Congratulations to China on a phenomenally successful first Mars mission! I look forward to the day when we can all explore the cosmos together as a human family and stop pretending it's still the Cold War.

 The development team inserting themselves into the game and making meta remarks is a cute idea that would definitely lead to an existential crisis for a player character.

Sat and doodled for a bit last night! Nothing like chilling to classical music and just drawing whatever comes to mind.

Expression studies for Saturos. Although he can come off as imposing, once you get to know him he's actually kind of a goof. He's a real foodie and a voracious eater (although I imagine reality-bending magic does require a lot of energy). When the situation commands it, though, he is capable of becoming a demonic creature roiling with unleashed power--but he actually really hates doing this because he's worried it scares people. The only time he's had to let out the full capacity of his power was when he fought the Erdunn (but back then, nobody was really around to see it). (He actually only gets into one fight in the plot of Ravenscrag, but he was intentionally holding back because he didn't want to hurt Tam.)

 And a concept doodle for a novel I've been brainstorming for and would like to get around to writing soon. Valdovas is a millennia-old dragon from Eastern Europe who is arrogant, aloof, and disdainful toward humans--but that changes when he is forced to accept help from a family living on the American frontier, and he grows to realize that not all humans are enemies, and that some of them need his help, too.

Valdovas was inspired by Smaug and Tolkien's treatment of dragons in general--I love the man's writing, but his dragons are always irredeemably evil spawn of darkness. I've loved dragons since I was a kid, and I feel like they deserve better than that. I also haven't written a novel with dragons since Voyage of the Kaus Media, so we're way overdue for more dragons. <3

Not sure I did the best job rendering it yesterday, but Valdovas has black iridescent scales. He also breathes poison. He's a zmey from Slavic folklore (but a one-headed variety, because multiple-headed dragons means more characters to juggle).

Well, what else would you do with a bike on Cycling Road?

(cue catchy bicycle theme)

 I was listening to a podcast where the hosts were discussing the possibility of pink dinosaurs, and I got to thinking about how a dinosaur could be pink. Modern dinosaurs (birds) that are predominantly pink, such as flamingoes and roseate spoonbills, get their coloration from ingesting foods rich in carotenoids, usually arthropods in aquatic environments. That made me think of Deinocheirus, which is from a swampy, tropical environment and looks adapted for a bit of aquatic feeding. So naturally I put two and two together and concluded it would be great if Deinocheirus was pink. It's already such a bizarre dinosaur that you might as well make it pink on top of everything else it's got going on.

I specifically based this guy's coloration on the roseate spoonbill, one of my favorite birds because of how so very weird it is. <3

 Mean old authority figures not letting people do whatever they want for their own safety.

I had a lot of fun drawing that Grumpy Meowth sign.

 After that Viking comic, my thoughts turned to the "Face on Mars" and what could really have been responsible for it. :)