Birthday Giftart Revue #1: Nicky Flamingo

My 42nd birthday was this past Friday (yay?), and of course, I didn't blog about it. That may be just as well, hahaha. But I had a wonderful day, and received several pieces of giftart from my talented friends to mark the occasion. This week, I'm going to share those pieces with you.

Today, I am featuring a Kitten ACEO by the fabulous and sweet Nicky Flamingo. Nicky and I are essentially birthday buddies, because hers falls the day after mine. So please, enjoy her fantastic artwork and wish the lady a (now belated!) happy birthday!

Princess Nikatonia by Discworldfan

Princess Nikatonia (Art Trade) by discworldfan on deviantART

Well, this one could've knocked me over with a feather! Our delightful friend Nicky Flamingo has adopted Princess Nikatonia (based on her, as you may recall) into her stable of original characters. This is mostly so she can show her off and offer her as a potential subject for art trades. But I gotta tell you, given how awesome Nicky's own OCs are, I wasn't expecting any art of Nikatonia to crop up anytime in the near future.

COLOR ME WRONG! "Discworldfan" stepped up to the plate and delivered a FABULOUS rendition of Princess Nikatonia! I mean, just look at it! I am really tickled to see this, especially since commissions have been a lot fewer in the last year or two.

Thank you both so much!

Nicky Flamingo's Advent Calendar

Nicky's Sketch Advent Calendar Pt 2 by *nickyflamingo on deviantART

This is pretty epic, but then, so is Nicky Flamingo! She has been working on a three page advent calendar featuring OCs from a number of people who have supported her this year. I am honored to have my own Princess Nikatonia featured on Page 2, and since it was recently completed, I thought I'd post it here for everyone to enjoy! You can find her in the middle, getting all handsy!

Nicky has another page upcoming in this project, so more art-y goodness will be in our future! You should click over to her devinatArt and show it some love!

Muscle Woman by Nickyflamingo

So Nicky Flamingo is officially a sweetheart (as if you didn't know!) by springing this early birthday gift art on me! It's that lovely powerhouse Muscle Woman in her true identity as Beth Gordon. Is she great? Don't you want to go leave a comment on Nicky's page for this piece? Of course she is and of course you do!

Thank you Nicky! ALL THE HUGS!

Baby did a bad bad thing

Imagine my surprise when I logged on for a few minutes on Christmas morning and discovered this waiting for me. That's a gorgeous picture of my femme fatale Sultura, as drawn by the wonderful Nicky Flamingo. It was a surprise gift commission paid for by the equally wonderful Kabuki Katze. Both of them are fantastic artists as well as good friends. 'Nuff said?

On that note, let's bid 2012 farewell here at OWARI. See all of you in 2013!

Kabuki Katze's Space Princess

Because I promised you, here is Kabuki Katze's original rendition of Princess Nikatonia. You should particularly note the distinctive tattoos the character has. None of my characters had had visible body art prior to her, so when Kabu suggested it, I thought that would be an intriguing touch.

Kabuki's version, while stylized, has some actual meaning. I couldn't really recreate that in my take on the character, but I felt it was worth pointing out for the record. See if you can figure it out!

My World : Princess Nikatonia

Princess Nikatonia is alien royalty from the planet Oraygion. Her mission on Earth is to kidnap women and return with them to her homeworld for unspecified purposes. Predictably, this has brought her into conflict with Captain Satellite and Shelly Ericson. Somewhat less predictably, these battles have led Princess Nikatonia to conclude that Shelly would be an ideal subject for her objective.

Princess Nikatonia wields the Stellar Staff, a powerful weapon she uses to channel a mysterious force dubbed “Jadoo.” The princess insists that the enigmatic Jadoo is the source of her strength in battle. However, no one is exactly sure what Jadoo is supposed to be (other than Princess Nikatonia herself).


The genesis of Princess Nikatonia is a conversation I had with Nicky Flamingo when I had her do a commission of Doppelgirl. As you may recall, Doppelgirl's appearance is loosely-based on that of Kabuki Katze. Since Nicky admires Kabuki and her work, this was a bit of a stumbling block for her at first. She overcame it brilliantly, and we had the following (excerpted) exchange afterward:

CE - "Maybe I should make up a character based on you and have her draw that? ;) (I'm only half-kidding)"

NF - "And I can tell you any superheroine based off of me would be extraordinarily boring =P"

As you might know from the Doppelgirl character, these sort of inadvertent challenges don't go forgotten. I knew then that there would be a character inspired by Nicky. But who and what would it be?

I entertained several ideas along the way before settling on casting this character as not a superheroine, but as a villainess. From there, Princess Nikatonia evolved rather quickly as a concept. I lifted the element of "alien seeking Earth women" from sci-fi movies like THE MYSTERIANS, MARS NEEDS WOMEN, and most especially FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER. Why that movie? Because leading the charge for those aliens was a FEMALE PRINCESS!

So I had a space princess. This led naturally to a character type I'd always wanted to incorporate into the Owariverse: the Amazon Warrior. Since Princess Nikatonia derived from Nicky, it felt only right to add a dash of Sailor Moon to the mix. Throw in some in-jokes and I had something.

(These include "Jadoo," which popped into my head because I was reading about John Keel at the time and it is the title of his first book.)

With these disparate elements in tow, and half a profile, I came to Kabuki Katze. For you see, Princess Nikatonia would be a little different than the usual process. I wanted to collaborate with Kabuki right at the outset and have HER perfect the character's design. She did just that, and you can see her original version right here. You'll be seeing it here soon. I took that and filtered it through my own unique style.

Princess Nikatonia might be somewhat naughty, but she is a testament to the talents of the two ladies who made her happen. Thank you, Kabuki Katze and Nicky Flamingo, for your inspiration!

Nicky Flamingo's Birthday Feature

I had no idea until just recently that the lovely and talented Nicky Flamingo was essentially a "birthday buddy." Her birthday is July 26th, one day after mine. However, I am reasonably certain she is younger than your humble OWARI major domo.

Since my only online connection to Nicky is via dA, I thought it would be fun to feature some of her artwork and give her a little bit more exposure. You've already seen the pieces she's done for me, but her gallery is pretty awesome.

Happy birthday Nicky! I hope it was a beautiful one, for a beautiful person!

Angelic/Synthetic by *nickyflamingo on deviantART

Amazing Girl by Nicky Flamingo

Gentle reader, I am caught up once again in circumstances beyond my control. Don't worry! It's nothing as bad as my computer getting hit by lightning. In fact, it's not dire at all. However, it limits my attention I can give to this blog. Again. Seems like a theme lately, doesn't it?

There's also the little matter coming up Wednesday, and this actually provides us with some things I'd like to show you in meantime. First up, we have giftart by the amazingly sweet Nicky Flamingo. Nicky's ladies are always beautiful, and I think we can all agree that this pic of Amazing Girl fits the bill.

Great Artwork, Great Ladies!

I received my package with Doppelgirl from Nicky Flamingo the other day. As I was fawning over it all over again, I noticed something lurking at the bottom. "Oh, what's this?"

Oh nothing, just a free sketch of Shelly Ericson included as a gift. Mayhaps this is unmanly, but SQUEE! All things considered, that made this week a whole lot nicer! Why not go lavish some praise on Nicky, since you're not doing anything better right now?

Speaking of lovely artist-type ladies, Kabuki Katze (remember her?) is offering some free wallpaper packs on her website! But not just any kind, oh no. The first one is of that Japanese superhero TIGERSEVEN! I sort of caused this to happen, and I have no regrets. Plus, there are three more wallpaper packs in the future, and I'll just bet they follow a theme that will please fans of Tigerseven. Word to the wise, and all that.

Nickyflamingo's Doppelgirl

(Yes, I deliberately formatted this entry differently to better show off the artwork. The original image was narrow enough to make this possible.)

Nickyflamingo is the lady who did that Shelly/Firegirl that is so awesome. Remember? Well, I recently commissioned her again, and the subject this time was the one and only Doppelgirl!

Those of you who remember the genesis of Doppelgirl may know what kind of references I sent Nicky for this piece. She encountered a bit of an art block, but successfully smashed her way through and turned out a picture that is absolutely gorgeous. I mean, just LOOK at it!

You should go flatter Nicky shamelessly on her page for this pic! And hey, why not think about commissioning her yourself?

"The Intercollegiate Dark Secret"

$20 Pinup: Sailor Asteroid by =kabukikatze on deviantART

Some of you out there might know that "Intercollegiate Dark Secret" was a masked identity used by wrestler George Bollas, better known as the Zebra Kid. I'm sorry, but this entry is not about George Bollas. "Intercollegiate Dark Secret" was the codename I choose for a very special commission project to disguise my true intentions.

As we saw last month, our friend Kabuki Katze was running a sale for $20 commissions. The sale is over now, but before all the slots filled up, I snagged a second one. For myself? No, I elected instead to pay for a commission for Nickyflamingo, since her new job wasn't starting until this month. I thought a little giftart for a sweet and generous person was in order.

I came to Kabuki with my plan, and "Intercollegiate Dark Secret" was placed on her list as the mysterious name of my new commission. In reality, I asked her to pick a character for Nicky (she knows her better than I) and put something together for her. Kabuki's choice was Nicky's Sailor Moon OC Sailor Asteroid, and you can see the results of this commission above.

I'm really pleased with how everything turned out. I got to do something nice for two different people, and a great piece of artwork was the result. Drinks all around!

"Shiera...Has Made Friends With Another Nurse, Diana Prince!"

This is sort of a follow-up to yesterday's entry, since it springs from a poll that Nickyflamingo recently had on her dA page. The topic was "What are some of your favorite shoujo-ai/ yuri/ femslash/ girly love couples?" If you don't understand what any of those terms mean, you should probably just stop reading now. The rest of you, consider yourselves sufficiently warned.

Anyway, I'd wager most of you reading this blog are aware of Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy as a pairing. I mean, Harley/Ivy is almost canon, isn't it? But being me, I hauled one out from the Archives. Literally!

Going waaaaay back in time, there is some serious girlcrush action going on between Wonder Woman and Shiera (original Hawkgirl) Sanders in the issue of All-Star Comics where Diana joins the JSA. My imagination, it runs wild.

The issue in question is All-Star Comics #11 (June-July 1942), edited by Sheldon Mayer. The sequence itself is only one page, with script by Gardner Fox and art credited to Jack Burnley. Below you will find some excerpts as reprinted in All-Star Comics Archives Volume 3, with cutesy captions added by yours truly.

Some of you will say I am taking things out of context. Some of you will say I am reading entirely too much into these panels. Some of you will say this is ridiculous. You are absolutely correct. But it's still fun!

Getting Closer by Nickyflamingo

Nickyflamingo is an artist that has been on the periphery of my awareness for awhile, but I'd never gotten around to watching her work until recently. Which is a pity, since she has an appealing style and loves drawing beautiful ladies. To partially make up for my extreme laziness in following her art, I recently commissioned her to do a picture for me of Shelly Ericson and Firegirl, my two principal female characters.

Wow. You can see the absolutely gorgeous results of this commission. I knew Nicky would do a good job, but this turned out to be beyond just "good"; it's amazing. My only regret is that it took me so long to give the lady some love, but I suspect this won't be the last time you see her art in these quarters.

Why not go lavish some praise on this piece over on deviantArt?