This is the first article in a new series that goes over each of the new designs that have been made available in the Astral Apple shop each month. I make one new design each week, so that’s typically four designs each month, and I’m going to blab on and on about them. If you’re interested in the process and story behind each of the designs that have been made, please read on.

As far as events go, February is probably best known for hosting Valentine’s Day. So, perhaps the weeks leading up to this day should have included plenty of romantic designs, but no. Instead, I started this month with a different style of art from my usual black outlined, cartoonish drawings. But don’t worry, I found my way back to them again.

A Flicker of Life

This was my first time using these new brushes. Charcoal and pencil are my favourite mediums to work with and I really wanted this design to have a charcoal look about it. It had to look a bit rough and obscure.

When going from traditional art to digital, you might be able to create the same look, but it doesn’t feel the same while you’re doing it. It requires learning how to create the same look using a different medium… that mimics the old medium… but not exactly… and with a different tool. I think that’s why the process of drawing this skull, who I’ve named Murray, felt clumsy. But he turned out how I wanted him to in the end. Drawing skulls can also be really handy when you’re doing portraits. Knowing the shape of the bones beneath the skin helps you to understand the features of the face a bit better, which will hopefully help your drawings of faces make sense. Unless you’ve been using a really freaky skull as your reference. Or a skull of the wrong animal. I’ve found that, when searching for reference images of skulls, I often come across lots of neanderthal skulls… Be careful which skulls you use when trying to understand the human face.

Murray’s supposed to look like he’s emerging from the darkness. He should be dead, but he’s not. That little green glow emanating from his eyes is a sign of hope, of life. I like to think of this as an image of optimism and perseverance. Of undying. Part of the reason I drew him was that I had another design planned, which was going to adopt the same dark and dirty look, which you’ll see further down. 

Great Old Ones

This was the only “romantic” design I created in the month of love. This is Cthulhu. You will notice that he really bears a lot of similarity to Murray from the previous week. The deep and dark eyes, the very visible cheekbones, the sparkle in his eyes.

I had been wanting to create this for over a year, but only ever did rough sketches until this February. I’ve seen so many interpretations of Cthulhu and there are a few stylistic options that I really like and had trouble choosing from. For the sake of finding easily available references at all the different angles, it’s tempting to go for the octopus head version, but I prefer the “deep dark eyes” and less fleshy version, which is not true to his original description. Although his head is not fleshy like an octopus, his tentacles must still be very fleshy. Wrinkly, deflated tentacles don’t look good in my personal opinion. I wanted him to fit in the design space without bits being abruptly cut off, so he disappears into darkness at the bottom and his wings are barely visible. Although a picture of Cthulhu in all his glory with his wings spread out would be fun to draw, that’s a design for another day. Maybe next Valentine’s Day.

As for the choice of text to accompany this image, I reckon you could probably think of more fun and clever things to go with this that would fit a romantic theme, but I’ve gone with “Let Us Become Great Old Ones Together”. I’ve had great suggestions from other people, including those who’ve happened upon my TikTok channel, which only confirms my lack of wit. I’m sticking with this one, it’s too late to change my mind now.

Three Wise Rabbits

I was late for Valentine’s Day, but really determined not to be late for Easter. Maybe a little too determined. These are the three wise rabbits. Or maybe the three wise Easter bunnies.

After finally completing the most romantic design I’ve ever drawn, featuring Cthulhu, I went back to the cartoon style of artwork that I’ve been using. I don’t think it’s any easier, but it feels simpler. Even though drawing in this cartoon style is really very simple, it is not as relaxing as the charcoal style drawings. When drawing cartoons, the simplicity of these drawings means that there is less dwelling on shapes and details, no time is spent on repetitive lines, it’s either done or it’s not. So here they are, they’re done.

I was going to make them look like rabbit coloured rabbits, but I think that by making them these lovely pastel colours and giving them a bit of shininess, they almost look edible. I’ve decided the blue one is blueberry flavour, the pink one is cherry and the yellow one is banana. I’ve also decided that they are chewy, like gummies.

The Spiral Towards Dogstruction

After I made the “Spiral Towards Cat-astrophe”, I thought, “I should really do a dog version”. But I didn’t. Instead, I thought, “Dogs are harder to draw than cats”, and left it at that. But after I posted a little video, someone left a comment asking if I had a dog version of the cat-astrophe design. At least, I think that’s what they were asking…

Forgetting my initial reason for not having done it months ago, I decided to go ahead and do it. And I spent most of my time trying to decide how to draw the dogs. I think when it comes to drawing cartoon style dogs, there are so many breeds to choose from and so many stylistic choices you can make that it’s hard to pick one. I planned to create something akin to an animation, so I thought it would be best to make this dog as simple as I could. That’s because I’m not good at animating. And dogs are hard to draw.

Looking back at the Spiral Towards Catastrophe, I decided I would make this new design better. I think there needed to be a bit more variation in the cats, hence the dog version uses frames of an animation. A rather crude animation. Since they are spiralling towards dogstruction, the spiral should become more turbulent towards the middle. I also felt that the spiral in the cat version was too sparse, so I doubled the number of lines. And there we go, the “Spiral Towards Dogstruction”.

 

What would you like to see in the Astral Apple shop next month? If you’ve got an idea for a design that you would like to see in the shop, in these art styles, let me know. I just might make it.