started working on a some PET postal service designs...

So I'm going to post about an ongoing project of mine even though it's probably a bit premature. I call it the Princess Paper Doll project although it involves a fair number of not princesses. It technically started as the Disney Princess Paper Doll project but it stopped being Disney about ten minutes after I conceived the idea. Anyway, it's gonna be a long one so if you're at all curious it's under the cut.

About a decade ago now (I think) my mom bought a set of Disney Princess paper dolls for my niece. This delighted me, first because I had Disney paper dolls as a kid, and second because of a unique feature of this particular set.

See, in this set, all of the princesses were in the same pose. Like so:

And I immediately thought that was pretty cool because they could all wear each other's clothes. I also thought that because they were all posed the same and they could therefore all wear each other's clothes, it would be fairly easy (for a moderately savvy artist) to copy the base and add other characters to the lineup and even if it took longer to make their outfits, they wouldn't have to be naked in their underwear. The Princess and the Frog being the last movie that Disney had released at the time and my niece being from New Orleans and some of her family being kinda grossly racist I decided to begin with Tiana:

However, the more observant among you may notice, as I did not for a while, that they cannot all wear each other's clothes. Tiana here, along with half of the other princesses, is wearing a wide skirt. So none of them can wear anything designed for Jasmine. Also, the set kind of sucks so Aurora up there can't even keep one of her own dresses on, there are just not enough tabs to defy gravity.

So I started over with a new base and tried again.

I worked on that long enough to get most of the bases for the Disney Princesses done, decided I didn't like the pose, I think, and set it aside.

Time for version 3.

I apparently did not get very far with this one. I only made 4 bases this time (Anna, Ariel, Pocahontas, and Mulan). But I made an entire dress for Anna (her coronation gown) and all of the outfits for Mulan. Then I started drawing clothes for Pocahontas and realized that I'd made a terrible mistake. See, Pocahontas, in the sequel, wears a ballgown and full cage crinolin and they weren't going to get along with that hand on the hip. So time to try again.

Version 4 is where I start gaining some consistency. The model here is mostly what I stick with going forward and I made some pretty good progress.

I did eventually scrap this one too, because I was having trouble navigating some of the skirts on the wide stance as evidenced by Charlotte (I do not profess to be a master artist).

So version 5.

You'll note that aside from Chel they are all only in Kida's underwear and that's because I decided fairly quickly into the clothing process that these ladies were too damn skinny. I'm not actually sure why they got so much skinnier from v4 to v5 but it had to go.

Version 6. Actually, I'm going to skip version 6 entirely here. It is identical to version 7 (the current version) except that I decided their busts were a little too big to accommodate everyone (and even the ones it seemed to accommodate looked better with the adjustment). Luckily this is the point where I started using Illustrator for the lineart so it was fairly easy to make the adjustment on the wealth of clothes I had already finished in v6. Anyway, now I've made most of the bases I have planned and at least one outfit for each (except Rapunzel because there is soooo much detail that after I did the rough sketch I was not prepared to do the clean lines). I started experimenting with how to make the different hairstyles work with Belle and Anastasia (why those two? who knows) so they have all of their hairstyles to go with their bases, and Tiana and Pocahontas have all of their clothes (and almost all Tiana's hair, though I haven't fixed it for actual interchangeability when printed).

These do have tabs, by the way, they're just hidden unless I'm running a test print to make sure they work.

Now, full disclosure I mostly traced their heads from screencaps. I am not sufficiently versed in animated women that I can confidently draw all of those faces. I drew the base and I'm drawing the clothes.

Nothing is shaded partly because I'm not great at shading and partly because I've learned the hard way that it sucks to do all the shading and then make a minor adjustment and have to do it all over again.

Also I say Tiana has most of her hair because I want to include her Wreck-It-Wralph 2 hair (you'll note the outfit is there) but I am shit at drawing hair in general and worse at drawing curly hair (you'll note Merrida) and I can't find any 2d art of her with that hairstyle that I can use either to trace or as reference.

Incidentally, as much as possible I am trying to make each piece separate so the aprons come off of the Duke's and Cal's diner dresses for Tiana, Anna, Ariel, and Aurora are wearing a blouse, skirt and corset, so on and so forth. It allows for a lot more mixing and matching and it creates a more 3d effect that's kind of neat.

The full list, in case you can't recognize everyone or read their name on the base is: Anastasia (Anastasia), Anna (Frozen), Ariel (The Little Mermaid), Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Belle (Beauty and the Beast), Charlotte (The Princess and the Frog), Chel (The Road to El Dorado), Cinderella (Cinderella), Elsa (Frozen), Esmeralda (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), Giselle (Enchanted), Jane (Tarzan), Jasmine (Aladdin), Kayley (Quest for Camelot), Kidagakash (Atlantis), Marina (Sinbad), Megara (Hercules), Merrida (Brave), Moana (Moana), Mulan (Mulan), Nani (Lilo & Stitch), Odette (The Swan Princess), Pocahontas (Pocahontas), Rapunzel (Tangled), Snow White (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), Thumbelina (Thumbelina), and Tiana (The Princess and the Frog).

I'm planning on adding Amalthea (Last Unicorn) at some point. I also keep waffling about Mirriam and Tzipporah (Prince of Egypt) because they are awesome animated women who deserve to be included but also I am not Jewish and I worry it's disrespectful somehow (although Pocahontas is in there so that ship's kinda sailed, hasn't it?). I'll probably try to add Mirabel (Encanto) eventually. I ought to add Nancy (Enchanted), but that's still a big question mark. In the theoretical grand plan I'm going to do the fellas eventually to, though that may be a bit more complicated. I'm also open to suggestions. However, I'm probably gonna try to get more of these ladies finished before I add to the roster.

By the way, do not come on this post to complain about women's body types in animation. This is for fun. I'm having fun with it. I worked really hard to make this work at all. Just don't.

You say you dug up those noncanon concepts for the 2017 beta draft from your files? What other ideas do you have from there, are they also Hamster's Paradise early rejected ideas?

Mostly just a jumble of old rough doodles on an older drawing app whose name I can't even remember, eh I've found Sketch much better anyway.

Most are earlier doodles of the beta Hamster's Paradise post, nothing really new there, though there were also some random art of all sorts of a spec evo grab bag of other ideas I had back then just playing around with speculative evolution tropes, years ago.

Some notable non-Hamster's Paradise ones:

Pentapodal indricothere-like kangaroo descendant that turned its tail into basically a fifth leg. Also some carnivorous macropods that may have influenced the loupgaroos and the harmsters.

An attempt to wyvern-ize a pegasus after hearing some spec evo explanation on why the dragons of Westeros are all wyverns for "realism".

Some big headed baleen whale azhdarchids. How and where and why these could evolve, I have no clue.

A semi "realistic" take on Meowth from Pokemon interpreting it as less of a cat and more of a feline-esque primate with the coin as a brightly-colored display organ. Also probably would involve the heightened intelligence and apparently latent ability to learn human language only some individuals learn.

...whatever the hell this is. I don't even know anymore, it was a long time ago.

Sapient "dinosauroid" descended from probably some generic maniraptoran, with the half-beak and teeth used as a third manipulatory organ. Also long middle fingers for some reason, maybe a scansoriopterygid?

And on the topic of sophonts and manipulatory organs, some attempts at sapient aliens as un-humanoid looking as possible, including some modular bipeds and some kind of triradially symmetric one that uses the eyelids of its three eyestalks as manipulators.

An entirely scrapped project labeled "Lystronia" with the premise of an alternate timeline where the Permian Great Dying was worse and killed the archosaurs and cynodonts too, and with no crocodilians, dinosaurs, pterosaurs or mammals to eventually outcompete them the dicynodont Lystrosaurus took over like it did irl, but then stayed in prominence and dominated the Mesozoic and Cenozoic.

And yep that's basically all, as well as the pop-culture reference one-offs, the planet of the pseudosnakes one, and a Tullimonstrum seed world that went nowhere as we simply didn't know much about what phylum it even is. Hamster's Paradise was the only one that really took off, conceptually.

On March 6th of last year I posted a collection of discarded drawings called DUMPSTER DUDELZ on deviantART, my way of making sure abandoned art would be seen. It hadn't been the first time I had compiled all of my leftovers together, 2013's Sketchapalooza ULTIMAtE acting as the original Clarktoon sketch dump before I made Sketch BOOMs a thing. The only difference this time was that all the artwork was original, Sketchapalooza including fan art of Queen La, Mickey Mouse, and Blue's Clues. With all the projects I start then never finished, I figured a compilation like this would be a perfect way to show what all doesn't make the final cut. Now with it being the dawn of a New Year, I decided to bring the idea back with a vengeance! That is until I saw how many scrapped scribbles I actually had. Unlike the previous DUMPSTER DUDELZ, which had amassed years worth of rejected content, this one comes at the end of a single year where most of my ideas managed to make it online. Heck, one of the sketches seen here actually was posted to deviantART before now. You know what I say to all that though? Screw it, let's post it anyway! Hopefully my posting all of this will usher in the beginning of a full, productive year of artwork. If not, I at least got to humiliate my good friend Volts48...

1) SPOOKY SCARY SEXY MASKED MANIAC Halloween is always a rough time for me, artistically. With Christmas taking up all of my focus I'm left unavailable to post anything for the second best Holiday of the year. Not that I ever stop trying, mind you. My goal for 2022 was to post a specially themed Sketch BOOM themed around the month of monsters, even managing to get one of my ideas down on paper. Said idea being my buddy Alec genderbent and dressed in a Virgin-Killer sweater as revenge for all the times he paid other artists to draw me with massive boobs or in frilly outfits. To any artist that has done that, rest assured I don't actually take any offense to it, I appreciate any fan work based of my characters regardless of how ridiculous. Besides, you at least draw she-me with clothes on, so there's that. This was just a silly excuse to put my friend in the exact same situation he puts me through as well the culmination of an old inside joke that even he forgot about. Back when I first started my Discord server I was very strict about what could be posted, so Alec made a big stink when my college buddy Alice2Rose posted a picture of one of these sweaters, my ignorance showing when I didn't even know what it was. Leave it to an anime weeb to detect a virgin killer a mile away. In any case, here's hoping the aftermath of my friend's long forgotten stink brings you some Halloween fun on this New Year's Day.

2) POLKA PUP, DOO DOO DA DOO DA DOO Yet another joke that culminated on my server, this time from my friend Void-Android. All throughout the last year the mechanized man was obsessed with posting comics and GIFs of puppy sharks, their precious lil' faces flooding my server like the world's cutest Sharnado. Seeing as my friend Finjix and I semi-frequently collaborate ideas for our own shark character Polka Shark, I figured it'd be fun to draw the fantastic, frantic fish as one of those peculiar house pets. The end result is an adorable abomination that'll annoy the carp out of his friend Striped Starfish.

Striped Starfish: Just what I needed; Polka with legs. There goes my plans of washing ashore and dying of heat stroke.

For those wanting more of Polka Shark's absurd under-sea antics, go check out SIM-N's gallery on deviantART. For now though I hope you all enjoy Polka Pup more than the Starfish did.

3) The Mummy of 3K, Queen Emoteph Like I said at the beginning, I had completely forgotten about having already posted this sketch of ERN-E's girlfriend and Yas Queen of the year 3000 EMIL-E as a Mummy. The idea comes from my repeated attempts to bring back the Monster 3K Pin Ups that SIM-N and I used to do for Halloween, Emoteph being brought back from our initial run from 2015. Alas, all that came from this was this admittedly awesome sketch. Fingers crossed I get to take this idea to its fullest extent next year, ERN-E opening a tomb to find the hottest Mummy ever found by man or machine.

ERN-E: That is one fresh-looking corpse... EMIL-E: You're not too bad looking yourself, big guy.

4) ERN-E X EMIL-E Speaking of the Clarktooniverse's first couple, here we have ERN-E and EMIL-E in some slightly updated designs. After years of making his eyes one big screen, I finally decided to give ERN-E more human-like eyes for ease of expression. Em herself didn't get much of an upgrade, but a sketch of ERN-E alone felt naked without his best girl by his side. Here's hoping I get to draw more of these two together in the future.

5) LET'S DANCE AT WHIMSYLAND Okay, this one's definitely needs an explanation. 2022 saw me make my fourth pilgrimage to Disney World to meet up with my friend @the-pale-servant / @agathe-the-smol, despite my vow to not visit the park until Bob Chapek was fired. I have made it no secret how much I despised the bald-headed, brain-dead, creatively bankrupt loser in charge of the Disney during his tenure, his treatment of the Disney Parks being a key factor. Whereas most people saw the parks as a magical wonderland always ready to be expanded and improved, Bob saw it as a money-printing machine he could run raged without a break. It was disgusting. This was most evident when Jart and I got stuck on four different rides, often times more than once. Though to be fair, we still had an amazing time while there! Still, my continued cynicism against the state of my favorite place on Earth wasn't getting any healthier, so I decided to express my contempt creatively. Welcome to Whimsyland, a theme park opened in 1962 by Matt Whimsy as a celebration of the human spirit and endless imagination. Here you could meet Fred Fox, the company's cartoon mascot currently exiling himself to the Park in response to how the CEO's handling Matt's business. Fred is my Mickey stand-in, though unlike Mickey he makes it clear he hears fan complaints and hates being depicted as the villain. Dancing the charleston beside him is Fiona Fox, cartoon fashion icon that the current CEO keeps exploiting, though Fiona at least uses this to her advantage by continuing to inspire young girls. Along with the rest of my currently in development cast, Whimsyland might become the most perkiest place on the planet once more. Until then, we can at least enjoy these two characters dancing to this.

In case you're wondering why I never posted this, you can thank my questionable coloring choices for that. The orange coloring on Freddy feels fine, but the same can't be said for Fiona's fur color nor for their attire. Like I said, this idea's still a WIP.

6) SOMETHING IN THE WAY, OWL DUDE IN THE RAIN Poor Owl Dude, I don't draw him nearly as much as I should. Luckily, the new story ideas I have in mind with him should help fix that. And no, SIM-N, none of them involve a stove!

7) SAURA, EXPERIMENTAL SKETCH If any Clarktoons dominated a majority of my thoughts this year it would be Fred Fox and Saura, my teenage heroine with the power of transforming into a hyper-evolved dinosaur warrior. Helping matters was the fact that Alec got interested in the idea, collaborating with me on certain elements of her story while also commissioning our friend @zernna to draw her every chance he got. For the record Zerna, I plan on releasing a colored reference of Ms. Bosewick here sometime this year, so if we pay you to draw her again you'll know exactly what she looks like. But first I decided to experiment a little, adding details to Saura's design that ultimately won't be a part of her end design. A rule with character designs in cartoons is that the more lines and details you add, the older a character looks, which is what I felt was the major problem was here. With any luck, Saura's finalized design will look plenty bad@$$ without making her look like an actual fossil.

8) POST-BUMPER: ORIGINS Earlier this year I decided to make myself some mailing labels with Bumper on them, quickly drawing Crocie's adorable little ghost buddy as a mailman. The end result looked mighty cute, ignoring how the post officer used another mailing label to cover up mine. Turns out there's somebody in the world who doesn't find the floating marshmallow cute after all. Weird, right?

And for those of you wishing to see what the end product looked like:

9) FRED FOX Surprising as it sounds, it took me a few tries before settling on Fred Fox as the Whimsyland mascot. My goal was to create a rubberhose character in the same vein as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Felix the Cat, Bendy, and the Cupheads, while also making it unmistakably my own. So at first I tried a turtle, only to quickly realize that wouldn't be as cute or charming as intended. Next I tried an elephant, which admittedly looked better, but for whatever reason that didn't work with me either. Finally I settled on a fox with a Boston accent named after a running joke from the Angry Video Game Nerd and the rest was history. 

10) CHIBIZOWA What you're currently looking at is not the Clarktooniverse's answer to King Ghidora. At least, not at the moment, anyway. All throughout 2022 I had intended on drawing birthday pictures for my friends online, including Zerna, someone who has very kindly drawn a lot of my characters over the last few years. What I had planned for her birthday was a sketch of her girlfriend murd3r3r being dragged to the mall by my mechanized mercenary Candy Banger to find the ultimate birthday present, Coco not being accustomed to the violence Candy brings to any situation. In the end, thanks to some advice I got from Alec, a worn-out Coco gets Zerna a three-headed dragon plushtoy named Chibizowa with Candy giving a thumbs up from the window so the two could have a cute moment together. Now for all of you wondering why I didn't end up making this adorable-sounding gift pic, there's a lot of factors that went into it. The first being time, something I am terrible at managing. The second was not knowing enough about Coco, having to go off what I saw in the pics posted in Zerna's gallery. I didn't want to assume what her personality was like, I'm terribly shy by nature, and matters weren't helped by her own lack of art depicting her aliensona. It's why I'm jumping on Zerna's band wagon by telling you gremlins to hound her for sona designs/more art!! >:'0 For now though, I hope you all enjoy this sketch. Who knows, maybe on day I'll end up making the planned present a reality.

11) ONE LAST FRED FOX And that's all she wrote.... OR IS IT!?

Not included with the DUMPSTER DUDELZ were these two random sketches based on the musical Twisted, which my friend Alec finally convinced me to check out this year. I enjoyed it immensely, even buying the soundtrack and digital recording of the show before drawing their Jafar in the same style as the original Aladdin. Turns out you can make this character look sympathetic. No doubt he'll have a good 2023 as will all of you! That is if you keep dreaming a little harder...

Heyo! Currently on break from socials while I finish up my final semester which includes my senior thesis film but while on Spring Break I found a some draws that never saw the light of day I thought I'd share.

Some got further than others but I'm only sharing those that got further along than just a very rough sketch. Another quick note from 2018-2020 I was mainly doing pokemon related stuff before I shifted my way to Vivz.

2018

Title: Mommy doesn't want you in here

Back then I was really involved in Pokemon Emerald's Battle Frontier and had to grind a lot of the best pokemon to breed. One of the pokemon I breed from was Gardevoir, which swept the floor getting me many of my symbols, and I thought of this very dark situation where a Gardevoir was breeding for the perfect child and that said child wandered into the incubation room finding her imperfect siblings. Pretty much how IV and shinny breeding goes in games. Reason I never finished it is it got too complex for my skill at the time. Wtf is perspective?

2019

Title: Dog Show

I'm going to be honest I have no idea what I was thinking when I drew this. Brionne looked too much like a dog I guess.

Title: Gen 8 Drawing(Unfinished name)

This one hurt to scrap after so many hours but I was so unhappy and embarrassed with it. I wanted to make a big draw for Pokemon Sword and Shield but cause I was so focused on making a pretty picture instead of anatomy, composition, and flipping my canvas.

I swear I can draw humans better now! >.<

2020

Title: Escort missions

Ok so here's an interesting story behind this. You know how controlling partner pokemon especially escort pokemon in PMD1 sucks? Well I decided to take on a bunch of jobs in Fiery Field where not only has a bunch of traps but also you have to quick save before entering meaning if you mess up you lose everything. This is pretty much what happened. I was almost finished escorting that Surkern, who was pain my ass, where a warp trap happened and everything fell apart. I wanted to throw my DS Lite so bad. Later on decided to vent out my in a comic. However I never finished it cause it got to complex.

One note though this comic is half truthful. I'm the one who fell in the warp trap cause I didn't have that trap ability and that Surkern kept wondering around and ended up in a fight. I ended up deleting that mission cause I was getting paid jack shit.

2021

Title: (N/A)

Don't remember much. Just how I was feeling at that point struggling through school. I was also trying out using 3D for perspective and using Procreate.

2022

Title: Dad and Looney(Unfinished Name)

Just a quick doodle I never finished and was messing around in Procreate. I think it later lead to Free Hug.

The next few draws were cause I was on a Timber and Makasin drawing spree that didn't turn out the way I wanted it too mainly cause I was in a slump during that summer. I would like to go back to them at so point.

Title: In her arms

Title: Piggyback

Title: Voice of Reason

Title: Reading a book(Unfinished name)

I was close to finishing this one but never felt like finishing it.

Title: Clip Studio Shitpost comic(Unfinished name)

This was back in Clip Studio announced their subscription for standalone Windows and Mac versions going forward and everyone got pissed off including me. I made a quick comic to vent but later got bored of it.

Soon after the company tried to put out the flames and gave everyone who bought a copy that year a free copy of v2 and a trial for update pass but I still use v1.13.2 copy and sometimes Procreate. The update pass still sounds dumb to me. If you pay for a new major version you should continue to get feature updates until the next major version comes out. That's what Affinity, Toonboom, and Final Draft does. Least they didn't go full out Adobe. Yet...

Title: Mindscape

Idea I had to expand Saneki's backstory with his curse. Later turned into one of my many school project ideas but never did anything going forward. I just now realize I gave my dude a bakery. 0_0

2023

Title: Slay Ride

Little Chaggie idea I had but I was getting deep into my semester and Winter was coming to an end.

Title: Snowy Ride Remake

Back in early 2015 after I adopted Holly I had a simple draw of my at the time main oc riding her in the woods. It aged badly and I wanted to remake it with Saneki instead. 8 years later when I was starting to remake it I needed an idea for a school project and decided to go with it thinking I could knock out 2 birds with one stone. However I had to follow a strict set of rules including a limited color pallete and using Photoshop which I hated. It didn't have the settings or brushes I was used to which lead to this. From that forward I began to hold a grudge against Photoshop like I do with Animate. Someday I would like to take another shot at this without involving Photoshop. -_-

One the bright side I did learn some color theory and perspective tips. ^^

Title: Cowgirl Loona

This was my first attempt on Cowgirl Loona before I swapped over from Clip Studio to Procreate and finished it this earlier year. Just wasn't happy with what I was going for and felt like Procreate could get this done better.

2024

Title: N/A

I recently decided to can this. I thought of a cute idea of Stella at a hellhorse show but had no idea how I wanted to present it and this is all that came out of it.

And that's pretty much what I feel like showing. Looking back I think it's just more of a lesson in drawing. Not everything turns out the way you want it too. Either you didn't think everything through or just got bored with them and wanted to move on. Sometimes it's not worth putting in more hours in something that isn't going to turn out the way you hoped. But that's no to say everything you do should be scrapped. Sometimes It just needs reworked. Cowgirl Loona and Carousel Alastor went through hell but I got them out cause of the lessons I learned from continuing to draw. But also I want to stop focusing on the little details cause not everyone is going notice. Have you seen the many tangents in my earlier stuff.

Ok that's all for now. Like I said taking the time to finish up my final semester so I can soft reboot my socials afterwards. See ya in May!

Ice Ice Baby (Part 1)

Ulhar 20, 1102 Shon tryed to shake the sweat from his face, without taking his eyes off of his opponent, with limited sucksess. They were both breathing hard but neither were letting their guard down. It was the last match in a long string of matches meant to build stamina for long battles against varying combattants and stiles. Shon and his opponent, Brardin, were the last two standing, and everyone else had formed a loose circle around their ring, wiping their own sweat and cheering for one or the other good naturedly. Shon blocked them out, his cold eyes studying Brardin’s every move from beyond his bastard sword, held at the ready in both hands. Brardin was a year older than Shon, but roughly the same size and height. He wielded his one handed long sword with ease though his shield was shaking visibly from the fatigue. Shon waited… Baradin attacked, swinging from right to left in a wide arch parallel with the ground. Shon perry easily, shifting his sword only slightly to deflect the strike. “Brardin!” Master Daunas shouted from the sidelines, “pay attention! Shon’s not the first lefty you’ve fought today!” the older squire nodded, breathing in long slow breaths. It had been a long day of match after match with no time to breath between them. That was the point of it after all, to build stamina, but Shon for one had reached his limit. He came in hard and fast. One last burst of strength for the day. Brardin brought up his shield to intercept and Shon used that momentary blindness to turn in and around his opponent. It was a move he had done a thousand times with varying modifications depending on weapon and combatant. So no one was more surprised than him when his leading foot slipped out from beneath him and his trailing knee hit the ground hard. “Shon! The Hell you doin’?” Master Daunas yelled, but Shon was too busy trying to recover to hear him. Letting go of his sword Shon brought his right elbow up under Brardins raised arm to jab him hard in the ribs. Brardin folded over the strike with an audible “oof” and Shon came to his feet again in a pivot, brining his sword down to stop just before the back of Brardin’s neck. “Match…” he breathed, his chest heaving as he struggled to take in as much air as he could. Braradin sunk to one knee trying to catch his own breath and grasping his bruised ribs, “Match.” he confirmed while the onlookers clapped and hawlered their approval. But one onlooker wasn’t smiling. Weapon master Daunas strode into the ring, brow furrowed, as Shon reached down to help Braradin to his feet. “What was with that funky slide? You trying out new dance moves again boy?” “Slipped.” Shon said turning to the master who was looking him over before looking at the rough packed earth of the ring and back. “On what?” it was still early winter and they hadn’t had any rain in over a month. The ring had been dry when they hard started the match but now it seemed there was a small bit of dampness on the ground where he had slipped. But not enough to lose his footing on… “I don’t know.” Shon said between breaths. He was honestly too tired to think much about it. “Humph” The weapon master waved the two squires away, “go get yourselves cleaned up.” and then almost as an afterthought, “you did good today.” Braradin and Shon nodded their thanks silently turning to follow the rest of the trainees to the showers. Braradin smiled sideways at Shon as they left Daunas’s ear shot, “did you have to elbow me so hard?” Shon glanced over with a shrug, “sorry.” but Braradin just laughed. *** Back at the ring Daunas Mung dug the toe of his boot into the small patch of wet ground, his brow furrowed in thought… *** The next day Shon found himself perched atop a closed crate of scrap metal in the blacksmith's workshop. Nurangran Flintchest was hammering away at the glowing metal before him that would soon be a new sword, while Shon sketched some of the specific scenes he could remember from the previous days sparing into the journal spread out on his lap. Much like Shon, the smith was a man of few words, so the young squire often came to the workshop to enjoy the companionable silence. The day was relatively warm for the season, and with the bellows going at full heat the smithy was downright smultering. Shon had rolled up his sleeves and loosed the neck of his tunic to accommodate but was still sweating at the temples even as he sat next to the only open window in the room. The loud hiss of steam filled the room as Nurangran dipped his sword in the water trough before examining it and placing it back in the hot coals. Shon watched the older man pump the bellows a few times to bring it back to temperature before going back to his drawings. Soon the sharp “tink, tink” of the smiths hammer on metal resumed and Shon put the finishing touches on his drawing of Braradin just as he had blocked Shon’s strike. “Water.” Shon looked up. Nurangran nodded at him and at the trough of water, never changing the steady rhythm of his hammering. Shon looked at the water too and seeing it was low, slid off the crate grabbed the water bucket to top it off. That was the deal. Shon could sit in the smithy all he wanted so long as he helped out when asked. That meant pumping the bellows if Nurangran needed both hands for his project, feeding fresh wood into the furnace and gathering fresh water for the cooling trough when it was low. Shon was still thinking about the last fight from the day before as he filled the bucket from the well and carried it back to the smith. He had never lost his footing quite that badly before, he was sure he hadn’t over extended his step. Lifting the bucket with a small grunt Shon tilted it into the trough. He had been tired… there was a chance he had over stepped and didn't’ realize it… “Boy?” Shon looked up from his contemplation and saw the old smith staring at him with a wrinkled brow. He had stopped hammering, and meeting Shon’s eye, gestured with his bearded chin at the bucket. Shon followed the jester, and dropped the still full bucket. It feel with a heavy “Thunk” wobbling slightly before settling. The water was frozen solid. *** “Well it’s both surprising and not....” Weaponmaster Daunas leaned against the generals desk, his arms crossed over his chest. The paladin general himself sat behind the desk, his fingers steepled together in front of his face, “how so?” “Always been cold,” Smith Nurangran answered, “unusually so.” he stood by the door his large arms also crossed. Shon sat silent in a chair in front of the generals desk, his hands clenched into fists on his lap, while the adults spoke above him. “He needs to go to the mages guild…” Sir Davis Selibra said with a hit of disappointment in his voice. Shon’s nails dug furrows into his palms but he didn’t look up. “The law is clear. Sorcerers must register with the guild. They can decide if he should train or seal the magic.” Shon’s eyes burned with unshed tears, everything was going wrong… how could this happen… “But if they seal it, it could interfere with the divine magic of Heironeous when he takes his oath.” Daunas said. “If he takes the oath,” Paladin Davis countered. “He shows too much promise to just hand over to those book worms…” Daunas argued. “Ivelm could do it.” Shon’s head shot up and they all looked to Nurangran who shrugged, “old mage owes me a favor.” Shon tilted his head in confusion, who… but they were still talking around him. “That old hermit?” Daunas Mung stroked his short beard in thought while Sir Davies tapped his desk with one thoughtful finger. “Didn’t he retire? That's the hole reason he’s way out here.” the paladin asked. The old smith shrugged again, “specializes in magic items. Used to make shackles for bring’in in wayward mages…” “That's offly convenient.” Daunas mused “A blessing I would say.” the general got to his feet his eyes finally on Shon. “it's not unusual for a sorcerer to awaken at this age, as rare as they may be.” he walked around his desk to fully face Shon who dared not blink incase he was dreaming, “If it is your desire to give up this chance at magic to finish your training with us then I will ask Smith Flintchest to take you to this mage.” he knelt down so he was eye to icey blue eye with the squire, “but I would ask you to consider carefully. Once you take your oath as a paladin you won’t be able to go back and train in magic.” But Shon didn’t need to think about it. He didn’t want magic. He had been training in combat since he was ten, with Master Veon-Kih. If he was going to do anything outside the Order of the Sword it would be to continue his lessons as a monk. He straightened his back in the chair and met the generals gaze without blinking, “I want to finish my training.” Sir Davies Selibra nodded, Master Daunas Mung clapped him on the shoulder, and smith Nurangran uncrossed his arms and pushed away from the wall, “might as well go now then.” he said, and Shon stood.