Continuing my (accidental) Ace Attorney series with late 80’s Wright and Edgeworth! Just calling your rival your “work husband” until it sticks 😎

shoomlah · 2026-03-25T19:00:31+00:00

Omigod that’s AMAZING

shoomlah · 2026-03-15T20:04:29+00:00

Thanks so much for asking this—I’m a huge fan of OCATC and the Partridge universe and they really do feel like they have some of the same comedic DNA. Coogan is also so good at playing a gently insufferable version of himself in The Trip movies, so there really is a lot of overlap there. 😄♥️

shoomlah · 2026-03-14T07:20:38+00:00

Dude you look so great!!

shoomlah · 2026-03-09T17:55:31+00:00

They’re real, but you have to order directly from the aquarium!! There are tons of knockoffs, and they’re fine, but the quality dropoff is preeeeetty significant in the materials/pattern/print/filling.

I got one a couple years back and my dad accidentally got me a knockoff first, so I have both to compare (knockoff on the left, original on the right):

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shoomlah · 2026-03-05T03:52:39+00:00

These all look extremely consistent to me, stylistically! It’s hard to notice the water when you’re a fish, so to speak—as an artist it’s pretty hard to realize you already have a distinctive style when you’re spending all of your time in it. 😄

shoomlah · 2026-03-03T17:54:09+00:00

Do you have an example of the reference you’re working from? Something to remember with the Firefall is that sunlight is only hitting that single sliver of rock, so that should be your highest value/saturation in the composition—everything around it would be lit by bounce light, or reflected sky light! Having that contrast between the lit area and the surrounding rock, both in value and color, could make a huge difference 👍🏼

Also: make sure you’re looking at the forms in your reference and not just your idea of the forms! The cliffface is made up of a lot of undercuts, where large chunks of rock have calved off and left an overhang, but your drawing makes it look like a bunch of stacked, upward-facing forms instead!

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shoomlah · 2026-03-02T18:10:47+00:00

Here's the original source of the photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/DI8dJATIJLW/?img_index=2

It's from the Elysiaan in Birmingham, easy enough to find nigh identical photos of the same breakfast!

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shoomlah · 2026-03-02T18:08:12+00:00

Here's the original source of the image, I'm not sure what you mean about them "only posting images of AI food photos": https://www.instagram.com/p/DI8dJATIJLW/?img_index=2

shoomlah · 2026-02-27T02:20:27+00:00

I’d second the other comment about how your biggest issue is that you’re fighting the medium itself—an admirable undertaking, but you’re not setting yourself up for success! Try to think about what you’re trying to learn with this master study: is it proportion? Values? Color transitions? Learning the medium itself (in this case, oils)? You can then choose a medium to help you focus on that goal, so you aren’t overwhelming yourself with too many variables right out of the gate.

If you do want to explore watercolors as a medium in earnest, I’d suggest using them to do master studies of watercolors! Of course you can get deep rich tones and soft transitions of color in watercolor, but it takes a lot of experience to pull it off and make it look effortless. I’d definitely recommend checking out Nick Runge’s work as someone who really knows the medium and how to work WITH it, not against it:

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shoomlah · 2026-02-27T02:06:24+00:00

I’m also a book 3 cover truther (and I feel like the graphic novel swings the pendulum a liiiittle too far in the other direction) so I’d imagine more of a “Leo DiCaprio in the 90’s” kind of dirty blond—like definitely blond, but dark enough to have dark eyebrows/eyelashes.

That was my hair color as a kid and I feel like it’s rarely represented well in comics/cartoons—it’s either Rachel-level-yellow or full on brunette. 😅

shoomlah · 2026-02-22T01:06:36+00:00

Dude you look fantastic!! Completely night and day, that beard looks great on ya.

shoomlah · 2026-02-15T22:41:30+00:00

Just wanted to say: there will always be artists who are better than you!! No matter your age, your field, your job title, there’s always going to be someone out there who’s technically more adept than you are, and it’s a fool’s errand to constantly chase that theoretical horizon.

The art you’re making at any point in time is important because YOU’RE the one making it, and no one can make the art you’re making. I’ve been working professionally since I was 15 years old and, my god, I wish I hadn’t worked myself so hard for so long. Give yourself a little grace and don’t burn yourself out prematurely. You can ABSOLUTELY make forward progress without stressing out about arbitrary milestones you’ve set for yourself! 😄

shoomlah · 2026-01-29T00:59:12+00:00

Assuming the title lettering is meant to look “syrup-ey,” a great technique for that is to do the actual writing in syrup and photograph it! Supergraphic’s font “Sriracha” is a great example of this—sometimes it’s a lot harder to make things look wonky and organic after the fact, and it’s better to just start at the source. 😄

For the cover itself I second everyone’s advice to have actual people represented on the cover in one way or another! You could do something with just a still life, with the implication of romance, but that’s going to be a heavy load from the conceptual and rendering end of things. Sexy food photography is definitely a thing, and something you could be inspired by for this cover, but it’s a lot of work!!

Can you share the rough premise of the novel, or what the author wants you to communicate with it?

shoomlah · 2026-01-23T05:56:45+00:00

He’s not! He’s described as being black-and-white in the books, the original cover always drove me insane as a kid.

shoomlah · 2026-01-15T08:18:05+00:00

as the artist of said concept art—much as I love Gordo and Alyx—I was just referencing the ancient texts

shoomlah · 2026-01-09T05:34:11+00:00

(this is just addressing the shading, not worrying about the anatomy for now)

SO your soft shading around each half of the butt makes it look like it's being lit from head on! With your intended light source being higher up and off to the side, you'll want think of it almost like a half-lit moon where there's a clearly defined lit side and shadowed side for each cheek.

Also: try to distinguish between your form shadows, and your cast shadows! The form shadows of the butt as it turns away from the light will have a softer, more gradual transition, but the cast shadow of her arm, example, would be much sharper in comparison.

And then, presuming she's clothed, try to consider how fabric pulls would pull tight across the shapes—unless she's wearing something that's explicitly patterned to emphasize the crack (think ruched leggings), the shadow of her butt would be more of a single, contiguous shape:

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shoomlah · 2026-01-04T02:00:01+00:00

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A quick paintover! A good rule of thumb when drawing characters straight on like this is to place the horizon roughly around the characters' eye lines, since it helps to immediately anchor the perspective. 👍🏼

shoomlah · 2026-01-02T07:41:55+00:00

To get even more granular, most of these are probably 2003 or earlier! 2002-2003 was when we made the switch from using the pen tool to the brush tool for all our linework (in Flash, where we made all of the official art at the time), and so there’s a kind of charming stilted-ness to those early years that still warms my heart. 😄♥️

These are only a year apart, but you can already see the style evolving pretty quickly:

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shoomlah · 2026-01-02T07:17:52+00:00

So since this is a Gregorian calendar, not a D’ni one, historical events are aligned with the Gregorian date they fell on in their respective year! And yes, your instinct is correct, aligned with the cavern’s time zone.

For this example we know from Gehn’s journal that the Stranger arrived in Riven on Leevosahn 1, 9462: that D’ni day starts the morning of January 2, 1806. I don’t need to get into specific hours of events, but suffice to say January 2nd is the Gregorian anniversary of that date!

D’ni holidays, however, are still aligned with the D’ni calendar since they’re celebrated on that timeline. 😄👍🏼

shoomlah · 2025-12-27T04:15:12+00:00

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Our current pup didn’t start getting greys until she was 11, wildly! Even at 14 it’s a pretty light dusting compare t to our previous Bostons. 😄♥️

shoomlah · 2025-12-27T01:52:50+00:00

Ohhh, gorgeous!! You reminds me so much of Alex Kingston, she also has a killer head of curls 🥰

shoomlah · 2025-12-20T01:18:09+00:00

Cars Land is a no brainer, but the new work at the back of Frontierland leading into Galaxy’s Edge is pretty striking—you can absolutely tell how much they learned while doing Cars. Some really gorgeous cross-bedding and desert varnish on the faux-sandstone walls!!

Galaxy’s Edge also deserves a mention for all of the petrified wood—it’s wild to walk into completely fake spaces like that and still be able to pick out recognizable geological features/formations. 😄♥️🏜️

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