Maria Ochoa

Kingdom of the Dead

Today we dive into parts of Zorca culture and history!

Original post that inspired this is found here!

Unlike most zora, the zorca don’t have a kingdom or territory to ...

The Zorca (Zora Orca)

🐋 The Basics 

The average zorca is larger than a hylian zora, ranging from 15 to 20 ft in height. They're bulkier and wider, carryin...

Comic - Meet Cute not EAT Cute! (cont)

Here is the rest of my comic about Yona and Cironus' first meeting! There was a bit of a gap between pages but finished is finished! And when I did work on these pages it had me smiling and that's always a good sign. This comic may or may not have been an excuse to learn how to draw Yona and add in my own story bits about her...

Denison Denizens

Early in the summer I was browsing FF7 spaces to look for a roleplaying community. Unfortunately the ones I found were small and very exclusive to the point it isolated a lot of the active players who slowly began to quit. By the time I was working on a blog to test the waters, it was too late 😔

My blog was going to ...

Comic - An unorthodox engagement

When I was wrapping up my sketchbook I wanted to draw some happily ever after moments for Rufus and Diana. But the two like to troll each and Rufus enjoys being a bastard XD They both been through a lot of hardships that changed them both, and this type of interaction was a way to tell the other "It's safe, we can be ourselve...

In this house we love and respect Barret Wallace

This was one of my favorite spreads from my ff7 sketchbook. Here I was doing studies for Barret and played with more ideas where I inserted Diana into Rebirth.

I started asking questions regarding how the others took care of their basic needs like food and water when traveling. Diana became the member who made sure to ...

Scheduled posts

I don't want this place to be totally quiet but I'm not quite ready to jump back online and socialize. So expect a queue to slowly upload posts here and there during the month. Be on the lookout for:

- Art from my FF7 sketchbook! Some I never could upload because the files were lost during the laptop incident

- Th...

Temporary Hiatus

Hey all,

I wanted to let everyone here know I'll be absent for a while. Originally it was to say that this coming week is Thanksgiving, but yesterday I had to go to the ER due to some chest sensations I've been having over the past week. The doctors told me it looked like stress, but they wanted to make sure it was noth...

Zora dating game

I was doing prompts on my blog to keep my mind of events and one prompt was to draw a chosen character as if they were in a dating sim. The first chosen was Sardon and had a lot of fun with the process and someone else chose Cironus so that came later. I'm really proud with making the whole thing look like something from the ...

something of a roll call

Hello! So I wanted to gauge and see who visits and checks out my art on patreon. I have a few friends who leave comments and others leave something in the tip jar and go on their way and both are appreciated!

My audience is very small and I kept telling myself when/if it grew I would love to do something to engage with...

October is Octover :<

The month was a little weird for me. Some online drama knocked the wind out of my sails and I've been focused on that and been occupied with paranoia and self confidence issues. In turn I put a lot of personal projects to the side but tried to distract myself with positive things! I did a lot of smaller doodles I was able to ...

Old Light Falls

This idea was inspired by the lyrics from Songs for No One by Caligula's Horse. I've been associating it with Cironus and his healing powers, and some lyrics made me think about how the zorca would have funerals and connected it to whale falls.

It started as a sketch, then had to add markers and then used black washi t...

Dolphin studies

The week has been rough in a lot of ways so this was a nice little way to cool down and decompress. My friend's dolphin zora is based on a short-beaked common dolphin and wow they're pretty! So I did a few warm up sketches using refs, and a random mermaid/human AU in the corner featuring Sona, Sardon and Cironus XD

Comic - Girl Talk

This is a "mini episode" comic for my friend's Legend of Zelda fancomic, featuring their dolphin zora speaking with Yona. For context, Sona and my zorca boy, Sardon had just expressed affection for one another, followed by a courting gesture Sardon's people do called teeth raking! Which unfortunately, drew a little blood on p...

Banners for a new blog

As the title says! Wanted to make some banners to decorate a new blog. Lately I've been struggling to focus and a big hang up I've been feeling lately is finding ways to organize my work. Even though having my work "in order" is not a necessity, it's still something my brain kept dwelling on and it felt like it prevented me f...

Comic - Meet Cute not EAT Cute!

This was a small side project I'm working on here and there about how Cironus and Yona met. It's not finished yet but I wanted to get the first set of pages up as I work on the rest. I've been really inspired to get back into comics and be more loose with my scenes, if that makes sense? I tend to fuss a lot over each panel so...

Agra the Red Panda

For October I'm kinda going willy-nilly with OC-tober. Friends and I made a list of prompts so we're picking and choosing whatever, to do whenever!

I was following Smacky's example and doing a species swap! The idea was to turn Agra into one of those animal people you see around the DB world and my first choice was a f...

Comic - Careful, he bites!

So this month has been something! I've been wanting to share my art on my blog but also have something to share here. And the weather is slowly changing and the barometric pressure has been getting to me so there's been days where I had no energy at all.

But here we are! These pages will debut in a few days for...

The Zorca have returned!

Before the laptop crash, I started on a new sketchbook and LoZ was my hyper-fixation again! But I've been itching to do more with Cironus, and I have! To start with, I'm sharing some character ref sheets to get some basic ideas down on paper, and it also includes his family I've been working on. They got to have a part in a l...

Laptop update

Despite all the help from so many wonderful and nice people, this update basically bricked my laptop and the security key needed (which was not given to me at all) is the only thing that could fix it. And was told that without this key (which cannot be replicated) the hard drive on my laptop might as well not exist. So after ...

Laptop issues

So a dumb update locked up my laptop and there's no solution so far that allows me in. Our last LAST option is resetting everything which will erase all my work I have saved 😭 we don't want to do that yet. Fingers crossed there can be another option.

For now, art uploading will be on hold. I'm not using the site app ...

More of Diana's family history

In July I finished this sketchbook and now it's just a slow journey to get all the pages I like scanned and uploaded here.

This set of pages are ones I'm really fond of. When I can tell stories through art it feels POWERFUL! It doesn't have to be in like full comic form either, just as long as I can be coherent with my ...

Art Fight 2024!

Apologies for being silent most of the month. I have been busy doing art fight once again!

I didn't do as many as I planned and I struggled a bit with wanting to keep my coloring style consistent, but like last year, it was a fun learning experience. It's great to get out of my comfort zones and draw new faces, and sett...

Comic - Smile!

Another comic of shenanigans, featuring Aerith and Diana. In Rebirth, when the group is in Junon you come across a group of soldiers who are taking pictures with a standee of Rufus Shinra. So I started playing with the idea of what would Diana do? Especially when Aerith is more than happy to enable self indulgent impulses :3c...

IM BACK ON MY BULLSHIT

I never left honestly. While I was doing Zora May pictures I was also continuing my sketchbook of FF7 shipping related things! It's extremely freeing to be this feral and unhinged over something :D

I used a lot of reference to help me work on dynamic poses and Ive been trying to push myself to draw small scenes, somethi...

Age of Calamity: Cironus profile!

My final piece for Zora May was doing a mock page for Cironus as if he had a profile in the Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity game! The art style for BotW and TotK have this cool painterly look to them and I wanted to give that a try. I always worry my art doesn't look so great when it lacks solid lines like the sketch. But I ...

Memes, courtship and accessories!

More prompts from Zora May, featuring Yona and Sidon this time! I spoofed a few memes to show Cironus being silly and flirty with the two. Initially I had this idea that he'd be crushing hard on Yona but with all the ship wars that go on, I realized nah don't want any love triangles or drama. There is that old adage that "X c...

Rock on, you big whale

I did these for Zora May's prompt "Water Magic" because Cironus' powers come from his songs/voice, and like Mipha, Sidon and Yona he's following the trend of doing supportive magic! His song spells are similar to how food recipes work in BotW/TotK where they can increase hearts, add attack and defense, etc. And he would have ...

Lizalfos snack!

There's a beautiful painting called "Sealed Fate" that inspired this. Bokoblins and Lizalfos have become part of the zorca diet, and you see enough of them in the games where they frequent beach areas that it would be plausible. Orcas are s...

Deleting my Deviant Art account

I'm going to delete my old Devart account, but only after I save all my stored art which will take some time. I had left DA over a decade ago but I couldn't bring myself to delete it then because there were many fond memories and I enjoyed looking at my old art and comments and convos left by my friends.

But the site it...