Last post of 2014: VinceAda Hell

Long time no post again. To be honest, I haven't been drawing much. I'd thought I'd be able to draw so much in December, but I failed. orz I'm trying to draw for at least 1 hour every day, though. But it seems I'm only getting worse and worse... ;___;

This is a scribble I did for Halloween. It wasn't turning out well, so I never finished it.

Very quick draft for a big picture I'd like to draw one day. Knowing myself I'll never draw it in the end, but I'm posting this here as a reminder because I may end up commissioning someone to draw it for me.

I was tagged with a kiss meme on deviantART a long time ago and this sketch was done for that meme. It's "kiss on the shoulder" VinceAda style.

More VinceAda. This is almost finished, though still needs a lot of tweaking and amending. Whyisitsobrightasdds... I originally did the base scribble of this in October and it wasn't refined or anything, just two stick figures facing each other, but I saved it for some reason. So I opened the file a few days ago and turned them into Vincent and Ada. I hope I can post this somewhere today.

That's all I have to post for now. I don't even know what I'm doing but I somehow manage to waste my time pretty effectively... I guess I spent a lot of time on tumblr this year. I also keep watching anime and reading manga and talking to people on deviantART. I also started playing some computer games again. For example, I downloaded The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection when it was available to download for free during summer. I only started playing it in October, but Sims games were always somewhat addictive for me.

I love the evil snowmen grouchy sims build, lol. I think I've tried out all the expansion packs I never had (I only had the base game). The Pets expansion is probably the least fun for me even though I'd expected to like that one. But I really enjoy the addition of changing seasons, the new romantic interactions and I like sending my teenagers to university. And I suck at managing stores with Open for Business, lol. Anyway, now I don't know how I was able to play The Sims 2 without any expansions. One thing I don't like is how the game handles the personality points of sims who are born ingame. I usually get hyperactive hyper grouchy sims.

Another issue is the first serious glitch I've experienced. My teenage boy got 7,000 Simoleons of scholarship (+500 when I moved him in), all of his skills were at least level 8. But for some reason, there was a "cap" placed on the class performance meter thingy below the line and it stayed in the red zone no matter how many homeworks or essays he did. This means he cannot complete even the first semester and he'll eventually be kicked out and sent back to the main neighbourhood. Apparently, this glitch occurs if you put several valuable objects in your teen's inventory before sending them to university. (Since you can't give them money from their home household, giving them objects is the only way to raise their scholarship and allow them to buy better household items.) But if you move them to a dorm instead of a house, the class performance cap thingy doesn't appear.

Anyway, it seems I'm cursed with Sims glitches, haha. Or it's just that the game doesn't like what I want to do with it.

I don't think anybody is reading this blog anymore, but Happy New Year to everyone! I'll definitely try to do unproductive things less and draw more in 2015.

I'm drawing I'm drawing

Working on a bunch of things at the same time. I'm planning on drawing all afternoon today because of reasons.

I drew this in a rush yesterday evening when I realized that Vincent's birthday is on the 23rd. I drew him with a random flower crown last year and I went with the flower crown idea again. I originally drew little Vincent with his arms down but it looked weird (especially cropped - it would have been just his head lol), so I tried to draw him arms and hands hoping it wouldn't turn out like crap...

Retrace 97 killed me because of various reasons, one of them was Noise. I'm posting this drawing here because I'm not sure I'll manage to finish it by tomorrow.

I posted a rougher version of this last time. I'm still struggling with the umbrella tbh. XD;;; Also, I forgot to mention last time that the inspiration for this was this freaky rainy weather we had last summer and in September too. I don't remember another humid and rainy summer like this. We were often woken up in the middle of the night to thunderstorms. It rained and rained sometimes for 24 hours or more without break.

We had really beautiful weather in the past few days, though. It was that pleasant late summer weather. Still warm enough yet not hot. And everything is still so green and beautiful because it rained all summer. There were only a few days of really hot dry weather during all summer. So instead of the usual yellow dried out grass strands, there's beautiful green grass and little flowers everywhere. It's amazing.

This is my Sinbad/Kougyoku kiss picture I drew back in May. I had this idea to take a screencap from the anime and try to paint it as background. Holy shit, it's so hard. I'm switching between Photoshop and Sai using the screencap as reference and it has already taken me hours to paint this much. As you can see I'm not even doing the parts that will be covered by the characters, but it's still really time-consuming.

Anyway, the finished version will probably look like the cheesiest romance novel cover ever. XD;;;

I've also been working on this waka!Sinbad sketch and I must say I'm pretty pleased with how it's turning out. I refined his right arm so it doesn't look so big anymore and added a lot of details on his outfit.

Speaking of Sinbad and Magi... there are two fanartists on pixiv who keep destroying me with their drawings. Every time they upload a new art log, I feel like a little child getting a box of candy. One of them is 何某 and the other is 襲釗. I'm completely in love with 何某's art style and I love most of 襲釗's ideas. *A*

Okay, I think that's all I wanted to ramble about for now. I'll try to finish that little Vince + Noise sketch today~ 2-3 hours after lunch should be enough if I can manage to not get distracted...

A few rough scribbles

Hello again my personal blog. Thing is, I'm jobless again at the moment, which means I have a lot of free time when I'm not too busy worrying about my future... But still, I'm not too inspired to draw. I finished the palette challenge I was doing on tumblr and now I'm like "NOW WHAT?". I have ideas, but... shit, I'm only getting worse. I find myself looking for references even when I want to draw the simplest things. orz

Here's a scribble I did after first seeing Pandora Hearts Retrace 97 (mannn that Retrace was the best thing). I drew this in a few minutes before we went to watch the fireworks and I haven't touched it since then. I may or may not do something with it later.

Sinbad is a compulsory addition in all of my entries lately. -___- Maybe I should do some decent finished work of him. Perhaps then I would be satisfied and stop getting these urges to draw him.

Today's scribble. I've had this idea since I first saw the "Special Feeling" meme. (That was quite a long while ago, yep.) Riza and Roy in the rain instead of snow. I kinda sorta gave up on this because I have no idea how to draw a frigging umbrella. Refs don't help. *sob*

Okay, that is all for now. I'm still pretty uninspired and I seem to give up working on everything faster and faster... I'll try to draw every day now that I have time.

I don't have any new music to listen to either. I'm currently listening to old anime songs I downloaded years ago.

Oh well, hope next time I can post better things~

A small update

Heyyy. I haven't updated in a while again. It's because all I've been doing lately are the palette requests on tumblr. (I've done 12 so far!) Plus one commission.

The birds are still coming. They even fly into the apartment through the window sometimes. It's crazy. I guess mom turned this place into a paradise for the chickadees.

Anyway, let's post some shit I forgot to post last time:

Actually, this was the very first colour palette thingy I've done. Gil in palette #7.

So this is how the full version of this Oz drawing is supposed to look. It's still a wip of course and I've changed his face again since I saved this, so it doesn't look like this anymore. No, I haven't given up on the Tarot idea yet. Actually, the person I originally got the idea from put Oz as the Death card and young Vincent was The Fool, but I went with beginning-of-the-series Oz as The Fool. It's just more fitting for me than young Vincent since Oz is the main character and the series is about his journey and all.

The initial sketch for this is OVER ONE YEAR OLD and the idea itself is even older. This is a huge drawing and the border alone has taken me hours to draw so far (I drew most elements by hand and then did lots of copy-pasting. I created the chains from scratch too, they are not a brush). I want to finish this simply because I've already worked on it for too long to abandon and scrap.

I haven't posted this last time either. My byoootifoool Sinbad. I ruined him by turning half of him into cursed Focalor, hahah. (I still have the normal version underneath the Focalor layers tho.) Pretty much everyone who has seen the normal version so far told me he was gorgeous. I'll probably finish it up but I haven't touched this since I started doing the palette meme thingy.

I should be working on 6743534 other drawings instead. Go away Sinbad.
Doodle inspired by a "waistcoats are God's gift to all women" post on tumblr and Ohtaka's recent artworks of Sinbad and Alibaba in suits. Sinbad is totally the type who doesn't understand neckties and can't button his shirt all the way up.

And this is a little Ja'far doodle based on 3cloudy doujin circle's stuff. I was very unhappy with the Ja'far drawing I did for the palette challenge, so I'm now trying to find my own style for drawing him. This involves copying how others draw him. Maybe I should just learn how Ohtaka draws him, though...

I guess that's all I wanted to post now. I downloaded The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection last week because EA made it available to download for free. But I can't really seem to get into that game anymore (despite all the expansion and stuff packs I'd never had before), which is a good thing.

I've been listening to the Miracles album by Two Steps from Hell a lot lately. It might be my favourite TSFH album so far (but I love Skyworld too). Lots of songs with female vocals, they even included some older songs I love, such as Eria and Wind Queen (though the ending of this one really annoys me because they cut the last few epic riffs from the original version and I keep anticipating them every time). "Compass" is simply amazing, both the instrumental and the vocal version.

This track is not from Miracles, but it might be the most inspiring instrumental song I've ever heard:

Some PH and lotsa Sinbad

Ok, I promised some sketches, so let's post some sketches!

One day I will draw a beautiful Oz. Today is not the day.

I've been wanting to draw a sleepy Gil ever since I saw that still in one anime DVD extra. Gil is just... the cutest thing. Also, I'm not making my sketches gray, Blogger does that to them when they get uploaded.

This wasn't gray'd because of the black, ha. Daily Sinbad doodle. The full thing is bigger, but I cropped the hands because they were super sketchy and shitty.

Wow look, it's a Magi character but not Sinbad! Hot little Solomon this time. I actually changed the eyes a little and coloured this, but I'm too lazy to save and post the updated version. I think Solomon is the prettiest guy in Magi. Although there are lots of pretty boys (and girls) in Magi. And no, I'm not "cheating on" Sinbad. XD But you know, Sinbad has a different kind of charm, you can't really mistake him for a woman.

Continuing the sleepy theme, here's a messy little sketch of Sinbad sleeping. Sinbad is like the sweetest baby when he's asleep except that babies don't snore. He is the kind of guy who can be hot even when he's drunk and passed out, though. Sleeping people are diffucult to draw because I suck at horizontal poses (hahaha) plus I can never get the angle of their face right for some reason. :B

I haven't posted this wip yet, have I? Young Sinbad is a babe. Not that the older one isn't, but this hairstyle and this freaking outfit is amazing. Too bad I haven't finished drawing it yet...

I don't know what to say about this. I don't know what happened to my style while I was drawing this, all I can tell is that the fangirlism is strong on this one and I was listening to Defying Gravity while I was drawing it. I originally wanted to make it cursed Sinbad, this is why I did the 2nd wip, but I'm not sure I want to ruin his byoootiful faisu with the shitty chocolate thing. I was also thinking of turning him half Focalor on the cursed side. Idk what I'll do with it, but I should do something with this...

I saved this for last because I want to ramble about this pairing a little. I drew like 2 pics of these two together and they weren't even particularly shippy pics, the 2nd one wasn't even meant to be shippy at all. Yet there were a few people who found me because of those fanarts and even asked me to draw more.

But there are lots of people who dislike this pairing and it's a big NOTP for them and I can see why. I cannot see it working either. Kougyoku's crush on Sinbad is very cute, but Sinbad doesn't care for her. At first, he saw her as someone he could use for settling things in Balbadd, then he sees her as one of his pawns he can use against Kou. And that's it. That's all there is to them. Period.
(However, because I'm a twisted evil person... I LIKE THIS.)
Kougyoku is the character Ohtaka often uses in the later chapters for bringing out Sinbad's "dark" side. His charming smiles and gentle words to her are the most obviously fake and manipulative interactions we've ever seen from Sinbad. He tests her, he plays with her and secretly puts her under the spell of one of his djinns and we still don't know what kind of consequences this will have later on in the story. Of course Sinbad wouldn't want Kougyoku to get hurt. But if he had to choose between Kougyoku or his country, he wouldn't hesitate. (Though he'd probably try protecting both.)
I could actually see Kougyoku on Sinbad's side as a great queen, but she deserves better. Someone who would love and cherish her. I honestly don't think she could be happy with Sinbad.

Still, I guess the little devious fangirl in me ships it. Because it's wrong, yeah.

PSA: I know it's utterly ridiculous but I don't think I can stop drawing Sinbad. Kill me plz... *submerges into fangirl hell*

More birdy photos and stuff

Mother managed to make my digital camera work and I'd thought of editing the previous post to add more photos, but then I ended up procrastinating and thought it would be better to make a new post for more photos. So yeah...

I also thought I'd post more photos online because I put about 5 years of photos on my external HDD last summer and I recently discovered that several of them are corrupted now and I can't view them anymore... D:

This year there was a baby boom for the chickadees! There were at least 8 young birds + the two parent birds. The parents were feeding them in the beginning, but they learnt to manage by themselves fast.
Also, they bring dead mosquitos. Those are probably the sparrows who bring them, but it's funny when I find some random giant dead mosquito in my window. XD

Look at this photogenic little guy! Or gal. I made some better birdy photos on May 16-17 and this was the first one.

"Feed me, mommy!"

They are so adorable, aren't they?

Even a goldfinch came on May 16!

I managed to get some pretty close shots of them. The only distracting thing is that the curtains were reflected in the window a little.

4-5 birds is the most I managed to capture in one photo, but we counted 8-10 of them at times. Sometimes there were 5 birds at the same time in one vessel. They move really fast, so it was hard to count them let alone take a photo.

And here's something we woke up to on the 25th of May. It was raining and there was this beautiful rainbow in the sky. Unfortunately, it was behind some clouds and you can't see it that well on photos, but it was awesome in real life.

View from my window with the rainbow. This was the 2nd time in my life I've ever seen a rainbow from my window.

Casual sight in my window at 5:30 am. This was taken after taking some photos of the rainbow.

Just a random shot. We had lots of rain in May and it looks so beautiful when there are dark clouds in the sky, but the sun is shining.

This is an older sunset photo from last November. I don't even have to leave my home, I can see all these beautiful things from my window, lol. I love nature.

Ok, that's all for now. I have some scribbles I'll probably post later, but I wanted to make a separate post for photos~

Also, here's a song. I saw a gorgeous AMV of various Makoto Shinkai anime with this song once and it's a shame it was deleted from YouTube.

May = baby birds

EDIT:  Ok, I think there are SEVEN chickadees, lol. I counted 7 the next morning.

Oh my god. I've never seen so many little chickadees in my window at the same time. 8D

Me and my family have been feeding birds for years now. Last winter only a few sparrows came, so we almost stopped feeding them, but around the end of February, we occasionally started seeing chickadees, greenfinches and goldfinches as well. There was a pair of chickadees that started coming regularly. They came more and more and we figured it must have been because they started raising their little ones. We've been hearing the young chickadees chirping for a couple of weeks now, but they didn't invade our window until today. Today was raining all day and it was also "chickadee invasion day". It happened before that they brought their kids, but never so many at the same time. X'D Imagine 5-6 little fluff balls chirping in your window. IT'S THE CUTEST THING. I swear they have at least 5 or 6 chicks because we could count this many at once. Yesterday and the day before, we watched the little sparrows, but most of them disappeared today. Maybe they were afraid of the chickadee army, lol.

I managed to take a few photos with my phone:

There are 5 of them here. It was hard to take photos of so many without scaring them away.

Two of them. They can eat by themselves now, but they still start chirping and asking for food when the parent birds appear, lol.

And here's a random sunset photo I took a few years ago. I must say there's a wonderful view from my window. I love living here. I'm really going to miss this place when I have to move one day.

Alright, this has been yet another pointless post. I could post a few wips and sketches, but I won't do that now. Maybe when I have more.

Just a quick post

I hope I can finish writing this before I have to go.

I still don't have much to post, but I somehow found the motivation to work on my semi-realistic Echo pic some more:

My mother said she looked like a boy, so I completely repainted her nose and made her more doll-faced. I still don't like it, but I may finish it anyway.

Fast scribble of Mu from Magi. I know his eyes are off. Muscular pretty boys are fun to draw.

I just wanted to draw a girl. Somehow she reminds me of Morgiana. I may turn her into Morgiana when I draw her clothes. IF I draw her clothes...

Scribbled this after listening to the newest Pandora Hearts drama CD. It's so cute. XDD Some lighthearted interactions with the Sablier characters are so nice aaa~ If I wasn't such a loser, I'd draw something better. It was so nice to hear Lacie and Levi "talk", haha. Also, Taniyama Kishou (Oswald) finally had more than like two lines. Hanazawa Kana forgot how to Sharon, though. I loved her as Sharon because she used to sound different, more "aunty-like" as Sharon, but now she sounds just like every other character she voices. Lacie sounds almost exactly like Alice, Kawasumi-san doesn't differentiate much between them. I'm happy that Sakurai Takahiro got Levi's role because some of my earliest memories of Japanese voices actors are connected to him. He played Cloud Strife in every spinoff/movie/anime of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy was my first obsession and fandom.

This is a freaking ugly scribble I did yesterday night. I'm posting it to prove how I'm just getting worse and worse... orz I've been wanting to draw a corny couple pic like this, but I have no idea how to do the poses, the angle and everything. I stopped sketching this because I don't know where to put their arms and how to draw their bodies. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is for me to draw even a simple composition like this. And it's only getting harder, it's crazy. It's like... the more I draw, the harder it gets.

 Here's a random screenshot featuring more sketches. Damn you Sin, stop hitting on girls.

Finally, have a preview of this huge-ass Sinbad drawing. It's 3000 pixels tall. :B This is the reason why I was rambling so much about BaalSin's design in my previous post. It just doesn't want to get finished, I often just open it, stare at it for long minutes and close. I prefer this cropped version because his hands are shitty, lol. Anyway, I should finish it because it's the only decent thing I've drawn lately. (Though I started drawing it half a year ago...)

Ok, that's all folks. I finished in time. I dunno when I come home, but I'll try to draw some more when I do.

Random Ramblings of Randomness

Warning: This post is not going to make much sense. Read at your own risk.

First of all, I have no new drawings to post. I'm writing this now because I'm on 'holiday'. I'm currently working at the local town hall and we had to take a day off after the elections. I wanted to go to the doctor, but the receptionist told me I should have called and asked for an appointment first. Well, fuck. I've been going there for years now and I could just go, give them my health card and wait till they called me. Apparently, you need to call them to get an appointment now. Just for a frickin' prescription. :| I don't even know when I'm going to call them because I'm at work at the time you can actually call them. Oh well.

In connection with the elections - We always have to go to my old elementary school to vote and the drawings I did while I was a student there are still on the walls of the corridors. Looking at them now makes me think I really sucked at art back then (I did those when I was in 5th or 6th grade), but at the same time it's nice that they still didn't throw them out and replaced them with works by new students.

Putting the rest under a "Read More" because I feel like it.

So it was a hummingbird all along 8D

Yeah, I can finally see more of the little stylized images on the sides of my blog theme because I set my screen to a bit larger resolution after upgrading to Windows 7 in the end of December. In other words, I haven't updated this blog in exactly 3 months. I simply didn't have anything to post. orz

I actually had (and still have) some issues with my tablet settings after installing Win7. The lines are much thicker than they used to be. Even using only a few pixels big brush results in thick lines. Both in Sai and in PS. I tried changing the pressure sensitivity and all, but it didn't work. Oh well, I guess I'd better get used to it.

This is an example of how I entertain myself when I want to draw, but can't come up with anything decent. Some really bad hand scribbles that took me only a few seconds to draw. I normally don't save these, I just wanted to show you something crappy like this.

Little Sinbad sketch I did in January. He totally took over the "character I like to draw the most" title from... Gilbert Nightray (??).

Why Sinbad?
You should know that almost every womanizer character is an instant favourite for me, I love it when a male character loves women and knows how to deal with them. Or it's just funny.
His personality. Sinbad is so happy-go-lucky and laid-back it makes me happy. He's friendly and kind and charismatic and cute. He smiles and laughs a lot. He's also gentle and polite with everyone (maybe except for his mortal enemies lol). Despite his dignity as a king, he has this dorky side which makes him adorable and he often doesn't act how a king should.
He's a bit of a bad boy as well. He is halfway fallen (which actually makes him even more powerful) and he's a manipulative bastard. He doesn't let personal feelings interfere with greater goals and he isn't afraid to dirty his hands for his country. This is also something I love about him, yep.

Plus he's attractive. He has a cute face, pretty eyes and thick eyebrows, which bring out his eyes. He is quite tall, muscular and he has broad shoulders. He's manly enough to not look like a girl, but he isn't way too macho either. XD Plus it often seems like his clothes are about to fall off... XDD

So yeah, even if there are many things I don't like about Magi, I'm still in love with this character.

This is another derpy Oz I drew when I had a high fever. Happy Oz to make me feel better. I keep trying to draw Oz because I know I suck at drawing him. I doubt I'll do anything else with this, though I wanted to colour it at first.

Sinbad and Kougyoku. I left this sketchy because I was too lazy to look up references of their clothes and stuff. Also, they don't look like themselves.

Do I ship this? Maybe. I guess I usually just pick a guy and then ship him with the female character he interacts with the most. :B This pairing is wrong on many levels, but I like it because of the wrongness. It has absolutely no chance of becoming canon, though.

 More Sinbad and Kougyoku - this time it's a little AU where Kougyoku is a mermaid, who saved Sinbad, the sailor from drowning. :B I don't think I'll do anything else with this sketchy sketch, it's kind of shitty and stupid.

Another Sinbad sketchy, I told you... he's my favourite thing to draw lately... He looks so good in this outfit and I prefer his hair like this. Maybe I should finish this pic, but I can't draw hands on hips, haha... orz

Btw the Sinbad no Bouken anime is coming soon, but I have to admit I don't like the kid Sinbad that much. He lacks almost everything I like in the older Sinbad. He's just another random teenage shounen hero. Sort of an "Alibaba number two", but unlike Alibaba, he lacks the lovable idiot qualities and he's just a Gary Stu.

And this was an attempt at a semi-realistic Echo, it's still pretty rough, but I don't like how her face turned out, so I gave up working on it. Maybe I'll redraw it one day...

Ok, I guess that's all for now. I have a few more sketches, but they are kinda like my shitty hand doodles, I don't consider them worthy to post.

In other news, after over a month and a half, I can finally say I'm healed (maybe). (I still had fever last week, tho.) I discovered I was actually allergic to certain types of medicine and pills and they made me feel worse instead of making me feel better... :| But I do hope it's over for now and I'll be okay for some time.

As for music inspiration, I found some good albums in the past few months including "Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!" by Panic at the Disco and "Halcyon Days" by Ellie Goulding. I also realized I really like listening to this "ambient" kind of music while drawing, I find it very relaxing and it helps me concentrate on drawing. For example the album "Songs of Distant Earth" by Mike Oldfield. Enigma and Deep Forest are kinda like that too.
And I discovered IAMX thanks to some fan soundtracks and stuff. (I found IAMX songs in connection with Sinbad, Jack Vessalius and maybe even Vincent Nightray.) I really love the songs "Animal Impulses", "I come with Knives", "Ghosts of Utopia", "Volatile Times" and many more.
And I also listened to the OST of Noragami. It's an okay album, but the only song I really like is Noratan.

Alright, I'll stop rambling now. Here's "Land of Broken Promises" by IAMX: