shoomlah - Tumblr blog

shoomlah · 17 hours

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I love thinking "huh I've never really drawn a ton of Fallout fanart over the years" and then I remember her

I got actual work done this weekend but more importantly I drew PAM WHO DEATH FORGOT

#fallout

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shoomlah · 15 days

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Oh gosh, if you're taking questions I have like, a bajillion. The neopets "style" has been pretty loose over the years but... What sort of guidelines did you have to follow? Were there any hard "no"s? Was there a style guide or bible? In terms of design, what were you most proud of? Anything that was rejected that was disappointing to not see come to fruition?? Pardon my excitement!

From my recollection there was no official style guide, which I'm sure is pretty apparent from the art on the site—we'd run things by our art director Anthony/Tigercatcher for feedback, or by Adam or Donna to get their stamp of approval, but otherwise it was relatively lawless. It is fun to be able to look back at the old art and immediately tell who drew it, though!

A couple memorable anecdotes:

There was this brief phase in the early years where we had anthropomorphized neopets, but we hadn't really standardized how we drew them. They eventually got fingers and fully rendered eyes BUT I do love this transitional period where I just drew a bunch of sexy aishas with nub hands and dot eyes:

At one point there was a moratorium on giving the anthropomorphic characters helix piercings. It had become a kneejerk instinct to just toss a couple hoops onto a character's ear as you were designing them and it got: wildly out of hand

the worst notes were the ones we'd get on the Neopets Magazine covers, hands down. We could have so much fun with the on-site art, but anything public-facing like merch and the magazine were under way more levels of impenetrable scrutiny. The feedback was always to make the smiles BIGGER and B I G G E R

#neopets #ask #taldigi

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shoomlah · 1 month

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Realizing I never shared the obsessive little Myst island I made in ACNH! Extremely proud of the little details, all of which take up an obscene number of my island’s custom design slots😬👍

#acnh #animal crossing: new horizons #myst #myst island #sirrus

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shoomlah · 1 month

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Sometimes you just gotta buy a dumb little thing ♥️

#takara tomy aquarium truck #whale shark #a perfect object that I’m going to stare at every single day

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shoomlah · 1 month

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the other two edits I had to make, which are still hilarious to me:

Sandtroopers ALWAYS wear their SD-48 survival backpacks NO EXCEPTIONS

Jawas ALWAYS have two crossed bandoliers, NO EXCEPTIONS

Hello Claire! I was wondering if I could ask about a bit of one of your pieces. In the Mos Eisley Morning piece, there's a bit of writing on the right-hand side (above the astromech). May I ask what it says? Thanks!

it says "KARK JABA" or the equivalent of "FUCK JABBA" in Huttese—Disney made me take it out for the final, unfortunately. 😅

#star wars #disney #corporate feedback #that's licensed art baby

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shoomlah · 1 month

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Hello Claire! I was wondering if I could ask about a bit of one of your pieces. In the Mos Eisley Morning piece, there's a bit of writing on the right-hand side (above the astromech). May I ask what it says? Thanks!

it says "KARK JABA" or the equivalent of "FUCK JABBA" in Huttese—Disney made me take it out for the final, unfortunately. 😅

#ask #dorkboy #star wars #huttese

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shoomlah · 2 months

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Back in college my friends and I had a Valentine's Day tradition where we'd all make valentines for each other from our respective fictional crushes, Secret Santa style, and it RULED💘💘💘

(Benry valentine courtesy of the ever-enabling @fearsomebeast)

#valentine's day #valentines #bertie wooster #princess kida #dean mccoppin #dr. cox #benry #time to bring this tradition BACK

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shoomlah · 2 months

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A lot of hay is being made over the fact that they're changing the lineart on some of the UCs (ones you describe as being drawn with the pen tool). Most notably, the Faerie Ixi you designed. What's your take on that?

So it's tough! I love them, but those earlier pen tool pets just don't scale as well—and don't really match the style standards that would get set in place less than a year later. When you zoom into the vector files you can reeeeally see how the fidelity drops when you aren't seeing them as 150x150px gifs:

the pets drawn with the brush tool, however, are clean enough that you could use 'em right out of the box:

It would take a deft hand to re-draw the pen tool pets with weighted lines and maintain the appeal of the originals, but I do think it's totally doable! And they absolutely should have kept the coloured lines, c'mon now. 😑

#neopets #ask #generalghosty

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shoomlah · 2 months

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Vermes pt 3: Queen Mud, a hydra deciding, an above-ground traveler, and a strange sage.

#reblog #art I love #no one does it like Kanesha

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shoomlah · 3 months

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You worked at Neopets? THE Neopets? That sounds incredible. It is awesome finding details on the arts and production behind such a huge childhood favorite.

Are you able to talk about how it was like?

I absolutely can, if you have any specific questions!

In the meantime this stream I did with fellow ex- staff Snarkie and SoupFaerie a couple years back is a pretty fun primer, where we shared a whole bunch of old photos and art:

youtube

I keep saying we should do another one of these, agh!! It was super fun, but I am unfortunately also... super busy. 😅

#neopets #twitch

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shoomlah · 3 months

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GOD I forgot I also kinda pre-designed the Gnorbu? We'd occasionally have the entire team churn out ideas for new pets, and some of my designs got looped into the 2005 April Fool's joke:

People liked the llama enough that it got plussed up by Anthony and turned into a proper pet the next year👍🏼

OH DANG they're bringin' back the old UC art over on Neopets!🙌🏼🎉

My last summer working at Neopets was 2007, which was riiiight on the eve of the big conversion—I rarely kept track of my more basic paintbrushes (purple, rainbow, checkered, etc), but I sure as heck kept track of all the PBs I designed that required full redraws:

I do not think I realized until this moment how many ixis I drew, apologies to all other pet species 😔🙏

#neopets #I still love that turtle dude though #I gotta say was not what I would call an accomplished pet designer #All my pet ideas were just like “what if it's a literal Earth animal but blue” hit send #and now we have the krawk

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shoomlah · 3 months

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OH DANG they're bringin' back the old UC art over on Neopets!🙌🏼🎉

My last summer working at Neopets was 2007, which was riiiight on the eve of the big conversion—I rarely kept track of my more basic paintbrushes (purple, rainbow, checkered, etc), but I sure as heck kept track of all the PBs I designed that required full redraws:

I do not think I realized until this moment how many ixis I drew, apologies to all other pet species 😔🙏

#neopets #my art #god that poor robot Kougra #those early years with the pen tool were ROUGH

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shoomlah · 4 months

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travel sketchdump, turns out flying to Spokane for work and then to London for the holidays means a whoooole lot of downtime for sketchin’

#sailor moon #usagi tsukino #myst #riven #wahrk #diablo 4 #sketchbook #my art

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shoomlah · 5 months

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For everyone who's been asking after prints of my Good Omens/OFMD pieces, they're now available over in my INPRNT shop! The Good Omens piece is available as either one single wide format print or as five matching prints, since I'm indecisive and want to give you some options.

👇🏼 (link to the store is on my profile, aaaand right below where it says Source: inprnt.com since tumblr is a nightmare about off-site links) 👇🏼

#good omens #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #ofmd #our flag means death #blackbeard #stede bonnet #gentlebeard

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shoomlah · 5 months

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WELP add him to the list

#goopy boyfriends #fallout #ghouls #walton ghoulggins

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shoomlah · 5 months

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my new poster for the 30th Anniversary of Myst, available over at the Cyan store (link in the source and the comments)! This imagery has been indelibly inscribed on the inside of my eyelids since I was a kid, so it was an absolute joy bringing it to life in a more official capacity. 📚

#myst #myst island #cyan #channelwood #stoneship #selenetic #mechanical age #poster art #started this poster as freelance and finished it as a full-time Cyan employee #who woulda thunk #my art

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shoomlah · 5 months

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Forgot to share the last thing (last thing that isn't under NDA, at least) I was working on before leaving Valve: hand-lettering for the Dota 2 Ringmaster reveal trailer!

Who was I to resist the siren call of circus posters🎪🎪🎪

#dota 2 #ringmaster #hand lettering #circus poster

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