DeviantArt post

Remember that alternate version of my current avatar which had this edgelord pink linzerd? (link) Well, I got the urge to draw him again being all creepy and edgy in a kind of intense, surreal pic with bright, dreamy colours. And so that's what I did, at length. I started this 11 days ago, but it feels like longer honestly. I still don't think this guy properly counts as a character? But eh, I like him. The alt I use him for on YouTube is called PinkZinzerd, so I guess if the boy is Linzer, this guy is Zinzer. But I think I'll just call him "the edgelord" since he's the boy's antimatter counterpart, as I described him before. And what an edgelord he is! Just look at him.

So there are a few things going on here. First, the body is extremely detailed compared to how I normally draw the boy (and by extension, the edgelord) - even just how I draw in general. Recently I've been using anatomy reference less and less as I get comfortable with drawing simple poses and standard body types, but I wanted this guy to be very skinny and bony, so his collar bones and hip bones stick out a lot and he has a narrow waist. The hands are also quite gnarled and knobbly. I thought making it excessively detailed would help the creep factor too. Then there's the hatching, which has been sitting in the back of my mind for more than a year as something I might try after I saw a video by Plague of Gripes where he demonstrated it. In fact, the drawing I almost tried it with but chickened out, was another attempt at drawing something weird and intense: (link)

Now that I look at it again, the similarities are quite striking. But yes, this seemed like the right time to try some hatching, and it took quite some time to do all of it! There was a lot of experimentation and re-doing parts I'd already done (if you could be bothered to bring up my Twitter and study the WIPs there in great detail, you'd be able to spot a lot of places on the head where I just scrapped the hatching and did it again).

The background is very extensive by my standards, and was important to the original vision. I specifically started with a 2:1 canvas - exactly why I couldn't tell you, but it just felt right. I wanted a harsh, alien landscape to match the harsh, alien (?) lizard bloke. It's a bit of a mix of techniques, but I'd like to mention the sun in particular. Initially I was trying to make it all surreal-like with a swirling pattern, reddish colour, etc. But I couldn't get it to look right. I spent some time blurring it into a whirl and adding effects - image in the description of the DeviantArt post. But then it just didn't fit anything else in the image, so I tried a bog-standard plain white circle and that worked MUCH better, lol. It fits a lot better with the graphic style of the rest of the background. If there's one thing about this image which didn't quite work for me, it was the lake on the left. For starters, it was the only thing in the original vision which I had no idea what colour to make. It ended up being a pinkish red, I guess. The pattern on the surface was a minor nightmare, but I eventually got it into a reasonable state - it is just part of the background, after all. The reflection of the sun gave me a headache or two as well - I had to keep going back to it even after I'd saved the supposedly final image, just to try and figure out what was wrong with it. But again, I think it turned out okay.

Oh, and oops, it seems like he cut himself on all that edge. If that blue stuff IS blood, it's probably his. He strikes me as the type of guy who would bite his own tongue and bleed everywhere just to freak people out. But really, I just like the imagery of freaky alien goo drooling out of someone's mouth and dripping everywhere. Just like when I tried it with that earlier pic from last year!! But yeah, I was aware of the similar ideas in this one, I just wanted to do them right this time since I was never quite satisfied with that previous attempt. And overall, I'd say I'm pretty pleased! This fills a sort of niche for me, so I'm not sure if anyone else will like it, but the many hours I put into this (possibly 8-10ish) paid off pretty well. I do like the colours a lot. And tell you what, I might as well call back to another old pic I was drawing on (ha) when making this: (link)

Its background has some distinct similarities in the way it was made, but it's a lot simpler - and perhaps more abstract, but less surreal. That one was basically improvised in a hurry and hadn't been part of the original vision at all, but I'll leave you to be the judge on which one works better.

And why "Acidic"? Well... I like the word "acid". It's always sounded cool to me. It sounds exactly like the thing that it is. It makes me think of sickly bright colours, mysterious liquids and bony lizard men grinning wickedly while giving bedroom eyes and beckoning... well I don't know about that really, but it really worked for me in this case. <small>And of course having the word "acid" in just that form would have given rise to drug-related implications, so "acidic" dodges that.</small>

There's also a non-messy version in the description of the DeviantArt post, if that's what you're into.

_{Does this count as candy gore? I mean the liquid is mysterious and not particularly brightly-coloured, so... eh, whatever, I'll put it in the tags anyway.}