I had so much fun experimenting with a completely different style like Madness style. First time I participate to it since my account is less than a year old, here the preview of the finished work. I will post it tomorrow in the afternoon:

The complete work will be rated M due to the gore I wanted to add. It's been 9 years since I drew something gorish, last time was during a Goretober challenge on DA. It was extremely cathartic drawing this Madness fanart because irl I am dealing with something, or better someone, extremely disturbing and annoying so subliming my anger and frustration through art helped me a lot these days. Now that I am done with this piece I will start with the entry for the Heritage Day Collab, the sketch at least because the Madness piece tired me a bit due to the layers I had to use to achieve effects I wanted.

Well, see you tomorrow for the Madness Day!

Hello guys, I hope you are doing fine. As I mentioned in a previous journal I plan to post photos and talk a bit about them since I am removing them from FA after discovering I feel much more at home here with its amazing community. I want to start with a set of historical photos taken during WWII when my great uncle fought during Operation Barbarossa in Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Union (he was one of the few who managed to survive but he partially lost toe mobility because of frost).

Let's start with something simple:

The fallen fighter

This is a LaGG-3 "White 4-50" (Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov LaGG-3) shot down in 02/05/1942 in Stalino. With the help of my cool friend Szynka and this website I was able to identify the model. Despite its flaws and poor production quality, it was one of the backbones of the Soviet Airforce and laid the groundwork for one of the great fighters of the Great Patriotic War.

This was a single engine Soviet fighter. It was developed in 1938 under the name I-301 to replace Polikarpov I-16 and because there was a shortage of light alloys and steel, it was designed to be predominantly made of wood (delta-drevesina, a special chemically improved plywood that was particularly rugged and fire-resistant. The prototype was the LaGG-1 and  took its maiden flight on March 1, 1940. It was underpowered and overweight — its Klimov M-105P engine could produce only 1050 hp at sea level, which was insufficient, and was also prone to oil leaks(1). Pilots reported that the plane generally had poor flying characteristics (it was prone to spin during steep turns, it would stall suddenly, and the landing gear were too fragile). Despite these flaws, it passed its trials and was ordered into production in November 1940(2).

By the time of the June 22, 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, 100 LaGG-3’s had been built. All units operating the new fighter were far from the front lines and escaped the initial onslaught. By the end of 1941, it was for a short period the most common fighter in the Soviet inventory, more numerous than either the Yak-1 or MiG-3(3). The main flaws of this plan were slow speed, heaviness and being underpowered but it has some good qualities too:

highly fire-resistant

very rugged

heavier armament than its German counterparts, the Messerschmitt Bf 109E and F

Another trait of this fighter is that it boasted one 20mm cannon firing through the propeller hub, two 7.62mm machine guns in the nose, and two 12.7mm machine guns in the wings — and all these guns were a significant contributing factor to the plane’s weight(4).

fun fact: in October 1941, a single LaGG-3 unit, the 21st Fighter Regiment more precisely, shot down 23 German aircraft while losing only seven of its own(5).

It became a a successful bomber interceptor, but despite this it couldn't compete with Bf 109, especially the F variant. It was easier to fly than the MiG-3 but it was quite unpopular among Soviet pilots who nicknamed it “Lakirovanny Garantirovanny Grob.” This was both a play on its abbreviated designation (LaGG) and a reference to its wooden construction that translated to “Guaranteed Varnished Coffin.”(6)

Other downfalls of this fighter were the fragile landing gear and quirky flight characteristics that made it have high accident rate and not recommended for inexperienced pilots. In comparison Yak-1 was more pilot-friendly. LaGG-3 production ended in 1944, but the Russians continued to fly the type for the duration of the war. It even saw action against Japanese forces in the Far East in the closing days of the war(7).

It's also interesting that the LaGG-3 was made into the superior La-5 by swapping out its water-cooled engine for a radial, when the Curtiss P-36 was developed into the superior P-40 by making the opposite swap^^

Another photo I want to share is this:

Soviet POWs

This photo taken on 30/06/1942. It comes from my grandfather's photo collection that was given to me as way to honour his memory but most of all I want to pay tribute to history. The photo was taken in Donetsk (at that time the city was called Stalino), et the start of World War II, the population of Stalino was 507,000. After the war, the population was 175,000. The invasion by Nazi Germany almost completely destroyed the city. It was occupied by German and Italian forces as part of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine between 16 October 1941 and 5 September 1943. Hopefully it was mostly rebuilt on a large scale after the war. These people were Soviet POWs forced to work on a warehouse, I only hope they managed to escape and avoid the worst but I highly doubt. History shall never be forgotten.

And now I want to share two of the most dark history photos I have:

Stammlager 348

 What you are seeing is a line of Soviet POWs being sent in one of the camps of Dnipropetrovsk, the photo was taken on 06/10/1941. Dnipropetrovsk was under Nazi occupation from 26 August 1941 to 25 October 1943. The city was administered as part of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. The Holocaust in Dnipropetrovsk reduced the city's remaining Jewish population, estimates for which range from 55,000 to 30,000, to just 702. As I said this is Stalag 348 where the occupiers are estimated to have killed upwards of 30,000 Soviet POWs. Rest in peace, everyone.

Here a list of all German stalag camps: https://www.pegasusarchive.org/pow/Stalag.htm

I wanted to share the history of another stalag 328 but sadly the website will be shut down the next year and I can't find the article anymore :(

Last but not least, the death march photo:

Todesmärsche in Woroschylowhrad

This photo shows a line of prisoners leaving a concentration camp in Woroschilowgrad or Voroshilovgrad, renamed on 5 November 1935 in honour of Soviet military commander and politician Kliment Voroshilov because the original name is Luhansk. The photo was taken on 25 July 1942 and I find this particularly interesting from a historical point of view since the city became a frontline city in World War II after the failure of Nazi Germany's Operation Barbarossa to capture major Soviet cities.

On July 17, 1942, Luhansk was captured by German invaders (Case Blue). At that time, an underground city committee of the party and a partisan unit were created in the city. I. M. Yakovenko, who previously worked as the second secretary of the Luhansk City Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, was approved as the secretary of the underground regional committee and city committee of the party and the commander of the partisan detachment. In the partisan detachment were the secretary of the underground regional committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party of Ukraine, N. Fesenko, and the secretary of the underground city Komsomol committee, H. Serikova. A wide network of temporary apartments is being created in Luhansk. More than 100 people were left for underground work and organizing sabotage in the city. In addition, on the instructions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, the city committee of the party selected and sent 35 communists to other partisan units. 64 scouts were sent to the rear of the enemy.

From the first days of the occupation, underground party and Komsomol organizations began to actively operate in the city and adjacent areas. The partisan unit waged an armed struggle against the fascist occupiers in Luhansk, on the territory of Stanychno-Luhansk, Verkhnyoteplovsky, Oleksandrivsky, Novosvitlivskyi districts. Partisans made bold attacks on fascist troops, destroyed soldiers and officers, disabled enemy equipment, telephone lines, bridges, etc.

On September 15, 1942, German nazis discovered and surrounded a partisan detachment near the village of Pankivka. In an unequal battle, fighting to the last drop of blood, I.M. Yakovenko, squad leader P.P. Shevchenko, Komsomol member Yu. Oleksintsev and others died. But as a result of a fierce battle, the partisans managed to break through the enemy ring, and those who remained continued to fight against the occupiers, disrupting their measures, destroying enemy soldiers and officers, and equipment. A group of underground Komsomol members led by N. Fesenko was active in the city. This group included H. Serykova, H. Shvedkova, V. Tretyakevich, pioneer V. Pyatorkin and many others. They carried out the assignment of the underground city party committee, distributed leaflets and anti-fascist literature. On the task of the underground regional committee of the party, N. Fesenko and G. Serykov, through V. Tretyakevich, established a connection with the party-Komsomol underground of Krasnodon, with the "Young Guard" organization.

One of the forms of struggle of city workers against the occupiers was the sabotage of their military, economic and other activities. Workers evaded work in every possible way, hid their true specialties, and if they were forced to work, they damaged machines and prevented the start-up of industrial enterprises. The Nazis did not manage to restore the work of any city enterprise. On February 14 1943, Luhansk was liberated from the German invaders (Operation Gallop).

Nazis murdered 8,000 civilians, including women, children and the elderly. More than 10,000 Luhansk residents, mostly young people, were forcibly taken to hard labor in nazi Germany. So this photography depicts one of the hot spots moments of the conflicts where we see these poor people being forced to leave a concentration camp to be transferred to other locations since Soviet forces were likely to gain ground. May those soul rest in peace. Sorry for everything.

And now as last photo to conclude this first photographic journal an Iron Cross Class 2 I bought on E-Bay from a German seller:

Das Eisernes Kreuz ist ursprünglich eine preußische Kriegsauszeichnung und wurde am 10. März 1813 von König Friedrich Wilhelm III. für Auszeichnung im Befreiungskrieg gegen die Napoleonische Fremdherrschaft gestiftet. Ich habe das bei bei einem deutschen Verkäufer auf Ebay gekauft. Jedes Mal, wenn ich es ansehe, zolle ich der Person Tribut, die in einem blutrünstigen Krieg namens „Erster Weltkrieg“ gestorben ist.

(Yes, I am practicing a bit of German since I am studying it)

Ok, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed this looooong reading and if the T rating is not enough due to the nature of the post, let me know in the comment and I will change to M. Bye and stay awesome!

References and footnotes:

(1) https://hangar47.com/lavochkin-gorbunov-gudkov-lagg-3/

(2) ibidem

(3) ibidem

(4) https://hangar47.com/lavochkin-gorbunov-gudkov-lagg-3/

(5) ibidem

(6) ibidem

(7) ibidem

Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Second World War Volume One: Single-Engined Fighters - Yefim Gordon and Dmitri Khazanov - ISBN 1-85780-083-4

LaGG & Lavochkin Aces of World War 2 - George Mellinger - ISBN 1-84176-609-7

Hello people, how are you? I hope you are all fine. In these days, despite some rough stuff irl, I am feeling quite creative and motivated on the artistic side due to the many collabs I am participating. Right now I finished sending my works for the OC's by night collab and Alien collab + Contest, but I would like to share a small sneak peek for the Brazil Day Art Contest:

It has been ages since last time I drew a snake, it was back in 2016 when I still had DA and I started a series about snakes of Florida. You can see that I tend to start with the head, a quick circle to build it and then the line of the back as way to draw the rest of the body. I know scales are the most challenging part due to the geometric angles they tend to have from different perspectives. This won't be the only entry I will do for the contest because I want to explore many aspects of Brazil from the mythological, cultural and anthropological point of view. It will be a collection of different draws and this will give me occasion to draw people of different cultures. Brazil, as you know, is a melting pot of cultures, many elements of Brazilian mythology are shared by the traditions of other countries, especially its South American neighbors and Portugal. My work wants to focus (or aims at it) on this rather than adding fictional characters in a Brazilian context (I won't rule out I might add a work featuring at least one fictional or OC but I feel more motivated to work on the cultural aspects).

I have already started colouring the first draw of this collection and it will be my very first caricature posted online of an important historical figure of Brazilian history. But I also wanted to start sketching the second work and share it here with you. I won't tell you the context of this snake though, you will know more once the entire collection is finished. I still have a month to reach my goal and ofc I will continue the Homer collab (I love it but I also need to vary the drawing subjects in order to not feel overwhelmed by the same topic).

Ok I will leave you know, I'm back to drawing. Bye!

I usually don't celebrate the increase of people who decide to follow this silly account but I couldn't resist to make this to celebrate the sacred number:

Some of my OCs looking at the result with...different reactions XD

On a more serious note I want to thank you all people who decided to follow me and see what I make. Thank you! Today was a stressful day but this number and the discovery here of a dear friend I met on DA really made my day. In these days I will continue the collabs and contests I am in. I am also thinking about posting these journals photos I take of nature (mostly birds, insects and reptiles) in which I will provide some nerdy stuff about the subject depicted there. No personal info about the location though, I like to maintain a bit of privacy.

Another silly, non-sense journal about how YT can be quite non-sense/silly or plain stupid when recommending videos. I was watching some cool animations about Pico and BF and I saw this video among others:

This is basically what people think about Pico without knowing about him XD

I also read comments labeling him "oh, that videogame school shooter"

BRUH...

Oh well, this is why relying on algorithms is not always a best idea since for now A.I. lacks the ability to understand pragamtics (how context contributes to meaning) and many times YT removed comments of people who simply replied to others, they didn't contain any link or threats. Probably some set of words triggered the algorithm to cancel them and again another proof of A.I.'s inability to read the air.

In a long distant future I will finish this:

If you know Sardinian folklore you already know the creature depicted here but for now I won't say much. This will be the first of some posts about Italian folklore (I plan talking about other countries folklore too) inspired by the YT channel Paranormal Zone. I originally made these journals when I had my DA account but now that's gone I want to migrate them here.

Today I discovered Friday Night Funkin', I already love it but I suck at this types of games because I can't properly follow the music rhythm XD I love how catchy songs are, the fluid animation and characters design. Really cool game, but I didn't expect to see this once I lose against my rival:

Oh man XD I wonder why highlighting deez (I am pretty new to the lore of the game and its characters, hence my surprise). I laughed my ass off when I saw it.

On a side note Happy Robot Day to everyone, I didn't participate to the collab simply because robots are not my things in terms of art and for now I don't feel ready to experiment with them yet. Maybe in future, who knows but for now I have other artistic priorities and weaknesses to work on. I also love how they changed the colour of content rating during this day:

Despite this I still want to contribute to the Dragon Ball collab BUT not in terms of animation though because I know nothing about, I don't plan to work on animation. I will contribute with a fanart, still thinking about a parody though. I potentially have something in mind and this would be the second time I put one of my OCs in another fandom.

Sorry for the silly journal, have a serene and happy Robot Day. See you, bye!

These days, despite the stuff I have to do irl, I am having so much fun with the collabs I am participating and while I continue with the great Homer collab (one of my favourite) I also need to take a break from it by sketching some drawings for future works that will appear here. One of them is a tribute to Manas (I love Central Asia culture and more in general all Asian cultures along with many other cultures across the world) the 10th century legendary hero of the Kyrgyz people. He is said to be based on Bars Bek, the first khagan of the Kyrgyz Khaganate. The plot of Manas revolves around a series of events that coincide with the history of the region, primarily the interaction of the Kyrgyz people with other Turkic, Mongolic and Chinese peoples. The mythic poem has evolved over many centuries, being kept alive by bards called manaschy or manaschi. The oral epic have been included on the UNESCO Cultural Heritage list on 2013.

To make a tribute to this epic figure (literally and non) I am doodling a sketch:

Recently I am learning to use different colours when sketching multiples characters and different elements in the composition thanks to a work I saw here, more specifically Sonic World Adventure made by leroyalmess. As you can notice I use a lot the triangle composition to guide me during the sketch phase, in the next image you can see it better:

The horse's body has been built on a simple triangle, the arrows you keep seeing in my animated WIPs I post on my works help me to guide my mental creation of the overall structure of the drawing. Manas himself is built on a triangle:

extremely rough lines that allow to build the more polished sketch of the armour:

When sketching I always suggest people not to be precise and neat, the polishing phase will start with cleaned linearts (sometimes even a rough lineart may be necessary if one then wants to change something. As you can notice in the purple sketch phase (let's call this way) there was no sword but just a hand pointing to a specific direction but then I changed idea and I used the sword held by Manas statue in Ala-Too Square (central square in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan) to better represent his warrior nature and brave character.

Fun fact: the statue of Lenin, which was placed in the square's center, was moved in 2003 to a smaller square in the city, and a new statue called Erkindik (Freedom) was installed in its place. Later in 2011 it was replaced by a statue of Manas, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Kyrgyzstan's independence.

I find this choice very fitting. The natural asymmetry of triangular arrangement makes the composition quite appealing on a visual level hence I tend to use as main base for my more recent drawings. I like it. Hope you enjoyed this silly journal, have a nice day/evening^^

Hello guys! I hope you are doing great, as the title says I would like to ask you guys (both who follows me and mere visitors) to suggest me 6 characters from different series as long as it's not sexual NSFW. This challenge was created by Melissa Capriglione and on March 18, 2020, she posted on her Twitter a template with the question of what characters she should draw.

This is the template:

You can download it here

Don't feel obliged to do this, do only if you want. I am curious to see what NG has to offer me but keep in mind that after I get the characters I won't start immediately because I am still doing a collab here and study always keep me busy so I will go at my own pace.

UPDATE:

Since all suggestions have been made I will make in future a second part because one of the characters that has been suggested will be featured in the first panel of second part. Thank you for suggestions. The characters of second parts, minus Hitori Goto, will be asked in other socials too to see the variance I can get. Again thank you all.

So I will put here the list of characters that have been suggested to me:

first part

Niko, OC created by NikoN1nja  and suggested by NikoN1nja 

Milim Nava from That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Milim Nava, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime [Tensei Shitara Suraimu Datta Ken] suggested by Yatsufusa

Nene Romanova, Bubblegum Crisis (1987 to 1991) [Baburugamu Kuraishisu]

Utena Tenjou, Revolutionary Girl Utena [Shōjo Kakumei Utena]

Madoka Kaname, Puella Magi Madoka Magica [Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magika]

"Watashi" (The Protagonist. She has no canonical name.), Humanity Has Declined [Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita]

second part

Hitori Gotō ("Bocchi"), Bocchi the Rock! [Bocchi za Rokku!] all these characters are suggested by Yatsufusa

AM from I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream suggested by D1MMED0098 

Italy Veneziano from Hetalia suggested by LasagnaLegacy 

Nny from Johnny the homicidal maniac suggested by my friend Citrineburm

Jeremy Crow from The Secret of NIMH

Nijimaru from Demon Slayer these last two suggested by Dilong

UPDATE 18/08/2024:

Suggestions are closed now, thank you so much for these characters^^ I enjoyed so much hearing from everyone's different characters.

Well, even though I still don't know what Clock Day is since I am new in the site, I wish a happy and serene Clock Day to all people who celebrate it. But I admit I like the strawberry character design XD

I don't know if drawing something related to this event or not but in the meantime I decide what to do, again: Happy Clock Day. Currently watching The Clock Tower and I love it^^

EDIT: I decided I will draw something related to this day, but tomorrow since now I am tired and I need to sleep.