Aral

I doodled Nevada with a more neutral expression just for the sake of it (kinda want to do it with the others as to refine their design) and then decided to colour it watercolour style cuz bored af and it's late and... wow I'm pretty satisfied with the result. Nailed the indigenous traits pretty well, I thi,k. So far I've only drawn her with a mischievous or flirty expression (either "I'm fucking with you" or "I want to fuck you"), but that's her when the mask drops for a moment of reflection.

You remember the abandoned boat I was kinda taking care of in my own way a few months ago? The one that inspired the OG shipgirl that went into a literary project (if you read my blog)? I had taken the owner's contact info to ask about her, and I didn't remember I had actually put him into my contacts in case something did come out of this. He hasn't replied to my email in September, and seems to answer to no one anyway, and I've come to realize he likely comes undercover because stuff moves inside the boat sometimes, and he's been known to come at really ungodly hours of the night (discovered from reading old emails). That's when I thought, yeah, not gonna do this, I don't want any awkward misunderstanding or worse.

Come today, I checked my contacts for some reason and turns out the guy has Telegram. And he fucking creeps me out. Dude looks like a hobo and has a look in his eyes that isn't quite one of a serial killer, but just gives me a really weird vibe. I'm just not surprised anymore that the boat isn't taken care of and that although we never bumped into each other, last time I went there I got a really bad feeling and bolted outta here. Just really gives off a drug addict vibe, or just... idk, someone not all there. Your gut knows.

I'm sorry Spirit, all I can do now is write about you, and imagine a different outcome for you than being left to rot in a port until you catch on fire or sink at your moorings...

This big boy turned 12 today

God Tumblr is bloated. I only log in to see stuff when looking for gifs or tutorials but it's pretty much unusable and it's becoming more and more unusable each time I log in on here. Like how do people stay there lmfao

I'm thinking of putting my blog into a bigger site but I'm lazy as hell to code one... though I did open a new one on nekoweb

I got a terrible, terrible confession to make.
I do enjoy listening to country music sometimes.

Execute me now

Tennessee and California, whose poses gave me the hardest time while I was drawing, but they turned out better than I expected.

Those two were quite a close pair of sisters, though they had their moments here and there, especially since sometimes one liked one ship and the other didn't and then argument about why X sucks, why are you even friends with her, but no she has this or that quality, and all. Both survived Pearl, but California was sunk and even after repairs, lost part of her hearing and remained with chronic pain from the damage her vessel had endured until the end of her life. Tennessee had to fight two wars, the actual one, but also supporting her beloved Pennsylvania, who she had been with since the 1930s, and was completely broken after Arizona's violent demise. She even thought of leaving her because at times it was just too hard to process her own trauma (she was almost undamaged but saw everything, which was horrifying in itself, + survivor's guilt) and in addition supporting her lover, but she stayed, and it was the right decision. At the end it's Penn who left her after the war, because she thought she was protecting her in the process and setting her free to explore new options in the mothball fleet, but Tennessee, until the day she died, missed her dearly, each anniversary more painful than the last. The two sisters were mothballed together for 12 years, before scrapping.

Happy Victory Day, everyone!

There's something kinda mysterious I've experienced my whole life, and I wonder if anyone else has.

When I listen now to songs I used to put on repeat in some periods of my life (including childhood) and that are in a language I either didn't understand at the time or that I still don't understand, and that I see the translated lyrics or just understand now, it turns out they were perfectly fitting for what I was going through at the time they were my favourites. It's always baffled me. I had the same with symbolism in my mind that would come out seemingly out of nowhere when I was a teen, and looking back I see the connection, but the case of the songs that I couldn't possibly know were perfectly fitting always felt so weird to me. It can't be background knowledge as I don't know the languages. Maybe music is the universal language here?

There's a fun fair in the town square and passing by, I saw they had those waterball thingies that they inflate with 15min worth of air and put you inside so you can roll on the water. That shit is my worst fucking nightmare, no one could get me to get inside no matter how many million euros they promise to pay me for going. Like I'd rather fucking walk on a minefield and possibly get blown up than go inside that thing. Minefields don't trigger your latent claustrophobia, lol.

Hell I even thought they had disappeared, I remember seeing a lot of them like 10 years ago.

I made some chibi heads for my shipgirls yesterday night (without Costa Concordia/HMS Victory, though I might make them too at some point?), so I could use them in little memes like that. I'll add more as more are being designed :D

Also took this as an opportunity to edit some designs a bit, ie Yamato's got longer hair, or some skintones were slightly edited because in the OG design they looked a little too light or cool.

Weird how I couldn't eat a couple weeks ago, but now I'm like a goddamn bottomless pit. lol

Aral, I'm writing here to tell you as a reminder that I fucking loved your art on agora draws thread! Fucking hell oh my God. We love ships, we love ship ships, we love lady ships and lady ship ships in love! Bless.

Double status but oh boy, oh boy. My 17 year old self is so happy. I used to ship those two girls from Girls und Panzer, but back when I was doing so, no one else did. In the meantime an OAV came out where they get to interact more with each other (their schools face each other in battle I reckon) and now I see this same ship that I had predicted popping up. I legitimately feel the fucking best when I see that. I've long stopped watching that anime, but I am so happy people caught up when it seemed no one would ever get it.

Most importantly it's this picture that I freaking love because it reminds me of an old one I had done in that period. I don't know whether the artist took inspiration from mine or if it's just a coincidence but this fills me with such a joy. The joy of feeling understood, you know? Finally, my teenage self is not so lonely anymore.

The pic, then my own (you can see the Aral style budding here, heh).

Musashi meets her Azur Lane counterpart...
She's going to ask her if they explode when you touch them, lol. Other Musashi is surprised to find a human instead of a mythical creature in front of her.

Spent the last few hours doodling this, mostly focused on their expressions so I apologize for the weird torsos and the possibly weird lighting, I wasn't sure how to go about it with that hat lul

No one would guess they're battleships unless they know the artist

After a week or so of playing Azur Lane, the dorm is starting to get nice. You start out with a rundown room and I farmed the hell out of decor tokens to be able to buy new flooring and furniture because I couldn't stand this shit looking like that. I could've used gems (RL currency) since you get some for free with missions, but I used them up on increasing the number of shipgirls you can put in here for passive exp and morale.

I just focus on getting my favourite ships and sometimes appreciate new character designs that are good, and it gave me something to do during the time I was kinda sick and not really had the mojo to draw. Besides, it gives me ideas for the future, like for example with Japanese ships (Hiei is sleeping and I grew attached to her because she was the first battleship I got in the game).

Need a history loving gf

I'm careful about eating too much at a time and crying victory as I'm eating a small lunch right now, but I feel ravenous after those few days eating so little. Like as I was getting ready the only thing I could think about was the bottomless pit in my stomach and feeling weak when standing up for too long. I guess that's a good sign.

Little doodle I did a couple days ago, tbh I'd love to do more of that type but as usual I get caught up in making shit perfect, in "getting it right", and end up erasing the whole damn canvas all the time.

I want to do some of the other couples hhh, I actually have a lot of ideas