(Originally posted to DeviantART on May 26, 2018. Please use this link - https://www.deviantart.com/ikyle/ar.....date-746814964 - for all links and details; parts of this description are linked to other artwork and journals on DeviantART.)

So after some careful consideration, I decided that I would make a bit more use of my FurAffinity account and post some of my latest work to this site. While my mainstay is still DeviantART, I would like to provide those who have watched me for the first time here but not there with some of the stuff that I've worked on recently.

Any mention of usernames in the following are meant to link back to users on DeviantART. Please use the link above to go to the original upload page and follow the links to their pages from there. Use DeviantART to view my other artwork that I've uploaded since 2010, as well as previous versions of Kyle Yoshi.

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Wow, has it been a long time.

I was about to say I'm back but then again, I've said that about three times already in the past, so... I'm not gonna say that this time. Although this time, I finally worked on something that didn't take months in between to finish!

I already know how long I've been out of it, but it's been a combination of things that have gotten me to pick up my pencil this time. One was because of Ryex-617, who has been sharing sketches of his work on Twitter. What raised my interest were some of these won't get colored and remain as sketches that were quick ideas, but I liked that. They were top-of-the-mind things that ended up on paper, and to be honest, that's why I started doing art to begin with: to make a visual of what I was thinking. Two, the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. These things are normally on display in tech shops, and also have some sort of art app on them to try, so I went ahead and gave it a shot, and I was very surprised to see how accurate the two were to replicating pencil-to-paper. It felt so natural and close to what I usually do, I've always had the idea of wanting to own a tablet, but I felt more comfortable knowing where I was touching on my canvas. With enough thought, I decided to draw something to get back into it, and I was pretty happy knowing that I not only still got it, but that it came out alot better than I thought!

Considering my Yoshi self (who I normally address in the third person as simply "Yoshi") hasn't had an update in five and a half years, and with the amount of stuff that I've done behind the scenes, I felt it was most appropriate. May this be the start of something, hopefully. With that said, here's the changes:

Style Improvements
Honestly, this point shouldn't really be here because I haven't improved all that much or practiced in my time away. However, when I made this I wanted to try and go in a direction that pleased me and also was different from how I did things before. I was referring to sketches and drawings from LilArrin, Ryex-617, and Nintendrawer in order to get the lines, curves and in this case, hand gestures in the right place (that last one helped alot). As a result, there's alot more roundness and more curves in places that before would've been straight lines, like around the legs. As I was finishing this up and going through my older art again and looking at that compared to what I did here, I was very happy with how I did this, and I plan to stick to this and try to use this method to differenciate body types between my characters.

No Headgear
Creating my Yoshi self, I always wanted to remain true to what I would normally wear and such, and in the beginning, I included a hat since I wasn't that good at drawing hair (and I'm still not). Although after drawing hair enough times with my Transformed Kyle series of images, and thinking of myself, I really don't ever wear hats. The exceptions are when they don't look like a normal cap. As such, I've decided to omit the hat, which also gives me a reason to try harder at the hair, which this time, I was much happier with how I did. I realized with previous attempts, I just did small curves and it gave off the impression that my hair was curly, which it isn't. I tried extending the curves out farther and making them larger, as well as reducing how many there were. I used a reference to get it the way I wanted. I still need more work on it but with this, I'm fine with how I did.

New Glasses + Headphones
I don't know if you could call this glasses but in contradiction to my previous point, while I always wear glasses now, my actual pair of glasses are not circular. Reason for this was that I've always liked circles, they were my favorite shape, but as time had gone on, using my Yoshi self in more roleplaying situations and developing myself, I felt that by now, it was time to break the rules. So instead of a standard frame, we have something more futuristic, one piece of curved glass that goes around the eyes and meets two silver ends on the side of Yoshi's head. This set is built for a Softie in mind, capable of withstanding large amounts of pressure and force, and normally pop off when Yoshi becomes a different shape - usually against his will - and also have a scratchproof lens. They can also display information on them, inspired by Google Glass.

In addition, over the past few months, I've acquired a pair of Apple's AirPods, a wireless version of their standard earphones that come with any iOS device. They're small, light, and easily connect to any of my devices. After a couple weeks of owning them, I got myself a little case to put them in that also had a loop on it to use a carabiner. Now, I'm always carrying around a pair of earphones that are by my side at all times, and the convenience is so satisfying, especially while at work. I wanted to apply this to Yoshi but never really knew how, until I decided to do it this way, so the sides of the headset also work as a pair of headphones. They are capable of noise-cancellation by toggling it on and off. They also utilize microphones to hear sound near or far away, a small microphone is onboard for capturing audio, as well as a small camera on one side of the headset (these features I've unable to include in the image).

Collar's Versatility
While I'm unsure if I've shared this detail in the past, but thanks to AcetheGolden (who is more active over here) for coming up with this idea, the collar returns once again by popular request of my friends. Although this time, it's been situated with a few nifty tools. First, the collar tag has been given a small speaker that is also charmed to Yoshi. Being a Softie, Yoshi is susceptible to any transformation that can take place at any time, some of which may prevent him from communicating verbally. When this occurs, the speaker activates and allows Yoshi to communicate by attempting to speak normally, and having the sound transferred to the collar to be played. This doesn't always work and can be hindered the more complex the transformation is, but thankfully, the collar is also equipped with a tiny one-time use of Reform Potion, which allows any Softie to return to their original form once it is placed on their body, allowing Yoshi to escape dangerous situations.

Smartwatch + Rainbow Feather
For more than two years now, I've been wearing an Apple Watch, and it hasn't left my wrist since I got it (with the exception of charging, of course), and I felt it was very appropriate to add that to the reference. However, this also works with a new idea that was done with Ryex-617 in a roleplay we had done some time ago, involving an adventure between our characters, resulting in them both being transformed and gaining magical feathers. This feather acts as a magical database of forms Yoshi takes on, the first one being a Dragonite form (which I will have to draw later). The smartwatch and feather are also charmed to Yoshi's body, granting him control over a few aspects of his body, the immediate one being that he's capable of shifting between forms just by using the watch, which includes an application on it to swap between them. However, Yoshi loses the ability to freely control himself if they are removed from him, even while in another form, until he puts them back on (this is usually a result of a prankster friend).

Occasional Accessories
Off to the left you'll see a red backpack, which also represents something else I do in reality, which is taking a backpack with me almost everywhere I go. This stemmed from a work shift where one of my colleagues got hurt on the job - something you do outside (and it was also in the middle of summer) - so I was being asked for a few days straight to do his job, so after about two days of this occurring, having to go outside with pants on in the heat, I started bringing a backpack with me that carried a change of clothes, including shorts in case this was ever asked of me, but since then, I am normally bringing my backpack with me to work and any place I go, which has a battery in it for charging things, a gaming device, etc. Sometimes Yoshi will be seen walking around with a backpack on, carrying around essential things, such as snacks, water, a gaming device, so on and so forth.

Also occasional is all of his gear that is red that he wears - his collar, the watchband, and his shoes - will be swapped out for a different color during a specific holiday. For example, when it's Valentine's Day, these things will be pink for the day, or for Halloween, these could be orange or dark purple. I did this due to my tendancy to want to match things up, and for my growing collection of Apple Watch bands, usually changing it to a specific color depending on the day.

Special Abilities & Weapon
This one's a bit of a work in progress, as Yoshi has evolved from a simple persona of mine into what you could call a character, being used frequently in roleplays, I've been considering the idea of giving him a secondary ability or tool or weapon that wasn't just a squishy malleable body. One idea I've had was known as "Color Magic," similar to what my other character, Spot, can use. The idea utilizes eight main colors - white, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple - each of which are tied to a trait and to an ability. For example, pink serves as "love," so Yoshi's magic ability would allow him to heal someone. These powers strengthen with positivity, although Yoshi is unable to concentrate on it for very long, causing it to fizzle out after at most a few seconds. This can be because of Yoshi's inability to control magic properly, as it has caused a couple of problems for him in the past. I wanted to try something that I always found interesting and used frequently in my RP universe, which is magic, although I'm a bit unimaginative with the idea and therefore have not really been able to use it in a really good way.

Another idea I've had brings back the paintbrush weapon that was... "introduced" six years ago. Without a definitive name, this magical paintbrush tied into my drawing abilities, also as a reference to Bowser Jr.'s signature weapon introduced in Super Mario Sunshine. However, this idea ultimately didn't go really anywhere and I ended up pushing it off, that is until I got to play Splatoon 2, where one of the weapon types is a paintbrush. I've been enjoying the game for the past month, and that gave me an idea to resurrect this idea for the future. I have no clear idea for this yet, but perhaps sometime soon I'll be able to.



I've also taken the liberty of adding in a color pallate, like I did with Kye's previous reference, and adding my emblem along with my name and the date the piece was finished, like I did with a gift to my friend last year. At the time of this entry, I plan on posting a journal that explains what has been going on the past few months and boy, has plenty happened as well as hopefully getting started once again on something new. I want to apologize once again for my extended absence, but I hope you all enjoy this small update! Thank you!