The spine is right on this third test copy of Paper Doll Veronika Part I - Forest, so I have placed the order for all the backer copies!
Monday, March 24, 2025
Announcing a new print shop!
Society6 kicked me off, along with hundreds of other artists, so I made a new print shop on Redbubble, and so far I like the look of it much better, especially the stickers!
Expect many more stickers of animal characters! Also on its way is more of my religious art.
Luckily I had already gotten all the prints for the Paper Doll Veronika Part I - Forest book backers, except one who wanted, instead of a paper print,a discount on a canvas print; but that should be fine, if not better, on Redbubble.
One thing is, per their rules, I had to mark any pictures clearly featuring Sibyl's rifle as mature content. So that's what that's about: it's a gun.
Monday, March 17, 2025
Paper Doll Veronika book second test!
The second version test copy of the Paper Doll Veronika Part I - Forest printed book has arrived! The title on the cover looks better, and...
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| The new version is on top. |
The spine is better, but still not quite right. I'm going to have to make further adjustments and try again.
Sorry for making everyone wait, but I think you'll agree, this must not have such a glaring imperfection. One thing is, the more individual copies I have to order as opposed to bulk, the greater the shipping cost, and I did undershoot the shipping as well as the print costs in the crowdfund prices. Now, all backers will get all their rewards, that I promise, but it may take more time to get money to cover all the shipping.
If you'd like to help make that happen faster, please consider joining the Paper Doll Veronika Paper Doll Club if you have not. It's six dollars a month and there's simply bushels of bonus material for club members, too!
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Christmas of Fire II complete on Arktoons
Chapter 14 of Part III of Paper Doll Veronika finishes on Arktoons!
So you can see, the comic will resume in April: Friday the 11th on my site and Palm Sunday the 13th on Arktoons.
You can also read it on my own website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
Saturday, March 8, 2025
Why did the road cross the chicken?
Because it was an Av-hen-ue!
A card for my nephew, a connoisseur of chicken-cross-the-road jokes. In all honesty, more about the illustration than the punchline.
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
Paper Doll Veronika first book first test!
The test copy of the printed book of Paper Doll Veronika Part I - Forest has arrived!
There is a little problem that will require adjustment:
So I will have to fix the spine and order another test copy before making the big order, but that should only take a couple weeks, while if there had been format problems with the interior, it would have taken months to redo. The interior looks absolutely great!
I can't wait to get this into everyone's hands!
Monday, March 3, 2025
Two opposite sketches
I've been cleaning up some in my studio, and here are some sketches which I'm not going to finish but I thought were worth sharing, especially because of their cultural contrast:
This one is of characters created by Rawle Nyanzi. Some years ago, he had an idea of book reviews done through very short fiction: these girls belong to an interdimensional religious order dedicated to fighting evil; they would travel into the worlds of the books being reviewed to aid the heroes thereof. I thought it a fun idea, but sadly I can't find the original posts nor do I remember the characters' names.
Nyanzi is a champion of independent fiction against woke corporatism, though efforts such as these reviews and also Brand Zero, dedicated to not giving money or publicity through discussion or even criticism of corporate IPs that are infected with SJWism. "Don't give money to people who hate you."
The second sketch is from something quite the opposite:
Gravity Falls-- I enjoyed this show quite a bit; the environments were lavishly wondrous and evocative, it was very funny and did a great job of building suspense. But it was definitely made by those "people who hate you", West-coast progressives who are likely to think everyone who voted for President Trump should be imprisoned or worse and that the source of all evil is straight white Christian males.
And this did hobble it, story-wise. The scene I was sketching is the "zodiac" moment, when twelve characters are revealed to have been destined via mysterious symbols, recurring throughout the series, to harness a power to defeat the monstrous villain. They join hands--and are instantly thwarted, rendering the whole setup pointless, in an example of typical "subversion of expectations" i.e. kneecapping your own dramatic momentum. While not at first glance connected to any social justice issue, this is something woke stories love to do. Cf. Disney Star Wars, Homestuck, etc.
There was also an out-of-nowhere, out-of-place in a children's show, too vitriolic to be funny, attack on Game and pickup artists, and the entire show was from an overwhelmingly Gamma male feminist perspective-- self-aware at times, which does make for good comedy, but never transcended.
So while I don't follow Brand Zero, I certainly have no regrets about leaving this sketch unfinished.
Sunday, March 2, 2025
In the home of the world's greatest detective is the world's greatest sense of comfort
I have made a little website within paperdollveronika.com for my Ace Attorney and Professor Layton fanart and analytical writings. Here it is. Most of it I have posted here and on my Deviantart page, but I wanted to do the following:
1. Collect it all together without other things in between,
2. Recall the internet of yesteryear, when people would make their own amateur sites for their own interests rather than just all being on massive corporate platforms, and
3. Expound my theories in a place free of interference from SJWs, yaoi shippers, and/or people who claim the crossover isn't canon.
So if you find it enjoyable, enjoy! If not, ignore! In keeping with purpose number two, it's nice to do something online without any need to try to promote and push it for clicks or purchases.
The title of this post, a line from the end of Great Ace Attorney 2, was brought to mind recently by a quote the respected artist Cecilia Lawrence cited in her New Year greeting: "Sherlock's in Baker Street, all's right with the world."
Christmas of Fire II five
Chapter 14 of Part III of Paper Doll Veronika continues on Arktoons!
You can also read it on my own website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
Monday, February 24, 2025
Christmas of Fire II four and book progress
Chapter 14 of Part III of Paper Doll Veronika continues on Arktoons!
You can also read it on my own website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
Also, I have completed work on the initial formatting of the printed book of Part I - Forest that we crowdfunded one year ago. I ordered a test copy and if it has no problems, it will be time for books!
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Christmas of Fire II three
Chapter 14 of Part III of Paper Doll Veronika continues on Arktoons!
You can also read it on my own website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
Sunday, February 9, 2025
Christmas of Fire II two
Chapter 14 of Part III of Paper Doll Veronika continues on Arktoons!
You can also read it on my own website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
Sunday, February 2, 2025
Christmas of Fire II
Bonus art for Chapter 14 of Part III of Paper Doll Veronika, which is now being posted on Arktoons!
You can also read it on my own website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
Friday, January 31, 2025
Happy Chinese New Year!
A special Chinese New Year picture for Arkhaven's weibo profile. I send deepest appreciation and good wishes to the Chinese readers and our translator!
Sunday, January 26, 2025
Test of the Tides complete on Arktoons
Chapter 13 of Part III of Paper Doll Veronika concludes on Arktoons!
You can also read it on my own website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
Monday, January 20, 2025
Three Paper Doll Veronika updates
Paper Doll Veronika has updated; Chapter 14 of Part III, "Christmas of Fire II", is complete!
This was supposed to go up last Friday but since it was delayed, I also have the latest Arktoons update to share:
And I don't usually link these, but since this update ended up on Monday: that's the day the comic updates on Substack! It's at a much earlier point, so that would be a good place if you'd like to reread.
The latest chapter on Substack is here.
In the push to get this chapter completed close to Christmas time, recent updates have been tardy. I heartily thank everyone for their patience, especially to the Doll Club members who voted that these last few pages have the extra detail of the elves moving in the background even if it made it take one more day.
During this break, I will be working on Issue #3 of Clockwork Dancer by Jon Del Arroz and on the formatting of the printed book of Paper Doll Veronika Part I – Forest, which we crowdfunded almost a year ago.
Friday, January 17, 2025
Thank God for the Grace of God a million times
Fantasy author Neil Gaiman has been revealed as a literally sadistic sexual predator. His victims are all very similar. As Vox Day writes in "Pretty Moths Drawn to Hellfire: A woman explains the retardery of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl":
One of the more striking elements of what is now best described as the Neil Gaiman serial rape scandal is the similarity of the victims. Not only in their appearance, which tends to be youthful, plain-to-moderately attractive, brown-haired, and wide-eyed, but in their sheer stupidity of their behavior.
He quotes Mary Harrington's description:
For someone thus dedicated to living poetically, the world is beautiful, dramatic, dark, inspiring, and frightening all at once. Everything carries deep symbolic significance. The smallest everyday event can feel like a deep metaphor, or high quest. The resulting behaviour might look from the outside like recklessness, promiscuity, over-emotionality, and self-destruction, but it will feel from the inside like living in a state of perpetual enchantment: a life brimming with meaning, urgency, intensity, and immediacy. To invent an example, someone dedicated to living poetically might make an apparently abrupt and perverse decision to leave a completely serviceable set of life arrangements overnight, on the basis of a casual remark from a stranger, associations conjured by the smell of cherry blossom, and a snatch of music overheard from a passing car.
That could be describing me, both physically and characteristically.
It could have been me. I quit my day job to do art full time; I say not "make a living on art" because I don't make enough for a living. I am supported by my parents and brother-in-law, whom I endeavor to repay with house and garden work and helping look after my nephews, on whom I enthusiastically dote. I do not cosplay, as above, anymore, but still wear lolita fashion regularly. I've done and have been prevented by my parents from doing many stupid, reckless things out of romantic sensibility and am exhilarated by material crises. I am an old maid and the only man who was seriously romantically interested in me was an eccentric Gamma philosophy major who said I was "the most interesting person he'd ever met."
While not a particular fan of Gaiman, I did read a few of his works and really liked the miniseries Neverwhere. I did attend a few comic book conventions and at the time would have been excited to see him. Thank God he never was at any of the ones I was. May St. Nonna of Wales implore God's healing grace on the girls who did run into him.
One crucial difference between me and the stereotypical MPDG is I flee fornication. I am a virgin and have an absolute horror of sexual sin. One might easily say it wouldn't be thus if a high-status man had ever been interested and tried to seduce me. I cannot say for certain of course, but I truly honestly think I still would refuse and flee. I pray God it would be so. I cannot emphasize enough that this is not credit to my own qualities but to the Grace of God found in frequent recourse to the Sacraments and being raised strongly in the Faith.
The redpill understanding of women such as Vox Day teaches can lead men to think we are evil creatures. We are fallen of course, sinful and in need of God's Mercy. But we are not more evil by nature than men. The qualities Day points out are how God created women to be, for the benefit of caring for small children.
Women are solipsistic, meaning not that we actually
subscribe to the philosophical belief that only the self exists, but that we process
all information in relation to the self. This helps a mother put her own
children ahead of strangers'. Women generally lack empathy, which means we find
it difficult to perceive and understand others' emotions, but not that we don't
care. Small children make their needs and emotions obvious enough. And a mother
directing daily life towards what she knows to be good for small children
rather than necessarily what they desire is good. Women don't have the same
situational awareness as men and these particular women lack a sense of self-preservation. This is a weakness but not a
vice, though it can certainly lead to vices.
Day cautions men not to pursue MPDG women romantically and I cannot argue with that based on my own self-centered knowledge. I do not think I would have made a good wife; I'm too stubborn and fussy about trivialities. Some of the MPDG characteristics seem like they might be put to good use as a mother, but a man would have to have the strength of frame to curb any destructive whims, so I really can't speak to it. But I do think the nunnery would be an excellent place for these women so let us pray for the re-establishment of women's consecrated life in the Catholic Church--it is currently overrun with Modernist lesbians; although there are a few good convents, they are being menaced by Bergoglio's regime.
In religious life, a manic pixie dreamgirl's ecstasies would be of the mystical variety. Because a woman's emotionality can be oriented towards the Good if her conscience is well formed. So raise your daughters well. Encourage them to form emotional attachment to the practice of Faith. I don't mean the emotional manipulation of praise and worship rockbands and motivational-speech prosperity-gospel preaching, but the beauty of meditative prayer, poetic hymns, stories of saints, great devotional art like Murillo and Fra Angelico. And Yes this is absolutely a disparagement of Protestantism in favor of Traditional Catholicism.
Writing all this exposes me to a great amount of ridicule and scorn, I know. But I felt (emotions again) so convicted by Day's post that I had to write so I can beg fathers: if you have a daughter like this, don't let her pursue her mad dreams unguarded! And above all, raise her with an intense consciousness of the horror of sin and of how much she owes to the Grace of God and that straying from His paths means ruin.
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| AI image prompted by Vox Day |
St. Nonna of Wales, pray for us and for the victims of Neil Gaiman,
St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us and them,
St. Maria Goretti, pray for us and them,
Our Lady, Virgin most pure, pray for us and them,
Jesus, our Hope, have mercy on us and them.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Otohime
Bonus art for "Test of the Tides", Chapter 13 of Part III of Paper Doll Veronika, which is now being posted on Arktoons!
This is a piece I'm really proud of, that I'd planned ever since I first wrote this character into the comic.In it, I was trying, with traditional media, to emulate effects usually only achieved with digital media, while those same digital effects were enabled by digital art's quest to emulate traditional media. That is to say, Photoshop brushes designed to emulate watercolor can do things with transparency and edge that watercolor itself can't usually do, but combining watercolor with collage of transparent material: tracing paper and washi tape, achieves something similar. I definitely want to use these techniques more.
You can also read the comic on my own website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
Friday, January 10, 2025
Paper Doll Veronika update
Paper Doll Veronika has updated; Chapter 14 of Part III, "Christmas of Fire II", continues!
The twelve days of Christmas may be over, but we're still in the Octave of Epiphany!
It updates on Fridays on my site, Sundays on Arktoons,
and Mondays on Substack
(Substack is at a much earlier point in the comic). I recommend using bookmarking
or the "Save your place" gadget on my site, even once you catch up,
because the site starts at the beginning and updates are several pages.
Veronika Bosch, who's never left her father's estate, has to go on a journey
when envious animals kick her out. Half collage, half puppetry, it's the
traditional media equivalent of an elaborate sprite comic.
Sunday, January 5, 2025
Art of 2024
This year was taken over by Paper Doll Veronika, as you can see eight out of twelve months are it. And in March and September, I didn't have time to draw anything due to family duties and events, so there's an embroidery gift I made for my nephew-godson's baptism, and a photo of a morning glory I grew. I also finally finished Issue #3 of Bovodar and the Bears--October gives an exclusive preview since the last four pages are not yet on Arktoons!
The artistic goals for 2024 were: 1) work on Clockwork Dancer and 2) hold a crowdfund for a paper printed book of Paper Doll Veronika Part I - Forest.
Well the second was a great success, but the first, I only did a tiny bit. So it is my absolute must-do for 2025; as soon as Paper Doll Veronika finishes its current segment, it will go on break until Spring so I can finally hammer out Issue #3 of Clockwork Dancer for the ever-patient Leading Hispanic Voice in Science-Fiction Jon Del Arroz!
The second artistic goal is to finish formatting the aforementioned aforefunded paper printed book and get it out to my patient backers. That's what I really take home from this year, the gracious patience everyone has extended to me. I am most grateful, and will work hard so your patience be rewarded!
Saturday, January 4, 2025
Paper Doll Veronika update
Paper Doll Veronika has updated; Chapter 14 of Part III, "Christmas of Fire II", continues!
Late, but not as late as I had been recently. Just gotta get this Christmas part up during Christmastide, although it's not very cheery. But that is part of Christmas. He came to die, and the greatest calling is to follow Him in martyrdom. Today is the Octave of the Holy Innocents.
It updates on Fridays on my site, Sundays on Arktoons,
and Mondays on Substack
(Substack is at a much earlier point in the comic). I recommend using bookmarking
or the "Save your place" gadget on my site, even once you catch up,
because the site starts at the beginning and updates are several pages.
Veronika Bosch, who's never left her father's estate, has to go on a journey
when envious animals kick her out. Half collage, half puppetry, it's the
traditional media equivalent of an elaborate sprite comic.
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