October 2025 Sketchbook - MastaFran ComicsMastaFran Comics

Digital colored pen sketch of an anthropomorphic female black cat with unkempt hair, a tattered purple skirt with yellow and red stripped gloves and stockings, and a purple witch hat with two points resembling ears. She sits hunched in a dark room over at a computer desk looking back at the viewer away from her screen showing a colorful clown.

Spooky Month has come and gone! I didn’t participate in any art streak events, but I still made a solid chunk of work over this month!

Blackmask News and Progress

Right now, I’m still working on my storyboard sequence instead of making new pixel art for Blackmask to visualize the script for a sense of the pacing.

A five frame storyboard sequence of Cole, an anthropomorphic male raccoon leaping inside a narrow corridor to find an underground chamber containing an altar room of broken pillars and statues.

A five frame storyboard sequence of Cole, an anthropomorphic male raccoon approaching a treasured scroll on the altar and opens into revealing the inscriptions inside.

I still worry the scenes go too long but, I’ll worry about that after my programmer has more progress on the demo’s level design.

A five frame storyboard sequence of Cole, an anthropomorphic male raccoon attempting to interpret the scroll before being interrupted by the trap about to collapse the ruins, requiring Cole to stash the scroll and run outside. On the outside owls are a sleep until the earthquake and geyser at the underground ruins awakens them.

A four frame storyboard sequence of Cole, an anthropomorphic male raccoon held up by arrows by a group of pirates who are anthropomorphic male foxes and weasels, until a fat anthropomorphic tanuki steps forward to laugh at the raccoon who's now in his clutches.

Stacie the Skunk Maid

Another day, I colored an old design fro a skunk broom rider, who I’ll call, Stacie. She’s inspired by those anime maid skateboarders you’ve probably seen around online.

As it was October, I returned to one of my older OC’s, Claudia the Cat Witch again. I made this sketch when tabling at the Fandom, Arts, and Music Expo in Joliet,IL early in the month. The more I revisit drawing Claudia, the more goblinfied she becomes.

pen sketch of an anthropomorphic female cat with unkempt hait, a tattered skirt with stripped gloves and stockings, and a witch hat with two points resembling ears. She sits hunched over at a computer desk looking back at the view while a image of a clown shines on the screen.

I keep meaning to make anything with her. Ideas are dry for me beyond making her a mischievous troublemaker since she has a rebellious energy to her when I think about her. With Stacie as a skunk with similar broom boarding skills, it made sense to place these characters together for a dynamic.

Pencil sketch of an upset anthropomorphic female skunk in a maid uniform standing in front of an anthropomorphic female cat in a witch outfit lying on the floor with broken plates on the shelf behind them.

Pencil sketch of an anthropomorphic female cat in a witch outfit face planted on the ground after crash landing from her broom riding.

As Claudia is a busy cat witch doing important witch work like pondering her crystal ball for dank memes, she hires Stacie the Skunk Maid to help out with cleaning services in her garbage dump of a home.

Pencil sketch of an anthropomorphic female cat with long messy hair in a three panel progression from a strong feelings of anger simmering down to tearful despair.

Claudia and Stacie being at odds about their cleanliness would be funny to explore, but it’s not exciting enough for me to stick with. It’s also possible that I’m distracted with the other art projects I need to get done, so I can’t focus myself on this dynamic. I’d need to give this more time.

Bloodpouch the Kangaroo

Other old ideas that I keep returning to the idea of a 90’s comics Kangaroo with bad anatomy and millions of pouches.

Gel pen and digital color sketch of an anthropomorphic male kangaroo, named, Jordan "Jordie" Bloodpouch, wearing a flak jacket, wrapped with several belts of pouches, bags, and gun ammunition.

A while ago, I drew some funny sketches of a 90’s comics inspired Kangaroo named, Bloodpouch, who wandered the cursed earth with her joey, shooting whatever threat came her way.

I can’t explain for sure why this suddenly hit me, but I spent the last weeks of October exploring some fast and loose world-building. Many Ideas even got to the point of thinking of a literal “Boomer Shooter” with a lore reason for bunnyhopping and shooting ridiculous guns.

Three pencil sketches of an anthropomorphic female kangaroo with a joey in her pouch shooting large guns. She wear outfits in a variant combination of a skimpy tank top slouch hat, and wrapped with several belts of pouches, bags, and gun ammunition.

Gel pen sketch of an anthropomorphic male dingo stepping out of his cruedly armored buggyas he draws his scoped revolver ready to fire. The dingo wears spiked shoulder pads, many pouches, and tiny black shorts.

Gel pen illustration sketch of a pack of anthropomorphic dingos wearing salvaged spiked armor, driving rusted go-karts, buggies, and scooters, shooting poorly built guns and making a ruckus through the desert. Sad koalas are bound on the hood of the leader's scooter.

With Australian wastelanders on my mind, it’s obvious that I needed some Dingo raiders being a bunch of Awooligans along with this. Sketching starts being fun thinking that instead of big, flaming, muscle cars, these tiny dingoes would drive salvaged go-karts around the wastelands.

Gel pen turnaround sketches of a muscular anthropomorphic male dingo wearing little but a pup hood, leather harness, studded codpiece, and leather boots wrapped in more gun belts, pouches, and spikes. Written Text has name suggestions such as: "Lord Gigantic", "Great Gigantic", "Mr. Massive", "Lord D. Struct", and "Femurfester." Other written text says "Dingo Raider leader," "Awooligan Leader," and "Great Awooligan." Bottom two sketches are close up portraits showing an alternate skull mask design for the pup hood. Bottom right, the dingo holds a walkie talkie and says, "Just walk away..."

Can’t have a pack of raiders without a pack leader right? This Dingo Raid Boss is a send up to other Aussie films in desert wastelands, complete with the homosexual subtext.

Earlier, I sketched a design for the leader to be a smaller, yet athletic, former rugby player, to play on the organized chaos of a sports team. He’s even got a Koala Goon Bag to be extra nasty to his victims.

Gel pen sketch of a band of anthropomorphic dingo raiders who wear various outfits in a collection of spikes, belts and pouches. Many brandish crude weapons, salvaged wherever they can find them, up to and including, self built firearms and knives.

Like other wild dogs, dingos are pack animals, so I’d challenged myself to give them simple and distinct designs so I can draw crowds of dingos as fodder.

And finally, a self-indulgent dingo girl, exploring what if I changed the gender of the leader. I tend to grade my female designs on a curve as it’s tough to judge if it’s a good character design or it’s just a girl.

Nail the Cat Assassin

Marker sketch of an anthropomorphic male cat over a red background, wearing a neck scarf, chest armor, billowing pants, and a metallic clawed gauntlet on his left hand.

Three pencil sketches of an anthropomorphic male cat in various different poses. Left pose has him wearing a stripped neck scarf over his face, with a black shirt, and rolled pants. He sits with one leg crossed over knee in confidence. Middle sketch shows cat straddling shirtless on top of another person, ready to claw into them. Right pose has cat wearing a black shirt and tapered pants. He sits with one knee up.

Pencil sketches of six anthropomorphic cat magic users of various sizes, shape, ages and genders. Each cat has a variants of wearing a robe, a mage hat, and carrying a magic wand or staff.

Digging into the archives for some older cat sketches including assassins and mages.I’ll admit, much of these sketches are meandering, as I can say that I’ve been in a rut from working on Blackmask writing.

Wolf Draws

Pen and ink sketch of 4 anthropomorphic male wolves sitting at a bar drinking ale, each wearing a different outfit reflecting their origin and background. Far left wolf is shirtless with a bandana, bicep rings, and arm bands. Middle left wolf wears a captain's long coat with round buttons on the lapels. Middle right wolf wears a tattered kimono. Far right wolf wears a heavy deel with a Ushanka style hat with a short tassel at the top.

Four wolves walk into a bar…and I don’t know the rest of the joke…this is another older sketch that I continue to be ashamed I don’t make time to finish. I flat color this illustration, but then I feel as if I’ve ruined it all or that the illustration still looks so plain and boring.

Gel pen sketch of two anthropomorphic female bear characters with similar body types, left fat, right muscular, running to train themselves. Written text reads: "Trainee, Trainer"

Been re-exploring more older sketches of those bear bodies as character ideas. The initial sketch could be a before and after pic, but then I went back to that caption on Bluesky of them being a couple. Perhaps it could be a love story of a personal trainer getting together with someone struggling with their body issues. I’ve never written romance, so it’s a whole alternate frontier I’ve yet to explore.

Returning to streaming

After a short bit of burnout, I’m taking more time to stream more art streams to keep myself accountable. I’m also pushing myself to make more stream clips and not get too precious about tighter editing.

3D Modeling

Three compiled screenshots of an untextured 3D model created in Blender of an anthropomorphic male wolf. The image showcases a turnaround of left view, front view and back view of the wireframed model.

Finally, I’ll show some 3D modeling stuff I’ve been working on in my spare time. I spent a week, dabbling with Blender for 30 minutes a day, watching YouTube tutorials about box modeling until having something resembling a vague dog character.

Two compiled screenshots of an untextured 3D model created in Blender of an anthropomorphic male wolf. The image showcases closeups of the head from the front and a back view of the tail of the wireframed model.

I’d been using a fork of Blender called Blender for Artists that’s made with an alternate UI for art people. It can open and run regular Blender Files so if you’ve wanted to try Blender and you have trouble with getting into it, this program might be more useful to you. I hit up whatever I can in 3D modeling and try to go as far as I can before hitting a wall. Hopefully next time, I’ll have some UV Unwrapping and rough painting done.

Wrap Up

October was a muddy blur for me as I felt unfocused away from my projects due to a preoccupation at my workplace over the month. As much as I’d like to, I can’t beat myself up over not making more work. The fact that I’m still hanging on to this work means, I’m doing something right. The year is nearly finished and there’s still time to make real progress and lock in on my big projects. Next year, I’m shooting to get more conventions done, so I need to get more stuff rolling.

I’m all over the web showing my daily drawings and practice sketches! If you have any questions, comments, or just wanna to say hi, I’m on BlueSky, Twitch and more places online!

Discover more from MastaFran Comics

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.