My Derby Wife: Kid Vicious!

Omg omg omg, I am SUPER excited to FINALLY get to this particular blog entry!  Why?  Because it features my derby wife, Kid Vicious!  

*MUPPET ARMS!!!*

Kid and I (and our other derby wife, retired skater, Hitty Hitty Bang Bang <3) knew each other for a bit before we started skating because we worked together.  And experiencing the trials, tribulations and triumphs of Fresh Meat brought us so much closer together.  And that was really for the best considering that between work and derby, we spent more time with each other than without ;)

Now Kid is legitimately a very special little snowflake in that I've never ever really met anyone quite like her, and I'm not sure that I ever will again.  If you asked her for he favorite color, it would have be to rainbow.  Favorite animal?  SHE LOVES THEM AAAAALLLL!  Also maybe unicorns.

And turtles.  And cats.  And ferrets.  And snakes.  And puppies.  And--well you get the idea.  

No, but seriously, she is wonderfully quirky and bubbly.  A passionately well-read hippie weirdo who is ever so lovely and loving.  In her eyes, the ridiculous is ridiculously joyful.  Her head remains up in the clouds at all times, but her feet are firmly rooted in the earth (barefoot no less).  And science.  Because she really f*(&#%!  loves science.  And she probably knows more about your favorite nerdy fandom than you do.   And last, but not least, though her real name suggests it, it is definitely not a reference to Australia.  Which is a shame, really, because everything is better with an Australian.  

Yeah, I realize that most of that jibberjabber doesn't make much sense.  Unless you know her.  Then it makes perfect sense.  

Anyway, enough of this gooey love-fest!  It's time to show you her drawing!  

Remember how I said that Kid loves rainbows?  Yeah, she actually owns those rainbow tights in the drawing.  And her hair has been all sorts of beautiful shades of the rainbow over the years...Including AT HER WEDDING.  

Seriously.  Freaking Majestic.

Actually, even in the drawing itself, the rainbow hair was the most fun to do.  If only there wasn't a helmet covering so dang much of it, haha.  

I left off the logo, but I'm pretty sure most derby people can
easily tell which  brand these knee pads are ;) 

See?  I told you!  Practically everybody had these skates!
Including me!

Both Kid and Viral Temptryss, who was featured in the last blog post, actually shared the limelight on the same bout poster back in 2013.

Omg, 2013.  I am like 3 years overdue in posting this...

...I am really bad at this.

Now, I am sad to say that Kid and I no longer play for the same league.  She moved back up to Minnesota last year in order to settle down out there.  And get married and junk.  Ya know, grown up stuff.  So while it does make me super sad that I don't get to see her rainbowy goodness all the time, I am happy knowing that it's for all the right reasons.  The best reasons!

Besides, though she may now be legally married, she's still derby-married to me ;)  

LOOOVE YOU, WIIIIIIIIFE <3

Well hello there! Long time no see! Meet my friend, Viral!

Hooooly craaaap!  It's been OVER A YEAR since I updated this art blog!  I may very well be a terrible person, or at least terrible at keeping up with these things.  I won't promise to be better about posting on the regular, only because I know myself all too well...  but I can try...

Despite how long it's been since my last blog entry, I actually have been been working on different derby-related designs fairly consistently.  So I do have quite a bit that I can update with.  It's just a matter of knuckling down to write about it.  Eh?  Eh?  See what I did there?

...Look, I haven't slept much in the last couple of weeks...this is about as sharp as my wit is going to get.

Anyway!  Let's finally get to the next long-awaited featured drawing :)

Then: #H1N1, Viral Temptryss
Now: #99, Viral Temptryss

This is Viral Temptryss!  Viral is just about one of my favorite people ever.  She's so laid back and mellow and consistently has a positive attitude.  She's always nothing but supportive of her teammates and always, always gives it her all.  Oh, and she has HIPS OF DOOM.

I really cannot emphasize enough how amazing Viral's hips are.  In general she's truly is a skilled skater (I wish my footwork was half as good as hers!), but she has this sort of signature swerve that is both beautiful and deadly if you're on the receiving end.  

Oh lawd, it's funny how old I can tell this drawing is.  Even if I hadn't drawn it myself, there are a few giveaways.  Like her skater number.  When this drawing was done, her skater number was H1N1 (VIRAL Temptryss...H1N1...get it?  Or are we just dating ourselves here?).  However, in December of 2015, WFTDA officially made it a rule that skater numbers could no longer consist of a combination of both numbers and letters.  So since then, Viral has been skating under #99.  

There are a couple more giveaways, but they're pretty hyper-specific to my league, and therefore completely uninteresting to just about everyone else.  Ha!  

   

Moving along, how's about we get some detail shots up in here?  

The original sketch complete with scribbly notes.  If you zoom in you might be able to read some.

SO many of us all wore this same skate model (Riedell 965 boot)

Sure, showcasing a detail shot of a thigh might be kind of weird...but I had to!  See, back in the day Viral would wear this combination of one colored fishnet layered on top of another solid-colored tight--and the effect was actually really cool.  It sort of gave her legs this luminescent quality. 

Really good strategy actually--Blind your opponent with your glowing rainbow glory before knocking them to kingdom come with a hip check :P

While overall I'm fine with the drawing, I do wish I would have done a better job with certain things, like proportions and foreshortening.  Because her hip swing is just such a characteristic part of her, I wish I could have better depicted that sort of "wind up" here.  I just wanted to do her hips justice, haha.  

Welp, that about wraps up this entry!  Stay tuned because there's more coming!

I mean, if I get around to it I guess.

;)

  

Oh Heeeeeey!

Hi hi!  I have a proper blog entry that will be going up in just a couple of hours' time (the first in over a year, I know!), but I just realized that a ton of the links to images on this blog are broken :(

I'm going to go through them and replace them all over time.  Hopefully sooner rather than later!  More recent and future posts should be fine though.  So thanks for your patience and please bear with me until I get it all fixed!

-Knuckles