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Just a little WIP, because I am quite stressed out with work at the moment but I wanted to draw something and make something cute for my fellow changeling conoisseurs to brighten your day 😁. Hopefully I can finish the drawing soon and make some nice background etc. But at the moment I am quite happy with his face and hair...

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cute troll dads^^

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Jim: My stomach growled super loud in French omg

Jim: I would like to clarify my stomach did not speak French. It growled in French class I apologize

Claire: bonjour

Douxie: le growl

Toby: hon hon hon feed me a baguette

Jim: Why do I even go to training

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a quick claire doodle from class yesterday, will probs colour later bc i love her

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Walt, buddy, you need to stop. 

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Daylight is mine to command…

Jim Lake action shot!!!  Seriously I have a problem with how much I love this show…  I would love to work with DreamWorks and their amazing untainted imaginations!  :D

#Trollhunters

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‪Bular! Such a great character. Really enjoying the show @RealGDT :) #art #ink #trollhunters #sketch ‬

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‘Nother sub-par drawing I’ll regret later.

Also here’s an unfinished drawing that I WILL be finishing, I think the colours are okay, but the more stills I look at of Strickler, the more emerald green he looks :P

Basically I was looking at Strickler’s horns and sudden;y I thought about how much it would hurt to have those on a human head.

So I got it into my head that Trolls probably went through touch growing pains (I’m guessing Draal’s was probably the worst for Trolls because of all the spikes and what not). Because Changelings are more human shaped, large horns would probably hurt coming out so here’s a picture of young Walter/Stricklander back in the 1700′ds or so which is about the time that I would guess he went to the human world (I like thinking of troll changelings as actually being young when they first go into the world and grow up there). 

So yah, more angst for stickler and his ‘mishapened’ troll body that doesn’t appreciate the addition of horns.

In my HC I also thought about what household he grew up in and I think he’d have a really loving father who saw Strickler as basically the apple of his eye because his wife died in child birth (connecting to Stricklander’s sympathy with Barbara as a single parent). A good father would also probably explain why Strickler is pretty good to Jim and all his students for that matter (until he finds out Jim is the trollhunter). I imagine the Gum-gums would put Strickler as the child of a professor or a very educated man who might have connections with fields of anthropology or archaeology who would be digging up remnants to the bridge or other troll artifacts that could help the gum-gums (and it would also explain a little about why Strickler loves teaching so much).

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No matter how many times I watch the first episode, Strickler’s face when he sees Jim with the amulet gets me every time XD

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I wasn’t a fan of the “Stricklake”, but after seen trollhunters like 3 times I fell in hell and now here I am, burning and suffering…

I was listening to “Total eclipse of the heart” when I made this :)

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Between Daylight and Darkness

Chapter 2

<Previous Next>

Ao3

Blinky’s feet scuffled against the well worn stone as he paced back and forth. The already narrow space was crowded enough with the bodies of him and the two other trolls without his scurrying about, but despite knowing that couldn’t find it in himself to stop his frantic movements.

“This is a disaster! A catastrophe! An absolute calamity!” he threw his arms out, one of them knocking against a tray of tools on the edge of the work table and sending them clattering to the floor.

“Blinkous!” Vendel said sharply “Compose yourself,”

“How can I compose myself when it’s been three days, three days with no sign of the amulet or our new trollhunter!”

AAARRRGGHH lumbered closer, flashing a hopeful smile “Maybe new Trollhunter…slow?”

“Or maybe they got trapped by the sun, or maybe a goblin stole the amulet before they could find it, or maybe Bular found it and he’s preparing to march on Trollmarket as we spe–”

His tirade was cut off by a firm hand being placed on his shoulder, Blinky reflexively turning to look up at Vendel’s stern gaze.

“If Bular had the amulet, believe me Blinkous we would know. I admit the situation is dire, but we have faced worse before, and above all else we can’t afford to lose our heads to panic,”

Blinky felt his chest tighten, immediately chastised “Of course of course, forgive me,”

Vendel’s grip on his shoulder loosened, and if he knew the older troll one iota less than he did Blinky would have missed the subtle softening of his gaze “It’s alright Blinkous, there’s nothing to forgive,”

Blinky’s guts gave an uncomfortable lurch. An objection rose up in the back of his throat, choking it back down before it could escape.

That wasn’t true, and they both knew it.

Both Blinky and AAARRRGGHH had been there to witness Kanjigar’s fall from the shadows of a sewer tunnel. Powerless to do anything but bear witness to their Trollhunter’s final moments. 

Kanjigar’s death was a steady ache in his side, it would be many a year before the pain of his loss faded, if it ever did, but that was a pain Blinky could bear. Part and parcel of being Trollhunter was accepting that one day there may be a battle you did not walk away from. And as much as Kanjigar’s death had wounded them all, they’d made their peace with it long ago.

No, Blinky’s unforgivable crime was failing to preserve the Trollhunter’s– his friend’s legacy.

It had sat only a few precious feet away, but with the sunlight flooding the canal it may as well have been at the bottom of the sea. They’d kept vigil over it until the steadily rising sun forced them further into the tunnel and out of sight of the amulet. But those few hours had been enough. By the time the daylight had receded from the canal it had been too late. Kanjigar’s remains had been pilfered by unknown hands and the amulet was lost. 

With heavy hearts they gathered Kanjigar’s remains and brought them home, his legacy looted and lost to the surface.

The absolute worst was when they’d relayed these events to Vendel. Trollmarket’s elder had sat patiently and listened without interruption, then when they’d finished there hadn’t even been a trace of anger on him, his expression unbearably sad.

It was only then that Blinky realized the true magnitude of his failure.

“The ways of Merlin and his amulet have always been mysterious,” Vendel released Blinky’s shoulder to step towards his work table, gathering the fallen tools “While we may not know when or how the amulet will return to us it will choose a champion, we just have to be patient,”

AAARRRGGHH let out a soft grumble and nodded at the elder troll, before moving closer to Blinky “Vendel right, amulet does as amulet choses, it not up to Blinky where amulet goes,”

Blinky’s throat went tight with emotion “Thank you, both of you I–”

The thudding of approaching troll feet echoing in from the entrance tunnel interrupted him. All three trolls immediately fell silent, turning and fixing their gazes on the tunnel entrance just as Draal emerged.

The words ‘Did you find it’ hung on the edge of Blinky’s tongue, only held back with extraordinary willpower. But as soon as he saw him the question withered and died without ever leaving his mouth, one glance at the look on the younger troll’s face and it was clear he’d had no more luck than they had. 

“I’ve been to every neighboring community and tribe in the area. There’s been no sign of the amulet or word a new Trollhunter,”

A small sigh of disappointment accompanied Draal’s words, so slight Blinky might have missed it had he not known the troll since he was a hatchling, a new cluster of thorny emotions sprouting to life in his chest.

Draal’s desire to be his father’s successor was known to all of Trollmarket, but Kanjigar’s desire for the exact opposite was known to only a few, namely the four trolls in this room. Blinky found himself  of two minds on the matter. He had no desire to watch a troll he’d watch grow from a hatchling be thrown into battles risking life and limb. But Draal hadn’t been a whelp for centuries, he was a grown troll and a blooded warrior, what right did Blinky or even Kanjigar himself have to choose his path for him?

But it was a testament to Blinky’s own weakness that he would have been glad to see Draal take up the amulet become the next Trollhunter if only to end this awful uncertainty.

“Then we must continue the search,” Vendel said, voice solemn.

Blinky nodded in response “AAARRGGHH and I will continue to scour the surface,”

“And I will begin my inquiries anew,” Draal added “See if there has been any change, and if there has not I will expand my search to every community this side of the continent. We shall not rest until the amulet is found,”

Vendel looked at each of them in turn “Good. And do not lose faith. No matter how long it takes the amulet will return to us, and bring with it a new champion,”

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I love his smile

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Alfonso Blaas colour keys - Part 1

For reasons most mysterious, one search engine has been picking up colour keys on Alfonso Blaas' website. This wouldn't be that big a deal because a chunk of them are viewable except unlike the format below, it's been picking up other keys that were previously only shown in the image on the left hand side. The running theory is they must still exist somewhere from site updates and somehow the engine is picking them up? Either way it certainly adds to the ones already uncovered on The Concept Art Blog!

Because tumblr has a bigger image limit I've combined both the CAB and search engine induced website keys in the order shown above. These will be uploaded in batches so I don't have to number all of them in one go. Enjoy!

Do not recommend zooming in on a tiny image to number things when tired. Things start getting weird. There are 86 images in this folder all told assuming nothing else appears.

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heard u were lookin for some trollhunter requests: how about not enrique being brotherly to enrique? btw ur art is amazing!! 💕

Ok, this was the cutest one so far. Thanks for that! 

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Jim Lake Jr-Army dreamers

Esta canción me recuerda mucho a él...

Es la primera vez que hago esto y se nota bastante pero quería experimentar algo nuevo.

Los subtítulos pueden estar un poco desfasados aunque no se, realmente intente que fueran acorde a la canción espero que lo haya logrado y si no lo siento 🙇🏾‍♀️.

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I'm always down for more Changeling Barbarba

1. her undercover mission as the wife of real estate developer walker strickland (strickler) is only the third assignment braya (barbara) has had on the surface. her original human family was irish, but she’s adopted a deep southern accent for this particular job and, holy shit, is stricklander into it

2. they have three children together before jim enters the picture - aurora, walker and alexander (a little mashup of all the stricklake kids i’ve written for other fics). rory is a total daddy’s girl, walker and alex are literally chaos twins. they’re about eighty years older than jim. he’s met them and thinks they’re his cousins

3. nik (an oc from variables) shows up as a braya’s changeling nestmate who just happens to have spent a month fucking around with stricklander in greece some 60 years previous. he delivers all four of the stricklake babies. nannies the older ones a bit, too. the look on stricklander’s face when braya first introduces them is priceless

4. kodanth is so over these two. they had one job™️ but he’s still dealing with their bullshit a hundred years later, and yeah, ok, they’ve become his most favorite walnuts but seriously? four kids, an annoyingly codependent relationship, and a whole familial unit (auntie nomura and uncle otto included) focused more on themselves than the greater good is just a little too much for him and his blood pressure, thank you

5. stricklake carry out what could be considered a legitimate affair from the time they reunite prior to jim’s freshman year until sometime time in the near distant future (that i haven’t figured out yet) if they weren’t already, ya know, married. which. isn’t entirely true. because they are bonded mates. there was a ceremony back in the 30’s and everything. and as far as they’re concerned, that trumps any human vows barbara may have exchanged with james lake sr. who knows something is going on between his ‘wife’ and the local high school history teacher but can’t quite figure out what (until jim becomes the trollhunter, of course, and a threat ultimatum is made)

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May I give some additions? As I feel that initial post misses some points.

Barbara is the sole provider for the family (not even the primary one, as Jim has no part-time job), meaning that she deals with mortgage, food and medical expenses and household bills. From the very beginning it was established that she overworked herself to the bone - and Jim worried because of that enough to mention it to Strickler. But it's not like the overworking was fully Barbara's choice - later we see that her true passion is painting (which is hidden in the basement, most likely simply because of the lack of time for it) yet she works the job which provides more money.

It's also not like she ditches the household entirely as we see several cooking attempts (disastrous ones and both Jim and Barbara are aware of it). It's more like circumstances of James leaving made both Jim and Barbara take over new roles. I assume that James was the one who dealt with cooking while having a job of his own and Barbara had her own job and dealt with some chores of her own, which was balanced household. Now, James left (and I feel like he sends no money to them) and someone has to do work of two adults and do household chores worth two adults. I imagine that initially Barbara focused on the job aspect and simply had no energy to deal with the household (as someone who works double shifts - you simply don't want to live after those let alone do a thing). I can imagine there were only take outs for a while and not that clean house.

That was where Jim took the role of the housekeeper. Was it the right thing? Honestly, every child deserves a childhood but the world sucks and there was no other choice. Because of that Jim matured faster in certain aspects.

The status quo didn't change and wouldn't change until there is another one provider (or Barbara finds the job which takes less time and pays more which is nearly impossible). And if Jim goes to the college, it'll mean more expenses, so yeah, they stuck like this.

The initial post frames it like it's solely Barbara's fault, but I feel it's more like the society as a whole is one to blame because a lone mother cannot live with her child without sacrificing something, which is a tragedy.

As for Strickler, I feel like it's tricky thing. Sure thing, Barbara gets selfish when it comes to her relationship with Strickler, but let's remember that initially Jim likes Strickler a lot, enough to treat him like a confidante, and Barbara only meets Strickler for the first time because he comes to discuss Jim's issues. We mostly see Jim's point of view, but if we consider Barbara's, we have the man who clearly worries about her son and whom her son likes and trusts a lot. Dating when you have a child is often a mess when you need to balance love and family and try to incorporate new person into your life.

And as Barbara knows nothing about the trollhunting, from her point of view Jim's change of attitude towards Strickler happens because of her dating him.I imagine she thought it was a simple jealousy (and it could be that Strickler told her so too). Of course, the main mistake was the lack of talk to Jim (though, would Jim tell her his real reasoning for disliking Strickler?).

I'm rewatching Trollhunters in the background right now, and the disfunctional mother son relationship between Jim and his mom is making me crazy.

Like, he's taking care of the household and his mother for years as a teenager and before probably. She is sometimes giving half hearted comments about him not having to do so much, but very obviously she's not gonna make him stop do all the cooking and cleaning. Y'know. Both because they've been living like this for years, and because it's obviously also very comfortable to have someone do all the house work.

Then Strickler comes into the picture, and if we ignore the whole Troll and changeling side of the story, Barabara gets very offended cause Jim doesn't want her to meet him privately. Again, ignoring the whole magic and trolls stuff, STRICKLER IS JIMS TEACHER. If Jim hadn't figured out that Strickler was a changeling he probably wouldn't have a problem with it, but the fact that he does, no matter the reason, should be enough for Barbara to put a stop to the relationship. Her child is clearly uncomfortable with her seeing/dating that guy, for whatever reason, and even clearly vocalized it. But she doesn't care about, or rather, she tells Jim that she "wouldn't expect something like that" from him. Obviously not, cause she may see him like her child/teenager he is, BUT DOESN'T TREAT HIM LIKE ONE.

And then Jim, unknowingly to Barbara, becomes the Trollhunter, and his behavior changes. He's suddenly doing reckless stuff, sneaking out, getting bruises, landing in detention and even at the police station, barely avoiding a police report. What does she do? Asking him what's going on? If everything's alright at school? If he has any other problems? Maybe trying to lower his workload around the house, which again, he's doing most of that as a teenager and longer probably.

Nah. She doesn't do anything until he lands in the hospital. Except for again, dismissing him rather negatively at the one topic he's openly expressing any negative opinions about (Strickler). And after he lands in the hospital she now starts not asking questions, but demanding answers. Demanding answers from a teenager in a difficult situation who is also now acting much more like a teenager than he ever did before, from her point of view at least. Except she obviously doesn't know how to deal with a teenager, cause she has never had to raise or live with a teenager. She instead lived with a child pretending to be an adult for years, that was partly much more of an adult than she was, who did way to much work even before Jim became the Trollhunter. So she throws punishments at him and grounds him, but does he listen?

No. Cause why should he? Not only is he dealing with things much more important than being grounded, yknow, saving the world, he's trying to protect her from the sheer knowledge of the supernatural and physically protecting her from getting harmed. And again, for the majority of the time since his dad left he pretended to be an adult. He was and is the main adult in the household, dealing with important things she doesn't even know about.

The only one's treating Jim like a teenager are teachers, other children and Blinky and Aaargh sort of when they're not in the middle of Troll business. Strickler, in the first episodes where Jim doesn't know about his true identity, is much more of a parental figure to Jim (also after his redemption later on tbh) than his mother.

In summary: Barbara is treating her son like an adult, almost like a partner, instead of a child/teenager. And when that isn't possible anymore she doesn't know how to properly treat him. She also doesn't really care that her son is uncomfortable with her being around Strickler, or Strickler in general. And it takes Blinky telling her (when Jim is 16) that Jim might be affected by his father leaving when he was five years old.

Jim meanwhile is treating his mother more like a child/teenager instead of the adult and MOTHER that she is. Seeing her as his responsibility. Cooking for her. Cleaning for her. Telling her to rest and take breaks.

They obviously love each other other. And their relationship might not be toxic, but it's very much disfunctional. In a way that is mostly negative for Jim.