her now.

When she had reached the edge of the sidewalk, Tish leaped onto the creature, pinning it down by the back with her hands. The dragon frantically flapped its wings and flailed its tail, letting out a shrill, falcon-like cry. Tish kept her head raised. Though dragons may not have been able to actually breathe fire, their strong tail whips sure felt as fiery as any blaze.

She turned her left arm onto the entirety of the dragon’s back, freeing up her right hand. Fumbling through the top pocket of her cargo shorts, she retrieved a small plastic packet. Tish secured one side of the packet firmly between her teeth, keeping her grip on it with her hand. With both her head and her hand, she yanked both sides of the plastic, tearing it in two. She quickly pulled out the sticky, white pad inside, letting the plastic casing fall to the ground.

As quickly and gently as she could with it struggling, Tish turned the dragon on its side, exposing its underbelly. She placed the pad on this softer region of its body and pressed down to ensure it remained secure. After a few seconds, the dragon’s movements steadily slowed and its cry became softer. Its entire body gradually became more limp, until it fell asleep. The only sounds and movements it made were those of its breathing.

The woman took a sigh of relief. Retying the headwrap holding up her hair, she took the moment to enjoy having finally caught the elusive creature.

She then turned around the baby sling she had wrapped around her body so that the carrying part of it rested just below her breasts. Supporting the dragon by its head and back, she lifted it up and snuggly cradled it into the sling. Ideally, Tish would have brought the containment box with her, but after the first few times she’d done so, she quickly learned that trying to wrangle in cryptids with a giant box in her hands only made the chase and capture more difficult.

Tish checked over the dragon to make sure that it was tightly tucked in and that its nose wasn’t obscured before getting back on her feet. She checked her watch once again: 9:15.

Looks like I’m going to have to run back to the car as well. Wait?

Where did I park again?

Just created a review blog

I’ve recently noticed that I really love explaining and reviewing things, and I’ve developed a strong love of fashion and obscure and unique works of fiction. So, I’ve finally decided to combine these loves of mine and make a blog dedicated to reviewing clothing and works of speculative fiction. Working on my reviews may slow down how much art I put out here, but at least I’ll be creating something regardless.

https://kat-reviews-fashion-and-art.tumblr.com/

Did a quick sketch of Matonne’s father.

Artfight attack for @food-with-ghastly-rice of their punk satyr Kinsin. Had fun coming up with the outfit.

[Image Description: A digital portrait of a light brown lion cub. This lion cub is a young Zira from The Lion King 2. End of Description]

A quick little drawing I did yesterday of cub Zira. I’ve decided to dive back into the fandom after dipping out shortly before The Lion Guard aired. The landscape of the fandom (and fandoms in general) has changed quite a bit since the mid 2010s, and I like what I see.

Also decided to play around with going with my own style over sticking to the Disney’s. The above eye shape I’ve switched to spots and made the ears vertical to better match real lions. I’m still tweaking how I want the ears, but otherwise, I’m happy with this one.

Quote from Fugitive Telemetry. Scene set between Network Effect and System Collapse.

The binary is in ASCII, Unicode, and ASCII/UTF-8. Whichever you pick, it will translate to the same thing.