Rat Creature's Journal

Here's my finished Uhura icon. Now I only need some idea how I could make a Kirk!RatCreature recognizable...

( larger pencils and inks behind the cut )

I was a bit unsure what kind of motif to choose for a "Fail!" icon. I decided to go for this one, because my avatar is a toon, and the classic toon failure is to run forward without realizing that it lost the firm ground, while the audience sees the calamity coming way earlier.

Then while drawing this, I realized that this is actually not unlike the typical "fail!" you run into (or commit yourself sometimes) in internet discussions. Also, the cliff motif is consistent with my "flail!" icon which shows a RatCreature teetering on the edge of a cliff, flailing its arms wildly, and which for some reason (probably the similar texts) got mistaken for a "fail!" icon several times. So I thought I'd make both a set.

( pencils and inks behind the cut )

I needed a Numb3rs icon. I hope they are at least sort of recognizable. Somehow Don and Charlie aren't the easiest to realize as ratcreatures.

( larger version behind the cut )

I made a Merlin and an Arthur icon, because I'm full of squee from the season finale, and thrilled that Merlin will get a second season:


( pencils and inks behind the cut )

I felt the need for a nitpicking icon. Belatedly it occurred to me that I'm not sure English has the expression about "finding a hair in every soup" for people who nitpick to find something to complain about. Still, the imagery is fairly clear, I think, so I went ahead with my motif for visualizing the activity.

I also made another icon with a RatCreature that hasn't heard right, both for the literal meaning (seriously, how can people on tv series, trained actors, mumble this much?), as well as the figurative one:


( larger pencils and inks for both are behind the cut )

popfantastic's recent post reminded me of my B5 love, so I drew a Minbari!RatCreature.

( larger pencils and inks behind the cut )

( two images behind the cut )

Still in time for Halloween, here is Linus!RatCreature, waiting for the Great Pumpkin. Unfortunately I have never been in any pumpkin patch, much less in a sincere one, so I've never gotten anything from the Great Pumpkin, but I guess there's always hope with these things...

(  larger inks and pencils behind the cut )

I present you with a Steampunk!RatCreature. It lost a bit in the tiny icon size, but I hope the steam powered ray gun still comes across.

( larger inks and pencils behind the cut )

I can scan stuff again, so to celebrate that I've finished the tentacle rape icon that I drew a while ago inspired in part by the SGA episode The Seed.

( larger inks and pencils behind the cut )

I don't think I have posted yet about Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but I'm enjoying the series quite a lot so far. Thus my new SarahConnor!RatCreature icon.

( larger inks and pencils behind the cut )

I just had to express my love for Avatar the Last Airbender with some icons:



( larger pencils and inks behind the cut )

I've decided to go without a caption after all, so I could leave my Borg!RatCreature a bit larger. If you want to see the full effect, I put the larger and uncut inked version behind the cut.

( large version of Borg!RatCreature )

I decided to make a Borg!RatCreature icon, because I thought it might be good for fandom pimping post, even recs and such, maybe. (Also Borg are kind of cool to draw with the tubes and machine parts and such.)

I have finished the pencils (see below), but now I'm wondering whether or not the icon to be should have some text. I thought about maybe the obvious, like "Resistance is futile!" or "You will be assimilated." but then wondered whether that was even necessary? Or maybe someone has an idea for something wittier? I am indecisive. Help? Opinions?

( pencils of a Borg!RatCreature )

I've drawn a Ronon!RatCreature for my SGA icon set.

( larger pencils and inks are behind the cut )

Batman: Jekyll & Hyde #1-6 (written by Paul Jenkins, art by Jae Lee)

I didn't like the art much, the inking in particular. The black areas--and there were many of them--seemed more randomly dumped than being placed deliberately for either consistent composition, drama or lightening reasons, so there was a lot of black scattered around making the page look flat and dark, and the shapes harder to see for the lack of a clear line, and the many smallish black areas didn't help guide the eyes through the panels and pages either. All of which made the reading slower and more tedious than it needed to be, with no equal gain on the "dark and gloomy" mood scale.

That said, I quite liked the mini-series otherwise. Okay, so there didn't really need to be yet another origin story for Two-Face making his history even more complicated, and the mad scientist running creepy gothic labs in Gotham (in cooperation with Two-Face no less) isn't the most original thing either, but the basic set-up of the drug plot worked for me.

And while I don't have all the details of the various Two-Face background stories very present, this expansion still goes with the general stuff I recalled from the others, so it's probably not a retcon or intended to be outside of continuity. It made about as much sense as these attempts at supervillain psychology ever do, and is IMO actually one of the better examples for this kind of plot. (I'm kind of ambivalent about the trend to somehow rationalize supervillain behavior through some cobbled together (pseudo-)psychology because it almost never works well.)

And it was nice to see Batman working with Gordon, and there was plenty of Alfred too, so overall I think this was a solid mini-series.

Also, I made a Two-Face!RatCreature icon, because I don't have any Batman villain icons yet.

( pencils and larger inked version )