Well I was right. I originally planned on doing this last weekend and submitting at the deadline, but I was hit with a streak of bad art and decided to put it off. And then I had to wake up at 9AM all week. My comp sci brain cannot do that and the entire week was suffering. Anyway about the image, there’s some parts that bother me, but for the most part it’s definitely an improvement over last year. That’s what I like about these collabs, the fact that I can look back and say “yeah, this is better”. I also enjoy that a joke about me adding a new character every year has turned into me actually adding a new character every year. Regarding with the potato comparison I always make, I think this image counts as a baked potato with butter and some sour cream. mmm.

From left to right: Luther, Gear cRuNCH, Big Streak, Power Grid, and JJKnott on the bottom. I’ve given up on actually trying to get my friends to draw something themselves, although I will still bug them about it every year. This year we’ve added Power Grid to this list! Me & the boys showing up for the collab!! Not sure who will be in it next year, but I’m sure I’ll find someone else to bug haha. Big streak is a new character from my friend. We were playing Legends of Equestria together and found there was no eraser ‘talent mark’, and so Big Streak was born. That’s the whole story [but maybe not the end of our LoE story ;)]. This time I wanted to compress the characters a bit more than last year. I did this partially so that we don’t become a giant blob somewhere and partially to reduce the amount of work. Since a lot of the characters are cut off I don’t need to draw as much. Changes to the overall art this time include mostly adding some subtle fur texture with shadows. Not sure if it’ll stay but it seems OK. Might need to improve more before I’m ready to commit it to everything.

It was these collabs that caused me to start creating art again after a long break. I don’t know where I would be if I hadn’t randomly decided to participate on the very last day 3 years ago. I started back when I was in first year of university and now I will be graduating in just a few months. I hope I can continue to draw and improve even afterwards. Maybe I’ll finally feel ready enough to start posting stuff regularly haha. Thanks for reading my blob if you got here, and have a good day.

If you are interested, here is the GIMP 2 source file.