Lineart Coloring of a couple chibis. I got a kind of "Wednesday Addams" vibe from the purple chibi, so I decided to make it spooky.

Lineart provided by SilverChaim: https://www.deviantart.com/silverchaim

I can't believe how long it took me to finish this. I've been beyond busy, so I don't have much time for my own stuff. I'm actually thinking of taking the rest of the summer off from freelancing so I can focus on my personal work. It's probably a dumb idea, and it will almost certainly blow up in my face. But I've gotta try something. 

Anyway, I'm kinda surprised at how little I struggled with this. Normally, I have to brute-force my way through art. I basically just redraw things again and again until I get it right through sheer dumb luck. But the only thing that gave me any guff was the Catman face on the salt water taffy. Also, somewhere along the line, Clip Studio shat the bed and scuppered five days worth of work. Some layers got corrupted, and the auto-backup function decided to stop working five days prior. I had to redo everything the glitch ruined. But overall, I'm kinda underwhelmed by the job I did. Even though it went smoothly (aside from Clip Studio's little tantrum), it's a perfect example of my annoying talent of making things look both overdone and half-assed at the same time. Like, I didn't put much in the background, but it still looks cluttered. But it was still fun, and I certainly appreciate the opportunity to practice backgrounds.

Speaking of fun, I was thinking of a monogram to put on the teapot doily-thing, and the only thing that popped into my mind was the Ghost logo. It makes so much sense, because when I think of music for a spooky tea party, Ghost fits the bill perfectly. But I didn't stop there. I put in a few more Easter eggs to reference some of the music I was listening to:

Doily monogram: Ghost

Eyes on the licorice canister: Alice Cooper

Bat with the alchemic symbol for sulfur: King Diamond

Skull millipede thingy: Misfits

Salt water taffy pieces: Kiss

Sugar skull with glowing eyes: Zakk Wylde (a.k.a. my real dad. :P)

I actually wanted to color the spider to match "The Spider's Lullaby" album art, but I couldn't get it to look right, so I scuttled the idea.

Side note: This project gave me an idea for a new short story series: Girls' Cursing Club (which is a play on "Girls' Sealing Club"). It's about two high school goth girls, Melissa and Abigail (get it?) who try cursing the school bullies on a lark, but are surprised to see their curses actually worked. So they form a private club where they use their powers to punish evildoers over cake and tea. It's just an idea at this point, however. Not sure where it's all headed.