Bonus art – Dance Lesson
No new pages yet, but to mark the day, I’m posting this in-progress piece of a certain Orc and a certain Gnome sharing a dance <3
This will be finished with simple color in the style of the comic pages eventually. And hopefully I’ll have something more to post soon. Thanks, as always, for reading.
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 
Page 48
Fun fact: I keep the original copies of each page in an Itoya portfolio, and as of this page, I’ve finally filled one up
Page 45
Remember all those times I said exciting things were coming and I promised all the delays and hiatuses would be worth it?
This is the moment all that officially starts.
(Or in other words, if its not obvious what’s happening here, I’m not doing my job right.)
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.
Sketch – Unfinished Tock pin-up
Still working on page 41, so here’s an unfinished pin-up in the meantime:
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
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.
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!
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Quick note about this page – as I’m using an external monitor until I can get my laptop’s monitor fixed, the greens might look a bit…..off, compared to previous pages.
If that’s the case, prepare to see this page tweaked once my computer has its own monitor back.
Tock returns early!
Earlier than expected, anyway.
None of my ideas for Gurukitty’s “Once Upon a Time” anthology have worked out at all, and at this point, its too late for me to start another one (the deadline is March 30th). As is often the case, timing between that and what’s going on in my life is just bad. Honestly, I’m quite disappointed – I very badly wanted to be a part of that project, as it speaks so much to me, but I need to accept that its not going to work out and move on.
That said, the silver lining is that “Tock the Gnome: The Rescue Quest” will be returning sooner than I planned
I’m still going to hold off on bringing back pages immediately, due to certain circumstances in my personal life (more on that at my illustration site tomorrow), but for now the tentative return date is March 1st.
Thank you all so much for your patience during this – even though the reason for the hiatus didn’t work out as planned, I still swear it will have been worth it.
Sketch – Gnome Roles: Soldier
I’ve started a series of sketches depicting Gnomes that are on different life paths than Tock, Bumble, or anyone else I’ve mentioned so far in-canon. Here’s the first, based on this bonus piece from a couple weeks ago.
The woman pictured is the lowest level infantry in the Queen’s army, equipped with standard uniform and a falcata-style short sword (again, as shown before). The sketch below her shows a higher officer’s coat – which is white, not brown – and the “cogs” they pin to the front are ornaments displaying their ranks and accomplishments. Most officers can have up to three cogs. The highest ranking officers – like the Queen’s personal guard – are also equipped with guns.
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The situation that prompted the filler for the last few weeks** hasn’t been resolved yet, but here this is even though its not finished. It’ll be updated with color by next Monday at the latest.
**If anyone’s curious, I wrote a Journal over on my dA site with more details and news about some other art-related things I’m working on.
Bonus art – Gnome/Dwarf lovin’
So these are not characters who will actually appear in the story per se (and please excuse the bumps in the paper from the scan). I drew this for my amazing girlfriend (and co-creator of Tock’s story) recently and wanted to share.
These two are actually based on a couple of our toons from WoW, drawn as if they existed in Tock’s world. I imagine the Gnome woman is a soldier in the Queen’s army (the jacket should look familiar), and the Dwarven woman is a rogueish individual involved in a kind of black-market trading (due to a certain level of strictness in Dwarven culture – more on that some other time).
This should be the last piece of bonus art before page updates resume! Thanks again for your patience, and for reading
Bonus art – Similar Hats
Something fun for Samhain/Halloween. Blessed holiday, everyone!
Bonus art – Nosebump
Two Gnome women bumping noses, indicating their romantic interest in one another.
In Gnomish courtship, bumping noses is the step before – and just as serious – as the first kiss. Its often used to clarify intentions, if the two involved were friends first. Touching noses is also sometimes a greeting between family members, but obviously in a different context and with different weight.
