As @ablatheringblatherskite Eloquently Put It In Their Lovely Tags For This Post:

I was reading POTO in French and remembered that this existed, and everything seems a little less bleak. Thank goodness for art.

I sometimes wonder if I'm selfish for spending my time and life on something so immaterial as art. I forget that it's what keeps me sane.

It's not escapism; it's a fight to understand. Immaterial is not the same as useless. It's easy to forget these things.

(I intended this reblog to be a joke about how I've forgotten Erik is French - I imagine him having an RP accent after watching the musical - but I got punched in the face by a dose of Doom and Gloom so here we are. Apologies.)

Local Sad French Man

Red death.

I was recently informed by @blackghostm2o that we never got to see Cherik at a masquerade. This is my humble attempt to rectify that, since we all know that Cherik is the best dressed Phantom. The fashion historian Bernadette Banner has made a Red Death gown with the boning exposed to give it a skeletal look, so I borrowed the idea and incorporated a boned corset.

Christmas Advent Calendar

I'm making an advent calendar. It will be available for 1£ (1.2$) on my Ko-Fi.

What else should I draw? Left to my own devices, I will fill it with fluffy krampusses, rats hitting each other with candy canes, and anxious festive turd.

You know when you start to think "Aww I like you" about a character and then "Right, you're my favourite now," and then they die? It drives me up the wall, and I'm staying on the wall because I hate the "eh, they're not dead!" even more.

This is even more annoying because it was only assigned reading for a GN course, and now I'm upset over a dead pumpkin headed multiversal magic academy student.

It's not so much the character dying that makes me angry. It's that I hate being told how to feel. It feels like I'd fallen into a trap laid out by the writers; like they'd made me like this character specifically so that I'd be invested enough to be sad when they die. Mass produced sentiment.

Everything about this drawing makes me happy, but the detail that makes my Undead heart sing is the yellow-covered copy of Dracula. It's the 1897 edition, designed to evoke the appearance of the 'yellowback' - the cheap sensational fiction sold at railway stations at the time. Dr Watson was mentioned reading one in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. (Above is the miniature version I made for my haunted dollhouse.)

Cover me in sunshine...Shower me with good times

Tell me that the world's been spinning since the beginning....And everything will be alright

What can I say, my little nosferatu loves yellow. Get some sleep, Aurik.

watercolour and gouache with coloured pencil detailing, a little white ink for highlights.

I drew one too, but it is mildly cursed:

Live Aurik Reactions are always the best!! I'm doing no good for his poor vampire heart, bless him, menacing him with the biggest coquette vampire friend and pin-up postcards.

Never used my phone drawing app before, that went as well as can be expected!

Live Aurik Reaction to @purrlockswatson 's post.

Look, it's not his fault, he's had a very sheltered life (and unlife).

Guess who got their first unauthorised reposter!

I've blocked this user, and I damn well hope they haven't taken any more of my art.

Block this user. They have an empty account with just my poor Pierce and another post by another artist. I can't report them because it needs a lot of personal information to file a copyright infringement form, and that info will be passed on to that user, which... sucks, to put it mildly.

This sort of shite happens all the time, I know, and I always expected it to happen, but I'll never feel safe posting art on the internet again.

WHAT DID I SAY? What did I say?

ARGH.

Original posts: Nosferatu here and Lescat here.

Thank all of you who pressed the little funny buttons!

Two very different vampires

Very nice, Pierce, but maybe don't flash your, ah, ankles. Dear Aurik is by @vladimirsangel

Originally, I only planned a doodle of smol Pierce next to Aurik because a midnight conversation turned from the division of chores in the Dracula household to vampire height difference. But it's been a weird week, and I kept adding to the sketches to unwind. I hope my 'stress art' makes some people happy, too.

On vamp fashion: Pierce's dressing gown is based on Klimt's The Kiss, reference to the Klimt-inspired robe in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Aurik is NOT a brat; he probably borrowed the t-shirt from Vlad. His outfit is a combination of this Goth one and his Ugg boots.

The Phantom of the Opera (1990)

Monsieur. MONSIEUR. As someone doomed by the narrative, you have no right to be that precious. A lot of people will get hurt.

Vlad, how dare you put me through this. Je ne vais pas bien, pas du tout !

I talked about this adaptation here.

More Phantom: Cowboy (Cowcat?) Phantom, the Persian, Erik and his stuff.