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.

Happy Belated Birthday to Me XD

Ok, so I decided to create another post just because. I managed to take some better photos of my new figurines last weekend. My camera really does work a lot better when there's enough natural light. O___o

It's Gilly. I just love his "Tell me where Oz is or I'll shoot you!" expression, haha. And I didn't even notice he had some blue in his hair at first.

Look at this little bastard, he's so smug. He's all "I'm cute and I know it." XD

Group photo! You know what I'm missing? Some Fullmetal Alchemist thing. Yes. Now I have merchandise of Final Fantasy, Pandora Hearts and Magi, but still nothing of FMA.

I still have no new drawings to upload here, so I decided to upload some drawings I got for my birthday instead. Because the creators sent them to me only in private. I'm not going to name any names, but I'd like to keep these somewhere I can easily find them again. (Obviously, I have them saved on my computer, but it's often easier for me to find stuff on this blog. XD; )

Pandora Heaaarts. Mah beloved Nightray brothers, I still adore them. Both of them, oh my gosh and this drawing is just sooo cute I can't. <3

Um... what can I say to this one? It's byoootttiiifffoool. Like some wise person said somewhere else "One of these days, I'm going to have something like this in my bed". XD I make my friends draw fanart for fandoms they don't even know/like, hahaha. Sin, I know you're a shameless whore, but I love you anyway.

And I also got this one yesterday. So pretty. <3 Dangit, you guys draw my own characters more than I do, pffft. XD;;;;;

I might be getting one more, but these were my b-day giftarts for this year.

I should go draw now, but my fingers hurt... TT___TT It's unpleasant to type too, so I'm gonna end this post now.

Recent song obsession:

Figures and stuff

Eeep! Despite working full time, I must say I had a good week. I even managed to impress some people at work with my English. :D

Also, both packages I was waiting for arrived. The special edition of PH volume 20 with the chibi Gil figurine was delivered to me on Tuesday (November 12) and the Magi strap was delivered on Wednesday (November 13 - my "nameday" XD). Kyaaa~ Apparently, both were posted on November 1, so it took 11-12 days in total. Gil came from Ireland, Sinbad came from Canada. I honestly wasn't expecting the one from Canada to get here so soon, but it looks like Sinbad wanted to be on time for my nameday. XD

I took these photos with my cell phone after taking them out of the envelope and removing the transparent nylon wrap thing that was holding them together. Gil has a huge box for a 6 cm tall figurine, but I guess they had to make the box the same size as the manga volume.

Oh yeah, this limited special edition was my prize for winning a contest on tumblr with this.

Pandora Hearts volume 20 is actually one of my favourite PH volumes. Starting with a touching scene of Gilbert and Vincent and ending with a heart-wrenching scene... TT___TT It's the latest volume released in Japan, though volume 21 should come out sometime soon now. I'm so happy I have this volume, I usually just dream about owning such things, since I don't want to waste money on buying them for myself. Btw the full volume is a bit over 200 pages long including the extras.

Gil still in his box. I'm always too scared to take my precious figurines out of their packages at first, lol.

After I finally took him out. He's so cute. And I'm glad he's so tiny, I actually thought he'd be a bit bigger. There are a few small mistakes on him, for example he seems to have some barely noticeable scratch on his face, but otherwise he's the awesomest badass chibi Gil.

And here's my Sinbad strap/keychain. It was extremely difficult to get a decent shot of him, I might try again tomorrow when I can take photos in natural daylight.
This figure has a long story. Somebody I follow on tumblr was selling Magi merchandise and doujins to be able to pay for her dog's surgery and I've been considering getting another Magi charm since I won the Alibaba one back in February (it's really adorable in person, the photos don't look nearly as good as the actual thing). I originally wanted a Morgiana to accompany my Alibaba charm, but there are only Aladdin (derpy chibi version), Sinbad, Ja'far, Masrur and Sharrkan in this set of figurine straps. At first I didn't think of buying anything, but then I randomly checked my PayPal and I realized I had enough "leftover" money from commissions to buy one of these (+ shipping cost). So I was like I HAVE MONEYZ!! LET'S SPEND IT!! and that was it. Haha. Btw, Ja'far looked really cute too, but he was sold by the time I checked again. XD;
So yeah, I'm not regretting buying him because he's really adorable and very detailed for a tiny figurine. He's a higher quality figure than the ones of the series my Alibaba is from. Alibaba is more chibi and the seam line on his head bothers me, but they did the seaming on this Sinbad in a clever way and it's not that noticeable. There are some small mistakes in the painting, but this is pretty much unavoidable with such a tiny figure.
My family thought he was a girl, lol. Mom loves him more than Gil and Alibaba.
The only issue I have with this Sinbad is that I'd expected some fancier package after the Alibaba one being in the same kind of protective package my big Squall was in (plus a bag). Sinbad came with only a small transparent plastic bag and he was taken out of even that, wrapped in some paper instead.

And now a corner of my desk looks like this. XD The big Squall was a birthday present in 2009. This photo somehow turned out decent, I guess.

Umm... yeah. I wrote about my figures because I have no drawings to post, hahah... The only decent sketch I've done so far in November is a sketch of Kouen from Magi.

It's still unfinished and inaccurate. I've been working on this before going to work in the mornings. XD
This is Kouen's Astaroth djinn equip. I actually haven't seen too many fanarts of him in this form, not even on pixiv, even though I think it looks so good. It's kinda like a cross between Sin's Focalor and Baal and his element is fire, hnnng. Kouen's a beast.

I have no energy/time to draw, heeelp... X___x

Photos and some stupid things

Ok, so I decided to log in here again and ramble about stupid things nobody cares about. 8D My birthday was yesterday, it wasn't anything special, I got some money from relatives I'm not gonna spend on anything like always and I also got a new coat from mom. I finally uploaded the photos from my digital camera to the computer, so let's post a few things here...

I finally have a new keyboard. My old one was so old you couldn't read the letters and numbers on it any longer. I got this one in August as some kind of early b-day present, lol. It's fluorescent too.

 This is my 'monster' orchid. It was originally a birthday present for my grandmother, but it's in my room now. It's 4 years old now and it blooms from around April to September. When you see these in stores, they usually have about 3-6 flowers, but this one had TWELVE this year.

And these are my mother's violets. I have no clue what kind of positive energies the plants must be receiving in our apartment, but these babies just keep blooming non-stop. XD

The cherry trees were all cut out in September, though. *sad*

NOW THEN... let's post some sketches as well~

Waka!Sin + child!Ja'far sketchy from the end of September. Apparently, I have a fetish for these two. I actually prefer drawing them together like that instead of their adult versions. They are cuter, hahah~
This was a super fast sketch, but I thought it turned out okay for a super fast sketch.

This was my sketchy wip for this. I made a few changes in the process, but not that much. This contest was a good excuse for me to finally draw fanart for the Gilbert in Wonderland omake. :D

Doodle of some of my favourite guys~ I sort of copied these from official artworks and manga panels because I wanted to stick to the original styles. Magi is not as ugly as I first thought... FMA is still uglier... XD; Also, Roy and Sinbad are the same age, but Sinbad is like 10 cm taller, hahaha, shorty Roy~

EWWW, this is crap, don't look. I doodled this last week, it was originally Sin sitting with some drink in his hand, but I couldn't get his hand right and then somehow it turned into this. I can't anatomy, so blehheghugh. But I love this guy because he's totally in character even if you don't draw him clothes.

I'm gonna die tomorrow. Or not. But then I'm gonna die next week. X___x

Also, I'm randomly addicted to this song:

Oh yeah, and there's been too much Sinbad on this blog lately. I'll now write a small rant on this matter and I'm putting it under a cut for reasons...

Magi things

So I really did take a short break from drawing. I didn't do even a single doodle between August 5 and August 26. But then the 194th chapter of Magi came out... and what a wonderful chapter it is... 8D;
Lol. So yeah, I didn't draw much and even that "not much" was only Magi. But now I feel like I'm ready to get back to drawing. I bought an external HDD before the holiday and now all my drawings are on it because I'm still not sure for how long my computer will be okay. I'm still in the process of getting rid of some old unfinished doodles and files I don't need any longer.

But enough of rambling, let's post some drawings!

I drew this random Judal when I didn't have internet at all one evening. I don't like this guy very much. In the beginning, I actually expected myself to end up liking him more but... I don't like his personality, only sometimes. I don't like his outfit. I don't like his hair. He doesn't get enough screentime. He's a shallow character. I don't even find him attractive looking, he's too skinny.
WHY DO I DRAW HIM THEN??
I have no clue. To tell the truth, my entire Magi obsession is like that. I *know* the series is bad, but for some mysterious reason, I'm attracted to it. :B

Sinbad returned in his glorious Baal form in Chapter 194 and the Magi fandom was screaming so loud I could almost hear it from here, lol. I just had to do this really quick scribble of him.

Focalor!Sinbad and Kougyoku. I was talking to Nolven on deviantART about the lack of fanart of these two together and it inspired me to draw something with them. I started drawing this only yesterday, but rushed all the way to the base colours. I wish my anatomy skills were better, though...
I don't consider SinKou to be as fluffy as you may assume. One thing I like about Sinbad is the way he bounds others to himself. At first I thought he was manipulating Kougyoku only on an emotional level, but then it was implied that Zepar's powers might have gone farther than just putting her to sleep once... Kougyoku is a little butterfly who got caught in the spider's web. I wonder who she will choose if she has to choose between Sinbad and Kouen.
I drew FocaSin because FocaSin is everyone's favourite djinn equip and he looks evil somehow. Powerful, threatening and attractive at the same time. Evil is sexy. I like drawing Sinbad because he's pretty, but not in an overly effeminate way.

This is all for now. Lately, I find new music and song obsessions by going through fan soundtracks, AMVs and music posts of RP and fan blogs on tumblr. It helps me draw, so I do hope I can finish at least that Sinbad/Kougyoku drawing soon. I even found a rather "dark" FST for Sinbad.

Speaking of music, I was listening to the album Bad Blood by Bastille today. Such a fun album~ I didn't know this band at all, I just randomly came across the song "Flaws" on tumblr a short while ago and got obsessed with it. Then I found some more good songs and then got this album. "Icarus" is my favourite at the moment. <3

Here, listen to it:

Some Vince/Gil and Shindobaddo

Oy. New post on the first day of the month, wow. I didn't post a single artwork on neither deviantART nor my tumblr in July. This has never happened before. Even when my grandmother passed away 4 years ago and I was feeling really down, I was still able to produce one or two finished drawings in a month. It seems the older I get, the more I feel like giving up. Drawing is children's play to most people who don't end up becoming artists and they normally give up when they finish school and start working and it seems like I'm finally starting to grow out of it too. The sad thing is I can't even say it's because I have a life now, because I don't. My work has ended at the place I used to work at and now I'm jobless again. :|

Anyway, I'm still doing sketches and doodles, but nothing turns out good enough.

This is a crappy Gil doodle I did the other day. I really don't like how his face came out, but I have no idea how to fix it. I think it's too long or something...

Random quick messy sketch of Vincent molesting Gilbert. :P
Gilbert is wondering what kind of terrible crime he must have committed against the world to deserve this.

Another quick messy sketch, this one is Sinbad. Lately, I do a random sketch of Sin whenever I'm feeling uninspired and unmotivated. Thing is, I'm feeling like that a lot...
The rest of this post is going to be about Sinbad. :B

Inspired by a cosplay photo. Lying poses are really hard to draw. Bleh.

Hmm, this one is not so bad. Maybe. His arms are probably off, though.

Baal!Sin. I guess I made this a little similar to my Amon!Ali. I had so much trouble with his arms and hands. OTL I'd like to finish this.
While everybody is raving about the swimming anime, I'm still fixated on Sinbad's abs... -___-

Sin stop being so fun to draw uguuu~~ I drew this just a few hours ago. Maybe I should post it at least on my tumblr. I guess he should have bigger eyes and a smaller nose or something, but I like how he turned out here. Better than my first Gilbert doodle. :B

That's it for now. I draw Sinbad too much. I keep telling myself I'm not obsessed with him, but I'm not sure any longer... It's not normal for me to draw a random anime/manga character so much. FFFUUUUU... The funny thing is that my mother likes him, she says he's very good-looking. XDD She also liked Gilbert when I drew him for the very first time years ago, but then I kept drawing him so much she began hating him, lolz.

Ok, enough of me and my embarrassing fangirl idiocy for now.

I listened to the "Walking with Strangers" album by The Birthday Massacre today and I liked it a lot. I already listened to several songs from this album years ago, but the entire album is pretty good.

Here's one of my fave TBM songs: