Dune (1984) - Charles Atlas Ad Parody

 Dune (1984)
Charles Atlas Ad Parody

Click to Embiggen

This end cap to the "Dune (1984)" Series took an embarrassing amount of time to finish for some reason, but here it is, FINALLY!  To give a peak behind the curtain and show "Where do you get your ideas?", it was such an odd, circuitous, and random chain of events that lead to "Ding!  I got it..." that I figured it would be mildly amusing to share.

For the past few years, I have been regularly submiting to "Moss Piglet", a small art magazine out of Kenosha, Wisconsin, published by my pal (and Superman's), John Bloner.  Each month, they have a prompt for submissions and a couple months ago, it was for "Beaches".  While my submission was OK, I was semi-disappointed in myself (it was done as a beach and see done as faux-astronomical analog: beachball as the moon, jellyfish as shooting star, starfish as stars, etc.).  Not bad, but, well, not all that good, either, IMHO and somewhat disappointing on a personal level.  It made it on the back cover, so it wasn't terrible or anything like that, I guess.

Originally, though, I kept trying to come up with some sort of parody of the Charles Atlas Ad to submit, as I found idea personally amusing in my nerdy way:

The Original Charles Atlas Ad (well, one of them...)

But, every time I was trying to think of something, the pull of Grant Morrison's run on Doom Patrol's Flex Mentallo, which was already a masterful parody of Charles Atlas, was a bit too strong, and I kept referring to Flex Mentallo in my head.  After trying and failing to come up with something, I gave up and just did the "As Above, So Below/Outer Space as Beach" visual comparison and left it at that.  After the deadline was done and everything was prepped to be sent off to the publisher, John B. mentioned that he was enjoying the "Dune (1984)" series on my Blog and it was too bad no one had made a "Dune" submission for the "Beaches" prompt.

As soon as he mentioned "Dune (1984)" in the context of the "Beaches" prompt, it immediately slotted into the Charles Atlas Parody I was trying to come up with and I saw Feyd kicking sand in Paul and Chani's face (Ding!); Paul saying he was going to gamble a stamp on the Bene Gesserit for the Gom Jabbar (Ding!); and Paul stabbing Feyd with a Crysknife (Ding!).  Suddenly, I had a framework and most of it immediately fell into place from that one little phrase, with only a few remaining square pegs to be hammered into the round holes remaining.

So I have to give him a tip o' the digital pen to John Bloner for unknowingly inspiring this Post (well, it would be unknowingly, if I didn't blab to him how I was immediately stealing that idea).

Anyhoo, it amused me and is a melange (pun intended) of the movie and book--and, yeah, I intentionally left off "Book" from "As seen on TV and Movies" as I thought it was funny to be pretend it can only be represented by Movies and TV Shows, even though the first "Dune" book is among my favorite books (I do like some of the ideas explored in the rest of the series as written by Frank Herbert, but as they were actually carried out, they were very good, but not as great as the first book, IMHO).

Now, off to figure out what the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks I'm gonna do for the "31 Days of HELL-O-Ween" coming up in October.  Eesh, it's already almost here and I have several other projects unrelated to this Blog to get done, first.  Hoo-boy...  No rest for the wicked and, apparently, I've been a baaaadddd boy!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils done on a 3,300px x 5,100px / 11" x 17" @ 300dpi cavas in Clip Studio Paint.  At the time I pencilled it, I still wasn't too sure what all I was going to include in the two middle word balloons (something-something Gom Jabbar, something-something "Sleeper has awakened", etc.), so I just left those blank for the time being and moved on to the Inking portion of the drawing.  Originally, I was gonna do "Hero of the Desert", but referring back to "Hero of the Beach" seemed more fitting to me.

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STEP TWO: And here are the digital inks and letters.

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STEP THREE:  And here is the final image, with lots of various color layers and did a color halftone of the color plate, which I overlayed at 30% opacity.  I also threw a paper texture over top just to complete the old tyme comic book feel.

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Done digitally with Clip Studio Paint.

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Shameless Self-Promotion: One-Million Views?

Self-Promotion:
One Million-to-John

Before starting with the boring Blog stuff, just to explain the image, I've always been a fan of "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension" (1984) and was thinking about doing a series for that in the near future.  So, I was primed for something Buckaroo Banzai-related and thought about the infamous Watermelon scene with Reno (Pepe Serna) and New Jersey (Jeff Goldblum).  And, yeah, I know New Jersey isn't wearing his cowboy hat in the scene, but it made it easier to identify him from "Buckaroo Banzai".  Well, I mean, for those of us that are into some of the more weird, cult movies from the 80's.  This is one of those "If you know, you know" type posts.

On to the regularly unscheduled program: OK, this is weird...  While I do check my views semi-regularly, I really don't pay them much attention, aside from "Oh, hey, that one was surprisingly popular" (the word "popular" is doing a lot of lifting), or "Oh, that thing I thought would knock everyone's socks off went nowhere."  C'est la Vie.  But, I am no way a slave to the Algorithm and don't bother too much one way or the other, for better or worse.  I'm accustomed to my current level of mediocrity, I suppose.

But, like watching the calendar on your computer roll over to a new year, or your car's odometer get to 100,000 miles, or some similar numerical milestone, I did the same when it came to this Blog.  I noticed it was probably a few days from 1,000,000 views, so I checked a little more often just to see if I could watch it roll over.  Oddly, it worked out and I watched it tick up throughout the evening from 999,457 to 999,999 to 1,000,000.  Ah, that OCD dopamine reward!

This is the 15th year I've been doing this Blog, and I've been doing my Figure Drawing one for 16 years, and both of them just crossed the 1,000,000 Views within a few weeks of each other, so that's very strange.  Why, it seems like it was only yesterday when I was celebrating 100,000 views (actually, it was about 9 years ago in Feb. 2017).  The thought of 1,000,000 views on either one of my Blogs--let along both--is mind boggling and somewhat humbling.  What can I say, I'm a man of modest needs.

I noticed a large jump on the number of views and visits to this Blog starting in early 2025 about when I dropped the series of "Tron" digital paintings, and things jumped again the past few months in 2026.  While it is nice to think the growth of the Blog is people finally coming around and recognizing my (cough) genius, I'm sure it is mostly due to scraping from A.I. Bots and whatnot.  Nothing has really changed as far as I can tell, just "Number go up".  Shrug.

Random bit of oddness: Of all the stuff I've done the past couple years when things really picked up, while there are many close runners-up, the most popular post so far was for Super-Grover.  Huh.  While I find it amusing and am not entirely displeased about it, I will admit to be somewhat surprised about that.  I mean, it isn't even all that good of a Super-Grover digital painting and probably one I should have done traditionally, IMHO.  Ah, well.

Anyhoo, I'll rub some Preparation H on my head to reduce the swelling from crossing the threshold of 1,000,000 views and get back to trying to figure out what I will be doing next.  Speaking of, I should be dropping the last of the "Dune (1984)" series in a few days, and desperately trying to figure out what I will be doing for "31 Days of HELL-O-Ween".  I've grown a bit bored with painting still frames from various Horror Movies, although they are fun practice to work on some painting skills.  So, we'll see what happens with that.  Something... different, I hope.

Thank you to everyone who has stopped by to gawk at my humble Blog--even if it is just in the same manner people rubber-neck at a car wreck.  It is all greatly appreciated!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils done on a 2,000px x 2,250px @ 300dpi.

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STEP TWO: And here are the digital inks.

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STEP THREE:  And here is the final image.  I kept the colors relatively flat, but put a paper texture over top.

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Done digitally with Clip Studio Paint.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026 #9

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's the next submission featuring that Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing:
MARCH M.O.D.O.K. MADNESS!

Well, here it is, the last of the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness for 2026. And what better way to send off our favorite Mind Blastin’ Lil' Buddy than to have the A.I.M. Agent whispering “Hush” and all that with a parody of “Goodnight Moon”.

Visit the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog early and often to see some of the other artists who also enjoy the exploits of everyone's favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing and tell 'em John sent ya!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils done on a 2,500px x 2,000px canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And here are digital inks.

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STEP THREE:  And here are the added colors, done on several layers under the Digital Inks. 

I also added a slight paper grain over the top to break up the plain colors.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026 #8

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's the next submission featuring that Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing:
MARCH M.O.D.O.K. MADNESS!

Here's the next submission to March M.O.D.O.K. Madness.  Why did I choose to have M.O.D.O.K. driving some sort of "Mad Max: Fury Road" style murderous dune buggy?   Who knows, especially since I really don’t like drawing vehicles.  I'm not even all that good at them (although, admittedly, much better than I used to be).  Bleh!  What was I thinking?

One more day to go for March M.O.D.O.K. Madness!

Visit the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog early and often to see some of the other artists who also enjoy the exploits of everyone's favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing and tell 'em John sent ya!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils done on a 2,000px x 2,750px canvas.  I also did a simple grid just to keep everything vaguely in perspective.  Nothin' fancy or exact--just enough to fake it.

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STEP TWO:  And here are digital inks.

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STEP THREE:  And here are the added colors, done on several layers under the Digital Inks.  I decided to keep the inks drawn in freehand, rather than using either the Perspective Ruler or the new hold-shape to snap to a straight line or corrected shape feature that Clip Studio Paint has with Version 5 (basically, the same thing that Procreate does when drawing shapes).  Keeping the lines freehand gives them a little more life for this kind of wacky drawing, whereas if all the lines were precise and exactly straight, etc., it would probably be a bit more sterile.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026 #6

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's the next submission featuring that Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing:
MARCH M.O.D.O.K. MADNESS!

OK, this picture of M.O.D.O.K. was just me goofing around with the Lasso Fill tool in the latest Version Update for Clip Studio Paint.  Nothing fancy and not a parody that amuses me (and only me, not that it takes much) or anything like that, just randomly circling parts that filled in and subtracted out colors.  It gave an interesting paper cutout look to the image which I kind of like.  Kinda.  I was so committed to the bit, I even signed my name using the Lasso Fill Tool.

Not to worry, I'll make it up with the next one: A pastiche/parody of Frank Frazetta if all goes to plan.  Not that it always does, of course...

Visit the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog early and often to see some of the other artists who also enjoy the exploits of everyone's favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing and tell 'em John sent ya!

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Well, as I just started working on it and just goofed around until it was done, there isn't really any "Work in Progress", it was all done on a 2,000px x 2,400px canvas on a couple different layers.  Um... tada!...

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026 #5

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's the next submission featuring that Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing:
MARCH M.O.D.O.K. MADNESS!

This time, it's just a bit of digital doodling on a canvas in Rebelle 8 Pro and this came out.  Looks like non-idle hands are also the Devil's Workshop!  Although, in my Mind's Eye, it was going to remain a bit more "painterly" and impressionistic.  Maybe next time!  Or, one of the times coming up, anyways...

Visit the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog early and often to see some of the other artists who also enjoy the exploits of everyone's favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing and tell 'em John sent ya!

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STEP ONE:  I just did some doodling in Rebelle 8 Pro and had done on a 1,875px x 2,600px canvas.  This time, I remembered to do a half-way point of the digital painting, rather than realize when I'm 80% of the way finished to think "Oh, crud, I should have done this an hour ago..." 

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STEP TWO:  Here's the finished digital painting

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Done digitally in Rebelle 8 Pro.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026 #4

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's the next submission featuring that Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing:
MARCH M.O.D.O.K. MADNESS!

It's Pi Day, and what better way to celebrate than a M.O.D.O.K. cartoon (click the "Pi Day" Link/Label on the side bar for more examples)?  I will admit, I'm not much when it comes to Math (or Maths, for those of you across The Pond), but Pi Day amuses me.  Although, Mario Day (Mar10) also amuses me, as well, but I always forget about it until it is the day of, otherwise I would probably post something in honor of that day, too.  Next year, I guess...

Visit the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog early and often to see some of the other artists who also enjoy the exploits of everyone's favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing and tell 'em John sent ya!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the very quickly scribbled digital pencils done on a 2,000px x 3,000px canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And here are digital inks along with the Lettering.

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STEP THREE:  And here are the added colors, done on several layers under the Digital Inks.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026 #3

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's the next submission featuring that Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing:
MARCH M.O.D.O.K. MADNESS!

This time I kept it relatively simple with a parody of Dr. Seuss's Hop on Pop.  Although, M.O.D.O.K. maybe looks a little too much like Bart Simpson...  Hmmm, perhaps I'll do that one next week if it hasn't been done to Death already.  Well, a cursory search or two didn't show anything much like I had in mind, so maybe.  We shall see...

Visit the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog early and often to see some of the other artists who also enjoy the exploits of everyone's favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing and tell 'em John sent ya!

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the very quickly scribbled digital pencils done on a 2,000px x 3,000px canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And here are digital inks along with the Lettering.

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STEP THREE:  And here are the added colors, done on several layers under the Digital Inks.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026 #2

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's the next submission featuring that Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing:
MARCH M.O.D.O.K. MADNESS!

This time doing a parody of the classic "Akira" poster by Otomo, with M.O.D.O.K. doing the classic walk toward his Kirby-Powered Mecho-Chair.  This is one of those images I've had in my mind for quite some time, but it feels so familiar.  I tried to do a check on The Googles and such to make sure this hasn't been done before and didn't see an example.  Perhaps it has been on my mind for so long that I gave myself deja vu.

As for the Kanji for M.O.D.O.K., as I neither read or write Japanese (heck, many argue I barely read and write in my native tongue, English), I will have to put my blind faith in the Internet that the English to Kanji translator I used is correct. What could possibly go wrong?  Anyhoo, I traced over the Kanji to go over the M.O.D.O.K. ala the "Akira" poster, just to be as accurate as possible and to minimize the odds of my accidentally writing some unintentional.

Visit the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog early and often to see some of the other artists who also enjoy the exploits of everyone's favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing and tell 'em John sent ya!

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the very quickly scribbled digital pencils done on a 2,000px x 3,000px canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And here are digital inks.  I didn't care for the penciled steps into the Mechano-Chair as the 1-point perspective made it look a little on the wonky side, so Ichanged it in the Inks to make them a bit more rounded and curved to follow the Mechano-Chair's form.

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STEP THREE:  And here are the added colors, done on several layers under the Digital Inks.  I debated exporting the Inks Layer as a .png and doing the colors in Rebelle, as it does a much better job with some of the paintings brushes and tools, but decided to just do it all in Clip Studio Paint.  I love Clip Studio Paint's Ink brushes, and Rebelle's color and digital paints.  If only they could be combined into some Frankenstein program!

Good enough to call DONE and go on the start the next one!

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026 #1

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2026
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's time again for everyone's favorite March-based bit of Madness and Mirth featuring that wacky, hyper-cephalic Jack Kirby creation Designed Only for Killing:
MARCH M.O.D.O.K. MADNESS!

For the first one, I had an image pop into my head of M.O.D.O.K. as the poster for the B-Movie classic, "Attack of the 50ft. Woman".  Oh, sorry, "Classic" should be in scare quotes--but I liked it when I saw it as a kid as part of a double-feature with "The Amazing Colossal Man"... or was it "War of the Colossal Beast"?... I watched all of them at one time or another on "T.J. and the A.N.T. (All Night Theater)".

Here is the original, classic "Attack of the 50ft. Woman" poster.  Classic Poster and awesome art by Sci-Fi Movie Poster painter, Reynold Brown.  He painted so many of the Classic Sci-Fi posters that fascinated me in my youth.  Give 'em a Google!

I'm hoping to get about 8-10 submissions done and sent to the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog.  Visit the site to see some of the other artists who also enjoy the exploits of everyone's favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing and tell 'em John sent ya!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the very quickly scribbled digital pencils done on a 2,000px x 3,000px canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And here is the digital painting, done in Rebelle 8.  And, yeah, those cars are comically childish, but they were small and just in the background.

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Done digitally in Rebelle with an assist from Clip Studio Paint with the Lettering

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Unwanted Valentines: The Lord of the Rings (2001)

Unwanted Valentines:
The Lord of the Rings (2001)

Here's another Unwanted Valentine, this time featuring Sauron from "The Lord of the Rings" (2001).

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital blue pencils, done on a 2,000px x 2,800 @ 300dpi canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And the digital inks, done mostly with an 10pt and a 15pt brush.

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STEP THREE:  The colors were done on the layer below.

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Done digitally with Clip Studio Paint

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Unwanted Valentines: The Matrix (1999)

Unwanted Valentines:
The Matrix (1999)

It's another Unwanted Valentine, this time from "The Matrix" (1999), with an obvious Viagra joke.  Is that joke obvious?  Then you know I'm gonna make it!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital blue pencils, done on a 2,000px x 2,800 @ 300dpi canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And the digital inks, done mostly with an 10pt and a 15pt brush.

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STEP THREE:  The colors were done on the layer below.

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Done digitally with Clip Studio Paint

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Unwanted Valentines: Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)

Unwanted Valentines:
Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)

It's time again for an Unwanted Valentine--Valentines so nerdy and built upon puns so terrible that no one would be pleased to receive them... especially a loved one!  This time we're starting with an obvious Pirate pun with "Pirates of the Caribbean" (2003).

Also, I decided with a PG-rated joke, rather than on that is rated... ARRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrr!  After that terrible joke, I'll show myself out... 

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital blue pencils, done on a 2,000px x 2,800 @ 300dpi canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And the digital inks, done mostly with an 10pt and a 15pt brush.

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STEP THREE:  The colors were done on the layer below.

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Done digitally with Clip Studio Paint

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