Meri's Merry Art

[.: Meri :.]

Hello, and welcome to my art gallery thread! I thought it would be nice to have a place to archive some of my signatures, creative projects done for site events, and maybe some other assorted art as well!
(other signatures I've used: LDF, Merielle)

I mainly do digital art and some occasional graphics, as well as traditional art with colored pencils. (Although I don't have great lighting or access to a good scanner, so I probably won't post as much of that here for the time being.) For digital art, I use Clip Studio Paint and a Huion Inspiroy H640P tablet.
I'm currently practicing two different digital coloring styles, one with and without textured brushes. For TBT events and some simple patterns/backgrounds, I freehand everything myself, but I'll sometimes use and modify CSP materials for backgrounds and patterns in requests/commissions.

Please enjoy! (๑•͈ᴗ•͈)

Spoiler: GFX

Cardia signature #1:

One of my regular signatures, featuring Cardia from Code: Realize.
Stock image credits: TT, Prettysleepy, cocoparisienne, FrankPfeiffer, and ShaunF on Pixabay

Cardia signature #2:

Same as above! Was aiming for a more spring or summer vibe for this one.
Stock image credits: Prawny, Ciana, and susannp4 on Pixabay

Code: Realize group signature:

Stock image credits: stux and ChrisFielder on Pixabay

Rainbow avatar + signature:

Stock image credits: pinwhalestock on Pixabay

Underwater Cardia avatar + signature:

Stock image credits: Prettysleepy, Darkmoon_Art, Segerst, avalonbears, & ollivves on Pixabay

TBTWC avatar + signature:

Another Code: Realize icon and signature, this time themed around the Froggy Chairs' team color!
Stock image credits: jeonsango and Pezibear on Pixabay

TBT Fair 2022 avatar + signature:

For the "Enchanted Forest" theme!
Stock image credits: ELG21 on Pixabay

April Fool's signature:

Stock image credits: Skitterphoto and mistytableau on Pixabay

Easter signature:

Stock image credits: freecdr and dandelion_tea on Pixabay

Autumn signature:

Halloween signature:

Christmas avatar + signature:

Stock image credits: Crissa and jrydertr on Pixabay

Any avatars and signatures I've made for myself on TBT! Done using a combination of official art and free-use stock images.

Spoiler: Draw the User Above You!/Requests/Commissions

For Mayor Hoshiko in Draw the User Above You

Commission for Kitsuragi

Request for duckvely

Request for -Mars-

Request for daringred_

Request for jiny

Request for Corrie

Request for Oldcatlady

Commission for Gene.

Commission for Corrie

Commission for Neb

Commission for peachsaucekitty

Commission for Verecund

Commission for Fye

Commission for Mick

Art I've done for other users!

Spoiler: TBTWC - Team Froggy Chairs Cheers

Spoiler: Team Flag Entry

Spoiler: TBTWC Art Cheers!

Day #1: Green Team Friendship Bracelet

Day #2: Layla's Here to Cheer!

Day 3: Stay Hydrated!

Day 4: We All Scream for Green Team

Day 5: Green Tea(m) Time

Day 6: Goo Forth and Claim Victory

Day 7: Matcha Cupcakes!

Day 8: Oh? What's Skiploom Got?

Day 9: Froggy Chairs Friendship Bracelet #2

Day #10: Just a Tad More!

Day #11: Serena Believes in You!

Day 12: Jade Believes in You Too!

Day #13: A Minty Alpacasso

Day #14: A Reassuring Rowlet

Day #15: The Cutest Crown Thief

Day #16 (Final): To the Stars

Spoiler: TBTWC Writing Cheers!

Day #1: Like Leaves

Like leaves in a gentle breeze,
We'll win with utmost ease,
Never touching the ground.

Like leaves in a cup of tea,
We'll brew our victory,
The heat only brings out our potential.

Like leaves, we are green,
New growth, our best yet to be seen,
As we reach for the sun.

Day #2: Deep in the Wood

Once, there lived a dapper old frog,
Who lived in a fancy hollowed-out log,
Within its bark were riches unseen,
And like him, they too were green.

In his youth, he kept in his pocket
A treasure within his grandfather's locket,
Unassuming though it was, that dried four-leaf clover,
He knew with luck on his side, his dreams were never over.

That locket and clover, to this very day,
Are kept in a gorgeous glass case on full display,
Their power to bring victory only understood,
By that dapper green frog, who lived deep in the wood.

Day #3: Praise to Froggy Chair

Where would we be, without you there?
Our amphibious eidolon, cruel but fair,
Upon our foes, cast despair,
They fear the wrath of Froggy Chair.

To you, none can hope to compare,
Your dazzling charm and unmatched flair,
At you forever we wish to stare,
Our beloved Froggy Chair.

Not a single effort will we spare,
As for now the emerald throne stays bare,
And though sounds of battle fill the air,
We sing our praises to Froggy Chair.

Day #4: Crystals of Green

The pure green of jade,
We may rest assured, not a doubt in our hearts,
That our glory will never fade,
Together, more than the sum of our parts.

The bright green of peridot,
Our headquarters full of cheer,
Working hard, but never overwrought,
We can rest easy with our teammates here.

The soothing green of emerald,
We go forth with renewed spirit,
And our voices, joined together, herald
Defeat, we do not fear it.

Day #5:

Cucumber and mint,
A refreshing chartreuse sip,
Keep hydrated, friends.

Day #6:

Silence and thick fog,
A croak resounds in the swamp,
The chair emerges.

Day #7:

Energy newfound,
the frog leaps higher, higher,
for the mossy throne.

Day #8:

Gathering clover,
In search of one with four leaves,
To bring us all luck.

Day #9:

Sapling rises up,
The start of a lush forest,
Growing taller still.

Day #10:

Reflection wavers,
Past the water's soft ripples,
The frog goes forward.

Day #11:

On a lilypad,
A moment's rest—then once more,
Leap past meadow's edge.

Day #12:

Dampened skin—a shield,
The frog hops through crimson flame,
And comes out unscathed.

Day #13:

A kingdom of frogs,
Gold crown—emerald-studded,
Froggy chair—the throne.

Day #14:

Tadpole gazes up,
A world of green waits beyond,
"I wanna grow up."

Day #15:

Under shade of trees,
Glorious frog-song amongst
Lotus and toadstool.

Day #16 (Final): Froggy Chair's Final Farewell

"The time has come, and now I must leave you,"
So spoke Froggy Chair, and there was nothing we could do—
His return to the skies was long foretold,
Since the time of heroes in days of old.

Loyal Toad Squire then declared—"I will go with him,"
Eyes full of conviction, this was no fleeting whim.
The confetti he threw was an honest celebration,
To be worthy of standing by Froggy Chair's side, his only aspiration.

What might become of them, none could discern,
But from the stars Froggy Chair was born, and to the stars he would return.
A burst of dazzling beryl flame, and the two began to rise,
Serene smiles on their faces, and tears in our eyes.

Though on the ground we remained, into the skies they did soar,
Marking the end of this long, hard-fought war.
"Always know that I am proud of you,"
Were Froggy Chair's parting words, and we knew them to be true.

The daily art and writing cheers I did to support my team, the Froggy Chairs, in The Bell Tree World Championship event! There's both digital and traditional art as well as poems, with a couple bracelets and cupcakes thrown in.

Spoiler: Assorted Event Creations!

TBT's Second Egg Decorating Contest Entry

Went for a sparkly rainbow mosaic effect! Done with acrylic paints and some iridescent glitter.

Just an egg I decorated for the Easter event so far, but I thought it was pretty, ahahaha~

Other posts:
Camp Bell Tree Entries
Pokemon TCG Illustration Contest 2021-2022 Entries (+process talk)
Valentine's Day, Celebrating Diversity, and TBT Fair 2022 Entries
Embroidery Floss and Rubber Band Bracelets
Background Art and Season of Giving 2022 (+bonus cookies)
Bracelets, Backgrounds, Requests and a Dragon Easter Egg!
Celebrating Diversity 2023, Space Camp TBT (+a 2021 throwback), D&D Miniatures, and More Bracelets!
Sketchbook Cover Makeover and My Animal Crossing Unicorn OC
Main OC Ref!
2023 Stole-iday Season, Lunar New Year, and more!
Rainbow Doodles, Leif Egg, Draw the Person Above You, and Personal Art!!

Thank you for visiting! ( ･ ᗜ ･)ﾉ​

 

[Dunquixote]

Your art is so gorgeous. I especially love those slimes . And your hand drawn pictures look so neat and smooth .

 

[.: Meri :.]

Your art is so gorgeous. I especially love those slimes . And your hand drawn pictures look so neat and smooth .

Ahhh thank you! ;u; Slimes are really fun to draw—they're cute and simple, but thinking about how to shade them is always interesting.

 

[Firesquids]

I love your moasic slime egg, and those cupcakes look downright delectable.

 

[.: Meri :.]

I love your moasic slime egg, and those cupcakes look downright delectable.

Thank you! cx The cupcakes were quite good, though there wound up being a lot of them—if only I could've actually shared them with the team, ahaha.

 

[Xara]

that last froggy chair drawing is genuinely one of my favourite cheers from tbtwc, but all of your art is incredible!!

 

[.: Meri :.]

that last froggy chair drawing is genuinely one of my favourite cheers from tbtwc, but all of your art is incredible!!

Thank you so much!! ^^ Since it was the last day of the event, I wanted to end with something a little special. I'm glad you like it!

 

[LittleMissPanda]

I absolutely love your Froggy Chairs art cheers! Tad is so precious and so is that cutie alpaca! is it from somewhere or is it your own creation? I can't help but gravitate towards anything green, as it's my favorite color!

And not to mention your DQXI drawings of Serena and Jade are simply fantastic! Can't wait to see more art from you!~

 

[.: Meri :.]

I absolutely love your Froggy Chairs art cheers! Tad is so precious and so is that cutie alpaca! is it from somewhere or is it your own creation? I can't help but gravitate towards anything green, as it's my favorite color!

And not to mention your DQXI drawings of Serena and Jade are simply fantastic! Can't wait to see more art from you!~ ☺

Thank youu!! She's an Alpacasso plush, specifically from the Hatter line! ^^ She's the only green one I have in my collection so far, so I thought she'd be a cute fit for an art cheer.

Spoiler: here's the line she's from!

And thank you again! cx Hopefully I'll add some more stuff here soon!

 

[LittleMissPanda]

Thank youu!! She's an Alpacasso plush, specifically from the Hatter line! ^^ She's the only green one I have in my collection so far, so I thought she'd be a cute fit for an art cheer.

Spoiler: here's the line she's from!

View attachment 382803

And thank you again! cx Hopefully I'll add some more stuff here soon!

OMG I want them ALL I collect plushies! I'm just CRAZY about them!

 

[.: Meri :.]

It's been a while, but now that Camp Bell Tree has ended, I thought I'd make a post to share some of my creative entries from that event! ^^ For those who missed the event, we were each sorted into one of five cabins (mine was Cabin 5, later known as The Poliwags), and each week we explored a different area (ocean, woodlands, and mountains) with a different set of challenges to complete, along with some other general and cabin-specific tasks.

Would've spoilered this, but BBCode doesn't like me today and wants to create two duplicate spoilers no matter what I do. ;;

Aquatic Album
Here we were tasked with drawing a fish to re-create a lost critterpedia! I went with the incredibly dignified catfish.

Bookful of Bugs
Similar to Aquatic Album, but this time we were focused on drawing a bug to re-fill the critterpedia. I wanted to challenge myself, both with drawing something a little unusual for me and with my traditional coloring, so I chose the rainbow stag.

Campfire Singalong
Here, we had to write a song or song parody centered around Camp Bell Tree. Actual singing thankfully optional. I did a parody of Spooky Scary Skeletons: Splishy-Splashy Poliwags.

Splishy-splashy Poliwags
Send bubbles blasting by
Swirling waves will blow your mind
Score those points tonight

Splishy-splashy Poliwags
Speak only their name
You won't understand what we say
But we're plotting all the same

We're so amazed, Poliwags
You're so certainly good
You only want to claim the pearl
(And I do think you should)

'Cause splishy-splashy Poliwags
Blow bubbling cobalt beams
They'll sneak from their cabins at night
And use others' plumbing

Tadpoles, for now unevolved
are cute, what else is there?
But "cute" can hide our true power,
We're not just full of air!

Splishy-splashy Poliwags
Are really here for fun
They'll smile and paddle blithely by
No matter who has won!

Water may be weak to grass,
But triumphs over fire
Splishy-splashy Poliwags will
rise ever higher!

Context: The Poliwags' cabin regrettably had no indoor-plumbing, and the Ocean Pearl was the collectible only awarded to the winning cabin.

Cryptid Creek
In this event we were challenged to turn one of our villagers into a cryptid in Photopia and write a set of expedition notes (using a specific template) about our finding. Normally I wouldn't post a Harv's island scene in my art thread, but in this case I think it's necessary, or the writing portion wouldn't make sense.

Name: The Green-Eyed Monster
Behaviors: Perpetually hungry and drawn to food
Size: Over 6 feet tall
Habitat: The woodlands of this very island

Expedition Notes: There is no mistaking what I saw in the dark of night, as I was returning to check on The Poliwags' dinner—a great horned monster with huge glowing green eyes on stalks. The creature spoke in a voice far too low to be human, "So... hungry...," and so I made the tactical decision to retreat and abandon our meal to the beast, which I'm certain the rest of my cabin will understand. It's currently unclear if campers are a part of this creature's diet, but I have no intention of finding out for myself. I advise everyone on the island to exercise extreme caution come mealtime, as you never know what the smell of food might draw near...

Poliwags' Flag Design
Members of The Poliwags could design a potential flag for the cabin! Mine depicted a Poliwag magically rising above the main locations we'd explore, victorious.

Stories in the Shadows
Probably the event I struggled with the most, we had to create a shadow puppet, either with our hands, objects, or some combination thereof, without the use of any paper cutouts. I had one failed snail sculpture, one failed unicorn sculpture, and finally settled on this unicorn design: my hand in a sock, a pair of scissors, and a small pencil sharpener. It also took a lot of work to get the lighting and actual photo-taking right, but I'm happy with the final result!

Tales from Our Travels
We had to design the front and back of a postcard to someone back on our own island—I designed mine while my cabin (as-of-then unnamed) was exploring the ocean area, and themed it around several of the event collectibles. Funny story: my tablet briefly stopped working when I was almost through (fixed now, thank goodness), which is why most of the text is hand-written except for the main letter. ;v; It was fun to try out an underwater background!

Thank you for checking out my camp creations!! ^^​

 

[.: Meri :.]

Posting in my poor neglected gallery for the first time in forever, but in short—my entries didn't make the cut in the Pokemon TCG Illustration Contest, so I'm free to share them here with all of you now! c: I don't have very much experience with drawing backgrounds, so this was really good practice for me. Here's to hopefully levelling up for the next contest!

Greninja Entry

Galarian Rapidash Entry

 

[S.J.]

Posting in my poor neglected gallery for the first time in forever, but in short—my entries didn't make the cut in the Pokemon TCG Illustration Contest, so I'm free to share them here with all of you now! c: I don't have very much experience with drawing backgrounds, so this was really good practice for me. Here's to hopefully levelling up for the next contest!

Greninja Entry

View attachment 436831

Galarian Rapidash Entry

View attachment 436832​

These are amazing Merielle! I don't even have words, they are both so gorgeous!

 

[.: Meri :.]

These are amazing Merielle! I don't even have words, they are both so gorgeous!

Ahh thank you so much!! ;v; They both took me quite a while, ahahaha.

 

[Shellzilla_515]

Posting in my poor neglected gallery for the first time in forever, but in short—my entries didn't make the cut in the Pokemon TCG Illustration Contest, so I'm free to share them here with all of you now! c: I don't have very much experience with drawing backgrounds, so this was really good practice for me. Here's to hopefully levelling up for the next contest!

Greninja Entry

View attachment 436831

Galarian Rapidash Entry

View attachment 436832​

I really like the shading, especially for the second art! Do you have any tips on coloured lighting? It looks beautiful and I want to give it a try sometime!

 

[Dunquixote]

Posting in my poor neglected gallery for the first time in forever, but in short—my entries didn't make the cut in the Pokemon TCG Illustration Contest, so I'm free to share them here with all of you now! c: I don't have very much experience with drawing backgrounds, so this was really good practice for me. Here's to hopefully levelling up for the next contest!

Greninja Entry

View attachment 436831

Galarian Rapidash Entry

View attachment 436832​

They look absolutely amazing! So gorgeous! The lighting and shading looks so good. I love their poses and the vibes both of the pictures give off. You’re so talented! I honestly loved everything that you shared here and entered in the contests so far.

 

[.: Meri :.]

I really like the shading, especially for the second art! Do you have any tips on coloured lighting? It looks beautiful and I want to give it a try sometime!

Thank you! ^^ This is definitely still something I'm learning myself, and this tutorial was a lot of help for me during the process. It's intended for Clip Studio Paint, but most of it should apply for other art programs as well! Since I'm not super confident on giving direct tips just yet, I'll explain what worked for me/my process in specific areas. You'll have to forgive my layers being a tad on the messy side. ^^; Layer effects really came in handy for me, mainly Add (Glow) and Hard Light, in either the base tones I used or lighter shades; but I also did the same technique without layer effects a few times as well. A lot of it was just playing around to see what looked best!

A little "cheat" that really saved me with the colors and lighting was planning it out in blobs, before getting into the main coloring part. A lot of times, I could just color-pick directly from the "color-plan" layers when I was doing the actual coloring, which saved me a lot of time trying to think of what colors to use. This may or may not be efficient in the long-run, but since I was still pretty new to these techniques, it certainly helped me out a lot and made things feel less intimidating. I messed around with Hue/Saturation a lot during this stage to get the colors where I wanted them—with Rapidash and the berries, I color-picked straight from official artwork, then lowered the brightness/saturation until it looked right with the background colors I'd already blobbed out.

Onto the serious coloring part, here, to help with the glowy mushrooms/blue lighting, I sprayed some blobs of those colors on some layers above most everything else, set them to Add (Glow), and messed around with the layer opacity until I was satisfied with it. This really helped make the lighting pop and set the atmosphere.
You can also see that I used a gradient map here—this was one of the last things I did, to make the color palette a little more cohesive! I just color-picked directly from the drawing when customizing my gradient. I recommend this tutorial here for more on gradient maps!

For more detailed areas, like the Sitrus berry, I used a pastel pink for the side facing the hot pink mushrooms and a light mint for the opposite side with bluish lighting, then set the layer to Hard Light. This helped make sure that where I'd painted the lighting didn't cover up the spots on the berry either! There's probably other techniques to use for similar results, though. Since it's a little bit away from the mushrooms, I wanted the lighting to be more diluted/subtle.
For areas like the tree trunk near the pink mushrooms, I did most of the lighting on a Normal layer, color-picking directly from the mushroom. I then touched it up a little with an Add (Glow) layer (in a dark purplish-pink, which came out as a very bright hot pink thanks to the effect), since I figured the lighting would be really intense so close to the mushroom.
little edit: I think what I'm trying to get at here is that (and this will depend on the intensity of the colored light source too ofc) the closer to the source > the closer the lighting will be to the source color.

Sorry that this took me a bit to write up, but I hope this was helpful! c:

They look absolutely amazing! So gorgeous! The lighting and shading looks so good. I love their poses and the vibes both of the pictures give off. You’re so talented! I honestly loved everything that you shared here and entered in the contests so far.

Thank you!! ;u; That's really lovely to hear, I greatly appreciate it! I'll do my best to keep up the good work!

 

[Shellzilla_515]

Thank you! ^^ This is definitely still something I'm learning myself, and this tutorial was a lot of help for me during the process. It's intended for Clip Studio Paint, but most of it should apply for other art programs as well! Since I'm not super confident on giving direct tips just yet, I'll explain what worked for me/my process in specific areas. You'll have to forgive my layers being a tad on the messy side. ^^; Layer effects really came in handy for me, mainly Add (Glow) and Hard Light, in either the base tones I used or lighter shades; but I also did the same technique without layer effects a few times as well. A lot of it was just playing around to see what looked best!

A little "cheat" that really saved me with the colors and lighting was planning it out in blobs, before getting into the main coloring part. A lot of times, I could just color-pick directly from the "color-plan" layers when I was doing the actual coloring, which saved me a lot of time trying to think of what colors to use. This may or may not be efficient in the long-run, but since I was still pretty new to these techniques, it certainly helped me out a lot and made things feel less intimidating. I messed around with Hue/Saturation a lot during this stage to get the colors where I wanted them—with Rapidash and the berries, I color-picked straight from official artwork, then lowered the brightness/saturation until it looked right with the background colors I'd already blobbed out.

View attachment 436866

Onto the serious coloring part, here, to help with the glowy mushrooms/blue lighting, I sprayed some blobs of those colors on some layers above most everything else, set them to Add (Glow), and messed around with the layer opacity until I was satisfied with it. This really helped make the lighting pop and set the atmosphere.
You can also see that I used a gradient map here—this was one of the last things I did, to make the color palette a little more cohesive! I just color-picked directly from the drawing when customizing my gradient. I recommend this tutorial here for more on gradient maps!

View attachment 436861

For more detailed areas, like the Sitrus berry, I used a pastel pink for the side facing the hot pink mushrooms and a light mint for the opposite side with bluish lighting, then set the layer to Hard Light. This helped make sure that where I'd painted the lighting didn't cover up the spots on the berry either! There's probably other techniques to use for similar results, though. Since it's a little bit away from the mushrooms, I wanted the lighting to be more diluted/subtle.
For areas like the tree trunk near the pink mushrooms, I did most of the lighting on a Normal layer, color-picking directly from the mushroom. I then touched it up a little with an Add (Glow) layer (in a dark purplish-pink, which came out as a very bright hot pink thanks to the effect), since I figured the lighting would be really intense so close to the mushroom.
little edit: I think what I'm trying to get at here is that (and this will depend on the intensity of the colored light source too ofc) the closer to the source > the closer the lighting will be to the source color.

View attachment 436865

Sorry that this took me a bit to write up, but I hope this was helpful! c:

Thanks for the insight, Merielle! I read through your post and the tutorials you've provided. I use Krita, so I have to do a little digging and research to find out the other functions that serve a similar purpose. I did, however, discover that "Add Glow" is "Colour Dodge" in my case. I'll be sure to experiment with this feature, along with finding it to be mindblowing how a layer completely alters the colours beneath them!

 

[.: Meri :.]

Thanks for the insight, Merielle! I read through your post and the tutorials you've provided. I use Krita, so I have to do a little digging and research to find out the other functions that serve a similar purpose. I did, however, discover that "Add Glow" is "Colour Dodge" in my case. I'll be sure to experiment with this feature, along with finding it to be mindblowing how a layer completely alters the colours beneath them!

Glad I could be of help! Best of luck with your artistic endeavors!

 

[-Mars-]

Posting in my poor neglected gallery for the first time in forever, but in short—my entries didn't make the cut in the Pokemon TCG Illustration Contest, so I'm free to share them here with all of you now! c: I don't have very much experience with drawing backgrounds, so this was really good practice for me. Here's to hopefully levelling up for the next contest!

Greninja Entry

View attachment 436831

Galarian Rapidash Entry

View attachment 436832​

This made my day!
Greninja is my favorite Pokemon, I adore him!
Wowie the lighting is so complex the mushrooms really look like they are actually glowing!
This must have taken hours! I don't have words for how amazing you did!