A small progression of about five months since the first piece of graffiti/doodle art and I can see a massive difference. Some aspects I look at and think I could do better, but others I look at and think I did well

The catalyst for this piece was the sun and 'Shine' lettering - I knew I wanted the top half to be reflective of summer and sunshine while the bottom half was a bit more of a mystery. I had the idea of heraldry and making the sun extend into a shield, then continued with some other elements. The butterflies and blossom petals were a last minute addition to fill up the empty space on the bottom right

Erevu (on the right) and Moyo (on the left) are siblings born to Vitani and Msitu ("Mheetu"). Despite there being a few years between them, after the reunification of the prides Vitani and Msitu strike up a friendship and find they have a few things in common.

I followed this tutorial on YouTube - [Beginner Friendly Gouache Tutorial | Sunset Palm Trees](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIOQb8hK5nc) and tried to replicate it myself. As with all following tutorial things this still has a bit of my own personality in it, but I'm still fond of it

Not completely sure on the clouds (I did the illumination/lighting the wrong way around) but the rest all seems to pull together well

Again another piece where I look at certain elements and feel like I could do better, then others I look at and still feel they're amazing (mainly the cookies and pie for this one)

This was partly inspired by a former workplace doing a charity bake event; I was already a few months in to doing these types of art pieces and so easily offered my skills up to make a poster for this event

From left to right, Mufasa, Uru, Ahadi, Scar (Nataka) and Mirembe. I spent ages deciding on Uru and Ahadi's designs - I know the common process is to give Uru a darker/redder fur colour and Ahadi the golden yellow one with a black mane, but I wanted to try out something a little different.

Uru has resting annoyed face - it gives her an air of intimidation that is useful most of the time but sometimes can get in the way. Ahadi is known as "The Red King" given his red fur, red mane, and red eyes. I did try and backport Mufasa and Scar's genes to make it seem reasonable that Uru and Ahadi could be their biological parents, and Scar did end up with full-ear rims which I think work well on him.

Mirembe is the baby of the family and most likely got married off to a relative of a neighbouring ruling family. I have a whole headcanon and story about the founding of the Pride Lands which I might get around to writing down some day

The last of my archived posts. As with the 'Shine' piece this was developed around the idea of the lightbulb coming out of a box. And again, some aspects of this I adore, some I feel could have been better (including at the time but I didn't have the knowledge to either do it better or find how to do it better)

I have one more old graffiti design to post which apparently never made it online

This one definitely has a theme - movies and snacks associated with them. This was back when you'd still have a choice of seeing movies in 2D or 3D so the little characters had to have the old fashioned 3D glasses (newer ones are polarized glasses which interrupt the light sent to each eye)

Snacks are snacks. Popcorn, hot dog, slushie drink, sweets etc. Nothing special

Ooof

This was one I did before I fell off the idea of doing more graffiti style artwork. It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to do with all the posters. Then when I did those I couldn't figure out what to do in the background and eh, this just feels a little meagre.

Looking back at it now I can see how I would want to do it differently (shadows and lines for the background to give a better illusion of buildings) and again this might be one I redo at a later point

Making an exception to post up my redesigns of next-gen Kovu and Kiara kids. I have had these two in mind for decades at this point and they deserved some changes to their appearances. I'd been struggling to make a system where I had genetics being passed down without having to manually assign and think about things.

So I created a file and filled in everything I could think of that made one lion different from another. Eye shape, nose, nostril, nose gradient, nose bridge, cheeks, jaw, chin, ears, ear markings, eye markings (both upper and lower), eyebrows, chest markings, inner legs etc. Then I assigned weights to these sections to simulate inheritance - 30% from each parent (60% total), 5% from each grandparent (20% total), 2% from each great-grandparent (16% total) and 4% random (for more distant relatives or a random mutation).

Fur is based on a HSV system - hue varying from red to orange to yellow, saturation adding strong or grey colours, and value giving light/dark variables. These are semi-random and based on parents with a little variation at the moment. Mane/tail and eyes are on a simple dominance/recessive system.

So, onto detailing Moto and Usiku's genetics.

Moto inherited 10 aspects from Kiara and 6 from Kovu out of 24 total, with a further 4 from Kovu's bio-parents and grandparents. I did swap around the nose and cheeks with Usiku to align with their original designs as otherwise Moto looked a bit too much like a standard pridelander and Usiku a standard outlander for my liking - I wanted them to both have genetics of both prides. About the only thing Moto got from Nala is the nose gradient and inner leg mark, everything else was either Kovu's mother or great-grandfather.

Usiku inherited 5 aspects from Kiara and 10 aspects from Kovu, with 4 from Kovu's bio-parents and grandparents. Unlike Moto, Usiku inherits a bit more from Simba's side of the family - his eyes, chin, and ear markings are from Mufasa, nostril shape is from Simba. His ear tufts were random so I decided to add in an aspect from Kovu's father's side of the family which...if you know the semi-canon characters from the 90s stories and comics can probably hazard a guess as to who Kovu's bio-parents are :)

This genetics system can also work in reverse, I can take someone like Simba, generate the inheritance of his features, edit and filter to known items and use the rest to create grandparents

Mohatu, for those who do not know extended lion king lore is the grandfather of Mufasa and Scar, and father of either Uru or Ahadi (the comics are not clear on which of the two is his biological cub)

Mohatu's curly mane is fairly recessive (I only know that Nuka/Nufaika has the same curly mane gene) and his golden/yellow eyes are middle of the road in terms of dominant/recessive. His daughter Uru inherits bright blue eyes from her mother/Mohatu's wife, which are then recessive against Ahadi's red eyes with green recessive

He also has some genes he passes along to Malka, most notably the ear tufts

Shepard's alone. Sweeping through a club in Omega, hoping to catch the eye of a murderer and not fall victim to her. Barely ten days out from the bombshell that was Horizon, two days out from coming down from an accidental minagen high. There's no one she can trust on the ship, not with the tempestuous thoughts racing in her mind - all she wants to do is rest.

Ten years ago, on the 17th July 2013 during the Steam sales, a friend gifted me Mass Effect 1 and 2. I should have known I was in trouble when I played 5 hours of the first game without realising it. I was cautioned to wait until ME2 to choose a love interest but fell hard and fast for Kaidan and never looked back.

I finished the game on the 4th August and immediately began playing ME2. After purchasing ME3 myself and playing through the trilogy, I started writing fanfic in 2014 and have been doing so on and off ever since

Initially done on watercolour ACEO cards (2.5" by 3.5") these were an experiment on creating simple yet interesting designs with watercolour. I used some low tack painters tape, placed it on the cards at random, and applied the watercolour in a light wash, going over it again if necessary

I have plans to put these and some other art cards I made on sale (UK purchase only at the moment)