The Unholy Offspring Of Lightning And Death Itself

Finally, I finished the new reference sheets for this little oc series! Now I can scream into the void about them, and then probably go back to alternating between reblogging fandom stuff and sheer radio silence until my next spontaneous oc post. Not that anyone’s in the audience anyway, but yknow, they’re also visible on my Toyhou.se.

Offbeat Avenue is a strange slice of fantasy universe that I’ve been tinkering with for several years. It ultimately revolves around the everyday troubles and chaos of two human-demon halfblood twins, whose measly mentally ill little lives are the somewhat disparate foreground to an arguably unnecessarily vast interdimensional magical backdrop. The titular place is the street which they live on, in a human city with an ambitious tech scene, modern socioeconomic classism, and a mysterious, rumored-to-be-enchanted forest. The main themes include found family, the power of community, and self-improvement.

Being as old of an oc project as it is, it’s just plain convoluted. Somewhere in my dusty old skull is a dream to turn it into an animated show or comic or creative property of some kind, so I’ve been clanging away at it intermittently between the woes of art college and lying motionless in my room after every stressful day of doing things… Well, that and comfort characters is my favorite kind of copium. I assume the sea of fandom-focused Tumblr is an ok place to drop these rambles because I guess it means I don’t have to really confront my fear of putting my work out there, yet. (How does one learn to balance professionalism and being real with an audience? I swear I just feel lame and overshare-y every time.)

Anywho, the main cast is as follows:

HATSUMOTO HIRABAYASHI: A human/demon halfblood that inherited so little magic that everyone decided it entitled him to the family heirloom of an animated snake amulet guardian. Good thing his parents gave that to him before dying in a car crash. Add in a second car crash and “gift” of a bionic eye, and now he feels indebted to the local faceless tech corporation that inspired him in his youth, who’s generously given this high school dropout a rather unfulfilling janitorial job at one of their offices. Hooray. At least he can talk a walk into the fenced-off mysterious forest behind his backyard when he’s sad.

He’s known for being an anxious depressed mess with a nerdy heart in robotics, reptiles, and fantasy. You can tell them apart because upon being thrust anywhere out of his house, Hatsu will always look like he’s hoping he can melt into dust and disintegrate. Despite being 6’7” just like his brother, he slouches practically enough to pass as 5’10’. Sometimes, you could catch him jotting down sci-fi dreams and ideas in a notebook that he will downplay as “nothing”.

Romance-wise, his girlfriend is a witch (belonging to WhiteRabbitTea’s “Storytime” on Toyhou.se) who, in addition to being caught in her own battles, has been trying to convince Hats that he’s strong enough to fight his battles— both the one with his inner demons and the one with his sucky coworkers.

DH (demon hatsumoto) HIRABAYASHI: A human/demon halfblood that inherited so much magic that he hardly knows what to do with all the portals, teleporting, and time on his hands. Too bad his parents didn’t warn him how to use it before he caused a car crash. Add in an existential crisis and inferiority complex from magical soul troubles in his youth manifesting as something akin a Hollywood version of DID, and now he’s very dangerous and maladapted even after Hats’ gf helped separate them with a mirror spell. At least his skills help him be a fearsome mercenary. Hooray?

To the dismay of his brother, he’s known for interdimensional chaos so superficial that it usually entails him opening portals to just use the void beyond as a cooler for vodka. His shark tooth grin is just as infamous, next only to his insatiable appetite. A guy’s gotta get the energy for his demon magic somehow. Other than, he has a surprisingly artistic streak, especially in graffiti.

Romance-wise, his theyfriend is a witch (also belonging to WhiteRabbitTea) in a similar existential “evil twin” situation, who compliments DH’s loud, brash violence with a quiet, poetic glare. They’ve tried to convince DH to stop burning his own paintings, but finds better success at calming him with home cooked food.

WILLA WARDLOW: A little bunny girl stuck in Hatsu’s city after a family trip to study the enchanted forest went up in flames. One traumatizing adjustment later, and she’s sent to live with the Hirabayashi twins, sparking a newfound sense of brotherly responsibility in Hatsu and a newfound protectiveness in DH. She herself wasn’t born magical, but the arcane happenings around her are very inspirational.

Not many know her, since Hats’ anxiety means he tries to keep her at home and out of trouble, but to the rest of the cast, she’s either known as the ambitious witchling—drawn to fantasy literature, role play games, and studying the oddities of her brothers’ neighborhood— or the glue that keeps the twins reluctantly together.

MALLY STONEBREATH: What was once a human was turned into a hodgepodge of cat, wolf, dragon, and who knows what else by an unauthorized homemade mad scientist living in Hatsu’s neighborhood and obsessed with the forest. He, then a baby, was deemed a failure and thrown away like a doll before being found by curious dragonlings playing raccoon. Long story short, he now lives happily with a draconic polycule family in the enchanted woods. Under the cover of night, he likes to wander into the city, inheriting his brothers’ curiosity.

Their family named them “Malice” as an inside joke for how their optimism and naïveté often landed him in trouble. Eventually, their nickname came about as a more accurate way to describe them. Other than that, ideally, no one outside the woods but Hatsu and his few friends know about them at all. Said small circle sees them as a ray of sunlight— the new perspective that Hatsu kinda needs… even if they have trouble understanding how positivity can be toxic.

ELIJAH EMERAGOLD: A teenage elf that doesn’t really remember his bio parents or the demonic force that pushed them to emigrate across dimensions anymore. His main concern these days is managing the bar that his late adoptive human grandad left him, making sure his brother doesn’t get back into depression drinking, and grappling with his sheltered childhood. This latter battle has led him to seek out real battles as a mercenary— a hole that he dug with the help of a shapeshifter, and which constantly brings him face to face with jaded pessimism and questions of morality.

He’s known as the stoic, grumpy counterpart to his brother— someone who bar patrons know not to pester, or else. Unfortunately, his friends know that this murderous silhouette is mostly a facade; he’s really a relatively stand-up, if not pretty stuck-up, silly little guy. His brother, most of all, knows him as the quiet, smart, prone-to-being-overstimulated, musician and archer.

ELLIOT EMERAGOLD: A elf that’s still rather stuck in the nervous, agoraphobic habits ingrained by well meaning parents as refugees from the demon king’s conquests. After the disappearance of his parents and death of the kindly bar owner that took them in, he tends to spend his days steeped in a somber grief, not that most people notice with his warm smile and friendly demeanor.

He’s known as the life of the family bar, entertaining patrons both magical and not with telekinetic tricks and casual conversation. He loves hearing the stories of other people’s adventures and travels— except for that of his brother and his merc friends. He often feels like he failed Eli as an older sibling.

Romance-wise, his boyfriend is Zack (belonging to cnidaria4’s “What Do They Know” on Toyhou.se), a kind of demon, who can, in short, relate to having met a very unfriendly world. They compliment each other well— the introvert to Elliot’s thoughtful extrovert.

AMY MIMIKRE: A pink shapeshifter inheriting the infamous mercenary title of her family, alongside the questionable ethics and logic that comes with having been raised in a life of crime— by which I mean, she’s loyal to a fault to those she sees as worthy company and crew, but also sees no issue in hiring teenagers. The more the merrier, am I right? No interdimensional nomad’s life is complete if they’re always lonely at camp.

They’re known in the verboten underbelly of magic society as “The Pink Thunder”, a vicious predator that can appear either as a house cat or a full on panther depending on the size of your bounty or whether you’ve wronged her. Her friends know her more as a quirky older sibling, who can both give a tough spar when you need a distraction, or even occasionally sprout some kind of odd wisdom about chosen family or having confidence.

Other than that, there’s some other side characters, including a dwarf mayor of a criminal town that runs on a truce agreement, the exasperated Lord of the Underworld, the occasional odd neighbor, and more that hasn’t yet exactly been fleshed out!

I guess I’m done rambling for now.

I smooched him guys!! The smooches came from me!!! He’s my wifeyyy heheheheh

Also pls pls pls commission me (link is in my pinned)

i am

I loved the idea of Emmet utilizing 'glitches' or tech to find Ingo and bring him home and wanted to doodle some of my own.

I have also always loved Missingno so like, any excuse to involve them is like catnip to me.

He’s a platypus. They don’t do much.

….besides look absolutely adorable

semiaquatic secret agent

How do you think they killed time?

Submas sketchdump! Vol. 1 April-June 2022

Literally dumping all the presentable works as promised, whether I'm proud of them or not! This is where I started, even before the first thing I posted online (That subway station one). Many of these are not on Twitter yet so there's lots to see! The top piece above the header is my very first digital Submas artwork!! I never finished it bc I didn't know how to pull my vision of as I wanted & started modeling the train and didn't finish that either, whoops! I really want to remake this later and make it super cool!

^^^ My reaction to breaking 500 likes & 100 followers in a single day with my first tweet (the battle subway one) all the way back in May!! I was completely floored by all the attention, oh how it skyrocketed my excitement and anxiety! Crazy times, I was so super nervous to be there with so many amazing artists and doubted if I could ever survive there ahahah!! Many had joined the community much much earlier than me, so I had arrived with a late train to PLA/neo Submas hype! Next up is a bunch of stuff I haven't posted before:

One of my fav sketches! Been saving this for so long bc I really really want to finish this one day! One of the first submas sketches with an actual story behind it! The subway bosses are running late for their flight because they didn't pass the safety check! The irony!! This would never happen as bosses are always on schedule. But Emmet hadn't noticed a wild Joltik hiding under his coat, so he set up the alarm and they got examined and interrogated of smuggling! How embarrassing for them! The bosses resolved the situation by catching the Joltik, but will they be able to catch their flight anymore?? Maybe if Elesa can distract the stuerts performing the safety protocol for a minute!

More sketchbook stuff...

In case you can't make any sense of it, Emmet's dreaming of different combinations of pokémon. Meanwhile Ingo snores louder than the train! HONK SHOO!

Top 7 every submas fan draws at some point!

Submas trademark posing

submas sleeping in a train

sad Emmet

Emmet with Joltik

Ingo with a cool solo pose

Emmet being chaotic & Ingo reacting to it

a bunch of mirrored submas poses

I sure have a full bingo card lmao, most of them you can see here XD

Next up is a sad man...

Stay strong our friends!

My typical sketchbook pages, crammed and messy as usual. x) Post-PLA exploration:

A few examples of how my pencil sketches evolve.

I've done so much art experimenting with submas. I really like this black & white painting but I don't think I'll finish it anytime soon.

Where did you go?

The way I draw the twins' faces has changed a lot. They started with softer features and somewhat neutral emotions, because I wasn't as familiar with them or comfortable drawing them yet. Now there's hundreds of submas sketches, and they still keep evolving! My style is also kinda hard to pull off well, so their features differ from picture to picture.

This one was inspired by some submas music videos, can't recall their names anymore. The glowing eerie eyes and yellow&orange + black&white color schemes were neat!

I keep telling myself I need to draw more butlers, these twinks look so lean and neat and have more color and are posh with their monocles and have fun tailcoats! (...why eyeglasses are not called binocles??)

I was there for the vinegar chaos. Good times! That's all for now, I hope you got something fun out of this! Still got loads more art to share but I'll save them for another time. Next round I'll bring in my first submas comic!

a dragon (that) will always go for the kill

suffering a schnasty sinus headache but I really wanted to animate narinder talking to lamb :) got this roughed in about 2 days so I'm p happy with how it turned out

audio is by ProZD :)

When you’re introverted but want to hang out with your high energy friends