I Did A Little Bit Of Background Practice Yesterday. I Usually Forget That I Could Be Drawing Scenery

I did a little bit of background practice yesterday. I usually forget that I could be drawing scenery and stuff so I’m kinda rough at it. It took like three tries to get the results of that first picture (second picture was one of those tries, and I’m not even showing the other one it was really bad 💀💀💀)

Also just throwing in some other doodles cause yeah :3. Simon. Some of these are from the same page and some of these are ones I think I forgot to post a bit ago so if there’s repeats then eh whatever lol. Explanations under a cut :)

This is pretty much just a study of a photo of a graveyard I ran into on Pinterest. Liminal spaces are very nice for finding background references because you can be sure no one is gonna be in them and they have the weird vibe that The Guy™️ should be in. But holy HELL trees are HARD. Like obviously I know what a tree looks like but the second I have to draw branches trees suddenly do not make sense anymore 💀

Another liminal space, this one was a path with the sky completely blacked out. I tried putting Simon into it but he kinda ended up a little muddled and too small augh. I’m also not very great at combining people and backgrounds so uh yeah. This one was also a much faster doodle just trying to warm up for the first one. But eh it’s cool idk. I need to put him in more liminal spaces or like try to draw the Simon’s Quest areas in 3D eventually.

Small practice comic! There’s no words, Simon just kinda walks a bit and passes out. I was gonna have more things happen but I didn’t have the room for it and decided to just leave it as a little practical piece. He’s probably gonna get up in a little bit and freak out about how much time he wasted.

Just a Simon head :3. His hair is fun to draw! I usually end up simplifying things as like a little uh polygonal… I think that’s the word… When drawing skulls, I usually go for octagons instead of circles because that’s much easier, but that ends up bleeding into how I draw hair making it kinda spikey and pointy in some spots on the top. I feel like I draw pretty inconsistently, but he’s very pretty and fun to draw regardless of how he ends up :3

This is some weird ass fan art of two things that aren’t related at all lmao. Sometimes you gotta crossover things that don’t make sense for the fun of it. This is Simon drawn based on a scene from the Fear Garden music video! Fear Garden is a banger, shout out to Chaa fr, it’s a vocaloid song about a girl who has a weird obsession with hands (Kira joke lol) and kills people to plant their hands in her secret garden where she treats them like flowers. Yeah, again it makes no sense, but the pose with the two mirrored characters was really cool and idk the vibes were there—

Simon sitting in between two graves, both say “BELMONT” in big letters, but one is for Christopher and Cyncia and the other is for Soleil and whoever his significant other was, we don’t have a name so it’s cut off. This has me thinking about the time in between all these characters hmm. Doing the math, Soliel would’ve been in his 90s when Simon was born, so there’s actually a good chance he wasn’t Simon’s grandfather, rather his great grandfather :O. Which means that there’s two generations we know nothing about between these two. And also that Simon would’ve never met either Soleil or Christopher or Cyncia :(. Then that has me thinking about fan comic stuff and how I’m gonna depict Simon hmmmmmmm. I imagine Simon spent a lot of time in the family graveyard tbh.

Simon is totally me when I dramatically collapse on a large marble monument of some sort in the graveyard— There’s also a couple attempts at drawing his paldrons at different angles but aaaa I can’t visualize these things properly. They’re just like kinda flared half ovals, why are they so hard to draw at any angle but like head on and top view 💀💀💀??? I’m trying to get out of the habit of drawing them bent in angles that don’t make sense but argggggg it’s hard lol.

Yeah, recent doodles tho yippie d(^^ )!

I actually really like the messed up skeleton Dracula design, it conveys that he’s not at full power yet pretty well :3. More explanations and two unfinished doodles under a cut—

Close up on Drac’s upper half cause the drawing was way too big for one photo of it. Something that I noticed while staring at his sprite for a while is that he’s probably not wearing a hood, but chainmail armor with a helmet on top :O!

Entire page view to get all the Dracula in frame lol. His armor isn’t falling off btw, everything is rising into place from the altar. Hopefully he’s not too gorey for general tags uhhh yeah d(TwT ).

This is him when he’s done coming together. He’s still not fully powerful or physically all there yet, but it’s just enough to be able to troll Simon at the end 💀💀💀. Anyway yeah he’s totally me when my arch nemesis doesn’t find my teeth and accidentally summons me before I’m ready lol.

Simon is literally so fun to just put in poses. He is almost always my model for drawing poses because his big thighs kinda force you to make his pose even more exaggerated to get the same amount of open space and ratio of things— yeah idk it’s fun. He’s also allowed to have some sass sometimes I think. Fun fact! I didn’t use a reference for these :3. I’m so proud! Angles like this are usually hard!!! Oh and rare family heirloom sword moment. I’m taking this as a nod to the recent Haunted Castle remake now, which was so out of no where like (*o* ). I’ll take it!!! Simon game!!! A win!!! Hopefully the next collection they put out has Adventure Rebirth in it X3.

Simon but he is staring at you with the saddest pouty wet cat eyes. Tbh I think this general kinda neutral/resting sad expression is what I draw him with the most.

Which is why I also tried drawing him with other expressions!!!!!! In this one he is surprised and awkwardly responding to being told something so negative it’s almost comedic 💀💀💀. I was imagining the one town in Simon’s Quest with some bangers like “after Castlevania I told you never to return” and “you’ve upset the people now get out of town” X,,,,,D. He’s a little taken aback and was gonna try to defend himself, but he just leaves anxiously.

Please imagine that in this one he is saying that one meme that goes “it is hot as hell in this fucking ass hot ass room I’m in… IS THAT THE GRIM REAPER⁉️⁉️⁉️”.

Yay! Putting him on furniture for background practice!!! He is sitting on a church pew, having a couple micro sleeps cause he’s sleep deprived. He may fall off cause that armor is a little too heavy when sitting down I’d imagine.

These last two are for the images below. First one is just him kinda tweakin idk, he’s been awake too long and seen too much, somebody direct him to the nearest church, bro needs rest 💀. His hand shaking reminds me tho, a couple days ago I played the jojo fighting game so hard I had to put ice on my hand 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀. It SUUUCKED like take it from me don’t play as Polnareff in story mode if you’ve already been playing for a long time ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´ω`ﾟ)ﾟ｡

This one is just general anatomy practice, just doodling his proportions to keep the skill of being able to draw them d(^^ ). I ended up really liking how I drew his hair in this one though, it’s cute :3.

wowie zowie!! another one!! simon again, hwhegewh. second installment in my KRABTLASBCO rant series!! of course, this one is about CV2! :3 akin to my previous rant, this one is under the cut! wahoo, more yapping!!! ^_^

(⚠️ tw for discussions of rotting/decaying alive, basically [simon's curse] ⚠️)

MAIN MAN!!!!! SIMON'S QUEST SIMON!!!!! YEAAAGGHHH THAT'S MY BOY!!! ((resounding clapping and cheering))

i. Love this design. so much. i'd say off the bat that this is pretty functional!! but for sad reasons. :(

this outfit is a stark contrast to what we see in CV1. instead of a bunch of armour with lots of leather and metal accents, now we get simon in some sort of bodysuit, along with all-metal armour! additionally, simon doesn't have his cool headband in this one, which honestly makes me feel a little bit sad for some reason.

anyway, i can't really tell what sort of material the bodysuit even is, at least not with proper historical context. 💀 i would say that it could be leather, but the way the fabric wrinkles around simon's ankle despite the rest of it practically being vacuum-sealed on him, along with the way it's shaded, i honestly have no idea. probably some sort of cloth, but still,,, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

same goes for his boots, now that i'm taking a better look at them. they're a different colour than the rest of his bodysuit – the latter being a dark, blueish black (?) and his boots being a rather easy-on-the-eyes silver – but they're also vacuum sealed.

hell, they don't even really look like boots all that much; you can't see any buttons or laces or actual soles or anything. i mean, there is the possibility that simon put some sort of padding or insoles on the bottom of his feet before he squeezed himself into the bodysuit, but that's the only possibility i can really think of... (╥﹏╥)

and, for functionality with the bodysuit, i have no idea! i mean, considering simon is literally rotting under there due to his curse, the fabric of his bodysuit definitely does the job (at least somewhat...) of literally holding his body together. so that means that it should at least be durable, which is good.

considering, once again, that My Main Man Slimeon is pretty much about to collapse at this point, the bodysuit helps with that. it also aids general protection; his entire body is covered (along with the all-metal armour; more on that in a bit) in fabric (??), which shows that he's just less vulnerable. he has his guard up even more because why would he want to get cursed or just maybe even heavily injured in general AGAIN??? 💀

now, speaking of the all-metal armour, it is EVERYWHERE lmao. plus, there is armour in the places i talked about with CV1 simon! his knees and elbows are protected!! he also has pauldrons on BOTH sides!!! bringing back the loincloth motif from CV1 but this time it's metal!!! yeeeaaaaaaaghhh, awesome!!! :0

the armour isn't too thick, so it shouldn't hinder his movements too much. maybe. i'm just going with the assumption that although simon wants more protection in this armour, it wouldn't be heavy as to ruin his agony-riddled body even more, here. i dunno, that's just what i would do...

all-metal armour is definitely a wise choice! it seems our poor goober learned the hard way from getting cursed!! ahaha...hahaaa.... somebody please save him

anyway, my point still stands!! metal armour is obviously more fortified than leather. it's thicker and harder to cut through! (D:>...) but the poleyns and pauldrons, along with the chestplate and everything else just being metal? definitely more strong. i'm sure simon's willing to sacrifice a bit of flexibility in turn for overall protection. now, i still have no idea about the boots, gloves, and bodysuit overall, but otherwise i rate this armour a 10/10 in terms of strength and functionality.

now, for design and appearance!! (^vv^)

this design is also very, very memorable for me!! i do definitely miss the headband, but the bold, colourful armour makes up for it! i absolutely adore the gold and bejeweled accents! they really stand out in the armour, and the main purpleish red as the base colour for his outfit is pretty recognizable as a Simon Colour™, especially in his SSBU design (which i will also explore later :3)!!

although i have absolutely no idea what the idea for simon's gloves and boots was, i do still like them regardless!! the silver in contrast to the gold and maroon-ish/byzantine main accents really stands out!

ALSO. THE BOB??? god damn simon!!!! i honestly prefer him with longer hair because it's easier to draw, somehow... but i feel like that just makes this outfit even more unique! more people recognize simon with hair that's a tad longer, but this goofy little guy has SHORTER hair. very interesting!!! 10/10!!

tldr; strength and overall functionality: 10/10. appearance and overall design: 10/10.

Woahg, that’s a lot—

Explanations under a cut :3

This is Simon like immediately after defeating Dracula. Just sitting on his knees, hands on his face. He needs a minute, but he’s not gonna get a long one cause the castle is collapsing—

Wow! What a nice happy family :3. I sure hope nothing happens to them! :3 I’ve always liked to arrange the series of events like first Selena and Simon met and got married, then the Dracula stuff went down, so uh yeah uh fan interpretation of their (currently) unnamed kids.

The text here says “where’s momma?”, said by his daughter (who by this point is 2-3 about). Shout out to the artist ability to make yourself really sad—

Just Simon and the kids chillin. He probably was a really good dad, just kinda struggling.

Little quick doodle of the designs of the kids. Agh I need to name both of them (TwT ). It’s hard, I feel like they gotta have nice but cool names, but I just haven’t found any I like yet. Anyway, the one on the left is the older daughter and the one on the right is the younger brother and as of Simon’s quest they are 10 and 7 respectively. The brother would’ve been born the year of CV1 if I have my math right, so when Simon was 22.

Sobbing! It be like that sometimes 💀. This might count as like one part vent art and one part just expression and emotion practice :O.

This one also kinda counts as vent art I guess lol idk. It says “I did everything right”. I was thinking of a specific audio while drawing this and tbh I might actually have to animate something hmmm. Or just still images cause animation is hardddddddd oof. The text isn’t like from the audio or anything either (>< ;).

This one is based on an old insert character here kind of meme :D. The text says “step 1: establish character with a little worry but a lot of determination. Step 2: inflict soul crushing trauma Step 3: inflict soul crushing trauma—“ and that repeats until step 5 lol. The original meme only had two images, but each of these are supposed to be based on specific events so yeah. First one is just pre CV1, then the moment he got hit, then shortly after leaving the castle, then in the graveyard 6 years later, then somewhere in the middle of his quest.

This one is fun!!!!!! It’s an idea for like a double sided keychain :D!!!!! One side has the like CV1/CV4 era Simon swinging on one of those loops and the other is Simon’s Quest!!! And it’s supposed to be the Hanged Man tarot card!!! So cool!!! Idk how making keychains works so if I actually did this I’d probs just make one in shrink plastic tbh. But ough it would be so cool to actually make and sell little fan keychains and stuff (TwT ).

This one I don’t remember if I’ve posted or not but it’s never getting finished 💀💀💀. Gotta love drawing The Character in increasingly dynamic poses and surreal ways.

Ok it’s super late I have to sleep 💀👍

ranting about and rating simon's outfits, based on (presumed) functionality and overall appearances. under the cut because i WILL talk a lot.

editing this afterward, i think i'll just make this into parts lmao,,, right now, this is about simon's CV1 version specifically!! :D

be warned; i am in no way a professional with armour or anatomy or whatever so i might get terms incorrect... (-vv-;)

starting off strong with CV1 simon, also known as conan with bleached hair. i love him.

now, considering this is simon belmont, there's a lot of leather in this design!! leather shorts(?!), his chestplate definitely has some sort of leather on it too (same goes for his pauldron. either that or some sort of general thick cloth, based on the way it's sewn? i'm not too sure...), and his belt + loincloth is, of course, also leather. i'm not sure what the purpose of those flowy leather straps on his hip is (is it just for decoration?) but it does definitely add some flair.

leather is good!! it provides both protection and durability. considering simon uses a long-ranged weapon, i think it's pretty useful to wear something more flexible, like leather! he does also have a few metal accents on his outfit as well, such as his arm bracers, but i've heard they might hinder his movement as well, so i have mixed opinions on those. maybe leather gloves instead?

he also has a few metal accents on his belt / loincloth as well, which i'm sure is pretty heavy (0_0) but also adds more flair. it also adds some semblance of convenient groin protection, and it looks nice!! :3 his boots also have fur in them, so at least they're comfortable and warm, i suppose. they also look interesting. not much else to say about that, though...

i'm not sure what the purpose of his circlet (headband? tiara?? i've seen all those terms used for it, haha) is. i mean, clearly it should provide some sort of head protection, but i feel like a helmet would just be more functional.

also, i'm sure that this is a silly idea, considering it might hinder simon's movement as well, but i'm sure some sort of knee pads or poleyns would help for added leg protection, i guess?? considering there are arteries that run through the legs how simon tends to fight creatures that literally want his blood, i'm sure that even though it may not be extremely necessary, i just think that some sort of wraps or straps on his legs and knees would help. his legs are very vulnerable here!

he doesn’t seem like the type of man to enjoy wearing pants (considering almost all of his designs depict him in shorts, haha), so maybe an alternative, such as padding or gauze wraps??, would help do the job.

anyway, as for functionality, i give CV1 simon's armour an 8 or 9/10. definitely does the job, but i still feel like there's a bit of room for improvement.

as for design, i really like this! it's a classic (hehehgeh get it. classic? classicvania? ehsvehhege), it has a lot of interesting elements, a natural, simple-yet-interesting colour scheme, and it just ties a lot into simon's whole "barbarian" schtick, which is also very memorable. 10/10.

tldr; functionality: 8/10. design and appearance: 10/10.

It's painful when your presence is merely tolerated, not cherished.