iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

RIP, Peter, and thanks for all the memories. Please hold onto your tail... AND your trailer on the other side. #Transformers #Maccadam

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Was lucky enough to get the battle-damaged version of Studio Series #Megatron, and as per usual, I had a run of fun playing with possible fan modes and poses. Need to think of some kind of flying mode, though. #Transformers #ToyPhotography #Maccadams

The previously posted "standing fusion cannon", based on the first Bay movie's Megatron.

Taking it a step further with a (really loose) gun mode. Used additional accessories, including other fusion cannons from previous toys for the scope, etc.

One-upping Tarn with a triple fusion cannon setup. From top to bottom, that's Titans Return Megatron's cannon, which serves as the main attachment, then the Mechtech cannon from DOTM Voyager Optimus, and finally, his own fusion cannon with the extended barrel (otherwise, it barely lines up with the other cannons from where it mounts on the Mechtech cannon).

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Whaddaya know...? Studio Series really CAN recreate those movie moments! "JOIN THEM IN EXTINCTION!!!"

Studio Series Megatron (Battle Damaged ver) half-transformed to mimic the extended cannon form of Bayverse movie 1 Megatron. (Have to consider Megs has a different body for Every. Single. Installment!)

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

40 years, gaddamn. I still suck trying to play the original without guides. #Metroid #SamusAran

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Oh, it's @facianea.bsky.social's birthday, and I almost missed it? I suppose that was almost...

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Shout-out post to www.twitch.tv/shaperofstor..., the Twitch Channel of #SuperBeardBros own Brett! Come for the gameplay, stay for the chill vibes, discussions on movies, comics and other media, what we're eating, Brett reading our typos out loud, and the silly bits that lead to stuff like these:

During a stream involving Pokemon Green, the chat turned to the topic of old 90's movies we used to watch, and House Party, starring Kid n' Play was brought up.

There are a trio of bullies in the movie that were played by another RnB group called Full Force, and Brett and the chat got on to discussing which Pokemon would play the roles of the bullies. It came down to Machoke, Electabuzz and Meowth. I looked up stills from the movie, and settled on this one of the trio contemplating some light-hearted arson.

It was a different time.

In addition to giving the 'mons some additional clothing based on the movie characters, the gas can Electabuzz is holding has a suitable 'flammable' warning label on it-- a Charmander's tail.

"You got your silly ass locked in the ice box-- WITH NOWHERE TO GO-OOO!"

Another scene from House Party, featuring our Pokemon'ed cast. This time, with Kid in the form of a Psyduck with a suitably embellished version of his signature high fade 'do.

I took some creative liberty with this one. In the movie scene, Kid is literally locked in an abandoned freezer box, and therefore can't be seen, so I did a "see-through" effect in order to put him into the scene. Brett had imagined it with Psyduck peeking out from the top of the ice box door, but I felt it was funnier making it so that the fade reaches to the top of the box from the inside.

I played with the proportions of the Pokemon bullies a bit more. They were only half visible in the previous pic, so I gave them the "half-dressed cartoon animal" look. Meowth in particular has Garfield-style legs and feet, and Psyduck's bill is slightly Disney-fied, since the Beard Bros were playing Ducktales for their Weekly Special at the time on Youtube. (Yes, I put that much thought into these silly gags!)

I had a lot more time to put into this one, so I gave it full pencil shading this time around.

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

This is like G1 Transformer boxart, where the character art has articulation that the toy could only dream of. 😁

Transformers G1 Starscream, sporting hips, knees and elbows that do not exist on the actual toy.

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Might as well fill-er-up with some reposts of MerMays past. #Mermay

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Cutting it close for #MerMay, and also making up for not having a proper April post for last month, so here's a Mermaid April O'Neil. Creative energy has been down, due to April being a harder month for me, on top of it being the height of summer heat here, but it'll get easier as the rains start.

Does anyone even read this? Sound off in the comments if you did!

Black and white shot of a mermaid version of April O'Neil as she swims with a quartet of suspiciously masked turtles.

The pose was a challenge to do, and I might revisit it in the future to improve on it, should I get better ideas for it. Despite water being denser than air, it's still fun to make swimming characters look more like they're flying through deeper water, right? Funny thing, since I'm not very comfortable with deep water, as anyone who's been to a pool with me knows.

One difficult aspect of this particular pose, is that it obscures some of my favorite personal details I like to add to my mermaids, namely their gills, their dorsal fin (both of which are still KINDA visible here), as well as a pair of fins that I give them that allow them some stability and movement on land.

I have two main aquatic races planned for my story, though I don't have any actual plans yet for any significant characters in either (it's mainly set up as a possible story playground to draw from should an idea come up). There's a more traditional mermaid race, and there's one that are the half-serpent Naga, and they DO NOT like each other.

Turns out that a female Naga is called a Nagini, which I don't feel is a name I can comfortably use, so that's something for the idea backburner to deal with.

And if you really read all the way to here, tell me your favorite pizza topping! Personally, I love a greasy pepperoni!

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

One year, I'll actually have new art for May the Fourth... ...but it is not this year. (And maybe I'll actually reference Star Wars in my post text, too.) #Maythe4th #StarWars #FanArt

An Ewok Jedi idea I was playing with before.

Daisy vs Ridley.

I still like this joke.

Jedi Leia. I think I was playing with the idea of, "What if Leia was trained instead of Luke?"

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

Working on another crossover pic with Rosalina. The last month was really tough, creative-wise, so I'm in the process of catching up with the works in progress, as well as a few new things.

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

I wish I could do this more, but I have to make the most out of these limitations: my 12 (!) year old tablet is this non-screen child that does a number on hand-eye coordination, since my screen is a TV about 5ft away, PLUS that little box drawn on it? That's the active area for my WHOLE SCREEN!

My dinky 12-year old drawing tablet with its pen held together by duct tape. The drawn box inserted with the "No Area" label? The area above it is the active zone that represents my ENTIRE computer screen, and no amount of settings adjustments can get it to be bigger. So I'm essentially drawing on a patch of space half the soze of a Magic playing card.

So, this is why I draw traditionally, then scan it in for inking, coloring, etc.

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

I wonder if I'll have the time to fill a month with art the way I did last year. Work situation's better now, but that means less drawing time and energy. But I need to do at least one new April!

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

So I hear @facianea.bsky.social is now in Street Fighter? Oh... it's a DIFFERENT Alex... okay... 😜😁🤣

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

And yes, Daisy is my favorite of the Mario Princesses, and yes, I am a little miffed they skipped past her to feature Rosalina in the next movie instead. Let my plucky girl shine! #Mar10Day #PrincessDaisy #Crossover #StarWars #Evangelion #WonderWoman #TMNT #Fanart

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

That time I took "Super Mario Bros Wonder" a bit literally, and finding out that in his original Transformers toy bio, the Autobot, Gears, was described to have what was essentially Luigi's jumping ability. #Mar10Day #Crossover #Fanart #Transformers

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

No new work done in time for Mar10 Day, so please enjoy a repost thread of my Mario-themed crossover art! First up are the Street Fighter! #Mar10Day #MarioDay #StreetFighter #Fanart #Crossover

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

Double post while I get started on my first pic of the month! I did some cleaning recently, and found this particular gem. This print was one of the earlier iterations of Amantha and company, and was one of my first experiments in scanning, cleaning, and coloring art digitally.

Whoo, this takes me back! This is actually a scan of the final artwork, which has long been lost to time and outdated hardware, and it carries a special story.

Back in the day, my family had a small company that specialized in aerial cartography. Before the time of Google Maps, our company would get contracted to do fly-overs of assigned locations, photograph them, and turn those into maps for our clients. Usually, these would be geologic studies and aerial surveys of environmental changes, etc.

So what does this have to do with my summer swimsuit art? My uncle wanted to modernize our operation by buying an EXPENSIVE Macintosh computer workstation, a high-end scanner and a color printer. We could scan the photo negatives from the aerial survey, clean up the scans, then put the resulting pictures together into a full map, which would then be printed for the client.

And it was all done on Photoshop.... 3.0.

I had a knack for figuring out computers and programs, so my uncle let me loose on this expensive piece of hardware, let me scan my drawings, color them and even PRINT them, all so we could have an idea of how to run the software and develop a workflow. This, and a handful of other drawings, helped us figure out stuff at a time before Youtube tutorials, let alone Youtube itself, were even a thing.

Now about the print itself-- the white spots are drops of paint that landed on it during a time when my room was being painted. My coloring was textbook amateur: selection lassos BY MOUSE, flat coloring with the bucket tool, tiled patterns for the wal texture, and the sky was a scan from a National Geographic magazine we had in the office.

Maybe I should revisit this pic with my current skills.

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

A cleaned up scan of my ARC Raider version of Amantha, with game "mascot", Scrappy. Might as well repost the final version for comparison. How many of you use your OCs as the basis for your in-game characters? #Fanart #OC #ARCRaiders #Videogames

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Hitting the weekend with relaxation, drawing some bingo, and finally taking time to play some RE9uiem for myself. Only limited my watching of playthroughs to only the first hour or so, so I'm familiar enough with this cutscene to be comfortable snapping this pic.

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

I was introduced to ARC Raiders by some guys at work. There was a server slam that was held last year, so why not try playing the game for free? ARC is not my type of game. Anyone who knows me, knows I don't play PVP shooters. But I ended up not only liking ARC Raiders, I ended up buying it.

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Month's almost gone, and I haven't really posted anything yet. Not even for Valentines. All because I got it into my head to do THIS monstrosity, and it's not even close to being half-done! WHY!? I'm not even a background artist...! (but I'm still having fun doing it...)

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade going multiplatform, especially for Switch 2, is one of the best things to me, and I say that as someone who was on Playstation since the PS1. But. They should have done this for the advertising, if anything, to make things come full circle. 😜 #FFVIIRemake

Mockup for a "what-if" magazine ad for FFVII Remake Intergrade, poking fun at the classic ad for the original game.

I couldn't use the Junon shot, because that's on the next game (mild spoiler). I also didn't use the original opening line of the copy, because console wars aside, that was particularly dark.

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

I paid what was full retail at the time... because I just wanted the gun.

Pathblaster accessory of Fall of Cybertron Sideswipe.

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

January theme is Sketch Requests! I only got two this time, but I'll open up more slots in the future when needed. In the meantime, enjoy!

Hitomi, from the Dead or Alive series, for ‪bond1250.bsky.social

The wet t-shirt was part of the request, and so getting it down with pencil was quite the challenge. I'm sure there are tutorials and such out there, but I was kinda unwilling to add that to my search history!

If you took a look at the preview photo I took of the sketches, you can notice that her belt was not fully shaded in at the time, and that was its state when I scanned in the piece, only noticing it after I had already started on the digital touchups (increasing the white highlights, texture, etc.). So I took the pic, finished the shading, then scanned it again and lined it up with the work that was already in progress.

Now that I'm looking at the completed work as I type this, I can see that it was done at the time I was binging a bit on Chrissie Zullo Uminga's work, and it was definitely bleeding into my own drawings. Not exactly, fortunately, but I can see its influence.

Galaxy Fight's Roomi for @mistahdood.bsky.social

I remember Galaxy Fight from my time scouring the arcades back in high school, watching people play games, but not having the courage to play myself, even if it was on my own. The arcades were getting to the point that some were 80 if not 90% fighting games, from Street Fighter II, King of Fighter '98, and Samurai Shodown, to all the less-bloody discount Mortal Kombat clones, because I guess management balked at having THE controversial violent game series on their floors.

While I feel I got some of the more exaggerated range of posing that I was aiming for, I think I could have made her hands even larger, in retrospect. They are supposed to be comically large to begin with, but as it is, they look more... normal... in comparison to the rest of her figure.

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

The art for the January request thread is pretty much done, but I'm giving it the rest of the day to stew in case I feel like fixing anything. But likely to post later tonight, tomorrow morning at latest!

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

I was about to do a reflexive, "Why Rosalina instead of Daisy!?", only to smack myself for forgetting she was there from the start. If it's true, then I might need to update this pic...

Princesses Peach and Daisy in Wonder Woman inspired costumes.

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Personal poll: Like/Repost this if you, like me, would want to see Super Bsky Bros. (aka Super Beard Bros account on Bluesky) #SuperBeardBros

Brett gets a Drive Impact from a container crate. From the Resident Evil 2 Remake series.

Alex gets kicked by a Watcher from the Horizon Zero Dawn series.

Original pencil renders of Ted and Brett from the Street Fighter 6 pic.

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Human artists, use only one piece to convince people to follow you! (Heck, even if it's not me, find cool artists to follow and fill your feed with incredible stuff! Like ⬇️... I mean, below mine, obviously...!)

Darkstalkers' Felicia gleefully naps atop a HUGE ball of yarn.

Pencils with a touch of digital screentone and textures.

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

2025 Year of art in review! This was a tough year for me, no doubt, but I'm thankful that I was able to get this much work done this year. Lots of fan art, got some more OC stuff done, and even a few commissions! And shout-out to my bonus sketch winners, and to all the followers out there!

Fanart of 2025! Starting from the top, left to right:
Row 1: Pokekellz, X-Ladies, Kitty Pryde
Row 2: Month of April: Beach, Daisy O'Neil, Easter April, April Lavigne
Row 3: Jedi Leia, Shadow Shadowcat, Mai Bust, Lana Bust
Row 4: Mermay-troid, Machu, Arcee, Brett (Super Beard Bros)
Row 5: Daissy, Chun-Peach, Rose-alina, Morrigan & Lilith
Row 6: Felicia, Hitomi vs Ayane, Voodoo & Velocity, Gambit & Rogue

A collection of this year's OC work. Will I finally be able to draw story pages in 2026?

Bonus sketches of 2025!
Clockwise from the top left:
Cerberus for shellshockqueen.bsky.social
Amyn for luisdl.bsky.social
Squirrel Girl for mistahdood.bsky.social
Cy for thepoetjean.bsky.social

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

Welcome back artists!🖌🎨✨️ Quote Post with an old piece that you still like!

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

In the event of @rosiecaddick.bsky.social's final stream on Playstation Access, I'm bringing this back out! Oh and Rob and Delsin too!

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

The first sketch was the design pic I did when I was prepping for this un-accepted Mega Man Tribute Book entry.

Mega Man faces down the Robot Masters from his 3rd game. But someone's coming from behind... as a friend, or foe?

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

I dunno... I had my best Mega Man idea back when MM3 was still new, and when I revisited it FIFTEEN YEARS AGO...

Mega Man 3 robot masters, with a more mechanical flair.

Mega Man 3 robot masters merged into a giant super robot, which I felt would have been a better final boss than what we got with Gamma.

Mega Man and Rush drawn for scale.

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Nostalgia-ber recap! Dead or Alive's Hitomi vs Ayane Voodoo and Velocity from Image Comics (as of the 90's) Gambit and Rogue and 200 Follower Bonus Sketch: Squirrel Girl I may not have as much time to draw this holiday season, but I'll try to get at least one up for December!

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The Variable Edge @thevariableedge.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

Mr. & Mrs. X, 'nuff said! (of course not, check out the alt-text!) #Marvel #X-Men #X-MenRogue #Gambit #TraditionalArt #Fanart

There's a lot I feel that could be improved on this drawing, but as I don't usually draw men, that's certainly a given. I'll likely revisit this pic again in the future, either with the same characters or not.

The layout itself was easy enough: Rogue is a strong girl, and Gambit is the type of suave playboy who might take being sweetly coddled, but not if it takes him off his coolness game. As always, I went with their 90's looks, complete with the banded metal boots.

While the art is cleaned up some through Clip Studio Paint, and some texture brought back by way of sharpening the image, the vellum board I usually use felt different and off for this one, to the point I actually considered scrapping it and starting all over. Might have been due to the storms and humidity around the time I worked on this, but the pencils didn't feel "right" going over the surface while sketching, and even during the shading stage. I'm glad I stuck with it to the end, and it looks good enough-- my mild dissatisfaction with the final pic lies in my own execution of the concept, not the way my tools behaved.

I've been actively going for a certain visual language in my art style. Anime-inspired of course, but I'm sticking to certain style rules I'm placing for myself, such as the way I structure bodies, to the way I draw hair. Rogue's curly, wavy hair is an example of that. I expect that maybe even the way I render bodies, faces and expressions may change down the line, and I don't know if I might like how it may look at first. But as much as I've had to accept the changes when an artist I follow adopts a new style, I should be just as open to making such changes in myself as well.

Even if it may lead to actually drawing more males.

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