Minecraft

 Well, like I said in the previous post, I've managed to make my Minecraft work again. And I've been playing it almost every day since. And the reason why I even made the effort to do it, was because of a video I watched on youtube. But that's not all. That video made me want to watch story mode again. Not season 2, the admin thing wasn't that great. I mean, I watched it the first time, and I might end up watching it again, but at that moment, I really wanted to watch the portal hopping part. And for that, I had to watch the Wither storm episodes just to get into the story properly. So I did. And let me tell you, there's a ton of playthroughs on youtube, but to find one where you save Gabriel instead of Petra, was the problem. But finally, I managed to find it. Yay me!

Oh, and obviously, I prefer male Jesse. So I'm watching the playthrough of the first episode and I'm like: "maybe I should give fixing my Minecraft another go..." So I did and I upgraded to 1.16.3 and got a bunch of mods. Thankfully, my favorite furniture mod as well as my favorite food mod were upgraded to this version, so great! I also added a bunch of other mods and optifine (for dynamic lighting). I'm a bit sad that twilight forest hasn't been upgraded to 1.16, but oh well, can't win them all. 

And so I played and while I did so, I listened to the story mode. And, just like the first time, my favorite character is Ivor. I dislike Petra and I was pretty mad that the person playing it was most of the time really mean to Ivor. 

Also, during the white pumpkin mansion episode, I don't know if it was intentional or if they were just really bad at it, but when it came to the big reveal, they kept picking all the wrong answers. Too bad Telltale games shut down and you can't get the game legally anymore. And just when I started considering it... *groan*

Anywho, I'm off to play some Minecraft. See ya.

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 25th of November, 2020

Josh Lanyon - Murder takes the high road

 Well, it's been a while since I've written anything. It won't seem like it to you, because I pre-schedule my posts. So there are still several to be posted before you actually see this at the time I'm writing it. I haven't been writing anything lately because I've managed to get my Minecraft to work again. And I've been playing that. Also, I recently got back into the habit of listening to audiobooks. And that's the reason I'm writing this. I finished one just two days ago. And it was really good. 

Written by Josh Lanyon (never heard of him until now), the book is titled Murder takes the high road. And yes, as the name suggests, it's a murder mystery. Though until about the last third of the book or so, it is meant more in the fun way as the whole thing takes place during a bus tour about a murder mystery author. 

Unless I misheard the narrator, the whole thin gis neatly set into the Scottish Highlands and the bus tour is supposed to end in the authoress's castle. 

The main character, Carter, is attending the tour despite the fact that his ex is there also, and with a new boyfriend to boot. At first, he's only there to annoy the crap out of Trevor (the ex), but then he starts to enjoy it. He makes friends with the other occupants and seems to be the only one actively (though somewhat unknowingly) participating in the staged mystery that is part of the tour. 

Things take a bad turn after they reach the castle where they are supposed to stay for several days while having a chance to talk to the authoress. I do not wish to spoil the plot of the novel. Up until now, I haven't said anything specific as to the whole plot. But let's just say that the staged mystery becomes a proper murder mystery. I won't say who or why or how, if you want to know that, you have to read or listen to the book. I got it from audiobookbay and you can too. 

Umbrella Academy - Season 2

 Took me two days to watch the second season. And some months to force myself to do it. I was postponing it like crazy. In my defense, I had some pretty cool anime and a Chinese drama to finish first. Major spoiler to start. Because I'm not happy about it. We lose Ben somewhere in the last two episodes of this season. Permanently. Or at least it seems that way. But he finally passes on, after saving Vanya. And he was always my favorite character so I'm really not happy about it, but considering Umbrella Academy has a thing about not everything being as it seems at first glance, I'm gonna wait and see what season 3 has to say about it. 

The siblings are scattered in (I think) three years before Kennedy's assassination. And then they reunite and try to get back home. In the process of doing that, Diego gets locked in an asylum, Luther is something like a cage fighter or something similar in some underground rink or something, I'm not entirely clear on that. Allison gets married, Klaus starts a cult, Ben learns he can possess someone and falls in love, Five witnesses another apocalypse and Hazel's death and Vanya loses her memory and then falls in love. With a woman. Not that that's important. What is important is that she saves a kid's life and somehow gifts him her powers. Or more like a copy of her powers, because she doesn't lose hers.

Alchemy in Autumn

 

Okay, so I've been drawing again. And lately, I've been using prompts from SketchDaily on Reddit. They seem to have really interesting prompts. Well, obviously not all of them, but a great many. And this time, I used the prompt for OCtober - Alchemist. I had several ideas, but most of them were pretty chaotic and not as clear as this one. So I went with the young elf boy holding a bottle of potion. What potion? I don't know. Ask him. And yes, it's smoking pink. For this drawing, I used one of my better sets of colored pencils. After doing a pencil sketch. I think the end result is pretty interesting. Complete with the white highlights done in white posca pen. I love that thing! 
I'm also pretty happy about the hand. I mean, there are some extra lines around the thumb, but at that point, they were kind of impossible to erase. I tried. They wouldn't budge. Still, the hand doesn't look completely crap so I'll take it.  

Ancient Detective [2020]

 

Okay. Let me first say one thing. 

I CALLED IT. I FUCKING CALLED IT!

Thanks. Now, that statement won't tell you anything. At least not if you didn't see the drama. And even then, it might not tell you anything. But I just had to say it. 

As for the drama. I'm hoping for season 2. No idea if we'll get one or not, but I'm hoping. The drama itself, it's pretty good. The main character is called Jian Bu Zhi. He can't remember a certain part of his life and is trying to figure out what happened in Shenij Valley. Mainly because he's trying to uncover his father's killer. 

There was a fight in Shenji Valley and it has four survivors. Jian is trying to learn what they know. But they seem to keep dying before he can interrogate them. And along the way, he solves mysteries. Because he's a detective damn it! 

And he also meets some friends and a love interest that I could have done without. Frankly, the pairings are the one big issue I have with this show. 

So, his best friend and brother - Zhao Wo Huan, love interest Zhan Shi Qi and the love interest of Zhao - Ming Yue. Then we get Ye Xiao Xiao who is a doctor. And that is another big part of the drama. A race for Jian to find out what happened in Shenji Valley with enough time to get treated so that he doesn't die. Because, he was poisoned in the first episode or so, and then a technique called the cold palm or something similar was used to stop the poison from spreading. But it's all slowly killing him. And the only person who knows how to reverse it lives in Heiwu Ridge. But Jian is stubborn and wants to first find out what happened to his father, how he died. 

Drawtober 1 - Carvings

 

Meep. Seems like I'm drawing a lot more lately. This one was done mostly with markers. Well, water-based markers. Though I did use some other material as well. Mainly a pencil for the initial sketch and then my white posca pen to add the white highlights and then a white marker (normal marker) that I used to add the moonlight. The pic is based on a prompt from Reddit. The prompt was Carvings. So I made this guy who is carving some runes into a piece of wood/bark. And I actually really love how it turned out. And as for the surroundings, I don't even know what those are supposed to be. Probably some dark-ish cliffs. Or something along those lines. 

Let me know what you think, okay? I would really like to hear your opinions. So, see ya in the comments? 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 11th of October, 2020

Dark Arisen+

 So yeah. I finished the game. And now I guess I know why I had it on my Steam wishlist... It has a NewGame+ feature. I love those. And there was a time where I would look specifically for games that have that option. One of the reasons I'm a proud owner of The Witcher 3. The second being the Netflix show. But let's ignore that one for now. 

Mouth and a Jug

So I got two pics to share with you. Both done in pencil. The first one is a study of lips. While it is quite sketchy, I really like how it turned out. It was done on my favorite smudgy paper. I even did some blending. This time with just a tissue wrapped around my finger. And my actual finger. No home-made blending stump this time. I did this based on a prompt I found here. They have some really good prompts, even though this month (October 2020) is strictly anatomy. Oh well. Maybe it will help me improve some areas I know I'm not as good at as I would like. 

Share what you think? 

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

 Yeah. Let's do this. Even though I haven't finished the game yet. 

I have no idea if this is just one game in a series or something, like if there's another Dragon's Dogma game aside from this one. And I don't care. I wanted this one. And it was on sale. So yeah, mine now. 

To put it simply, it's a fantasy RPG game with a shared pool of minion characters that is available to everyone if they play connected to the internet. I'm still not too sure about the main quest chain as it's not labeled as such anywhere. But well. It starts with a dragon that tears your heart out and eats it. I'm not sure if it's hilarious or weird. I'm leaning toward the former. 

And then you run around the world and complete quests. And as you level up, you ditch your minions and hire new ones. As only the one you create during the first segment of the game (after the tutorial) is leveling up with you. So don't waste your time trying to find the perfect-looking minion while you're only level 7. You'll be ditching them soon enough. Unless you somehow cheat and got your hands on a ton of the currency (in-game) needed to hire minions with level infinite. Whatever that means. 

I like the house

 I got more art. After a bit of a break. Two new pics. Did them both more or less in one sitting. The first one is a blue-haired girl done in crayons. And yes, I know that the nose and the mouth don't really align as they should. So, either she has a skewed smile or there's something wrong with her. Sue me. It was kinda hard to do it in crayons. I just don't understand how people can layer them so well... I can do that with oil pastels, but with regular crayons... Nope. Most of those I own feel really scratchy when put to the paper. Although, most people I've seen using crayons on youtube were using Crayola crayons.  And they don't offer those where I live. Not at all. So I can't compare them with the ones I own. Maybe when I finally make the trip to a country that sells them, I will be able to do a bit of a test and see how they perform for myself. 

But back to the picture. Like I said, done in crayons. Just a simple portrait. I had no reference for this. The only thing I used was the image on the back of the page. And well, the paper in this sketchbook is really thin. So it was visible and I used it as a little bit of a guideline. And then I used reference for the hair. I am really bad at coming up with hairstyles. I mean, I can imagine them, but without actual reference, if I try to draw my vision, it all ends up looking the same. No creativity whatsoever. So I've started using references for hairstyles. And I'm probably not gonna stop any time soon. 

Playing lots of Skyrim

 Lately, I've been playing a lot of Skyrim. It started with me finally deciding to tackle one of the mods I had installed. It's called Blackland. You can teleport to it from Riverwood's Inn. And only from there. Or you risk crashing your game. So I did, I teleported there. And immediately, I was surprised by something. It put me in a legitimate cutscene. I had absolutely no control over my character. And I'm not talking about having to sit through an unskippable dialogue, like with the Daedra. No, the character de-quipped her weapons and even moved and sat down. And that was definitely something new. 

Yeah, you get scenes in the vanilla Skyrim where you stand and watch something happen, but even with that, your character doesn't move on its own. Or at least not to this extent. I mean, my PC sat down, on a fucking chair. And that was just one of several instances of this throughout the mod. 

Mulan [2020]

 Well, I expected more from it. But I'm biased. I recently watched The Untamed. So yeah. Like, if you've never seen the original Mulan or any Chinese historical drama (made by the Chinese people!), it's not too bad an action flick. But I have! Seen both. Both the original Mulan and recently I've been into watching Chinese drama. So yeah. I'm biased. 

First of. They completely removed Mushu and Shang. As well as changed the name of the main villain. Honestly, Bori Khan sounds nowhere near as epic and badass as ShanYu. Excuse the spelling if it's wrong. I'm too much in the groove to go look it up. But I'm probably correct and if not, I'll edit it later. Back to the stuff they changed - not for the better. 
I could have accepted the switch from Mushu to the Phoenix, sure, why not. But captain Shang was the best character from the whole thing! Him being replaced by an unknown random soldier? Sorry, but I'm not buying it. Honestly, when I hear the words Live-action remake, I kind of expect the plot to stay the fuck the same! At the same time, I understand that some things that are easy to animate might be really hard to do with special effects. Yet! When it comes to Mulan, the only thing that really needs serious special effects is Mushu. And possibly crickee. But that's a different story. 

Next. Why would they even put the Witch in! She brings nothing to the story, only muddles it up. And that stupid redemption sub-plot? Nope. It would have been more interesting if she killed Khan near the end of the movie and turned into the ultimate villain. Also, shapeshifting into a bloody bird?! Again, nope. But again, I'm biased. As right now, I'm watching a Chinese drama - Guardian - and there's a tribe of raven shapeshifters. Yeah, maybe I picked the wrong time to watch Mulan, but I can't help it! I blame The Untamed! 

Cosimo Yap - The Gam3 #3: Sacrificial Pieces

 Well, let me tell you something first. This is a fucking PREQUEL TRILOGY. And I'm not happy about it. Most of all because the author wants to take a break from this universe. Which... Rude! Anyway! This book mostly deals with Alan fixing the Abyss Labyrinth and learning more about the Revenant faction. At least in the first half or so. Then, in Act 2, we get to the good stuff. Not that the Labyrinth isn't interesting, but learning more about the fucking game, well, that's the reason I devoured the book so fast. Even if it took a bit for me to write this. So! Warring factions, Haxlards vs. the Empire, Black Rose Guild stuck in the middle, people having to reveal true allegiances. And more! 

Turns out that the Emperor is a predecessor. The same one that attacked Alan in the tutorial back in book one. And well, at the very end, Alan sacrifices himself in order to kill this guy. And when I say sacrifice, I mean he actually dies. Only for us to learn something game-changing. Literally. Get ready people! The game has several layers. At least five of them! Inception-style! Apparently, Earth has never been anything more than a simulation run by the so-called gods. And now they revealed themselves to Alan. He's a major player now and he (and us!) finally knows something more about the nature of the game. 

And that's where it cuts off. Bummer. I mean, it's a great cliffhanger and everything. An interesting place to cut it off, but damn! I hate cliffhangers. This is also the place that tells you it is a fucking prequel trilogy. I'm still pissed off about that. I almost immediately went to google the next book, but it doesn't exist yet. But I'll be keeping an eye out for it.

The Untamed [2019]

 Well, get ready for a lot of gushing. I love that show. And yes. The Untamed is a show. Normally, I would link to IMDB but when I'm writing about something more Asian, I prefer to link to sites specifically dedicated to those. Most of the time, I'm watching JDramas and Movies, but recently, I discovered that the Chinese might be a bunch of prudes, but hey, they know how to make an awesome historical drama. Well, this would probably be more wuxia/fantasy, but still, I'm gonna go with the historical fantasy genre here. 

So, I should also probably mention that it's BL (Boys Love). Well, at least the book this is based on is, the drama itself, more of an intense bromance. But like I said, that's because the Chinese are a bunch of prudes. Seriously, if nothing else, they could have included at least a single kiss at the very end of the last episode where they reunite. 

Cat-sistant, Box-Kitty and a Shelving Cat

My cat's middle name is Trouble. Even though she doesn't have a last name. Her official name is Ňuffa. Yes, with 'Ň' and double F. At least that's the way I spell it. And not only is she completely dumb, but she is also trouble and doesn't know when to quit. This first photo is more or less normal, I mean, cats love boxes... So this is the 'Box-Kitty'. And yes, it's a DragonFable reference. The thing is, she also likes to bite the boxes. We can't have any cardboard boxes anywhere. Not with her around. The one that has all her toys is all bitten on the rim. 

As for this one, that was a temporary box. Something came in it I think, and we just left it on the floor and this little troglodyte decided to claim it as her own. So there. I took a photo of her in it.

Vacationing at relatives' house

So, today I came back from vacation at my relatives' house. It was nice there. We played lots of games and played some table tennis too. I won at flags and lost when we played Qwirkle. We also visited Ikea and the adjacent shopping center in Ostrava. And my mother and I almost bought new phones - Huawei P40 Lite but backpedaled at the last moment when we learned that they don't support Google Play. And that's something we can't live without. I mean, I have a Huawei now, but it's a P20 Lite. And yes, it has that Huawei app store thingy, and I checked that out. Most of the apps (read games) I'm using are not there. Not even Pokemon Go. So I know that I don't want any more Huawei phones. Not unless they start cooperating with Google again. Guess when I do decide to upgrade my phone, I'll be turning to Samsungs or something. Definitely not something I wanted to do, but right now, it seems like the only viable option if I want something half decent. 

So, that was the visit to the shopping center. We also had some of our other relatives come to visit. And we played more games. And guess what? Do you know what the "other big ape" is? Well, it's obviously Godzilla. And it makes a little more sense in Czech. But it's something that is by now iconic prompt in one of the games we usually play. There's one more. This time related to the movie Planet of Apes (Or even the 12 Apes (or Monkeys)), but I'm not even gonna try to translate it so that it makes sense. Cause this one uses a bastardized version of a Czech word and while the word can be translated, there's no way to translate the bastardized version. So I'm not gonna attempt it. 

Oh, and I played lots of Star Stable Online. Well, lots... I did my daily routine in there and one day, I played it together with Eliška, my cousin's daughter. She has her own account (previously mine) and we play each on our own PC sitting next to each other and debating the game. It's fun. Though we don't do this nearly as much as we used to. But I enjoy it none-the-less. So if the opportunity presents itself, I'm not gonna let it slip by. 

Oh, and while playing one of the games, I don't remember which one, I and Eliška were dying of laughter. I wish I could remember what was so funny, but I don't even remember that... I wish I did, but alas, not happening. Still, we were just laughing so hard! Tears were streaming out of our eyes! I think we were playing iKnow Hit List, but I could be lying... It could have been the game with the other big ape too... 

Heh. So, a nice vacation. Was there from Tuesday till Sunday. The original plan was to travel to Great Britain, London, but fucking COVID crushed that plan... Oh well, this was nice too. So London will maybe happen next year or the year after that. Hopefully. 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 12th of July, 2020

Gender confused meets charcoal

 

No. I'm not gender-confused. But the person in the picture is. It was supposed to be a male, but for some reason, it doesn't look exactly male to me. I mean, it doesn't really look like a female either... So, that's why it's probably gender-confused. I did this in colored pencils and then, when it was done, I busted out my brand new white posca pen and added the highlights. And I'm in love. Be ready for me to sing praises about that pen. The YouTubers are right about this one. It works like a charm! I don't ever wanna go back to using that old paint pen I had before! Heck, even actual paint was better than that! But this is awesome! 

Back to the picture. I think he (yes, I'm calling him a He, regardless of what he actually is) looks a little surprised. Or maybe even scared? Or, since he is, confused. The drawing was done on a rather small format - A6, whatever that would be in inches for you inch fanatics out there. I don't do inches. Nuh-uh. Not gonna. Inches confuse me. But yes, what I was saying. Done on a small format and in a sketchbook. Please tell me what you think about it, okay? 

And we got one more. And this time I busted out my charcoal. Not too long ago I bought some vine charcoal. It was on sale and I couldn't resist. I don't think I've ever used vine charcoal apart from art classes when I was still in grade school. So, I was really excited about it, but until now, I had no inspiration for a charcoal drawing. So I was happy when that inspiration struck me today. I have this sketchbook with a really smooth paper in it. And it was this sketchbook's turn to be used. I'm right now filling in five sketchbooks at once. So, I'm grabbing this sketchbook and then I'm looking through my drawers. And I spot that charcoal. So I take it out and start messing with it. Turns out vine charcoal is one of the best sketching tools. I had so much fun figuring out what would go where on the paper! 

When I was done with that, I used it for basic shading. Just blocking out the main areas that would be shaded. And then I had to find my soft, darker, charcoal. This one was in pencil format, which is great for detail work. So, I found it and started adding details. Deepening some of the shadows, and so on. And then I'm like... Nope, I'm not blending this with my fingers! Nope. I was trying to not get myself completely black. And again, I went looking through my drawers. This time looking for a blending tool. And I found my homemade blending stick. Which is basically just some rolled up paper that is held together with a bit of tape. Still, it works. It gets the job done and it worked wonders on this pic. 

One thing I should probably invest in though is a charcoal eraser. The ones I have didn't work very well. I mean, they did an okay job with the vine charcoal, but definitely not with the darker, softer charcoal. Which forced me to again add the highlights with my posca pen. Though this time I only did it after spraying the whole thing with a fixative spray. I didn't want to completely contaminate my posca with charcoal. 

I would like to hear in the comments what you think of these two pics and which one you like better. :) If you think there's a specific area I need to work on when it comes to my art, I would love to hear about that too, so long as you manage to stay polite. No need to insult each other, even though I insult a lot of people on a daily basis. They just don't know it as I only think those insults. So, see you later. :)

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 13th of August, 2020

A Cat, A Hand, And A Forest

Hello everybody, I got three new pictures for you. I also have to write this on my notebook's inbuild keyboard and it's a pain in my neck. I prefer an external keyboard but I didn't want to bring that monster of a thing with me. So I have to make do with this one. Oh well. So, the first picture is a painting of a Cat that Got the Canary. She's looking way too smug for anything else. It is done with acrylic paints on a canvas board. I first painted the background with a pastel shade of green and let it dry. Then I got out my brown, white, and yellow paints. Yes, yellow. And I'm glad I added it. It brightens the cat considerably. Oh, and she almost didn't have front paws. I forgot about them. But then I remembered and added them. More of an afterthought but at least I didn't forget altogether. Like I did when drawing this dragon picture. I forgot the back wing. And then I had to add it. And re-photograph it and re-upload it and it was a pain. So I'm glad I didn't forget this time. Really good thing that, as this painting was a gift for my aunt. So you can't call dibs! 

The second picture is just a practice sketch of a hand. I did this while watching a Yong Chen video on YouTube. He has really good tutorials. Though most of them are with charcoal. I got nothing against charcoal it's just that I prefer a pencil or other media. Even paints are preferable to charcoal. But I'm learning nonetheless. So I did this practice hand and while it's definitely not perfect, I also think it's one of my better ones. I do struggle with hands quite a lot. Not always, sometimes, it turns out exactly as I want but more often than not, the fingers just look way too weird. This was a part of a bigger picture originally. But the topic of the video was just the hand so he eliminated all the other elements and said to focus just on that. So I did. And then, just to make it pop a little, I added a highlighter outline. Because why not. And because I got a set of four brand new highlighters from my mother who got them at work but had no use for them. So I confiscated them. 

And now the last one. This one had inspiration from Pinterest. I even saved said inspiration on my inspiration blog. On Pinterest, it had the name of Forest of No Return and I really liked the name so I kept it. My version of the picture is decidedly less realistic and I think it strays into impressionism. still, I like how it turned out and I think that's the important thing. 

It is done with water... Nope. It's done with alcohol-based markers. Because I had several Tombow markers and I even pulled out my Tiger markers to add deeper black and add the blue tones to make it look more winter-y. It may be a little weird, but I still like it. Also, the white on top of everything, that's my acrylic paint marker. Basically, something like a Posca Pen, but it only exists in white, gold, and silver as far as I know. And I only own the white one. I had two thicknesses, but the thin one died on me. So I'm stuck with the medium one, but so far, it's working when I need it to. It's not like I use it that much. Most of the time, I add highlights with white acrylic paint anyway. So it can die on me too if it wants to. But it is a little more convenient for when I don't want to pull out all the stuff I need for the actual paint...

So that's it for now. Hope you like them and if you do, let me know in the comments below. And even if you don't, let me know what I should work on to improve. Okay?

~AnnElfwind

Winter warrior and the Samurai

Got two new pictures. This first one is a winter sol... Nope. Not Barnes. A winter warrior/demon. Yes, something like that. I'm insanely proud of this pic. I made it with mostly water-based markers. And I abused the hell out of that paper. It definitely isn't meant for such heavy blending and layering of something water-based. The hardest part was mixing a lip color that wouldn't be too feminine. I don't think I had the best colors for that. But! I managed. I managed to not make a female out of it. So yeah, super happy about it. Kekekeke! Apart from water-based markers I also used some acrylic paint. Mostly white for highlights and then blues and some white for the background and after, I used white again to make the snow? effect. I'm still not sure it's snow. It wasn't supposed to be snow. But meh. Let it be snow if it wants to be snow. Who am I to tell it what it can or cannot be, right?
So yeah, insanely proud of it and I hope you like it too. I found inspiration for it on Pinterest. I think I also had an art-related youtube video playing while I was drawing it. So, yeah. Inspiration galore. Tell me what you think.

This next pic is a Samurai. Again, inspired by Pinterest. But a lot more loosely. Originally, his left (from his perspective) hand was supposed to be visible, but I, stupidly, drew in permanent medium and did the hakama/kimono/whatever you call it first and well, you can't do it on top of it. I would have had to glue a piece of paper over it or something and well, I didn't have a paper with the same slightly yellow tint to it, so I decided to alter the anatomy and simply move the hand out of the frame, so to speak. His other hand has a single finger visible on the hilt of the katana. Simply because it was supposed to be there but it simply wouldn't fit. I misjudged the size I was drawing at. So yeah. Total miscalculation on my part.
The pic is done in water-based markers again with colored pencils having been used on the skin. I did this with my 'other' water-based markers and those don't have many skin tones. Also, I used and abused the hell out of my pale-blue Tombow alcohol-based marker. But only because I forgot I actually have a pale-blue water-based marker... Silly me. And now I have two as I bought a second one today, thinking I didn't have one. And, apparently, Czech Republic now has POSCA pens. I saw 'em in the local art supply store and had to buy the white one. I'm gonna use it for highlights instead of always busting out my acrylic white. It's a 0,7 tip and I think it will be perfect for the highlights. Can't wait to use it!

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 11th of August, 2020

An Antique Vase

More pictures. Well, one. I was watching a tutorial by Chen on YouTube and well... Decided that the object he was drawing was interesting. It was a vase. And I'm like... Hey, when it's done in pencil, it might look cool! So I started following along. He was doing the demonstration in charcoal, but I decided to use just your regular pencil. So I'm drawing, and then I'm done with the vase itself. All nice and shaded with highlights and I think... What if it was lying on some grass... And so I draw grass. Well, at first I was just gonna do some shadow to indicate a surface but then the grass idea came. 

And so I drew blades of grass. I just turned my pencil flat to the surface and did some hard flicks and strokes upwards to indicate the grass. Nothing too fancy but then I had the brilliant idea of using an eraser. Because! the grass was practically invisible on the vase itself. And I wanted to have some of the blades in front of it. So I did some flicks with my kneaded eraser but it wasn't bright enough. So I took a regular eraser and did some harsh flicks with an edge of it. And lo and behold! Grass! It looks so good! I have the original nest to me as I'm writing this. Well, I had, I just closed it like ten seconds ago. But I kept looking at it! I couldn't help myself! I just had to look at it! 

Please tell me what you think of the picture. I would like to know your opinions. So leave a comment? Please? 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 30th of June, 2020

Bluenette

Meep. Just finished this. Done in my "trashy" sketchbook. Like most pages here, the basics were already there from several years back. Well, maybe not several, but at least a year. Possibly two. And now I finished it. At first, I was gonna use my IKEA markers. But then I realized that there was some residual glue on the page and I decided that I would rather not ruin my markers. So I switched to colored pencils as I was too lazy to bust out the paints. Maybe next time.

So, it is a blue-haired female that can possibly be an elf. We don't know. Her ears are covered. As most of the time, I used reference for the hairstyle. I also used white acrylic paint for highlights. And let me tell you, I just love how it turned out. Heck, even the shirt looks good! Don't know how I did that, but I'm happy with it. 

So what do you think? If you like to draw, do you also have something that you can't draw without reference in fear of it always looking the same? Share in the comments? 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 6th of August, 2020

A Copse of Trees

This is my first real foray into oil painting. I already did one before but that one was merely to familiarize myself with the medium. Yes, I did somewhat follow a Bob Ross tutorial with it, but at that time, I didn't even have a proper coating to use as the base layer so I used gold acrylic paint. I mean, it made for some interesting effects but ultimately, a correct base layer works better. 

So this time, I had a triple primed homemade canvas at my disposal. And I say homemade but it was actually a piece of cardboard from my IKEA building spree. (I bought a new shelf unit) So it was primed and ready. I took out my oil paints and started playing around with them. I even had proper paint thinner as well as lint seed oil to make the paints more workable. I had a hard time deciding on what I want to paints but in the end, I ended up doing another Bob Ross inspired painting. I did not watch a tutorial while painting it like you see many YouTubers do. I just drew a random landscape. I had no idea what the end result will be but I have to say that I really like it. My parents say that the blue of the bog area at the bottom is too blue, but I really like it that way. It's my favorite part of the painting. Well, that and the right half of the trees. I also really like the clouds. The flowers could have worked better but oh well, trial by error. I'll do better next time. 

Still, it's only my second attempt at oils and I hope you like it. Feel free to drop a comment and tell me what you think of it, kay? 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 29th of June, 2020

A Shroom

New pic. Drew this just a few minutes ago. I was just staring at my computer screen wondering what to do when my eyes drifted to the stack of sketchbooks on the side of my desk. So I'm like: "Maybe I should draw something?" And I went to youtube and opened my watch later playlist because I was lazy to search for something new. And I need inspiration when I'm drawing. So I picked a Paul Priestley video to watch while I draw. It turned out to be a tutorial. So I decided to follow along. It was a good idea. I mean. I wasn't following along very strictly, but it always helps me to draw when I have inspiration from somewhere and an art-related video playing in the background. Or even in the foreground. 

The shroom was drawn into a rather small sketchbook. The format is A6. So a quarter of a regular printer paper. I know you Americans are always spewing your numbers in inches, but I'm from a country where we use the metric system. And the A+number (or B+number) for paper sizes. I have no idea what an A6 would be in inches and I'm not gonna measure it. I wish the whole world would use the same labeling and measuring system. 

And since I'm actually not talking about the pic anymore, here's another thing I observed. And I think this is American nonsense again. Three-ring binders. You probably would think that what we have here is nonsense and feel free, but I think that two or four makes more sense. Though again, it's not about what makes more sense or what doesn't. It's about it being so different. I'm pretty sure it would be really hard to find two/four-ring binders were I to move to America or another country with this system. And vice versa. As much as I scream for individuality and lots of different things, there are some that are more convenient while unified across the world.

Excuse my rant and enjoy the drawing, please. 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 3rd of August, 2020

Good? Bad? Dark? Light?

So, yesterday (or was it today?) I got the idea to rehash an old post. It talks about the difference between evil and darkness. And I went on a tangent there. One that really took away from the main idea of the post. So, before we get into it, I'll get that tangent out of the way. 

It talked about the elements and how I categorize them. Most people would think that there are four main elements. Well, in my opinion, that's just wrong. I say there are seven. And this way of thinking was heavily influenced by Naruto and even more by Dragon Fable. So, seven elements - Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Lightning, Light, and Darkness. Naruto also gave me the idea of secondary elements. And DragonFable gave me the idea of almost anything being an element. Considering they have elements like Void, Silver, ???, Ebil, and many others (Including Bacon). And this classification of elements is a big part of the reason why I don't consider evil the equivalent of Darkness. 

(We are not getting into the topic of Evil and Good being elements too!!! Blame that one on DragonFable!!!)

So, if Darkness is an element, how can it be the equivalent of evil? I mean, you can do as much evil with fire or lightning. I believe that all elements are, at their core, neutral. And it's up to the people who use them to decide if they are used for good or evil. And it's that way with everything. Nothing is, by itself, aligned to either good or bad. It's always the intention behind the use of objects (elements) that decides whether it's good or bad. 

To give a bit more real-world example. A Gun. It's just an object. It is neither good nor bad. Not by itself. But it can be used for both. And that is something that depends on the wielder. It can be used to murder someone. It can also be used to hunt and thus provide food for an otherwise starving family. 

It's not things/objects that are good/bad. It's actions. Most of the actions you do during your day can be classified as either good or bad. I'm not disputing the existence of a neutral action, but I also believe that a true neutral action is rare. 

Good and evil can't simply be classified as going either right or left and neutral straight ahead. There's no way that the paths are that simple. A lot of the time, you won't even know what alignment your actions actually have until much later. And while sometimes, it may seem or indeed even be that simple, again, I don't believe that this is the rule. More often than not, your actions will have ambiguous consequences instead of a clear alignment. 

And as much as we probably all want to do good instead of bad, I also think that this makes the world more interesting. The way it's not always black or white. The line is blurred. Always has been and always will be. 

As they say in stories, you can't have the good without the bad. Just make sure that if you're throwing a neutral into the mix as well, it's not a chaotic one. (Learned that one through D&D)

Well, that's about it. I'm not sure if I managed to stay on topic better this time, but at the same time, I think this is a bit more cohesive than the old post. And if nothing else, it's definitely longer and I consider that one a nice bonus. 

See you in the next post. 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 24th of June, 2020

Cosimo Yap - The Gam3 #2: Earth's Gambit

So, I just finished writing about the first book in the series and scheduled it for posting. You would have already been able to see it at the time you are reading this, but for me, it's been only a few minutes since I did that. Now, onto the second book. It's called Earth's Gambit as you could have read in the post title.
The book starts with Alan and his new guildmates going to the Academy to train before being unleashed on the world of the Game. Their academy life starts with a test of getting into the center of an arachnid mob colony. Alan is the first one (maybe even the only one) who gets there. And it's all thanks to his bionic eye enhancements. With them, he's able to see which threads the spiders use for seeing their enemies and which are dummies.
Then, when this first test is completed, he is grabbed by a Machine Lord named Cerberus who practically claims him and demands to be his teacher. Well, more like he orders it. But Alan gladly accepts. And starts learning more. Also, he starts to learn how to properly use his AI Eve. To have her run background checks while he makes the decisions instead of having her do everything. It's slow progress at first, but he starts to get better at it.
Alan's training with Cerberus is interspaced with talking with his friends, joining a tournament, finishing one of his other quests, the one where he needs to need 10 major players, and, if he can, learn their objectives. Also, he gets infected with a bunny virus. That one is a little funny, because he, in the end, needs Cerberus to do a somewhat of a purge. And then, he starts to learn about the true hacking in the game. And Cerberus sets him a challenge. He manages to complete it just in time for him to not be late for a tournament that a Predecessor insisted he attends after he won a free for all tourney before.

Chinese Anime

I'm running out of Japanese anime. I mean, there's still lots to watch, just not the genres I want. So I ventured into the Chinese version of it. It took a while to get used to the language, but let me tell you! It was worth it. I still get somewhat lost in the names because they seem really similar to each other, but I'm glad I tried it. That doesn't mean that every single Chinese anime is good. Far from it actually, but there are some gems there that I'm glad I tried watching. 

There was one that I tried a while ago. At that point, it was really a last resort on my part, because the premise was looking way too interesting. That time, I was still in the mindset of disliking Chinese anime but biting down and dealing with the language for the sake of this single show. It's called Uncharted Walker in English and I'm not even gonna attempt the Chinese name. And now I had to go and check that it's really Chinese. Good news, I'm not talking bullshit. It is Chinese. And based on a Chinese novel or something like that? No, it's based on a Web Comic. Though there was that one comment on Reddit where that person said it was based on a novel? Not sure, but myanimelist says Web Comic so that's what I'm going to believe. 

This anime was really interesting and I am hoping that there will be a season 2 at some point. So far there's not even a peep about it, but I'm not going to give up hope. I would read the comic, but the thing is, I don't really like to read manga-style comics on the internet. By that, I mean the black and white ones. Colored webcomics are okay, even great in some cases. But reading black and white manga makes my eyes hurt. It's not a problem when I have a physical copy of the manga, I do have a few of those, but online... Nope, don't like it.

Blurbs

I just thought to mention that I have a blog where I post little blurbs. Basically, when I have something to say but it's not enough for a full post. Just something that popped into my mind and needs to be written down. So, if you want to check it out, I sometimes post even multiple posts a day. Not always, but hey, sometimes, I have things to say that don't need a full post and this is a way for me to get these out. 

Some of those posts might be longer than others, which sometimes happens when I feel like ranting. Or when I realize I feel like ranting in the middle of writing that thing. Whatever I'm writing. So, if you want to know what I rant about, check it out. 

Technically, this doesn't qualify as a full post either, but I needed to mention that other blog so that you know about it. I'm not sure if it has a link in the menu, but if it doesn't, I'm gonna add it there. The site is called Anything & Everything. Please don't get confused by the clusterfuck known as tags. The way I use tags there is that I tag literally anything and everything. If it has a relation to the post, regardless of how flimsy, I'll add it as a tag. I'm thinking also of cross-linking. In case I start mentioning other posts or something. It's something I adapted my Czech blog for. When I remember that I even have a Czech blog. Though I did post several things there rather recently. 

Anyway! You have the link and I just checked and it's even added to the side menu. So enjoy and maybe I'll see you there. 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 18th of June, 2020

Cloudy with a chance of rain

The first two are about a week older than the other two. Well, maybe not a full week. Probably like five days or so. 

Anyway. Just now, it started raining. It was really coming down. And I'm like... Maybe I should take a pic of it? And I tested my new phone's camera. And it looks epic. This phone's camera is really great! I mean, the two of the sky are from the same phone, so it's not like the rain was my first test, but still. It was my first rain test. 

I'm thinking of maybe using the sky as a background somewhere or something. I did the same with a sunny sky on my old blog.cz blog. One that will be deleted when blog.cz ends its services in the middle of the next month (August 2020). But I don't yet know where I'll use it. but it's definitely something I'm gonna keep in mind. 

Various

So, I have several new pictures. This first one is of a white trillium. At least that is what they said. I'm still not sure I believe them. Them being Pinterest. But I'm willing to not care. It's a white flower and that's all anyone needs to know. Anything else is irrelevant. It was done with oil pastels and giocondas. I love mixing those two together. It always give s me such interesting results! The background is just some colors spliced together because at that point I was too lazy to draw more leaves. So I left it like that. Considering it's done on a rather small-sized paper, I don't think it matters all that much. Though looking at it now, I think I should have gone way darker on those leaves. Like, black level darker. Or... No. No or. Definitely should have mixed black in that. This way it's way too light where it shouldn't be. But alas, I don't think I'm gonna fix it now. Too late for it. I sprayed it with a fixative and therefore I won't be able to do anything more with it. However, at least I know what to do next time I draw something like this. Right? Tell me what you think. I would very much like to read your comments. 

The Umbrella Academy - Season 1 [2019]

Before I watched I'm Not Okay With This, I watched The Umbrella Academy. At first, I was a little iffy about it. I was delaying watching it all the time, thinking it wouldn't be all that interesting. Well, I take it all back. The show is awesome! And, it seems like I have a thing about shows based on comic books. 

Yes, The Umbrella Academy is also based on a comic book. Unlike I'm Not Okay With This, it has several volumes. I haven't done any research on the comics. The only thing I know is that the White Violin - Vanya, looks completely different in the show. In the comic books, she becomes the White Violin. But here, played by Ellen Page, they took a different approach to it. And I think they did great. The way they show the transformation from Vanya to the White Violin is awesome. Her black suit becomes white and even the violin she's playing changes color. She's also surrounded by this white halo! 
I wanted to link to the scene, but that specific scene is nowhere to be found, so just watch the whole show. And pay extra attention during the last episode because that transformation is truly epic! 

Office 2019

I bought Microsoft Office 2019 last night. I've wanted those for a while now and finally, finally, I decided to just go and buy them. Online of course. No need for a physical copy when a digital one is enough. I installed it right away and while I still have my old Microsoft Office installed, I'm definitely not gonna use them anymore. The 2019 version is better. 

I know there's all this hype about the 365 version but I'm not interested in that. The yearly subscription fee is not something I'm willing to pay. Hell, if they sold MS Word 2019 as a separate package, I'd just buy that. It's the only thing I use with any regularity. The rest I use so rarely that I would be fine using some free (if slightly inferior) program. No problem there. But yeah. Word. I use that a lot to write stories. Lately, it's mostly fanfiction, but I have some original stuff I'm working on too. And then there's that one epic tale I have (not yet finished) that is in Czech and I'm trying to force myself to translate it into English. As I don't really feel like continuing it in Czech. I might, but as of yet, it's a shelved project. Nothing I'm gonna work on now. Even though the idea is somewhat epic. 

Back to the 2019 Office though. I love it. And just now, I figured out how to change the design. The default is too bright. So now it's dark gray. I mean, it wasn't really hard. All it needed is me actually doing it. So yes, it has everything I need and I'm happy with it. I'm really glad I decided to buy it. And maybe the 365 is better, who knows. I don't really care to find out. And yes, it has more programs. And whatnot. But I'm not using those. Like I said before. If there was an option to just get Microsoft Word without anything else, I would prefer that. But alas, we can't have everything we want. 

On a completely unrelated note. My mother bought a lottery ticket yesterday. We won. Only an insignificant amount but at the same time, it's a nice feeling knowing that the money wasn't wasted. Just wanted to throw this out there. 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 9th of June, 2020

Really?

Almost every day, at least one person reads this post. Dungeon of Slyn... Such an old post... And yet, almost every day... I'm honestly quite baffled by this. I don't understand how something so unknown can have so many views... Maybe because there's not enough info about it on the internet and therefore my post is one of the few sources players have. 

So, I'm happy people keep reading it, but at the same time, I would have been happier if my other posts were read too. Not just this one about an obscure game that most people don't even know exist.

Oh well. It'll get better now that I'm posting with more regular intervals. At least that's what I'm telling myself. We'll see. Hopefully. 

Though I would kill for a single comment from a reader. So, how about it? Just a tiny little something? Don't make me beg, kay?

Also, from now on, I'm gonna line-break longer posts. I'm not changing old posts, but just so you know. 

I'm not okay with this - Season 1 [2020]

I watch (listen to) youtube a lot. And sometimes, they put video ads in there. Which I'm sure you all know. Well, I get a lot of Netflix ads. And while a lot of those are boring, sometimes, something good comes out of them. Like the Witcher. That was great. But then I got nothing for a while. Oh, I got Netflix ads alright, but boring ones. Took a while to get something interesting again. But I did. 

A show called I'm not okay with this. At first, I was like meh... Should I even watch this? But then I realized that the main actress is the same that played Beverly Marsh in Stephen King's IT. Well, the movie version obviously isn't King's, but you get what I mean, right?

Reflection

So, while watching a tutorial on youtube by Yong Chen, I decided to draw something. Not knowing what, and not wanting to draw what he was doing in the tutorial, I went back to my trusty random word generator and got the word reflection. I went with it. Googled it and then picked a picture. Though I do need to remember to fucking switch to searching through Pinterest rather than a simple google pic search. Pinterest is better for this. Still, I settled on a pic and hopped to it. It's done in charcoal and while I didn't do much in case of details, I think that the finished product is not too bad. Especially if you don't view it full-sized. So yeah. I did no measuring, no guidelines. I just went in with that charcoal pencil and hoped for the best. As always. I almost never measure when drawing. Or, maybe even never... No. That's not quite right. I measured once. Maybe even twice. But I don't really like it. It's why I only do it on very rare occasions. And as for details. When you're using an A5 sized paper and charcoal pencil, it's really hard to do details. Yes, I am aware it sounds like an excuse, but the truth is, I didn't want to add too many details. The main stuff is there and that's enough for me. Deal with it. Still, I would like to know what you think about this. So let me know in the comments. See ya. 

~AnnElfwind 

Written on the 2nd of June, 2020

Oxventurers

Yup, Oxventurers. I love their streams. And I'm now a hardcore D&D fan. For those of you who don't know, D&D stands for Dungeons and Dragons. A paper and pen RPG played usually with a group of at least three where one of those is the Dungeon Master and therefore the Narrator. 

Or, as Johnny from Dicebreaker says, he's literally everyone else in the world. And he's the Dungeon Master for the Oxventurers. So he has to know, right? :D Well, okay. So, these guys, they normally run the Outside Xbox and Outside Xtra channels, but sometimes they, like every other Friday or so, play D&D with Johnny from Dicebreaker as DM. Or GM sometimes - stands for Game Master. I like DM better though. But it's essentially the same thing. 

I know very well that some of the D&D games can be really serious, but that's the fun thing about the Oxventurers. Their games can generally be described as chaos on crack. And I love it. It's always the highlight of my day when they play. My favorite so far was when they obtained the hammer with the sixty skeletons. Or, I love everything sans maybe the first three campaigns, as I didn't start from the beginning. 

So, apart from that, I love it. And how they derail their GM so badly all the time. Well, not all the time, but sometimes, it's really epic. I would very much like to tell you, but I just don't want to spoil anything. Really, if you like RPG and silly gamers, try it. Oh, but don't be a Dob. Which, you won't understand just yet, but I guarantee that after watching two or three oxventures, you will know. So, I said that Johnny from Dicebreaker is the DM and I think you can deduce that one of the Oxventurers is called Dob (Half-orc bard portrayed by Luke). Well, there is also Andy as Corazon, human pirate rouge, then Mike as the Dragonborn Paladin Egbert, then Ellen as Merilwen the wood-elf druid, sometimes bear, sometimes cat and sometimes a giant octopus. And the last one is Jane as Prudence the tiefling warlock who likes to solve most of the problems with Eldritch blasts. 

Yeah, weird bunch but it goes well together. 

Oh, I know which Oxventure is good! The one that became famous for Merilwen's Meat Grinder. Well, Corazon helped. With Grease. I know, it makes no sense, but you'll understand. Soon. If you watch it. 

I also recommend this video. It's Johnny confessing how the Oxventurers derailed him so far. It's great! It's funny! And it explains some of the things going on in the Oxventure D&Ds. 

I know I'm basically just singing praises here, but please hear me out. This is really great! It's funny, but at the same time, they can get serious in a tight spot. Sometimes. Not very often. It's still mostly chaos on crack. But it gets me laughing so hard tears are streaming out of my eyes. So, try it. Watch them. And if it's not to your liking, well, you tried. It's not like I'm gonna force you to watch them if D&D is not your thing, but if you don't know whether you like it or not, maybe consider giving it a try before you outright reject it? 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 18th of July, 2020

Endless Summer

So, two days ago, I finally finished the visual novel Endless Summer. I'm sure some of you know it. I've known almost from the beginning that there are several possible endings. So I'm like: "Okay, let's get the best possible ending." Only! THERE IS NO FUCKING GOOD ENDING! Either you agree to rewrite history and no one remembers you, you defeat the villain and you and your friends are trapped in an endless summer on the island while the rest of the world lies in ruin or you give yourself up to Vaanu and save everyone but you're gone. And while staying on the island may seem like a good ending, it's really not. Not when you start thinking about it. The "give yourself back to Vaanu" is considered the true ending but it's still way too sad. Honestly, the first thing I did after finishing the book, was to go on AO3 and look up some fix-it fics that feature M!Taylor (Tyler in my playthrough) and Jake pairing. As that's what I went for. And let me tell you, there may be a fair amount of fics with the pairing, but if you're looking for fix-it, not that many. I found one good one. That even fit in with the canon timeline. I found one more but that one was a little weird and didn't really flow all that well so I stopped reading that one. So, while it was really good, I'm still very much pissed off by the ending. So yeah, I'm still in "hate-mode". See ya.

~AnnElfwind

Written on 27th of May, 2020

Must have Skyrim Mods

Or at least a list of mods that I can't live without. Well, I could probably live without them, but at this point, playing Skyrim without them would just be weird. 

Soul Gem Mining

A mod that is essential if you want to really get into enchanting. Whenever you mine ore, you also have a chance to mine soul gems. You can even mine Grand and Black soul gems. And I'm big on enchanting so I think this is a really great mod if you want to enchant your equipment. 

Soul Siphon Unbound

Another mod that goes into the enchanting category. This one is pretty self-explanatory. Basically, Soul siphon ability works with people as well as beings. So you can recharge your favorite weapon by killing the closest bandit instead of hunting animals. That is if you don't have any soul gems to recharge it the normal way.

Needed feature

So! Blogger just told me that this new version of the interface will soon be permanent. I'm still iffy about it. It still seems to lack the feature I want! The 'text next to pic' thing. I want that so badly! It's the one singular reason I'm still using the old blogger. Well, was using the old blogger. Starting with this post, I'm officially using the new one. So far, I'm not too happy with it. We'll see how they improve it. Hopefully, they will. I don't want to migrate my blog again. That would not be optimal. Apart from the new interface missing my favorite feature, I like blogger. And even if it means learning the bloody HTML, I will stay here. 

Okay, so I went back to the old blogger and got an image to the spot I wanted it. Then I deleted all text from the post, went into HTML, copied the HTML into the normal editor, and saved it as a draft. And from there, compared that HTML with the HTML of an image in the new post editor. And well, there was a part of it missing. So I went, changed one line, and voila, the image is exactly where I want it. Yes, it takes a bit more time this way, but it's doable. Still, I hope that the old image positioning will be brought back and added to the new editor as well. 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 27th of May, 2020

P.S. By the time this gets published, it will be somewhat redundant. I'm writing the P.S. on the 30th of June, 2020 and the feature is back, though slightly altered. You can't drag the picture, but you can click alignment under the picture after you click the picture. Just make sure you place the picture to the spot you want it. I'll have to experiment with this more, but it should make my life easier. At least, I hope it will. :D

The Light of Music

Bite me, I know it's a weird name, but I also think it fits. Because! That's not the moon, it's a light created by the music of the flute. I found some inspiration for this on Pinterest. I mean, the elf playing the flute is something that was on the original and all, but everything else, even the different details, that's different. The original was vastly different. It was more along the lines of a broody elf in darkness with a flute. And this one, I added the element of magic!
Whatever. I just really like how this turned out. Oh, and about the rocks! It's just splashes of black, white, brown and green. In random combinations. And yes, I know that the flute light is on the wrong side, but hey, I added that as an afterthought. So I decided that, as it is magical light, it just doesn't illuminate the elf. That there is another source of light somewhere off to the right. So yes, magical light for effect only. Because it looks cool. Do you like it? Tell me what you think? Please? I haven't gotten any new comments in ages... I want some. 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 21st of May, 2020

The Prince and the Woodelf

Two new pictures. The first one is done in blue. Don't know why. But I felt like doing something that would not be in pencil but didn't want it to be in full color. I did consider giving him the red eyes the inspiration had but decided against it. I think I made the right call. I love how it turned out.  Even the mouth and that' something I've been struggling with lately. Just a little, but if the mouth is wrong, it can change the whole pic and I don't like that. So I'm glad that this time, it turned out the exact way I wanted it. And I just love how it's blue. Do you like it? Tell me. :D

And this here is my little wood-elf. Yes, it's a female and I don't usually draw those unless a male decides they want to be a female, but hey, why not. So I just spliced some colors together. I mean, there's purple in the skin. Even some green. And the initial sketch was done in light green. That neon kind that I don't usually like much, but it worked here. It's done in colored pencils on a smooth paper and the white highlights are done with white acrylic paint. I contemplated adding some color to the background, but in the end, I'm glad I didn't. I think it looks better this way. And if I ever decide otherwise, it's easy to add some color to it later. So tell me, do you like it? Or does it suck? Oh, and the inspiration for both comes from Pinterest. Yeah, I got inspired. Heavily. So what. I like drawing elves and I needed inspiration.

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 17th of May, 2020