April Sketchbook 2025 - MastaFran ComicsMastaFran Comics

This month is a mix of new and old art where I showcase all the drawing I’ve done over the spring month of April.

Observational pen sketch at a Five Guys Burgers and Fries restaurant depicting two soda despenser machines, the extra napkins station and trlhe lamp lighting the section.

In the tiny efforts to improve my background drawing, I drew the soda machines while waiting for my order at Five Guys

Pixel Art Commissions

Late March during spring break, I took Gameboy commissions. I wanted to see if I could tackle smaller faster projects so I limited them down to animated Gameboy pixel commissions.

Green Monochrome Pixel Illustration of an anthropomorphic male dog in wrestling tights curling his bicep as he points his thumb at himself declaring to be the best.

While I was doing my art stream, I thought it would also be cool have a fighting game style victory quote. This one was delightfully cheesy!

I also tested out the Record for Aseprite script by Sprngr for Aseprite to record time lapses and it turned out well.

I created a second half body commission. I stretched beyond my initial limits for the canvas size and monochrome color, but it’s better for it and I was paid extra.

Pixel Illustration of an anthropomorphic male fox in with ear piercings, and glowing blue cybernetic arms.

Green Monochrome Pixel Illustration of an anthropomorphic male fox in with ear piercings, and glowing cybernetic arms.

Timelapse of the creation of a pixel Illustration of an anthropomorphic male fox in with ear piercings, and glowing blue cybernetic arms. The process goes from initial sketch, to refinement, to monochrome toning to coloring.

Thanks to taking these commissions, it was a good excuse to get started in the process of learning how to get my sprites into GB Studio!

I keep hopping around different types of projects and interests but I have too many ideas for projects I want to do. It’s tough to keep my momentum for Blackmask and much of what I want to do can be done without making a game and I’m antsy to do other things with my life.

Balatro Commissions

A short time after this, I got some commissions to make custom Balatro cards. The work went smooth as I was creating new face cards and I had The Friends of Jimbo DLC cards to go off of. If you don’t know what the Balatro is, I recommend you check it out!

Doing all this even encouraged me to learn out to mod this art into an actual game! I’m so excited that I learned to do this!

More Misc. Sketches

Cole Blackmask clashes in a difficult battle against the cow mage, Madame Emme as she devastates Cole’s small knees with her unmatched arcane power. Cole’s got it lucky. She could’ve cast testicular torsion.

Marker sketch of an anthropomorphic female cow mage in battle against an small anthropomorphic male raccoon. The cow wears a loose fitting cape that leaves her topless as her spell book and outstretched hand conveniently covers her breasts. The cow mage fires a green bolt of magic at the raccoon's knees as she screams, "I cast, EXPLODING KNEES." The blue jacket raccoon drops his dagger due to the pain of his now decimated kneecaps.

POV: You’ve upset Madame Emme, so she sends her big bulls to beat you up.

pen and ink illustration of a throne rooms with two anthropomorphic bulls, a white bull wearing a black toga on the left and a black bull wearing a white toga on the right standing guard in front of their anthropomorphic female cow mistress with a half black and half white fur pattern, ready to do her bidding.

Self indulgent cow folk sketches, because I’m creatively bankrupt and I refuse to study something other than figures in a void.

pen and ink figure sketches of anthropomorphic bovine characters in various poses. Left sketch displaying an anthropomorphic female back view and the right sketch depicting an anthropomorphic male bull front view with first foreshortened to camera.

This bat girl sketch began and ended with the term “Rouge-Like” I now wonder if it would even be fun to have those 3D Sonic Rouge levels be a run-based procedural generated game?

pen and ink sketch of an anthropomorphic female bat character in a black unitard and white boots.

A bunch of loose pen sketches of my pixel puma OC, Paula hanging out at the beach with her boyfriend, Tony. My fav ship dynamic is a bombshell with a funny little guy.

Three alternate pen sketches of anthropomorphic character characters doing various tasks. Left sketch is of a rotund anthropomorphic male cat walking toward the camera holding two ice creams. The center sketch is of an anthropomorphic female cougar reading the digital tablet of her shorter cat boyfriend. The right sketches is of said anthropomorphic female mountain lion wearing a sun hat and revealing bikini.

The second sketch is a thumbnail idea for Paula at a beach front as a potential idea for a new illustration. But right now it’s loose and incomprehensible.

Pen and ink sketch of an anthropomorphic female mountain lion wearing a sun hat and revealing bikini standing at a long beach coastline with sailboats and sun umbrellas.

Hanging out at the Sunnydown Tavern, a hole in the wall bar, cafe and inn run by Ms. Sunnydown, the Badger Innkeeper. It’s built to host a large variety of creatures visiting from all over the world, from mercenaries, sailors, and criminals, up to farmers, playwrights, and painters.

A pen and ink illustrated scene of a small tavern crowded with various types of anthropomorphic woodland creatures. A female badger tends the bar as a male raccoon flips though his research books with a glass of wine and cheese at his side.

Ms. Sunnydown is the owner of the local Tavern and Inn Cole frequents for rest and news of current events by the patrons who stay in.

Sunnydown’s is a kind, but stout peacekeeper who detests violence until pushed to her wits end. Despite this, she tries to see the best in her mess of patrons. Ms. Sunnydown tries to stay concerned for the well being of others, but some people just refuse help.

Sketches of misc tavern patrons of the Sunnydown Inn.

Pen and ink sketches of various anthropomorphic animal characters sitting at a bar. Top sketches are of a female and male dog in a casual conversation about nothing. Middle sketch is a sophisticated fat cat enjoying his large glass of wine. The bottom sketch is a female rabbit enjoying a glass of wine inside a glass that's double her size.

A small sketch of Cole brooding over a pint.

pen and ink sketch of an anthropomorphic raccoon sitting sullen at the end of a table with a large mug in his finger as he broods in deep thought.

Showing off older drawings of this bee-themed raccoon I made in the past.

Two drawings a ink drawing and a marker drawing of an anthropomorphic female raccoon wearing a bee themed costume. The left sketch demonstrated how her banded tail points to a stinger, and the right sketch demonstrated her yellow and orange coloration.

Toned pencil sketch of an anthropomorphic female raccoon wearing a bee themed costume as a cocktail waitress. Two drawings a ink drawing and a marker drawing of an anthropomorphic female raccoon wearing a bee themed costume. The sketch demonstrates how her banded tail points to a stinger.

Remember when I was making a faux Game boy game about my Raccoon OC? I just got done with mock-up of the background interior temple textures.

Pixel art background layout mockup for the game Blackmask, displaying an interior room of broken stone pillars and bricks with an anthropomorphic raccoon standing among them

The assets are set up to have a seamless center and a left and right end cap. Remember to click the images to see the full detail.

Pixel art background layout mockup for the game Blackmask, displaying an seamless looping hallway of broken bricks and stone pillars with an anthropomorphic raccoon standing among them

Pixel art background layout mockup for the game Blackmask, displaying an hallway of broken bricks and stone pillars.

I seem to draw Olivia more than Cole himself. Probably because superhero flight is different and I rarely see wing OC’s in flight poses. Make sense, foreshortening is hard to master.

Traditional Copic marker double page spread drawing in a mini sketchbook of Olivia, an anthropomorphic green female dragon in a superhero flight pose. She readies her large sword at her back.

Traditional watercolor double page spread drawing in a mini sketchbook of Olivia, an anthropomorphic green female dragon in a superhero flight pose over a city skyline. The images also shows the supply list of a one flat brush, one round brush, a portable palette of Windsor & Newton watercolor paints, and a small white colored pencil.

Unicorn Knights I had in my old sketchbooks and finally colored. I still don’t like digital coloring and it contributes to me not making a bigger effort to color my ink art.

Illustrations of two anthropomorphic unicorn warriors standing at a cliff at the ready. One the close left is a white female unicorn wearing golden armor with a form-fitting breast design with gold chained nipples. She holds a large golden spear at her front. The far right is a orange male unicorn with read hair wearing skimpy revealing feather armor showing off his sculpted muscles. He also holds a non descriptive golden pole arm in his own hand.

Ink and Gouache painting of a anthropomorphic female white unicorn flying in the clouds with a spear and gold bikini armor.

Traditional marker sketch of an anthropomorphic winged unicorn wearing blue boob armor with gold metallic nipple chains and a stripped loincloth holding a gold pole arm of indiscriminate type.. Her hair tips and wingtips are colored magenta.

I encountered a wacky post on BlueSky, that’s a screenshot of Twitter, because the internet is trash, but it did get me intrigued.

when people are all prissy about using refs like “i only draw from my mind” draw a horse from your mind right now. i want to see it. show me the mind horse. show it to me. now. i want to see. this has ceased to be about any larger artistic debate i just have to see the mind horse

BEHOLD! THE MIND HORSE! Pay no attention to the years of study from previous images and videos of horses to hone my mental mindscape. Pay even less attention to this horse’s comfort induced anthropomorphism, FOR I HAVE DRAWN THE MIND HORSE.

Gel pen sketch of an anthropomorphic male horse wearing a billowing white blouse and a checkered codpiece over pantaloons. He stands with his hands up in a mystical magic casting pose, as if using the power of his mind.

This is a silly pen drawing I made at work just to see if I even could draw the horse. Most of my early animal studies were learning how to draw horses so it was good way to flex my mind library. I’m sure the post was expecting a non-anthropomorphic horse but I’m taking this W for myself. I like this design and I want to explore it more mostly for being able to draw a checkered cod piece.

I get that the point of the original post was to explain how difficult it is to draw subjects without a knowledge base of references to know what to draw and make it look accurate.That whole “know the rules, before breaking them” junk. It is a funny challenge to push one’s mental library.

To celebrate my 100th consecutive stream and to commemorate Superman Day, I did a traditional art livestream where I drew Superman. I think this is the 1st time I’ve ever drawn Superman himself. I loock him up for flgith refs but I’ve never bothered to draw the guy proper.

Marker Sketch of a flying man wearing a red cape and a blue outfit with the letter "S" on the chest.

Most of my comics consumption is kids comics, indie comics and manga, so I don’t keep up with the big two beyond select trade paperback collections of notable runs. Still, I do know the superheros though cartoons and listening to the Legion of Superheroes podcasts to get me enthused about Superman stories.

Fernando Botero study with a brush pen and a black Copic marker.

Pen and ink study of Fernando Botero's sculptures, "Man and Woman" in Rome

Pen sketch of a character I’ll call Alma “Almanac” Brawne. She’s a museum curator who solves the mysteries of art heists that happen in her museum. Like everything else, the character designs just come up in my head, I draw in my sketchbooks and I note down a rough idea that I never feel interested in elaborating on because it’s so hard to get that train rolling.

Gel pen character turnaround of an anthropomorphic female fox character with long messy hair,a suit jacket and skirt, black leggings and heels. There are other designs of the fox character with short curly hair, large cat eye glasses,a suit jacket and skirt, black leggings and heels.

Gel pen character turnaround of an anthropomorphic female fox character with long messy hair,a suit jacket and skirt, black leggings and heels. She sits at a larfe desk surrounded by a telephone, laptop , a bookshelf with a globe and a head bust statue. Behind the fox is a self portrait of her as Employee of the Month. Written text reads: "Alma 'Almanac' Braune Museum Curator of the Norville Museum of Fine Arts."

Forest Studies because I’m a bit stuck understanding how to draw trees.

Ink sketch of two different forest scenes. Top sketch is a general study of a forest with shrubbery amd mild lighting. The second sketch is a different forest scene with an anthropomorphic raccoon character walking in the middle of the trees on a path.

Nothing interesting sketched just some doors, to continue drawing.

pencil sketch studies of arabic style brick doorways

This month was okay, but I’m only saying that to not vent my personal insecurity about myself too much. I’m still self critical of my unwillingness to make larger illustrations and my work flow is trash unless it’s a project that I care the most about or can financially keep me afloat.

Personal work is a looser deal to me and my motivation to make something finished is kneecapped by my perfectionism and self-loathing. May has got to improve because I’m not happy with how unfocused I leave myself with my work.