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