So I had an idea for a pin-up series I wanted to try. The premise is that my Subscribers could submit a franchise, any franchise, which would then get randomly selected. From the winning series, I would then pick my “favorite” character, who would get a pin-up. The idea is that, for franchises I know well I’d have a pretty well-informed opinion for that, while for ones I don’t know it’d be mostly based on first impressions and aesthetics.

This pic started as a test run of that concept, with D.Gray-man Hallow winning. I have very little familiarity with this series, having only read the first chapter of the manga back when it was printed in Shonen Jump during my subscription many, many years ago. Looking at the characters, this one named Road Kamelot stood out to me, so I picked her. Now, I don’t even know if this is a villain or a hero, and it seems like she has two different color schemes, but I went with the design I liked best.

While working on this, I decided I don’t really like this premise much for a pin-up series. Rather than pick my favorites, I’d like to change the scope to instead be on Studio debuts. By that I mean, when a franchise wins the raffle, instead of picking my personal favorite I’ll choose a character who I haven’t drawn from that series. I think that’ll make this a more interesting series, and I’m gonna call it Newbie Nudies as a cute little title. Obviously there will still be an element of my personal bias in selecting the characters, but this priority shift will affect not only series I know well (obviously I’ve drawn all my favorite DBZ, JJK, etc. characters already), but also new shows like this. While Road was my favorite character looking the series up, if I’m just drawing someone I haven’t before I probably would’ve started with the protagonist first.

Anyway, I hope y’all will like this series. I don’t plan to do it often, but every now and then I think it could be fun.