Sketch – Sailor Tock
Another random something while I’m waiting to be able to work on pages again.
Fun fact! The world of Tock’s story is set in originally developed out of some assuredly godawful Sailor Moon fanfiction I wrote in middle/high school.
Luckily, it evolved into something way more complex.
But Sailor Moon was my first anime, and I loved it, so I still get random bouts of nostalgia every now and then. This happened during one of those.
“Tock the Gnome” jewelry :)
So this isn’t for sale (if there ever is Tock jewelry for sale, trust me, you’ll know), but my amazing, amazing fiancee made some Tock-inspired jewelry for me this past Valentine’s Day and I wanted to share <3
Also, yup, that’s me. Hullo.
Next page next week.
Page 49 preview
There’s very little chance Page 49 will be up on time tomorrow, due to other claims on my time (as usual). The pencil work is done, though, and the ink work is just started, so I expect to have it up by Wednesday instead.
For your patience, though, here’s a preview of the first panel : )
Sketch – Gnomish bonnet
Just before my recent troubles, I went through a random Western-kick, so I ended up drawing this (I’d attempted this idea before, but not as successfully).
On that note, thanks to the generosity of several people, I do have supplies again, so I should be back to regular updates next week! Thanks to anyone who saw my post last week about donations and helped me out, and thanks as always for reading 
Sketch – Newlyweds
Confession time: The reason page 46 was a week late was because all my creative time that week went to a different project.
That project was something with which to propose marriage to my girlfriend of 9 years.
I had also drawn this to post as the filler piece that week (instead of the sketch I ended up posting), but life intervened and I ended up having to push my plans back.
But I’ve now asked her, and she said yes <3 So here this is finally too.
(If you don’t remember from before, these are Tock’s parents.)
Further work on this sketch. I hope to get this made into stickers (to sell and/or as part of a Kickstarter campaign, I’m still brainstorming on that front).
Sketch – Eleanore and Tock’s Mother
My creative energies and time these past couple of weeks had to go to other things, so Page 46 will be up next Monday instead.
Instead, here’s something happening “off-screen”:
Tock’s mother, as seen before here, questioning Tock’s friend Eleanore, as seen here, after she finds her gone.
Sketchy notes – pages 36 to 45
Here’s something for those of you interested in how the story gets written.
The meeting of characters that we’ve seen in the last few pages was originally supposed to take place in a tavern. Tock and Bumble were going to land The Bucket without any problems, walk into the Orc settlement they’d chosen without too much hassle, and find a much more settled people than it turns out my Orcs are going to be like. Entering a combination tavern/general store (…yeah, I know), Bumble was going to head off to barter the goods they brought with them while Tock gathered information. So she would have been alone when the events of Page 45 took place. Well, except for the other Orcs in the establishment too.
Then this happened in my sketchbook, and that idea got thrown out the window:
(Yes, that’s how my handwriting actually looks. And certain names have been smudged around a bit, to avoid minor spoilers.)
Usually pages get planned out a bit more organized-like than this, but apparently the creative process had a different idea for this part of the story. At least on the most basic planning level.
Holiday update plans
Tomorrow was supposed to be a page day, but the holidays have intervened, and I’ll be out of town before I can get the next page done. So above is a consolation Tock pin-up with some seasonal flair. Page 44 will be up on Monday December 31st, making Page 45 the first page of the new year (which works perfect, btw).
Thanks to all of you for following this story of mine. I appreciate every one of you
And below, if you like spoilers, is a little preview of the very next panel.
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I hope you all have a great, and safe, rest of the holiday season!
Sketch – Chibi style research, Tock style
Those of you who don’t follow my other art work might not know that I am a huge, huge fangirl (I promise this relates, so bear with me).
Over the past month or so, I’ve gotten sucked into a new fandom which has a lot of fanart in “chibi” style. I haven’t drawn chibi’s in a long time – probably because your average chibi is really close in proportion to Gnomes. But because of my fangirling, I wanted to try my hand at them again, so this is me trying to figure out how a chibi-style would work taking different races’ proportions into account.
Here we have, then, a hypothetical Elf, a Dwarf, and a Gnome, all chibi-fied. Do not take any of this as canon, I was just having a bit of fun
Sketch – Tock being pretty
Life has interfered with comic-drawing time this week, so things haven’t gone as planned, exactly. I really want to make sure I get the next page right because of reasons, so instead of rushing things, here’s Tock being distracting as usual:
Page 42 will be up between Wednesday and Friday of next week, at the latest.
Notes/design for the trap Tock’s in
Obviously it was tweaked a bit during the process of drawing the last page, but this is what I had in mind.
Also, fun fact: originally the trap was going to grab both Tock and Bumble, but I couldn’t figure out how to make that work well enough. As it is, it works better for the story, anyway.
(You’ll see what I mean in about 3 pages.)
Sketch – Unfinished Tock pin-up
Still working on page 41, so here’s an unfinished pin-up in the meantime:
Sketch – The House of White
More of one of the characters from this earlier bonus piece, with two other characters from her own story.
Again, what’s going on here will connect to Tock’s story eventually too, so I hope you keep them in mind.
A little something while we wait
Hi everyone!
Since this hiatus is taking a bit longer than I’d hoped, I put up a poll on my deviantART page recently, asking if anyone would be interested in seeing something special as a bonus until the next page is done. Most everyone voted yes (thank you!), so here that is.
NOTE: the following image contains very slight spoilers, for the setup of the world itself (not the overarching plot).
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I did this illustration a while back in order to get out of an art slump, and held off on posting it then in interest of showing it to you waaaaaay later, but you are all amazing for hanging in there and waiting so long for new pages, so here it is now!
These women are versions of specific characters from two popular fairy tales (well, one more popular than the other, but I don’t want to give too much away). That’s all I can say for now, except to mention that they will be referenced later in Tock’s story.
Thank you all again for your patience. I hope to be back to regular updates within a month.
Slight change in updates
There’s going to be a slight delay in updates for the next couple of weeks, as I catch up on some paid commission work.
If you want to see what I’m up to in the meantime, I’ll be posting progress on those commissions and some work that’s already finished over on my website and my Tumblr.
Also, I’m thinking of switching the official update day from Mondays to Wednesdays. Any thoughts?
Thanks as always for your patience
Page Creation, part 1
So, for those of you who like behind-the-scenes sort of things, here’s how I plan out the pages before I begin drawing them.
First, I do rough thumbnails of groups of pages at a time. The image above shows the plans for pages 33 to 36. I sketch out the panels and the layout of the people and places in each one, making notes about what’s happening and about the dialogue as I go (the sections that I blurred out contained spoilers, sorry guys).
Once I’m satisfied with those thumbnails, I measure out each page on a new piece of paper, leaving room on the side to draw the thumbnail for that page again.
I actually do all of this out of my sketchbook, which may not seem as official as some would like, but I appreciate the ease of working with something I can travel with and work anywhere. Each page is 8 by 8 inches, while the thumbnails are probably about 2 by 2. I draw the new thumbnail space closer to the top of the page to leave room for notes again. Once everything is measured out, I then sketch the layout in the thumbnail and write out the dialogue below it.
Above example is from page 37.
After this step I move on to measuring out the panels themselves and actually drawing the page, but I’ll likely do a post on that some other time.
Sketch – (more of) Tock with Faerie
Does anyone remember those fantastic faerie stickers they used to sell at Hot Topic and Spencer’s with art by Amy Brown and Nene Thomas?
I think this is going to become a sticker like that.
Sketch – Gnome Woman with Magic
Not sure how canon her behavior is, but this is someone we’ve seen before and haven’t technically met yet.
Sketch – Not the Best Week
Tock demonstrating how my week went (in general, with a few notable awesome exceptions). I meant to get Page 35 finished in time to immediately follow page 34, but that didn’t quite work out. It’ll be up next Monday instead.
Sketch – Tock with Faerie
This will more than likely be finished in full color eventually (really, once I decide what color Tock’s hair is).
Also, anyone who lives in/near the Ithaca NY area may be interested in knowing that I have an art show going on. Three of the seven pieces I’m displaying relate to Tock’s world, and two of those haven’t been posted anywhere online yet. The reception is tomorrow, Tuesday June 12th, from 5 to 7 pm. If you’re able, I hope you consider stopping by
Fanart – “More and More of Eleanore”
I’m happy to report that we’ve recieved our first fanart, from GiantPanda of deviantART!
Looks like Tock’s friend Eleanore sized up a bit!
If you have or plan to do any fanart of the series, feel free to message me here, or send it to rachelillustrates@yahoo.com! Thanks so much, Panda!
