Updating an old comic from last year.

There was an old comic strip I was working on last year that I eventually gave up on due to discouragement. Here is an excerpt from the comic, the particular panel in which what pushed me to close the book on this comic.

As you can see: it sucks. There's no need to sugar coat here, it just sucks. Although I'm pretty OK with creating backgrounds traditionally, but digitally I can't create backgrounds worth shit. This was my absolute best attempt at the time to create a background and I just gave up in the end lol. I thought it was horribly sad that this was the best thing I could do.

Anyways, I had decided to pick it up again for the hell of it, thinking the skills I had picked up might be able to help. Just simply after 30 minutes of working on the grass alone I was surprised on what I had done.

Holy Jesus. I mean sure it's just grass and any artist can probably do way better than this tiny bit of progress, but this is quite a personal accomplishment for me.

I plan to redo the entire background and start over from scratch. I'm actually excited to see how it will turn out if just a little touch up on the grass improved that much. I really hope to release this comic soon, I think a lot of people will find it funny. C:

SkieFire Commission + Spike Bust

Finally got around to finishing my commission for SkieFire. I'm sure he'll enjoy the final product!

Now as for this piece right here.......it has quite an interesting history.

I think it's best if I start from the beginning. OK, so back when I was a child, I watched a lot of cartoons, obviously. They inspired a lot of what I like today. Spike is particularly special. For those who don't know who he is, he was a semi-regular character who appeared on the TV family sitcom series, Dinosaurs, originally developed by Jim Henson.

Anyways, Spike was my first childhood crush as a kid and has always remained as a special character in my heart. Can't believe it took me this many years to even draw anything remotely related to Spike. In fact, I almost feel ashamed for not giving him the proper respect he deserves. The TV show itself was pretty corny most of the time, but it had its small moments with its adult humor. I found Spike the most likable of all the characters, I actually hated everyone else, ESPECIALLY Robbie Sinclair. I *still* don't understand why there are so many fans for him when he looks incredibly ugly as fuck and just has a generally unlikable and flat personality. Spike, however, had the most colorful personality to me. He really stood out from everyone else to me with his "bad boy" attitude and accent, always walking around with his hands in his pockets, making snappy remarks and being a smartass. He was big, he was tough, but even under all that, he cared a lot for Robbie and looked after him closely. He had a heart deep down for him and that me swoon over Spike like a little girl lol.

ANYWAYS.

Spike fanart. Fuck yeah. One thing that always bothered me is that there is hardly *ANY* Spike fanart out there while there is hundreds of Robbie porn. It's ridiculous. And the very little Spike fanart that does exist doesn't look anything like him. Few exceptions would probably be my friend Dreke's fanart. He drew Spike pretty spot on.

As this was dedicated to my favorite character, I really pushed hard to color this to the best of my abilities. I learned a lot just from coloring this piece. Hopefully I can do a better dedication in the future and do a full body pic instead of a bust. We'll see!

Spike from Dinosaurs © Michael Jacobs Productions/ Jim Henson Television/ Walt Disney Televsion/ Buena Vista Television

Art © M. A. "Nidhogg" Guerra