DarkDumb

Comic page. Two bandmates are getting ready in a dressing room. The considerably younger, Mikey, talks to the older, Vic. Mikey: "You know... You really do get a lot of credit for where I am now. Obviously, I couldn't have done any of this without you in the band. It's not just getting this big. And growing as a player." Mikey smiles at Vic. Mikey: "I wouldn't have taken up the guitar as a kid if it wasn't for you. Hell, I wouldn't be alive." At the last word, Vic jolts with a serious look. Mikey: "My parents met at one of your shows, actually." Vic, relieved: "Impressive. I aged a hundred years in the span of a few sentences."

Age gap
#oc

Addendum page. In the middle is the thumbnail of the jpeg file titled "cover". In it, Vic and Mikey are posing in a public bathroom with stalls behind them. Vic is holding up his phone, taking a photo in the mirror. They are looking away from each other, both with one arm pointing out of view. Mikey has his guitar on a strap and a serious expression. Vic is smirking into the camera, and he's wearing a stetson hat and a jacket with fringes. Written above the picture is: "At the height of their popularity, any band's first demo album would be a highly sought after collector's item. Not for..." The band's name in the middle of the described picture supplies the end of the sentence, written in a vaguely western font: "Spandex Cowboys." Below the picture, the text continues: "Online marketplaces, music memorabilia shops and fan exchange forums are flooded with counterfeits. Metadata and Mikey's handwriting are faked left and right. Flash drives with certificates of authenticity are sold at prices no regular fan can afford, so they don't bother. Vic has boxes full of the flash drives to this day. He hands them out to fans at every show, but no one ever believes them. Raven never misses an opportunity to say, "I told you so.""

(Couldn't fit it all in one post)

Comic page. Mikey, a younger man with a tank top and a bandana tied in a strip around his forehead, and Vic, an older man with long bleached hair, are sitting on a couch, talking to someone out of sight. Mikey: "We've been recording our own material of course. And to keep some clout among the showgoers, we're putting it out for sale. But how? CDs are old news, right? People don't even have CD drives in their computers anymore. So we came up with something better that anyone can play." Vic: "Well, Mikey did." Mikey: "We recorded a bunch of demos on my smartphone, copied the files over and voila!" Mikey is holding up a flashdisk with "Spandex Cowboys" handwritten on it. Mikey: "Debut album! Pretty smart, right?"

Comic Page. We now see the person they have been talking to, a young woman with goth clothes names Raven. She puts her head in her hands. Raven: "You're idiots." Mikey "What?" Mikey points at her accusatively while Vic pats his back. Mikey: "it's perfect! And cheap! This is the future!" Raven: "You can't distribute your album on flash drives." Mikey: "Why not?" Raven: "No, nobody uses CDs anymore aside from one group of people. Music fans! You know, the people you're targeting? They love supporting bands by still buying CDs. They buy vinyls for crying out loud. There's literally one type of person left who buys CDs, and now they should be paying for random flash drives with god knows what on them. You're still randos. For all they know, it could have a thousand viruses on it. Think about how easy it is to fake too. People always find a way to take advantage of things."

Comic page. The conversation continues with Raven's body language gradually getting more agitated. Raven: "So, how many do you have?" Vic: "A lot!" Raven: "How many have you sold?" Mikey: "You're the lucky first customer." Raven: "I asked for some recordings to study! I'm not buying anything!" Mikey: "15 dollars." Raven: "is this a band or a ponzi scheme? I need to learn your songs!" Mikey: "The band's gotta eat!" Raven: "You're already leeching off Vic's endless royalties!" Vic: "Now now... Mikey, don't be stingy. Here ya go, Raven." Vic puts a handful of flash disks into Raven's hand. Raven: "You really have a surplus, huh?" Behind them in the background, several boxes are seen around the kitchen counter.

Comic page. Raven is at home, listening to the album on her computer with headphones. Around her is a pretty well equipped home studio. Around her are her thoughts: "The guitarwork is tight. It carries the song without any other instruments too. The vocals are raw but robust. The composition is perfect. Old school, as expected... Damn dorks..." We see the computer screen with the list of mp3 files open. The names of the songs are as follows: Dead not Alive, Hitlist, Whoremistress, Tumbleweed, Mate (Like a Wolf), Cowgirl, Fast Lover (Cougar Lust cover). Above them is a jpeg file named "cover". Raven smiled and thinks: "It sounds fucking amazing." In the last panel is the trio. Raven is pointing at the two guys while Vic nudges Mikey with his elbow. The caption says "The next day". Raven: "You need to up your production quality. I came up with bass parts for some songs too." Vic: "Told'ya she'd be good!"

Shortly after Raven joins the band...
I am once again unable to introduce ocs in any coherent way and instead had fun with a random scene. In my defense, it *is* a perfect microcosm of their dynamic, these three are just like this all the time.
#oc

I didn't finish IW, so I don't have a grasp on the whole story, but I really think they shouldn't have brought him back in such a substantial role. I loved Y7, Ichiban is amazing, and he proved in that game he could carry the whole franchise, Kiryu really should have stayed retired 😭

Greyscale drawing of two male characters. It's drawn from a high angle. One is kissing the other on the cheek with an arms around his shoulders, while the other is grinning, one leg slugh over the first one's arm and gripping a hat on the first one's head. They are holding a guitar between them (whose strap is slung on the other's shoulder), one of them holding a chord, the other picking notes

#oc

Drawing of Sanji from One Piece laying in a pile of pink love letters that cover the entire background. Some roses, strawberries, felted hearts and heartshaped cookies are scattered around, all with red or pink colors. He has a cute heart bead bracelet and little red heart earrings and he's holding a heart shaped lollipop. He has a box of strawberry pocky laying on his chest. The artist (me) was obviously completely lost in the sauce drawing this its overly sweet, pink and soft. He's looking up at the viewer and smiling :)

Its his day today ❤️
#ValentinesDay #OnePiece

I don't really care about superheroes anymore either, but I enjoyed it. If you like CYOA stuff, I'd say give it a shot! I had some gripes with it, but it was still fun, the characters were fun, the management gameplay was fun, and it's comfortably short

Outer Wilds... I will always be telling people to play Outer Wilds until my last breath. Especially if you like exploration in videogames, it hasn't been done better than here

A two panel greyscale comic. Over a decade later, the two characters from the illustration above are standing in front of the poster and talking. The dialogue is as follows: Vic (the middle aged singer): "That's an embarrassing one. You still have that old thing?" Mikey (the young guitarist): "Are you kidding? Mom says it's a family heirloom. She fought a classmate in a record store over the last copy back in '85. The was actual blood spilled." Vic: "Goodness! Your momma sounds like a proper woman! I would love to meet her some--" Mikey: "Absolutely fucking not!"

Bonus. I unofficially dubbed Vic 'your mom's favorite rockstar'. It will absolutely be a running joke.
#oc

A colored illustration. A young boy with a loose band shirt and a bandana on his forehead is sitting on his bed and smiling while he plays his electric guitar, which is a little beaten up and has some stickers on it. Around him are his notes, old vinyl records and a CD. Behind him, his wall is full of posters depicting various rockstars. The poster directly behind him is rendered more clearly than the others. On it is a performing hair metal singer. A writing on the sides of the poster alludes to the photo being taken in the 80s. The poster is signed.

Childhood hero
#oc

Lines-only drawing of Spanners working at his workbench. There is a slew of tools, boxes etc all around including a couch on which Ace is sleeping with Spanners's hat over his face. In the background, a huge stripped jet engine is hoisted.

The same drawing, now with blocked out shadows - sharp light comes from a lamp on Spanners's workbench.

I was looking through my rd files the other day and found out I haven't finished this (and never will), so I figured I might as well post it like this.
(Including a rough shading test)
#reddwarf

Greyscale drawing of a young guy with a bandana on his head sitting on the floor with an electric guitar in his lap. His back is propped against an amp the guitar is plugged into. He has a cheeky expression.

Greyscale drawing of a middle aged man with long hair sitting on a sofa. He has one leg folded, writing into a notebook laying on his thigh. He is holding reading glasses in his other hand.

Greyscale drawing of a young woman playing electric bass. She is wearing dark makeup and goth style clothes.

Greyscale drawing of young man sitting on the floor, reading sheet music and tapping his finger on his leg. He is wearing stereotypical metalhead clothes including a battlejacket and has a septum piercing.

New oc lineup aka mom said it's my turn to make a fictional band
#oc

Thank you! ^^

Greyscale illustration of Ace and Psanners sitting on a floor in a bathroom stall, cleaning the toilet with toothbrushes. Above them are speech bubbles with this dialogue: Ace: "So, what did you do to end up here?" Spanners: "Buggered fixing an aileron on a trainer. You?" Ace: "I'm the one who clipped its whole wing."

Drew this way back in October for an event on tumblr. The prompt for that day was "Space Corps". Drew Ace and Spanners meeting for the first time.
#reddwarf

Happy birthday! 🎉

It's still crazy to me how years ago we thought the new generation would be tech wizards, but computer literacy is going down fast

What usually triggers it for me is when I can't find what I want to read or have an idea that's too long for a comic. Gotta feed myself. It helps that I actually like writing so I guess that's the secret ingredient🤦‍♀️I don't put pressure on myself like I do with drawing so it's like wow, free dopamine

Yeah, I wish stories would sometimes lean into these characters being the weird entities they are, but since it seems like it's a story about emancipation, it makes sense too. Plus, I like Alexander Skarsgård, so I'll allow it, lol

Oh right, I've also seen people post a censored/cropped version with a link to bsky for the uncensored version, so I guess that's also a possibility 🤷‍♀️

prone to deletion when it's properly labeled? (It should also hide those posts from minors.) But I've also seen some ppl here and there straight up ignore all of that 🤷‍♀️

I was trying to find out myself a while ago and still have no idea 🤦‍♀️ I often see people censor genitals or crop the drawing right above them. I was told to avoid using the 'nsfw' tag, using 'suggestive' instead. Might be a good rule of thumb to flag spicier posts as mature as it should be less--

tbf I usually pick out episodes about ghosts or conspiracies bcs I welcome their idiocy distancing the topic away since I don't like listening to people who genuinely believe in that stuff... but I don't really trust them on covering true crime since the guys don't have much tact

lmao, like everyone else I also immediately assumed you're talking about Last podcast on the left, and if you are... you're absolutely right. And I say that as a casual fan of theirs. Their sense of humor doesn't even align with mine at all, but they grew on me somehow?

Thanks, hehe

A greyscale three panel comic. Ace is sitting in the cockpit of his dimension jumping spaceship, Wildfire, and is looking out where a maneuvering thruster is puffing air. He thinks: "We've been cruising fine, but the portside maneuvering jets don't respond as well as I'd like." In the second panel, he is looking at the screens inside the cockpit. We see them: they are littered in text showing his name and hearts as well as badly written self-insert fanfic of him and Wildfire. He thinks: "I'll check the diagno-" He stammers, then says: "Ah?! W-Wildfire?" The third panel is a wide shot of the ship cruising through space. Dialogue goes as follows: Wildfire: "Oh. Sorry." Ace: "You've been daydreaming again, haven't you?" Wildfire: "Ah... I thought you liked it." Ace: "You're not supposed to say that out loud."

Still in the business of reminding people that the ship's computer in Ace's ship canonically has a crush on him
#reddwarf

Rimmer rides a ČZ 175/501 Čezeta - a Czechoslovak scooter from the 50s/60s, nicknamed "pig". Any motorcycle museum I set foot in here had one of them, and they are delightfully ugly.

Ace rides a Ducati 750 SS - I specifically referenced it off a real modified racing version of it nicknamed "Old Blue", which was apparently the first Ducati to win a race in the US (in Daytona in 1977). I only gave it Wildfire's colors...

Colored illustration of Ace Rimmer sitting on a Ducati racebike.

Colored illustration of Rimmer sitting on a Čezeta scooter.

Sexiest bike ever versus unsexiest bike ever
#reddwarf

That's awesome! When I go straight to inks, my drawings crumble like a house of cards 😅 Not too bad with studies, but without 1:1 reference it can be a disaster. I feel like it engages some part of my brain/imagination that I haven't practiced enough, I need to build my drawings from the ground up.

A study of a ye olde kitten photo, done with copic markers. The kitty is named “Baby”

A study of that one Gary Oldman Dracula poster but there’s no Gary Oldman, there’s only the statue face looking upwards. Done in gray copics

I recently got really into gray copic markers and ooohh I love the results so much 😭