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*

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:

Salalala 131211

I should have made a sketch today. Simply because it would have been funny to have a file name with 131211 in it, haha. But I had a busy day today...

Here's what I've been up to:
- I've been working.
- I've been studying.
- I have little time to go online and when I do, it's usually while I'm eating lunch/supper at home or something.
- I've been browsing tumblr instead of drawing.
- I've been still doing a few sketches and working on things here and there, but nothing finished enough / worth to post.
- I still don't have a social life.
- I'm still into Magi, but I'm not caught up with the manga and I'm downloading the anime episodes, but haven't had time to watch them lately, so I'm about 3 episodes behind. However, I keep seeing all the gifs on tumblr and I read the spoilers all the time. (It's faster to read the quick translations and stuff, so yeah.) I'm aware of what's going on. 8D

Pandora Hearts is on hiatus this month. TT___TT
Magi is also on hiatus this week (I think?).
*cold unpleasant wind of despair and solitude blowing*

Anyhow, I haven't done much in December regarding drawing yet.

I started colouring this one I drew back in July, but his face is freaking ugly. Damn you, Oz, why are you so bloody difficult to draw? DX I wanted this to be good, but it's not turning out the way I wanted and I'm not sure if I should waste more time and energy on it...

I started drawing this in November as a random headshot doodle. Then I got carried away.
I actually like this BaalSin more than my first BaalSin. I'm not sure about the designs, though. Ohtaka is the most inconsistent mangaka when it comes to different designs, so trying to figure out how the djinn equips work can cause major headaches. I tried to make his waist more skinny here because Ohtaka sometimes draws so skinny waists it looks almost unhealthy. The anime sort of corrected the weird shoulder-waist proportions and the characters look less anorexic, lol. You can say Sinbad is a relatively big muscular dude, but there are a lot of even bigger dudes in Magi. :B

Ok, I wanted to ramble some more, but I should go to sleep now. I have school tomorrow.

Some PH and Magi

Ok, I compiled some sketches I should upload here again.
Let's start with Pandora Hearts:

 I really wanted to draw something with Oz. I know this sucks, but this is the best I could do. The left one is the quick initial sketch, the right one is the lineart. I changed a lot of things, yet I'm still not happy with this. :\

Here's a Vincent scribble. The pose was actually inspired by a drawing of Gil in a similar pose. I wanted to draw Vince crying because I'm a terrible person.

And now some Magi:

Scribble of Aladdin I did today. I swear this took me about 2 minutes. I always have trouble drawing eyes if the character has too big eyes, but I actually like drawing Aladdin more than I'd thought I would. :O

My first drawing of Ren Kouen. The recent chapters made me interested in him, though the more I know about him, the more I'm convinced he's gonna be Sinbad's opponent eventually (it was pretty obvious from the first time he was introduced, but yeah...). He cares for his siblings and his people, but he seems to be somewhat aggressive and hungry for power.
I don't really like how his face turned out here plus I can't draw his outfit, but I wanted to colour something with warm tones.

Are you cheating on me with Kouen? XDDD
I usually draw Sinbad smiling, but this time I went for a different kind of expression. I really love it when he makes angry/serious/menacing faces. So hot, lol!

Younger Sinbad because I'm in love with his outfit. Though this was only a headshot at first. And then I sketched him a body. Don't do this, children! Only bad artists do that. I also cropped his right hand because it sucked. Also, he looks high or something here.

More Sin. What is anatomy?? His hair looks odd here too. I didn't know what outfit to draw him, but then I realized this was Sinbad, which means you can just draw him naked and it will be totally in-character.
OMG THIS ONE IS SO SHITTY, but I felt like posting it for some reason.

This is actually from the waka!Sin + ko!Ja'far scribble dump I did in March. I just did some quick lines and slapped some colours on this one recently. I still think it's kind of cute. These two are so precious aaaaaAAAAAaaaaa...
Sleeping characters are so hard to draw. Everything is hard for me but yeah... Also, Sin might be the worst sleeping partner ever; he probably tosses and turns a lot plus he snores, lol.

Wow, that was quite a lot of Sinbad. I have an OC commission sketch too, but I don't wanna post that one here. :B

I felt so good today, the weather was also good, not too hot. The blackbirds stopped singing some time ago, but the chickadees, green-finches and sparrows still keep coming to my window to eat. There's a chickadee that comes to wake me up at 4:45 every morning. XD This reminds me I should probably go to bed now, haha.

 I'll just post my current song obsession:

Winter in March

We had snowstorms where I live last weekend. O___o It started snowing on the afternoon of March 14 and then it kept snowing for almost an entire day. The snow didn't melt right away and it was still cold and windy even today. A snowy March 15 like this has never happened in my life before and I heard the last one before this happened when my mother was still a kid. Nature is not fooled, though. The blackbirds sing in the morning and evening and small leaves and flowers began growing everywhere.

 It looked like this.
My mother says if you washed your face in March snow, you'd be beautiful, haha~

Anyway, Pandora Hearts Retrace 82 came out yesterday. It's 65 pages. It's beautiful. This series never ceases to amaze me. It's so cute, emotional, exciting and bloody dark and tragic at the same time. I love Oscar so damn much. I've loved him from the beginning, but at first I didn't expect Jun would give him any special attention or character development or anything. I thought he'd only be this random funny uncle, who won't have much purpose in the story other than being a minor comic relief character. Well, I was wrong. Oscar is a great character like everyone else.

I did so many super fast PH scribbles in the past 1-2 days. @___@

Oh, and I'm also refining/colouring this thing from my previous entry:

VERY SLOWLY because I had commissions and other more important things to draw in the meantime. But I'm having so much fun with this lame sketch. XD

The story of this sketch:
hand: SINBAD PLZ.
brain: NO. COMMISSIONS.
hand: NO. SINBAD.
brain: NO. PANDORA HEARTS.
hand: I WANT MY SINBAD.
brain: I ORDER YOU TO WORK, HAND.
hand: ONLY IF I CAN DRAW SINBAD FIRST.
brain: ... OK.

I think I'm crazy... Anyway, I'd better go to sleep now. I'll work on my Pandora Hearts sketches tomorrow.

Goodbye peaceful NEET life!

I'm starting work next MONDAY!! I'm excited and worried at the same time. But that other girl who's gonna be my colleague is very kind and she's older and more experienced, so I hope she'll be able to help me. I wanna be friends with her. I'm very inexperienced and naive but I learn fast. No matter what, I'm gonna do my best! I won't earn a lot of money, but it's better than nothing. HECK, I'LL EARN MONEY!! Even if it isn't much, it will be my own money I earn with my own work! Yes! Finally!
And I have a shiny new bank account! (I had no bank account in the past few years.) I think that as soon as I get my cards, the first thing I'll try to do is buying a premium membership on deviantART. Just to see how it works. And I'm gonna buy a new cellphone when I get my first payment. I dislike cellphones and rarely use them, but this modern world requires you to own one. They ask for your mobile number EVERYWHERE! D:

So I wrote that first paragraph yesterday. Today I got in a lethargic mood for no reason after coming home from the doctor. And I'd really need to draw something this weekend. OTL I actually have a drawing I should do for a group activity before the 1st of July. It's not that I haven't been drawing, just nothing turns out well. Here are some sketches I did in June:

I love it when Jack or Vincent does this "shhh" pose, lol~ Very fast sketch.

Ozu. This sucks. It was a bad idea to attempt drawing this pose.

Gil and Vincent. I drew this when I was feeling shitty.

No, this is not a rape scene, I just felt like drawing angry yelling people.

This idea has been sitting in my head since retrace 69 (January). I drew a basic sketch back then, but it was horrible, so I redid it recently inspired by this RP. This new sketch is much better, but still could use a lot of work and refining.

And I did this last Saturday when I finally felt like drawing again after a tiring week. I wish I'd have the patience to work on it some more, but I haven't touched it since then.

Okay, so I haven't been able to complete anything lately and I'm afraid work's gonna kill off all that little hint of inspiration that I have left. But I'll try. Maybe drawing would help me relax after work... Though to tell the truth, drawing is not relaxing for me at all because I tend to stress over everything. This pose is odd, this arm is too long, this facial expression is not right, etc. etc.

Oh well... I can't promise anything, but I'll try to draw something with Lotti for now~

Art theft + The usual PH sketches

Meh. My sketches keep getting stolen from this blog, coloured and posted on deviantART without my permission, without crediting me or my blog and watermarked by the thief. What should I dooo~? Should I stop posting sketches?

 

I've had some debates on devart because of my render stamp lately and realized that in this modern online culture, original creators and authors are simply NOT IMPORTANT. Most people don't give a damn where a certain picture / video / story / music comes from or who created it. Even on websites where you are supposed to post your own creations. The original policies seem to have been losing their purpose since everybody ignores them anyway. (Honestly, how many of you read that long boring text you have to accept when you register to a website?) So let's face it: No matter what you draw or how good your works are, most people who see your works online will never ever bother to check out your profile or personal website. They often don't even check out your other works. I've always liked to know where something I liked was from or who made it. Because when I find one cool thing, I will probably find even more cool things if I know the source. And because I admire people who do these cool things and want to know more about them. But maybe it's just me.

Anywho, drawings:

Random OC doodle. It was so refreshing to draw something in my own style for once, lol.

People keep bugging me to draw Oz/Alice. But I'm mainly a Vincent/everyone and Lacie/everyone shipper apparently. XD I think this drawing sucks. This is what happens when I try to draw something slightly dynamic-ish without references... -___-

Oh Jun, why do you make me draw things like this? This is pretty much a bad copy of one of Jun Mochizuki's sketches from the "Mine of mine" guidebook which I finally managed to obtain in raw scan format a few days ago. Vincent/Echo.

Chapter 72 inspired sketch. I wanted to draw this scene SO BADLY. It's all kinds of adorable and sad at the same time. I have to admit I'm not sure if I've ever loved the little interactions and body language of the characters in any other manga so far. The children of misfortune all seem to be quite the personal space invaders, haha. Also, I like drawing Lacie.

A few days ago I was raiding the internets for more Pandora Hearts scans because I couldn't believe Mochizuki didn't draw a crossdressing Vincent. And then I found it in the extras of the "Mine of mine" guidebook (Volume 8.5). HELL YEAAAH~ I wanted to draw him as a girl in a similar outfit. XD

I also have a sketch of Cheshire I posted on my Tumblr, but I don't feel like posting it here too, cuz I don't like it. :B Here are a few photos instead:

Our cactus some time ago~ This was the first time I've ever seen two flowers growing out of the same sprout. O___o They are twins!!

Because I'm not too fond of chocolate, I got this tiny bunny figure for Easter this time. XD I totally named it Oz. jk And I also got this 3 cm tall plushie teddy bear last week. I put it on my MP4 player because my phone doesn't have a hole for it... DO YOU KNOW HOW OLD I AM?! XD;;; Oh well, I still think things like these are cute.

The birds came back

Yesterday, the chickadees randomly invaded my window again. Seriously, 6-7 birds at the same time, that's A LOT. O___o Anywho, this is just a random update because I don't have much to post lately. All I've been working on is that crappy PH group pic. I posted a few wips of it to my DA scraps yesterday, but here's a part of its current state:

I still don't like how Oz's face came out and I'm considering adding textures to their outfits. Though it probably doesn't look very different. I didn't save it with the textures, just experimenting~ I would like to finish this by tomorrow...

Btw, chapter 63 is finally out and I'm downloading it right now. I've seen a RAW last week, but I decided to wait for the Fallen Syndicate's scanlation instead of reading random spoilers.

Now I'll go continue working on this shit picture...