July 2026 Sketchbook

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Halfway through the summer dealing with conventions and heat waves, and I’m still surprised at the amount of work I’ve been up to! Despite some feeling of despair over life stuff, I’ve knocked out a tougher commission and making progress on large projects like writng for Blackmask. I’m doing my best to keep up my spirits, so pardon me for my bouts of radio silence.

Traditional sketch and digital coloring of an injured anthropomorphic male raccoon lying awake in his bed on the blue light of night, wrapped in bandages.

Conventions

Self portrait of Ryan "Mastafran" Francis at his table at Minicon 2026


I’m having a routine time with my conventions runs, starting the month at the Cook Memorial Library Minicon, folding over to my return to Comicopolis Lockport! Each time I have this even selling my comics, stickers and playmats, I’m reminded of how much I need to print a larger artbook.

The task keeps slipping my mind because I arrange more important projects to finish like day job stuff and commissions. There’s still upcoming event in next few months such as Alley Art Fest, Anime Magic, and Nerdvana! If you’re curious about my future art events, take a look at my Conventions Page!

Commissions

Pixel portrait animation of an anthropomorphic female rat with white fur and red eyes. She wears a rat skull mask over her face, and a dark blue cloak over her head.

The old habit dies hard, since my work is cleaner to the point of dullness. Even with so many years of doing pixel art, I never feel good enough because I compare all my pixel art to the front page of Lospec.

Work in progress images of the process creating an animated portrait of an anthropomorphic female rat with white fur and red eyes. She wears a rat skull mask over her face, and a dark blue cloak over her head. Each step show the process, beginning with a colored digital art sketch, a pixel art block in, a refinement step, and the final still art of the portrait.

Here’s an icon animation commission I started two months ago. I did small experiments with my pixel art process such as incorporating Wave Warp for the Hair Animations as I make more involved idle animations, so things worked out great! I’m pushing my pixel technique to be fine with leaving imperfect inbetweens without fine tuning every frame.

Work in progress images of the process creating an animated portrait of an anthropomorphic female rat with white fur and red eyes. She wears a rat skull mask over her face, and a dark blue cloak over her head.
Work in progress images of the process creating an animated portrait of an anthropomorphic female rat with white fur and red eyes. She wears a rat skull mask over her face, and a dark indigo cloak over her head.
Work in progress images of the process creating an animated portrait of an anthropomorphic female rat with white fur and red eyes. She wears a rat skull mask over her face, and a dark grey cloak over her head.
Work in progress images of the process creating a front view animated portrait of an anthropomorphic female rat with white fur and red eyes. She wears a rat skull mask over her face, and a dark indigo cloak over her head.

There’s still a few more large projects to tackle and I’m clamping down of getting them done. If you want me to draw and animated something for you, I’ll be happy to point you to my Commissions Page!

Blackmask

Three monochrome green pixel illustrations of three anthropomorphic raccoons. One male raccoon on the left wearing a long jacket looks are two other raccoons. Middle moderately busty female raccoon has mess hair and a unkempt dress holding a cigarette in a dismissive attitude. Right fat male raccoon wears a fancy feathered hat and a kilt, while holding a cane.


Blackmask is doing alright since most of notable work is in my programmer’s hands, leaving me free to work on other art and commissions in the meantime. His personal goal to shoot for a new feature implemented each week.

Marker sketch of an anthropomorphic male raccoon wearing a black full body suit and boots, a red neckerchief, brown fingerless gloves, and a belt of a small pouch and throwing knives. The raccoon also wields cutlass in his hands.

So far swimming, enemies losing you when you hide and alternating terrain foot step sound effects are implemented, with more to come! At this rate, a playable build may finally be in reach!

Myleena the Queen Yeen

Pencil sketch of a double page sketchbook spread depicting a height comparison of a 6ft standing anthropomorphic female hyena wearing a top with ring fastenings that her fur sticks out of and a long flowing loincloth. She also carries a hooked sword. Behind her are faint sketches of a smaller hyena head and a lion head for height comparison. Written text are proposed name ideas: "Queen Myleen Yeen Supreme". The hyena stands next to smaller anthropomorphic animals: housecat, tanuki, raccoon, jackal, grey wolf and lion.

Been doodling hyenas. Workshoping an OC named Myleena, who raids abandoned barracks of The Lion Empire to scrounge for their scrap metal and bones of military skirmishes. Also doodled a sloppy height chart of her being double the average size of a hyena grunt and about the size of a lion and wolf.

Ear Shield

Two Pen and ink illustrations of an anthropomorphic basset hound with long ears. The first illustration on the left shows the dog is dressed with a feathered cavalier hat, tunic, and stripped trousers. Attached to the dog's ears are large shields to cover their body, while leaving room to two hand their long sword. The second illustration on the right shows the dog in a sword combat scenario against and armored anthropomorphic fox who defends against the dog's sword attack with it's own thick fluffy tail, while attempting to attack with their own sword only to be blocked by the dog's large shielded ear.

Continuing my absurd campaign to make “Dark Souls Jr,” I sketched a basset hound with shields on its ears. Is it effective for battle? Shut up nerd!

Two pencil sketches of an anthropomorphic basset hounds with long ears, dressed with a long tabbard, head band, and leg greaves. Attached to the dog's ears are samurai sode inspired coverings to cover their ears.
Two Pen and ink illustrations of an anthropomorphic basset hound with long ears dressed in jacket, neck kerchief, black boots and cloves and keeps a sword at their belt. Second sketch shows the dog in action flying in the air in a long vertical sword swing as their ears and jowls flop in the air.
Pen and ink height chart of an anthropomorphic basset hound with long ears. wearing a feathered hat labeled "Solider" standing at 3 feet, and anthropomorphic raccoon wearing a long coat named "Cole"standing at 3 feet, a different anthropomorphic dog with short ears with a belt of flintlock pistols labeled "Commander" standing at 4feett, and loosely drawn, unnamed anthropomorphic wolf in a loincloth and sandals standing at 6ft.

Other idea doodles of a Unnamed Dog Guard arresting Cole and chaining together to hinder Cole from adventuring. After a cool buddy adventure finishes, the two have a mutual understanding.

A collage of gel pen sketches of an anthropomorphic male dog wearing armor and male raccoon wearing a tattered long coat. Top sketches show the raccoon in dog engaged in a sword fight. Bottom sketches show the dog and raccoon handcuffed together in a long chain. There are also close up sketches of close ups and alternate angles of the dog's face, some sketches specifying the dog has a border collie fur pattern. Written text reads: "Dog arrests Cole; Is a forced party member."

Prince Poodle

Trying to expand on the Dog Empire lore stuff ad add some characterization, I doodle ideas of a dandy Prince Poodle. He’s a Macaroni inspired character who’s obsessed with his looks and noble bloodline.

Pen sketch of an anthropomorphic male poodle with long puffy fur that billows out of at the legs and arms. He wears a fancy 17th century black jacket with tight pantaloons, and wearing ribbons in his ears. At the top of the dog's massive pompadour is a tiny hat.
Six view pencil sketches of an anthropomorphic male poodle with long puffy fur that billows out of at the legs and arms. He wears a fancy 17th century black jacket with tight pantaloons, and wearing ribbons in his ears. Top three sketches showcase large shields attached to the dogs large fluffy ears and a musketeer's hat.

Early sketches had the poodle character be female and I realized I wasn’t think about enough notable male characters and I tilted to a more effeminate character obsessed with looks.

Three view pencil sketches of an anthropomorphic female poodle with long puffy fur that billows out of at the legs and arms. She wears a fancy 17th century black jacket with tight pantaloons, and wearing ribbons in his ears.
Pencil sketch of an anthropomorphic female poodle with long puffy fur and large shields attache to his ears in a battle with an anthropomorphic wolf who attacks with her sword only to be deflected by the poodles ear shield.

This isn’t the first time I’ve drawn a poodle character, so I’m digging into archive files for premade ideas. I haven’t done enough writing for this character and how he can related to Blackmask theme ideas I’m figuring out, but the conflict of the low brow Cole against a fancy pants purebred is an interesting dynamic. I need to do more with this.

Two pencil sketches of an anthropomorphic male poodle with black fur patterned like a billowy shirt and pants combo. Left sketch show the poodle reclining on a cloud holding a staff shaped by a lighting bolt and a cloud. Right sketch is a straight on standing pose to demonstrate the full body design.

Jimothy doodle

Digital illustration of a raccoon with a spinal deformity giving it short, round appearance with long legs.

A doodle of a raccoon with spine problems who’s making waves online at the moment.

Going Forward

Digital color over traditional ink half body portrait drawing of an anthropomorphic female green dragon wearing shiny white armor, over a half red, half blue doublet.

Summer rockets past me and I still wonder how much I can get done. Teetering between mental flow and mental fumes, I do what I can to keep my art going. This current year has me getting more conscious about the artwork I’m completing. Some can argue that this thinking slows down my output.

Still, I seek to improve the quality of my work, so thanks for sticking with my rougher stages of creating. I haven’t forgotten about my streaming absence, but I still don’t feel ready to return to Twitch. You’ll have to sit tight as I figure out where my art ambitions lie.

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