February A, 2005

Submitted for: Dotchan
Character: Nakaruru.


I don't know what to say. Firstly, this submission has to be one of the finest examples of not sticking true to a character, the clothes that I chose to draw her in are not exactly in this characters wardrobe, neither is an example of her showing midriff, but there it is.

About the only thing that is actually IN context here is she is drawn super Saiyan, which Dotchan had done.

Shading is too intense and colours chosen awful. The shading on her skin looks like sunburn while shading on her top looks like sweat patches. Highlighting on the top is too intense and it ends up looking like plastic.


The pants have no discernible detail in them, she is missing any hint of hands (there would still be some visible sign even if she had her arms folded.) and the belt is rushed and unfinished.

The biggest "what was I thinking?" moment is the midriff, which the character doesn't have in ANY of Dot's original work. OK, I couldn't draw Saiyan armour at the time but still...

This picture is being remade truer to the original character's clothing choices.

Dotchan still participates in each round of MAX and Nakaruru is still a character that can be drawn for the exchange, although her name has since changed to Nataku.

Januray A, 2005.

Submitted for: Sonia
Character: Cerulean.


I started the new year of 2005 with this picture of Sonia's Cerulean. I only had a black and white picture to reference this character, so it gave me some liberty with colours.

I took it a little too far. Green hair? Blue decoration at the top of his staff and then red,yellow and silver armour and clothing? It all clashes horribly. If I did this submission again as a remake, I'd make the staff decoration glow red. I'd also choose a hair colour that suited the era better. I can't really remember if green hair was specified or I thought it would look cool. My guess is the latter, I remember making up all the colours for this one.


Once again we see the malnourished forearms continue to plague my subs, the hidden hand is typical of this time and hints strongly that I had difficulty drawing them. The hand that is showing look ugly and consists entirely of index fingers. The armour is okay, but looks like it has dulled but shines at the same time.

The staff is wonky and uneven, looks like it was crafted by a drunk sculptor after his latest bender. If I bought a staff like that, I'd demand a refund.

I don't know why the cape has pink stripes, or why it looks stiff and sturdier than the metal armour. The armour is also half- Dragonball type mishmash.

This is a horrible submission! The only part I like about it is the blue light affects the skin tone on his face, 4 and a half years before I would find the technique difficult to apply to one of my new pictures!

Sonia no longer participates in MAX.

December B, 2004

Submitted for: Hawk
Character: Ben

It was Hawk and his artwork that first drew me to MAX, in the most random way. Being a Evangelion fan at the time, I was google image searching for pictures of Shinji to use on forum signatures. I was through about 3 pages of crappy quality, same-as-every-other-Evangelion-fan-site pictures, when I spotted something different, something high quality, something with a bit of depth and originality.

I then saw that this Shinji was different. Fan art, I sighed. I never use fanart in my signatures without the permission of the artist. It was a good picture, too good to let go, so I decided to do just that. I closed the google frame and went hunting through the website. It was then that I learnt that this Shinji was another artists original character, and that you could get your characters drawn for you in an exchange program. I hurried to update my website, got a better understanding of digital colouring through Hawk's tutorial, and joined in on the fun. I never did make that Shinji signature. I was too busy drawing other peoples characters!


I chose to draw Ben because he was awesome. I was originally going to draw Hawk's cartoon alter-ego, but that was too daunting to me at the time.

This time I drew and coloured the character in Flash, and I think it turned out pretty well. I finished the background in Photoshop and it is an homage to the picture that brought me here, with the green and black background and computer text.

It's a step up from the last two, I think, although Ben's hand looks like a spatula, and his hair is gray. I attribute that to the monitor I was using at the time, it had it's brightness/contrast settings on ultra-dark, and then the settings buttons were killed. Grrrr. When I drew this the hair was jet black I tell ya, jet black!


I forgot the tape on his arms, and I had to go back into flash to add those. Looks seamless enough though.

Just for comparisons sake, I might remake this one.


Hawk is the founder of MAX, which was originally hosted on his own website. In 2007 he partnered with Sam and moved MAX over to ComicDish.

November B, 2004

Submitted for: Fenrir
Character Name: Misty

Okay, so this romp through the submissions of my MAX past just keeps getting weirder. When I saw this one again, I seriously contemplated disowning it, blaming it on a hacker who hijacked my computer to submit sub par entries and tarnish my good name. Then again, we learn from our mistakes. We learn from the awful entries and the questionable plastic clothing to become better artists, these are the entries that pave our road to achieve our goals and blah blah blah yeh. I never believed that crap anyway.

Where to begin? Looks like our green haired friend had a fight with the lawnmower, took a handle-less blade to a knife fight where the knives had handles, and stabbed someone. Clothes a plastic and crass. A static background gives new meaning to the term static background. What, is she piercing through a TV to stab her victim in an homage to The Ring?

And that hand? Yeah, its a koala hand. Why? Because.

The fact that their forearms are always malnourished in these pics while the rest of their person is very much nourished leaves a lot to be desired. One can only speculate that the forearms went on a hunger strike.

Bleh. I can't bring myself to write any more about this travesty of art, this waste of computer electricity, this, this.... this thing.


Fenrir changed her name to F.K and has since retired the character of Misty. Pictures like this are the reason why (kidding!)

Thanks to Hawk for the correction.

November A, 2004

Submitted for: Uncreativity
Character: Evil T. Bishounen

Wow, what can I say about this one, other than, well, it isn't my worst, trust me, you'll see.

This has to be the weirdest submission I have done. I don't remember too much about this character to be honest. I do like what I did with the hair and the background, but not much else.

I think the body of the character is one of my worst. The arms are atrophied and fingers tend to sprout from them rather than from hands. In hindsight this is probably why I decided to hide the second one behind the cape. The cape itself is rigid and flowing not, and the top looks like a chunk of yellow plastic.

Text of the copyright is obtrusive and annoying, and the logo is at its shocking worst.

Looking at the two before this one, it is clear that I could have done waaay better. I'm surprised they let me through quality control. Must have been because of the hair, and the background. They're the best bits.


Uncreativity has since retired the character of Evil T. Bishounen.

October B, 2004

Submitted for: Meg
Character: Cowgirl Jess

This is my second MAX submission and the first to feature a detailed background. Overall, it is pretty good for its time. The grass was a default photoshop brush that I would go on to use in the future a couple of times, the shirt looks like it's been stained by blue ink and the river almost hovers above the grass, almost like a waterslide.

This is the first time that I made a logo to stamp on my submissions. The previous submission featured a more traditional signature. I don't make a habit out of it, and I like to keep my submissions clear of uneccesary logos and distractions. The info box to the right of the logo was a one-submission idea. Again, too much uneccesary clutter is too distracting.


I wish the cowgirl hat she is wearing didn't look like a lump of metal. Such was the way I shaded things back then.

Overall, this is one of my better submissions from this period.


Meg no longer participates in MAX.

October A, 2004

Submitted for: A Twu.
Character: Takahashi Ume

Well here it is. My first submission to MAX. I have to say that the digital colouring here is just as good as my more recent submissions, and the only thing I really do not like about it is the blush. I could do much better now, than paint on a couple of red splodges that look like ginormous zits.

Overall, looking back at this one, I thought that I would hate it. It is nearly a line for line copy of A Twu's original, the fact that it is only a shoulders-up profile attests to that. This is the only picture that I could find of his character at the time.

The background is plain and simple. It's almost like I sampled A Twu's original background and added the lens flare for the sun. Five years later and I still do simple backgrounds sometimes, but a lot less so since I made my comeback in 2007.


Perhaps I wasn't too good at navigating websites, perhaps some MAX character reference websites are quite crazy and hard to navigate. I can't remember which one this was.

A Twu has since moved on to a new project, Asianosity, the character of Takahashi Ume has been retired.