glowingkorbat

[glowingkorbat]

There's something so compelling about a girlboss frog. Originally made this for the Neopets Art Gallery (didn't get in lmao)

Illustration Markers + Clip Studio Paint, 08/19/2023

#obsessed with this

[glowingkorbat]

🎒🪤🌳🪨 I'm putting gladys through an Ordeal

🎒 If your OC had to pick three things of all their belongings to keep, which would they chose?

🪤 What is one thing that could be used to lure your OC into a trap?

Gladys would willingly enter a trap if she thought she'd be able to puzzle or bargain her way back out again- she enjoys a good challenge. Her high confidence might be her downfall in this scenario.

🌳 Would your OC survive for a week on their own in the wilderness?

Contrary to her beliefs, she is not actually ready for wilderness survival

🪨 Someone gifts your OC a shiny rock. What do they do with it?

its okay, paperweight the rock missed the garbage can and rolled away into Grave Danger, from which he returned 8 hours later with his doctorate

#SHEEEEEEE #love

[glowingkorbat]

Completed the Shenkuu Stamp collection some time ago, so it was only fair to draw my girl Mirsha

#yaaay

[glowingkorbat]

shrine

[glowingkorbat]

Best Friemds?? Wrangler of the Sun and Shepherd of the Moon ☀️🌙

@glowingkorbat ‘s moony kau

#i need to draw them again

[glowingkorbat]

Tsirmew the Malignant! She's the peskiest lil knight this side of Meridell.

#the GOAT

[glowingkorbat]

Shy!

#SHYMAEN!

[glowingkorbat]

Meliphi my dear!

#there she is

[glowingkorbat]

[glowingkorbat]

petpetpetpet's are real but you need to get the coveted "virtupets nuclear microscope" item available only from the kreludor war plot that went for about a month in 2002 It assigns your petpetpet a petpetpetpet at random from a pool of 5 different cell-themed creatures so good fucking luck getting an aesthetically coherent one after the 100 billion np you spent on getting the thing. I dont think these items exist in the wild anymore. they used to be in a few users galleries but I'm guessing it made them a target for hacking? Or tnt just silently removed the item from the database

#I wish this was real

[glowingkorbat]

Neopets Advent Calendar Comic - Part 3

Again this year at Neopets, we are making comics to end the season! I did the sketch and cleaned layout, before handing it off to be colored. I read a lot of emotional feedback about this comic, so i’m glad to be a part of it.

Hope you are playing and collecting your prizes! Happy Holidays!

#yaaaay process I love process

[glowingkorbat]

Aundralyn molarz

#Nice

[glowingkorbat]

I think about this constantly

#FJSBFKEBDKWD ???

[glowingkorbat]

Oh gosh, if you're taking questions I have like, a bajillion. The neopets "style" has been pretty loose over the years but... What sort of guidelines did you have to follow? Were there any hard "no"s? Was there a style guide or bible? In terms of design, what were you most proud of? Anything that was rejected that was disappointing to not see come to fruition?? Pardon my excitement!

From my recollection there was no official style guide, which I'm sure is pretty apparent from the art on the site—we'd run things by our art director Anthony/Tigercatcher for feedback, or by Adam or Donna to get their stamp of approval, but otherwise it was relatively lawless. It is fun to be able to look back at the old art and immediately tell who drew it, though!

A couple memorable anecdotes:

There was this brief phase in the early years where we had anthropomorphized neopets, but we hadn't really standardized how we drew them. They eventually got fingers and fully rendered eyes BUT I do love this transitional period where I just drew a bunch of sexy aishas with nub hands and dot eyes:

At one point there was a moratorium on giving the anthropomorphic characters helix piercings. It had become a kneejerk instinct to just toss a couple hoops onto a character's ear as you were designing them and it got: wildly out of hand

the worst notes were the ones we'd get on the Neopets Magazine covers, hands down. We could have so much fun with the on-site art, but anything public-facing like merch and the magazine were under way more levels of impenetrable scrutiny. The feedback was always to make the smiles BIGGER and B I G G E R

#love

[glowingkorbat]

#rarlty

[glowingkorbat]

the neopets april fools joke is mildly unhinged

[glowingkorbat]

YOU ENDED UP GETTING ME INTO NEOPETS NOW SO WHAT R UR THOUGHTS ON JETSAM(S)? IM A SUCKER FOR SHARKS LOL SO IM RLY HOPING TO GET ONE AT SOME POINT

Jetsams are sharks, and are meant to be kind of a counterpart/natural predator to the dolphin-like Flotsam; to the point where the two looked near-identical. Nowadays there are more differences, with the Jetsam sporting two fins, sharp teeth, slightly different markings, and an upright posture. Personally, I like to think of these two as a case of mimicry, with the Jetsam having evolved to trick Flotsam from a distance.

Visually, the Jetsam has a nice tough look to it that gives it a lot of personality, and the way it sits upright plus the two fins gives it a bit more uniqueness so it isn't just a normal shark. My only issue with it is that the gray underbelly is a bit too dark and low-contrast. Gray as the accent color is fine; it just needed to be a lighter tint.

The Jetsam benefited quite a bit from customization, as its old art was starting to get very dated and needed a redraw anyway. The new Jetsam looks a little less tough, but the smile is nice as it shows off their teeth, and it gives them a fun kind of mischievous look. The overall look didn't change much, but the head has been changed significantly to have a much better, less wonky shape to it, and the markings now stop above the mouth instead of near the eyebrow. The shape of the hind fins have also been improved, and they're one of the only pets who can make the customization fists look good.

Favorite Colours:

Maraquan: How do you make an underwater version of something that already lives in the water? Make it into a deep-sea fish, obviously! The overall design is easily recognizable as a Jetsam, but its been given a horizontal posture with bioluminescence and an angler fish light/teeth. The palette is great, using neutral browns and greys for the body and bright neon blues for the accent color. My only nitpick with it is that the teeth feel a bit busy and don't quite make sense if you look at them too long, but overall, this is a great design.

Pastel: The pastel Jetsam is just plain pretty, using a soft pink and turquoise palette. What really makes it work is that instead of using flat colors, it employs subtle gradients so the turquoise becomes blue in areas and the pink gets some subtle highlights. On top of that, it's also given a sunlight-under-water ripple texture, with a few small speckles on areas like the eyebrows and tail. A lot of effort went into this design compared to your standard pastel pet, and it really paid off.

Toy: Alright yeah, this one's just fun. The pool floatie idea is a great concept that works perfectly for the colour, and the execution is also really solid, including lots of raised plastic ridges, seams, and plenty of highlights to give it that plastic look.

My only issue with it is that weird handle on the side of the head. I guess some shark toys have these, but I've never seen one personally and it honestly just looks distracting and kind of out of place. Also, I do wish it was semi-transparent (think like the good Jelly-coloured pets), but that's not a big deal. Still a really good colour regardless.

BONUS: The robot Jetsam has a mostly red and white palette with a few black accents, and it works really well for this pet. I love the visor, and the patterning on the fins is really neat. Both versions are fine; the UC/styled version looks a bit more robotic, but the customized version reads a bit better overall.

#pastel jetsam don’t tempt me like this