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!