Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which It's Fanart Again lol
(And yes, there are mild spoilers for Tears of the Kingdom)

Okay, so today was gonna be some cool digital art but... I'm nowhere near done. I'm about 5% done, in fact. Maybe 7% max. This is a big project, since I'm crafting it pixel by pixel, and it's gonna take a long time. There's a reason that the file name is "da big wun" lol.

And I'm maybe playing a little too much Tears of the Kingdom for things to be good for me.

My initial backup plan was to draw you guys a couple Light Dragon shots - namely a funny perspective shot and then a copy of The Epic Moment of Awesomeness where you get the Master Sword. Seriously, that's such a freaking incredible moment, and I've never felt more like a truly legendary hero in a video game than in that one scene. If you know, you know. If you don't, and you don't mind spoilers, look up the cutscene where you get the Master Sword. It's super cool.

I cannot for the life of me draw the Light Dragon.

So I opted for something a little... simpler.

See, down in the Depths, you'll sometimes spot piles of rocks with ghostly figures standing on them. Each of these spectral people are holding a pristine weapon that goes with their race. Hylian Soldiers will hold regular Hylian weapons - Traveler's Swords, Royal Weapons, etc. Gerudo Warriors will hold Gerudo weapons. Gorons will hold Goron weapons. While I haven't seen any Rito, I'd imagine they'd hold things like Feathered Edges and Throwing Spears.

There are also Zora, who of course hold Zora Spears, Zora Longswords, etc.

I love the weird top-heavy design of the Zora. They have short legs and long arms, and you can tell they're Not Human At All, but they've still got enough human shape to seem friendly.

That friendliness is far less apparent in the Depths, because they have no faces.

Still, those pristine weapons are very nice.

So I drew one of those lonely spirits, holding their Spear, waiting for Link...

Probably scaring the life out of the Yiga who can't see them.

"The Depths"; pen & colored pencil sketch; 2023
[FANART]

I'd love to redo this picture in Krita at some point. I like the idea of it, much like I enjoy the design for the spirits. It's too hard to get the white outline with colored pencil, even having white gel pens, and I just managed to color over it when I tried to leave it open.

That being said, I'd also really like to keep practicing the Light Dragon, and I may even try to do something about the other three wandering Dragons at some point.

For now, though, I'm going to go find some trouble. If I'm very careful, I might be able to take down a Gleeok with my current armors...

And I do still have a lot of work to do on that digital piece.

I hope you guys are having good Art Days!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

(PS: The Something this week is The Moment from TOTK that I was talking about earlier, so uh, Spoilers Ahoy)

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which The Best Laid Plans are Often Laid on by my Cat...

I've been working on a couple of pieces lately, and they're going really well, it's just... my cat, you see. She thinks it's a good time to lay on me. All the time.

Yesterday, 90% of my Working time was taken up with Mandatory Cuddles, and they absolutely are mandatory. You wouldn't think an 8lb cat could push a laptop off of someone's lap, but she can and will if she wants those cuddles.

Today at least she decided to sleep on my pillow instead of invade my personal space.

That being said, I couldn't finish either Da Big One (a 4200x4800 pixel piece) or Button Study (which is made on a button template that I had to finagle hardcore because I do not own any form of Photoshop and of course Threadless only offers templates in psd. Thankfully Krita opens that format, but I can't really use Krita for pixel art the way I do it, so uh... finagling). Too much cat, too little work.

Instead, I managed to sketch a little wandering Korok for you guys!

"I Need To Find My Friend!"; colored pencil & ink on sketch paper; 2023
[VEGETABLE? ANIMAL? (what even are Koroks...)]

Here's a lil guy trying to go on an adventure just like the Hero! It's even easier for Koroks, because most monsters and people cannot see them, and therefor, they cannot harm them.

Obviously Koroks can't get hurt.

Look what all these psychopaths are doing to Koroks in Tears of the Kingdom.

I could never! I honestly feel bad when I accidentally let them roll down a hill. Do I almost always deliver them in the longest, most difficult manner possible? Yes. Do I still do it as gently as I can? Absolutely. They're just little guys who don't get why you're disappointed by their rewards. Yes, a giant golden poo is... not a great reward, but my guess is they know you're gonna get a garden and think you could use the "seeds" as fertilizer.

This does however make me wonder if Mineru can attach a Korok onto her back? I doubt it. You can't Fuse them, after all. The meat arrow Recall trick only works because you Ultrahand the Korok to the meat arrow before you recall it...

Of course, future me now wants to draw Mineru with a Korok in a baby sling because I am ridiculous.

Yeah, it's the Big Thing for me lately, Tears of the Kingdom. I'm sure most of you who've been playing have already kicked Ganondorf in his Dragmires several times already, but I'm 1) a coward who is too scared to go into the depths and sweaty-palms their way through the Sky Islands, 2) fighting drift in both sticks now (Link, please stop WALKING INTO THE CHASM I DON'T WANT TO GO IN THERE), and 3) exploring my heart out in all these familiar-yet-utterly-changed places! Seriously, it's such a different world from Breath of the Wild. It feels way bigger than BoTW, just on the surface!

So yeah, that's been my week. I hope you guys are all having a good art week!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which Today's Art is... Prestigious

Today's art was brought to you by Z, who bought me a coffee and asked for a DEDBERT drawing! I was, as always, very excited to draw my boy, so here he is channeling his inner Zatara and performing some magic for us!

"Prestige"; colored pencil & micron pen; 2022

Dug out an old sketchbook of mine to do this. Unfortunately, this sketchbook is too chonky to go in my scanner (if the thing is works again...), so I had to snap a pic and upload it.

I love how he always looks faintly bored with anything he's doing! He's just so... mono-expressive, and yet that single look conveys so much lol!

If you'd like to have a say on what I draw next week, feel free to buy me a coffee over on Ko-fi with a message telling me what category you'd like to see next. This week's was "DEDBERT", for instance!

Available categories are:

• Animal
• Vegetable
• Mineral
• Dedbert
• Location
• Geometric
• Word

Anywho, minor self-advertising aside, I'm looking forward to sketching and writing more this month.

Yes, it's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), so I'll be working even harder than usual on my various manuscripts. I'm hoping to make some real headway this month, too.

I'm not, however, ascribing to the, frankly insane, wordcounts recommended by some people doing NaNoWriMo. No, your manuscript does not have to be 80k-100k words long for the love of God.

You're not Stephen King.

You're don't need to write 1200 words a day. You don't need to avoid sleep or food or hygiene to get your book done.

Just... write.

Just sit down and write a sentence.

Will you finish your novel this month? Probably not. It's an unrealistic expectation for a world where a lot of aspiring writers work 40-90 hours a week.

Just write one sentence after another as often and as long as you can without causing yourself undue hardship. Don't skip meals. Don't skip sleep. Don't skip hanging out with friends. Don't deny yourself your life while you're writing.

Your book is in you. You're just putting it down into writing. It's not as scary or complex as you think it is. You can do that. You can write your book.

And so can I!

By the way, if you're more art focused and feel a bit of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) with NaNoWriMo, then you could try writing/drawing a graphic novel of some sort? They're usually much shorter than a novel, but that's because you're cutting out most of the visual detail in the writing process and putting it into the art process! I still recommend writing out a script for a comic or graphic novel - that way you have a plan for what you're going to do!

Heck, if you're an artist who wants to branch out into writing, you can also use Visual Storyboarding to help you work out what you'll write! Basically, just storyboard out a scene, image by image, and then try to write out what you just drew - describe it! Writing is just describing life, whether or not that life you're describing is or was happening in the real world.

Anywho, that'll about do it for me. I'm a little bran-jellied from the art and I'm gonna try to figure out my next move in my manuscript.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Have Finished The Big One

I sometimes bite off more than I can chew. In the case of my supposed "Thanksgiving" artwork... well, y'all can maybe tell it took longer than I wanted.

I'm pretty damn proud of it, though.

This has to be the largest amount of characters I've drawn in a scene in my life. I showed the sketches a couple weeks ago, and I've actually been working on this since then. My first two attempts failed because I was trying to sketch straight with colored pencil instead of regular pencil. Also, you'd think sketchbook paper would hold up better to erasing than it does...

So it's instead on my big watercolor paper.

The 11"x15" (27,9 x 38,1 cm) 140lb/300g stuff.

So yeah. It's pretty freakin huge lol!

"Anyone For Dessert?"; Colored Pencil on watercolor paper; 2021

Oh my god the detail I put into this made my hands and eyes ache but I'm very proud of myself! Each critter has their own personality, and there are some... references within (plus one very silly in-joke between my boyfriend and I, since I made this for him!).

Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat (detail); 2021

Here we see a Very Done wombat who deeply regrets asking an owl to bring dessert to a Friendsgiving with primarily herbivores. He's not surprised, not at all, but he is quite disappointed. In himself.

Groundhog (detail); 2021

Did I base this groundhog off of Chunk the Groundhog? Yes, of course I did. I love that little guy! I drew him with his trademark open-mouthed horror and butterfingers. The tomato will, of course, get scooped up momentarily. Five second rule and all that...

Beaver (detail); 2021

Nothing like nibbling on a twig and then finding out your friend has brought a horror show for dessert, eh, Mr. Beaver? He's knocked over his log chair in surprise!

Sea Otter (detail); 2021

If you know me, you know I've spent the bulk of the panini watching the livestreams of Joey the orphaned otter pup growing up. I've rendered him in watercolor pencil, cautiously stashing a clam in his shirt pocket as he wonders what this dessert thing is all about.

Lop-Eared Rabbit (detail); 2021

A few years ago, I started following Insta-famous bunny "Tato" (short for "Worried Potato") and fell in love with his floopiness. How could I resist putting an homage to the first bunny-blogger I ever followed?! Obviously, a bunny will be nervous around an owl, but now they're 100% convinced they'll be the main course next time! Don't worry, lil buddy, Dedbert's got two bunnies as adoptive brothers. You're safe!

Dedbert (detail); 2021

Here's my boy, proudly showing off the Chocolate Mouse he made. He has no idea what the fuss is about. Wait, what do you mean there's a second S? Why are you guys freaking out? This is good stuff! He hunted all night for those mice!!!

All in all, I am insanely proud of this piece, and I cannot believe how well it came out. Are there things I'd change? Yeah, of course, but being an artist always means stopping before it's "done" or you'll never finish anything.

This won't be the last time you see any of these critters, by the way. I have... plans for this month. Starting in 10 days, in fact.

Do with this information what you will.

But for now, I am exhausted and my hands smell like watercolor and wood. Good night folks!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which There Was a Delivery And I Drew!

Today was very very busy! The other day, I got a delivery of art supplies - my Buff Titanium watercolor stick from Daniel Smith and a paint box by Emooqi - and since then, I've been looking forward to testing them.

Unfortunately for me, I don't paint well while stressed, and with Evie the Wondercat going to the vet's tomorrow for her annual tooth cleaning and polyp check, I'm pretty stressed. I knew painting was going to have to wait.

Here's what I got, though:

This box is cardboard and has a magnetic flap as a closure!

I'll be honest, I just bought this set of 48 paints to put myself over the free shipping limit, but I was so pleasantly surprised at the quality! It really is worth every penny on Amazon (I'm not affiliated in any way, I'm just impressed!). I've never heard of "Emooqi" but if this is the kind of stuff they put out, I'll have to keep an eye out.

A swatching card for the paints!

Watercolor paper! Two Water Brushes! Three Fineliner Brushes! A Drawing Pencil...
A Fantastic palette! (Plus the Daniel Smith watercolor stick I also ordered)

I expected, when I picked this up, that the palette would be cheap plastic, but as soon as I picked up the package I was surprised by its weight.

Guys, that tri-fold palette is METAL!

You read that right, the palette is made of metal, has a hanging loop on the back, and holds at least one water brush (or multiple traditional brushes). There are wells for holding wet colors and trays for mixing colors, and it's just... it's fantastic. I'm in love with this big, heavy palette.

Now let's talk about the Buff Titanium watercolor stick

I have, ever since beginning to follow Nianiani on YouTube, wanted to have Buff Titanium. It's a soft, warm beige color, and she uses it for *everything*. We have a lovely art shop on our main street in my hometown, and they have a gorgeous collection of various tubes of watercolor in every single shade... except Buff Titanium.

So I looked on the interwebs and Amazon had me covered. I could either get a half pan for 7 dollars plus 7 dollars shipping or I could get the stick from Daniel Smith themselves for 10 dollars or so and free shipping if I got up to 25 bucks.

Believe it or not, I didn't fail economics. I passed. For me, getting two useful items for 29 dollars has greater worth than getting one useful item for 14 bucks. 

I've never used a paint stick, though, so I looked up some videos and it turns out it's a lot like a watercolor pencil but since there's no wood coating, you can just use the stick like a pan and brushy-brushy, you're off to buff-town!

I also used that swatch sheet:

The Swatch matches the order in the palette
plus that lil Buff Titanium swatch by itself

I managed to do all that and then I realized I didn't have time to make a good painting.

So I decided I'd combine three things I love - Australian Animals, Autumn, and Drawing.

"Down Under Harvest (unlined)"; colored pencil & graphite; 2021

"Down Under Harvest (Lined)"; colored pencil, graphite, and Pigma Micron PN; 2021

I wasn't sure which look I liked better at first, but I have a definite favorite. The animals are, from left to right, a Quokka holding kale, a Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat perched on a pumpkin, and a Bilby with an apple.

I freaking love drawing wombats. They're such expressive, chubby, adorable creatures. I just want to cuddle them all but I know they'd nibble my face off.

They're biters.

I love them.

Anywho, that'll about do it for me today!

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which There Is A Lot Of Cold and Cheese...

I've been hard at work drawing today! Feels good to get something I said I'd do done. Which is a horrible sentence, but hey, I drew! I don't care!

And what did I draw?

Well, a couple of things, to be honest.

See, it's suddenly freezing (literally) cold again. It was all of 31℉ (-0.5℃) when I got up, and there were these horrid little flurries coming down. The birds outside were very confused.

Someone else was furious...

"What the Heck, Spring?!"; colored pencil on legal size printer paper; 2021

Poor Dedbert is not happy that his nice warm days have suddenly been interrupted by fluffy white nonsense fluttering down from a gray, dreary sky!

Thankfully, though, the snow isn't sticking around, and we should get back to springtime sooner rather than later!

Now, my other piece is somehow even sillier, and it also has to do with something white, though this something is delicious rather than precipitous. In fact, it's so delicious, it's begun to infuriate my partner with its awesomeness.

It's cheese, guys.

We're both obsessed with cheese, to be fair.

My partner is also obsessed with wombats - the adorable furry tank of a marsupial that digs burrows in Australia and whose closest cousin is the adorable, yet incredibly dumb, koala.

So I combined those wonderful things :P

"Triple Cream?!?!?!"; colored pencil and gel pen on legal size printer paper; 2021

This is Wommie. He is 100% obsessed with how perfect and delicious brie is, and he's just discovered triple cream brie - which is, in his opinion, overkill. I mean, he's still gonna eat it, don't get me wrong, but he's a bit overwhelmed at the thought of that much cream!

A minor disclaimer here, though - 99.999% of the wombat population cannot and should not eat brie, since they're herbivores and tend to have a hard time digesting dairy. Wommie is special. He's downright magical.

He also has a hard time with his R's, but that's because of the way his mouth is built. It's made for eating roots and grasses, not pronouncing silly human words!

Anywho, I'm ready for a break! If you've made something today, go ahead and tell me about it!

And Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk - Capra aegagrus

 

In Which I May Learn Ya Somethin

It occurs to me that I missed Tuesday's Talk About Tuesday blog. Sorry about that. I was swept up in a whirlwind of working on crochet and just being sleepy :)

We've hit a brief warm patch here in the Blanket Fort - outside temps today were around 44℉ (6.7℃)! It was cloudy and sprinkling during my walk, so the heavy fleece and beanie that I wore were helpful at offsetting the damp chill (and keeping my unruly mane out of my face - gotta keep my hands off my face!). I went to the shop and picked up some snacks and sodas, and I just enjoyed my exercise.

But enough about that, I promised you art, and educational art at that!

First, though, I have to tell you where the idea for this short three-panel comic comes from:

Ghost Town Living on Youtube.

You may have heard of this guy before - he's a dude who bought a ghost town named Cerro Gordo and is now fixing it up. He lives up there all by his lonesome except for the wild bobcats. And the kittens he took in from a farmer who didn't want them. And some goats.

It's the goats I'm talking about today - specifically the #1 goat, Tofu.

Tofu is adorable. He's this lil brown-and-white turbo-charged latte of a goat who is absolutely adorable and precious and I love him.

He lives in an area where bobcats are not only plentiful, but they're gutsy, too. So I worried at first about the lil dude's chances.

And now I know I won't have to.

Why? Well... he's a Boer goat. Lemme show ya:

Bobcat crouching in the grass "Goat burgers coming up..." as a goat grazes in front of him.

[DID YOU KNOW:] caption. The bobcat notices and is distracted. "Eh?". The goat is nonplussed.

The goat is heckin buff. Caption reads [Adult Boer Goats can weigh around 300lbs (That's ~136kg!)]
The bobcat is in awe. "Heck"
Small caption with an arrow pointing to bobcat: [Bobcat = ~40lbs (~18kg)]

So there ya go. We need not fear for Tofu's wellbeing - he's gonna outweigh literally every animal in Cerro Gordo in the future. So are his bros, Elon and Baretta (at least I think that's the other goat's name?).

Hope this gave you a chuckle! Hope you learned something new!

Hope you Go Enjoy Something!

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Made Bubbles Again

My original plan for today was to make a nice picture of a mushroom. Nothing special, just one of those amanita-like spotted mushrooms everyone who makes mushroom-based designs seems to love. Then I realized that I haven't bought snacks since probably June and the craving for toaster pastries overwhelmed me.

So I started making a quick and dirty bubble art sheet with my highlighters and colored pencils.

"BonkBubbles" colored pencil and highlighter on printer paper; 2021 

I like how this one turned out, but I think I'll like it more once I scan it (the scanner is not synced with my new laptop and I just don't have the patience for that today, sorry!) and maybe do a little manipulation in Paint.net. I'm not sure what I'll do yet, but maybe I'll also draw a little mushroom and then scan that in, cut it out, paste it over the bubbles... we'll see!

As for my walk, it was... fraught.

I'm an impatient person when I want to do something. Doubly so when there are other people involved. I hate shopping, and I extra hate that I have to literally walk uphill both ways from the nearest shop. That's not an exaggeration. I actually have to walk uphill in either direction. It sucks. I don't like it. 

Well, unfortunately for me, I had to take an even steeper side of the hill this time because there was a crew pruning trees along my usual route. I had to go about a third of a mile (approx 0.49km) out of my way, which brought my round trip to about 1.5 miles (2.42km) instead of about a half mile (0.81km).

And it was snowing.

At least it was a reasonably temperate 28 degrees (-2℃) with no real wind to speak of, but it's very hard to see where you're going when you have to wear both a mask and very, very, very thick glasses.

So I came home in somewhat of a mood only to trip over the cat and then be let down by a lot of the stupid stuff they're releasing with Resident Evil: Village.

Major bummer.

This is where the idea of the BonkBubbles came from. Usually, I just go through my pencils or markers or whatever one by one, laying down a strip of each color in succession with the end goal being something incredibly rainbow-toned, but today I did things a bit differently. I cracked open my highlighters and laid down dots of each color (six yellow dots, four pink, four blue, five green, and six orange), and then outlined each in every colored pencil of the same color family. I would do one ring for each dot before starting from the beginning again with the next pencil. So yellow dots got yellow rings, green dots got green rings, etc.

Here's where the Bonk part comes in. Whenever I was running a ring of one color and it "bonked" into another (because the space is limited), I would then outline the shape I bonked in that color. Eventually I ran out of shapes that were outlined in green or blue and could only use yellow, pink, and orange. Eventually I bonked into yellow with orange. Eventually I bonked into orange with pink.

Pink, therefor, despite only having four origin points, took over completely, which shocked me, since I thought for sure it'd be either yellow or orange!

I liked that experiment, so I'll probably try something similar with my permanent markers at some point, or just a pure colored pencil sheet! I'd also like to try something similar digitally, but I'd try to do color mixing on that one, so if I was "bonking" a yellow bubble into a blue one, they'd mix colors and I'd end up with a green outline from then on. That could get really interesting!

I think that'll about do it for me today. I am le tired. But FC it was only 1.5 miles, you shouldn't be tired! I know. I'm not tired from the walk. I'm just tired (it's overcast and cloudy days make me tired lol). I'll maybe start that digital bonkbubble art later :)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk: Sleepy Bubbles

 

Let's Be Real - It's Been A Week

Everything has been pretty wild the last few... okay, years, but particularly the last week or so has been freaking crazy. In every way. And my insomnia started kicking back in this week, too, so today has been a very sleepy, gummy-eyed kind of day. I got up late, showered late, dressed late, got my coffee late, and started drawing late.

But I still drew!!!

"Bubbly 1" colored pencil and gel pen on sketch pad; 2021

I used my new gel pens and colored pencils for this one, and I'd love to remake it on a larger, smoother paper some day, because it feels a bit more crowded than I'd like and I only got three rows deep in the pencil cube. I'd also like to add in my markers and crayons some time, but honestly, four mediums seems like two too many on paper this size (it's 11x14in or 27.9x37.6cm). In person, the colors are much more dayglo (especially the yellows!) but I kind of like the pastel look it has on film. And the final outline is in a purple glitter gel pen, not black (yay color balance...).

As for why I haven't used the scanner... well... unfortunately the gel pen isn't drying very well, and I don't want to have to wipe down the scanner bed every time I make art. Also, it's not wide enough or long enough to accommodate my sketchbook :(

I think I'll try to get in a quick day of Stardew before settling in for the night ;)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Swatch & Thumbnail!

I'm not very good about the leadup to a piece (as is evidenced by every work of art I've made...) so today is all leadup! I was given a Christmas gift by my grandmother - a pack of 70 colored pencils by a company I've never heard of (Nicole) - and decided I should do my due diligence and test out how they work!

The Pencils in Question

The first thing I did was take every single pencil and swatch them out. For those who do not use, follow, or know art terms, that just means that I tested them! I started from the back of the box to the front, left to right, row by row. I ended up with a messy grid that let me know what to expect on my toothy, soft sketchbook paper from these pencils, and I also ended up with that weird feeling I always get after inhaling the waxy smell from crayons for too long, so bonus? All's I know is this: I don't mind the smell, but it makes my eyelids feel heavy and gummy, so maybe that's an allergy?

Regardless, I swatched out all seventy pencils and discovered there were probably a lot of doubled colors. I don't mind this - I'll probably use up the doubled colors pretty fast (peach, brown, gray, black, etc). I also noticed that the neon colors are... very neon! It's hard to look directly at the neon yellow lol. I kinda hope I find some black paper to test them on...

And then I sketched out a little picture of Dedbert riding a slug up to some snowdrops. Why? Why not?!

The Swatch & The Thumbnail/Sketch!

I really like the way these colors work, and I hope that in the future I can use them for a better thought out project, like a faux stained glass effect or some kind of dreamy scene. For today, I just wanted to test the supplies out. I'll probably test them with the gel pens, my sharpies, and also maybe the pack of highlighters I have. I think that'd be fun to see how they all interact!

The Swatches

The grid I have is kind of misleading because Column A is actually the last row of the box and Column G is the front with Row 1 being the left hand side and Row 10 being on the right. Still, I know what I'm looking at and I suppose that's what matters? It's a very pretty set of colors. They should blend into each other nicely once I find an inexpensive blender or make one from rolled paper. It's been forever since I had one.

"Snowdrops"; colored pencil & ballpoint pen; 2021

As for Dedbert and his slug? I want to try using this scene with a few different mediums, so look forward to seeing this in gel pen, just ballpoint pen, crayon, Sharpie, and possibly more! I will be getting back to my fruit dragons at some point, too, and I hope to start reintroducing the watermelon dragon into my work!

That'll about do it for me today. I'm exhausted and I kinda just want to curl up with some more lemon tea and check out the new safety eyes that came in today for future amigurumi projects.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC