Playin' at the Weddin'

I've been a bit preoccupied with my friend's wedding and reception. Her wedding was at Las Vegas but her wedding reception was in California two days later, so it's been a pretty eventful few days.  One of my unrealistic dreams is to travel around to various places and leave my artwork behind.  My way of creating footprints in this world.  Anyway, I kind of got to do that at my friend's wedding events.

At Las Vegas, we went to The Cosmopolitan for their buffet, Wicked Spoon. I like to play with food but I generally don't because I like food a little too much, I even eat my friend's leftovers.  However, at this buffet, I was too full so I started to play with my friend's leftover Gelato.  It was fun.

"I'm gooey and happy"

My friend's wedding theme was Paris so she had these little Eiffel Tower Name cardholder, so obviously I had to do this at the wedding reception:

'Cuz an Eiffel Tower  is not complete without some random town with a Godzilla in a tutu rampaging it.

Here's a clearer shot with flash, but not as warm and fuzzy:

I intended to draw a French village and then it morphed into some weird town with random requests from my friends.

Materials: notecards, Copic Markers, Copic Multiliner pen.

Happy New Year's, y'all!!

Merry 2012 Christmas...

...I'm writing this post in between daily chores, creativity went out the window. That is my explanation for the lack of cheery Christmas-y creativity and template-like title.

Anyway, here is some retro Rie-art that I downloaded from my own deviantart. Look at that date, THAT DATE.  This drawing is a decade old, A DECADE.  I feel old.

So typically manga-tactic.  Avoiding drawing hands by making them conveniently disappear...somewhere....under.....the.....bear?

BE SAFE, Y'ALL...and have fun, doing all those great Christmas-y stuff.

Little Zombies in the 21th Century

 I drew this 4 months ago in my sketch book,  but I thought it was kind of fitting surviving the apocalypse.

Nightmare Rendering Fun

There's a viable reason to why I haven't been updating this blog:

On Thursday morning I "finished" the most expensive art project I've ever done: financially, physically, and emotionally.  

It was financially expensive because it was done in copic markers, in which I invested a few sets.  I also bought three illustration board for practice, final version, and just in case I screw up.   In addition, I ran out of ink in 2 of the markers, so I invested in these refill inks as well.  I even got a mini-projector.

It was physically expensive because the week it was due I had about less than 15 hours of sleep and I slept on the floor on a bean bag.  Hahaha, tonight will be the first time I'll sleep in my bed.

It was emotionally stressful because, to be honest, I really didn't want to do it. Photorealism, especially of objects, is not my forte. So, I procrastinated and procrastinated.  I started working on the actual board much later than my classmates, even though I was practicing rendering some of the objects beforehand.  Sometimes I would crawl into a fetal position and weep hypothetical tears. Then 2 weeks before the due date, I had nightmares about the project.  3 days before the due date, I started to go on a facebook spree, basically spamming my friends' newsfeed with WTFness every 10 minutes or so.  I honestly believed that I was never going to finish it.

Yupe, it was expensive.  But now it's done and over. And I miss it. 

So, lo and behold...my ridiculously expensive project:

I took this picture around 3:30 am on Thursday.  The project was due at exactly 8 am on Thursday.  Incomplete was a F. Late work was knocked down a grade. Yes, I know. I was pretty much screwed.

At this point I was "OMG OMG OMG OMG. SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT. Fuck FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.  I'm going to dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."

Then, around 6:15 am-ish I had this:

whoa...what kind of witchery is this?

Surprised?

So was I, so was I.  Pleasantly surprised, in fact.

And...the final version that I actually presented at 8 am:

It's "final" because it now has a signature.  Hahaha, just playin' ya.  I also made some touch ups and fixed some micro-mistakes.  

In truth, I am both very happy and somewhat disappointed in this project.  I'm happy because, "OMG. I DREW SOMETHING THAT'S NOT A CARTOON. AND IT LOOKS KIND OF REALISTIC. I CAN'T BELIEVE I DREW THIS."  I'm disappointed because I knew I took some shortcuts, like ignoring details, and I wanted to make it more "photorealistic."

Anyway, much thanks to my rendering classmates and friends who were encouraging and let me have my facebook freakout without prejudice.  

Peace out, and good luck on finals, y'all.

--Post Script--
The photo that the project was based on:

This is a Japanese dish Ozoni(お雑煮）that we eat on New Year's day.  My cousin in Japan made this.     This specific dish has baked Mochi (rice cake), carrot, peas, Shiitake mushroom, Kamaboko(fish cake), Buri (Japanese Yellowtail fish), and chicken.   

Tacklin' the Cold and Battlin' the ARTing Block

 I was sick for about a week or more, so....

My mom blamed my cold on the following:

My night owl ways,

My liking of sleeping on the floor or bean bag,

and My Arting, 

Rather than, you know, blame the Bipolar SoCal weather. 

Due to my icky cold,  I missed classes and I kind of fell into an Arting Block.  I basically stopped drawing for a week, which really wasn't a consequence before when I was pretending to be a science nerd but now I'm taking an art class.  Not drawing is like committing the ULTIMATE SIN.  Anyway, the first time I drew in a week (finally forcing myself) was a still life in class...

...yeah, leave it to me to make a stuffed green coyote look like a pimp in a zoot suit chillin' in Red District.

This was done in Copic markers, which by the way are amazing.

PS--I don't know how many of y'all have Facebook but I made a RieVerse Facebook page, so if you have Facebook...Let's hang out in Facebook Land!

I Voted like an American with an Opinion

I voted!

Did you?  I hope you did.

This was my first time voting even though I've been a registered voter for 2 presidential elections. It was super exciting day for me!  I made my opinion heard!  

Someone had said:

Voting is a privilege... Don't take advantage of it.

Driving is a privilege.

Voting is a right that so many Americans fought for, even died for. So let's practice it y'all, take advantage of it. Make your voices be heard! It doesn't matter what your opinion is, as my classmate beautifully put it:
"No matter who wins, America will still stand the next day."

Why I Remember Matthew Shepard

The story of Matthew Shepard is tragic. Not only was Matthew Shepard beaten and abandoned to die due to a simple fact that he was gay, but the Westboro Baptist Church had the audacity to "protest" his funeral  At the time, crimes against the LGBT community were not considered as hate crimes.

Warning: Uncharacteristically serious topic.

 No, I'm not kidding.  

Seriously.  

About three years ago I watched a Sherry Vine's Parody of Lady Gaga's Alejandro music video.  In this Sherry Vine parody, I was drawn to a picture of a young man that had bittersweet eyes with a sad story to tell.  As usual, curiosity led me to the Wikipedia  page of Matthew Shepard.  Soon, I found myself clicking through numerous links and clips about Matthew Shepard. 

What hit me the most about his story is that his tragedy happened in 1997.

-- 1997 --

This was a period  when I didn't know gay people existed and I thought that being gay was "unnatural." According to my peers,  being gay was a choice and God frowned upon it. This was also around the time my mother questioned my sexuality and bluntly asked, almost accusingly: "Are you a lesbian?"

My reaction was a disgusted: "No."

The next day, as a laugh, I told my friends about this incident.  They all laughed.  Except for one. She said:

"It's okay to be a lesbian.  There's nothing wrong with being gay."

I unfortunately didn't realize at the time how real and significant this statement was until years later.

I rather not admit that I was a homophobic teen, but I didn't bother to acknowledge gays' existence either, which is just as bad.  I preferred to think that "gay" was just a  figment of people's imagination.

And so begins my evolution...

 My friend came out to me in high school.  I was shocked, but after a while I eventually learned to "deal" with it.  Then I met more gay people.  I started to place gay people into stereotypes like gay guys are "fruity fairies" and lesbians are "butch."  I still used the word gay to mean "lame" and laughed at gay jokes, just not in front of gay people.

When I started college, I was a little more open-minded but I still snickered from time to time at the expense of gay people.  I became friends with a guy who didn't fit my gay stereotypes and he seemed straight from my judgement.  I was caught off guard, yet again, when he came out to me.  My mind was blown.  I quickly adopted a philosophy, "I will assume you're straight until you tell me you are indeed gay."  Then I met more people who broke my guidelines for a stereotypical gay person.  I tried to make sense of what made people gay. I blamed the universe for my lack of gaydar.  Why couldn't I figure out who was gay or not? 

Until one day,  I found myself asking, "Why does it matter anyway?"    If you made me smile and laugh, if I liked you, I'm just glad you exist in this world. I just didn't care anymore. Sexual orientation no longer mattered to me. 

Therefore, ever since I watched Sherry Vine's video, every October, I think about Matthew Shepard and how painfully ignorant I was during the year of his death.

So, dear LGBT community, don't give up on us "homophobes." I know it can be frustrating and heart-breaking but some of us are just ignorant people who don't know any better and need the time, and perhaps some guidance,  to realize we're all just plainly and equally human.

With Love, 

Rie

Well, I would like to update soon...

I wanted to update because, well, blogging is surprisingly fun.  And, I like fun.  But fun isn't really what I have been doing as of late. Le Vie has been ce n'est pas Fun.  I've been drawing when I can; however,

 I've been  mostly trying to draw geometric shapes, conquer the Copic markers, and desperately figure out how to render glass and metal textures.  I could be deeply mistaken, but I feel gray and/ or colorful blobs on pastel-smeared paper are not quite at blog level of  interestingness. 

As a result, I frantically flipped through my sketchbook and found this:

I purposely misspell "naked."  I still feel guilty enjoying drawing "naked" people.  It's a defense mechanism, okay?  I was raised under a rock in a bombshelter of an underground city guarded by flying sloths.  I'm ignorant of the real world and its social manners.

This is kind of nice, right?  A bit interesting?

This sketch was a part of a cartoon I was going to do about my friend, Monsieur Beautifully Youthful.  I got the idea in the summer, during the peak of my James McAvoy fangirlic obsession.  I basically spent summer nights spamming Facebook friends' newsfeeds with tidbits of my fangirl-induced thoughts about James McAvoy.  In my defense, Facebook does ask me What's on my mind?  It would be rude not to comply.  Anyway, along with my childhood friend Xelestialauria who understands my fangirl ways, Monsieur Beautifully Youthful often indulged me during these McAvoyistic moments.  So thanks! 

The cartoon was basically my response to when Monsieur Beautifully Youthful mentioned Children of Dune and I watched the trailer.  I will finish this cartoon one day, let the Blog Gods be my witness, 

I WILL FINISH THIS CARTOON. Some time before I die.

[30DDC]Day 7 -- Favorite Word

Ever since middle school, I've been using the phrase, "I'm Peachy."

I've tried other fruits like Grapey.  It just didn't ring as well.

I also like the word Skidattle.  Not sure if it's an actual word, but it's really fun to say.

Done in FW ink and pen, Tombow pens, and color pencils.

[30 DDC] Day 6 --Favorite Book Character

The complete assignment was "Favorite character from a book that is not a movie"

All my favorite characters are from books that have been turned into a movie. 

What does that say about me?  Do I lack intelligence?

Anyway, I cheated and chose Ender from Ender's Game, even though I know that they're making a movie.  "Making" is the operative.  It's not completed, so it's okay right?

Done in Pen, brush,  and black and white ink.  I finally understood how to properly do the splatter thing with  the brush. I got ink all over my hands.  It was wonderful.

I had a hard time drawing the body...hence, I went "screw you. Black it all out and I will draw big ol' open space" and that is what I did.

Crappy manga-ing and What I draw in class now

So, 30 Day Drawing Challenge.  It was harder than it looked.  Much harder.  Keeping up with it while taking classes, working, and studying for a college entrance exam is not as easy as instant pudding, it's more like easy as making Merengue Dutch chocolate pie from scratch kind of easy. For this week's update I present you shit I drew in the summer!!

I've been kind of frustrated with life so I've been doing a lot of crappy manga-ing. To be completely honest, I don't really have any grief over my manga-style.  I am actually rather fond of it. As of late though, I only draw in this style when I am restless.  It's called "crappy manga-ing" because I do it mindlessly and my only concern is to make it look pretty, thus lacking in storytelling value, which is something I find important.  Also part of the charm of crappy manga-ing is I draw on scratch paper so I won't grow attach to it.  I apologize  if the print going across the images annoy you.

First on the list is:

I name thee...Period Fiction fanart!! 

When the movie Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter came out, I thought wouldn't it be interesting if Felicity and all the other American girls were potential vampire slayers?  And the books are just chronicles of their lives before their rise to the patriotic heroines who protected their beloved country from blood-sucking living deads.  It should be a comic book.

To me August is kind of  a Kenshin month for me.  August is the month of one my friend's birthday and she is also a Kenshin fan, sometimes I wonder if she's a bigger fan than me.  The Live Action movie of Kenshin also came out in August 2012.  One of my favorite online artist, Hakubaiko, used to hold Kenshin fanart contests in August.  I never got to  participate in the contest because she tragically passed away, rather young too.  It's one of the many things I regret. Rest in Peace, Hakubaikou. I drew Kenshin based on the actor who plays him in the live action but...the drawing itself started to scare me, so I stopped to save my soul.

In the summer I watched X-Men: The First Class, a dvd I bought for $3 at a Japanese second hand bookstore. Legit copy. Best Buy ever!! 

As we move along to second:

Oh look how my OC is obnoxiously thinking she can block a Mutant punch.  

Like many, I too was sucked into the awesome that is Charles x Erik Bromance, christianed Cherik.  And I did what any fangirl would do.  Look up fanfiction and emerse thyself in the fandom guilty pleasures.  Sadly, I was disappointed in the fandom.  Mostly because of the portrayal of Cherik and Raven.  Charles was mostly portrayed as helpless, hopeless pretty boy who would not or could not resist the advances of Erik or Shaw, and usually put in a hostage/slave situations.  Erik was ...I don't even want to discuss the issues I had with fanfic Erik.  Most of the time, I just wanted to kill him, which is sad because I like XFC movie Erik.   Then, there's Raven.  She was portrayed as a ignorant cockblock, whiny bitch, bubbly idiot, or  militant lesbian (which I have no idea where this comes from.  I guess the author thought, well everyone in this fic is gay so let's make her gay too!).  This saddened me even further because I liked Jennifer Lawerence's portrayal and her relationship with Charles and Erik.  So I resolved my issues as a mature adult. Retaliated by inserting my original character into these fanfiction.  These doodle sketches were actually kind of fun period for me because I actually referenced James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawerence when I was mangatizing them.

I call this doodle dump Story for Monsieur Beautifully Youthful and Lady FicMessiah (personal joke)

Mon. Beautifully Youthful is my fellow James McAvoy fan and Lady FicMessiah helped me get good Cherik fanfics, thus restoring my faith in fic writers.

Thirdly:

Technically, I didn't draw these in the summer.  In the past I used to do crappy manga-ing during class to stay awake.  Now I draw classmates in class.  I don't know if that means I evolved as an artist or I just lack imagination now in comparison to my past self.

...if you read this far, uhm, thank you? You're a true trooper.

So I leave you with another dump of crappy manga-ing inspired by Resident Evil live action and Zombie Apocalypses and North & South...

Ah,  a little modern John Thornton head stalking modern Margaret Hale as she tries on the lettuce dress. 

[30DDC] Day 5 -- Best Friend

So, yes, it appears that I've fallen behind on the 30 day drawing challenge.  Let's just say that I've been on hiatus.

Anyway, my "best friend" is my Right Hand.

Yes, I live a sadly lonely and pathetic life.

But if you think about it, my right hand has all the qualities of a best friend:

1. It doesn't judge me
2. It's there for me in both the good and bad times. 
3. It helps me study.
4. It entertains/draws for me.
5. It helps create worlds for me.
6. It listens to me...if I ever, er, want to talk to it.

Makes sense, right?

I found drawings that I did when I was a youngster and they were all mermaids. Lots and lots of mermaids. With Red Hair.  I suspect that I was a fan of Disney's Little Mermaid. So I did kind of a Before and After type drawing to represent my "evolution."

Done in Prismacolor Fine liners (various sizes), Tombow Dual Brush Pens, and a little bit of grey Copic markers.

PS --I went a little overboard with this drawing because I was listening to lab safety rules for a really long time and I got bored.  My imagination just ran with it.

[30DDC] Day 4 - Favorite Place

I like empty campuses.

I'm weird like that and I'm a loner, basically.

But that's not what I drew.

UCLA  is unofficially separated into 2 campuses: North Campus (liberal arts) and South Campus (science).  North Campus is very beautiful, with sculpture gardens and pretty architecture; while South Campus is a confusing cluster of concrete buildings.  Because I was a biology major, I spent most of my time in South Campus, which I nicknamed Concrete City.   In this Concrete City there is a botanical garden that is apparently used for research.  I loved this botanical garden because no one went there and I love the irony of a botanical garden hidden in the middle of a "concrete city."  It reminded me of Secret Garden, a place no one knows.  I spent my lunches and breaks here between classes rather often.  I had some pictures of this garden but I don't have a shot from my favorite spot so I had to do it from memory.

I feel like the quality of my drawings is going down as the days go by for this challenge. Oh well.

[30 DDC] Day Three - Draw Favorite Food

I don't know why they make these challenges so difficult.  WHY DO THEY MAKE ME PICK ONLY ONE ?!

I think my favorite is Katsudon because I order it whenever I enter a Japanese restaurant, but Katsudon is really hard to draw...interestingly. So, I drew alternatives instead

Yes, I like cake.  It's not really my favorite, though. Vons has these Friday $5 sales.  This weekend they had the Boston Cream Cake and it was specially decorated for Labor Day Weekend.  I thought it was cute and it was delicious.

Today when I woke up I smelled camp/barbecue fire and it reminded me of s'mores.  I like s'mores for more sentimental reasons because I used to make s'mores on the last night of band camp at the HUGE campfire while most people attended the dance.  I loved the solace of the camp fire.  Besides, the band moms kept on giving me materials to make s'mores.  I think I ate 10 s'mores in one night once.  Unfortunately, I haven't had camp fire s'mores since high school, which was way too long ago.

I used pen and ink and Tombow Dual Brush Pens again.  I'm really having a blast with the Tombow Dual Brush pens.

[30 DDC] Day Two -- Draw Favorite Animal

30 Day Drawing Challenge Day 2 -- Draw Favorite Animal 

I do not really have a favorite animal but I often reference gorilla, kittens, and chinchilla in my conversations.

I had a little obsession with the great apes since I took physical anthropology. Koko, the talking gorilla, is by far my favorite celebrity gorilla.

How can you not like kittens anyway?!?!

My dad often informs  me "chinchilla ears are the best for ear dissections."  My dad studied sound.  This is a fact I grew up with. And I think their movements are funny and cute.

Done with Pen and Brush.  'CUZ I LIKE THE BOLDY LINES.

[30DDC] Day One -- Draw Yourself

This is my drawing for the 30 Day Drawing Challenge: Day 1 -- Draw Yourself

I christen this self-portrait Portrait of Lies!!!

Why?

Well, because there are more lies in this portrait than truths.

Here are the lies:

1. I'm NOT that skinny.
2. My moles are on the wrong sides.
3. I have yet to actually join a Coffeaholic Anonymous (if it exists).
4. I don't hold a pen/pencil that way.
5. We were given  homework to practice drawing confident lines with different media for the weekend so we won't go out to party, get drunk, and accidently drive over our art instructor.  Hahaha, yes, I have NOT done yet that.
6. I'm not sure if my skin color is accurate.  I might not be that dark because I stopped using references when I started coloring.
7. The DATE.  I didn't finish the drawing on September 1, though I did start it on that day.  I actually finished this on September 2.

Now, here are the truths:

1. I do have that hat.  I made it for my illustration class.  It is highly uncomfortable to wear.
2. I do wear a "SPAM" shirt.  Quite often in fact.
3. I do squint weird.

I wanted to do this challenge so I will continue drawing with so-so quality and not just ending with pencil sketches.  I used Pen and ink, then I colored with Tombow Dual Brush Pens.  Tombow brush pens are so much fun. 

30 Days Drawing Challenge!!

Hello artsy friends!!

One of my artsy friends posted this 30 Days Drawing Challenge on facebook and I wanted to do it too!
So, that is what I will be doing in September...hopefully.

The Horror of Painting digitally

View the Horror.

She is a victim of my first digital painting that was done in Photoshop, from beginning to end.

I am ashamed. I want to go bury myself somewhere.
Pfft.  This is what happens when I stray away from my usual cartoon/caricature-style.  At least I tried, I TRIED.  I REALLY REALLY TRIED.

Watch my process of doom and amuse yourselves:

Hello Recycle Bin, Or Not

Today we were cleaning out our bookshelf and I found a secret folder nudged behind the bookshelf.

And the secret folder contained these lovelies( or not) from about 1~2 years ago:

...and I didn't have the urge to throw them out!!  Shocking!

Okay, allow me to explain why this might be a shocker.

Plain and Blunt: I have an habit of throwing away my drawings/art work.  It's just an habit that developed from childhood.  It relieves stress/frustration for me.  Some people drink alcohol. Some people punch their pillows.  Me? I like to ceremoniously throw out piles and piles of my drawings/doodle/art.  I'll sometimes scrummage my room for doodles I can throw out, and I have a folder of doodles for whenever I have the urge to meet with the Recycle Bin. I also think that my style changes rather often so after more than a year, I can't stand looking at my older stuff; hence therefore (goody, a redundancy) I like to symbolically murder my older atrocities. 

But these?  They're kind of nice, especially because I actually like this style but I don't draw in this style very often these days and I don't have patience for this kind of detail...

...and LOOK!  The right sketch has a COFFEE STAIN on the right hand corner! Very fitting for this blog, don't you think?

Facebook Sketch Request

Sometimes when I'm bored or unmotivated about life, I will randomly ask my Facebook friends to ask me to draw something.  This time around, I quite liked the outcomes of the sketches, so dear fellow (imaginary) bloggers, if you do not mind, I would like to share with you my silly sketches and thoughts.

My first request was to draw a friend and his boy friend as Bowser and Toad, respectively.  I was utterly befuddled by this request.  You see, video games were like the fruit from Eden when I was growing up.  My mother sincerely thought that they would rot my brains; thus severing any possibilities of me becoming a gal nerd gamer and understanding the components of the Mario-verse.  So when I read "toad" I was thinking more on the line of Frog and Toad Are Friends and Bowser was someone who wears a BOWTIE. Obviously, I was deeply mistaken.  I drew this with a ballpoint pen.

Another request was BBC's Sherlock fanart.  I luuuuurve that show. Like LUUUUUUURVE it to bits. Even before knowing the existence of the show, I actually liked Benedict Cummberbatch from The Last Enemy and I adored Steven Moffet's Coupling, so as a Sherlock Holmes fan I was super excited about this show.  Benedict Cumberbatch + Steven Moffet = GOLD, but Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson is like Nutella on cupcakes.  So delicious and addicting.  Done in ink, brush, and pen (nibs).  I generally like the brush more because I can have more control and I like the bold lines.  However, I also like the spider web-like thin lines that the nibs could produce, despite my inability to control the pen to my liking.

No, did I? Noooo.

I was liking this sketch....until I noticed that I had chiseled away her hips in a Greg Land manner.

The world should know my shame.

This is my punishment.

Hoping for a Hero...and then some doodles

Some real-life tragedies seriously makes me wish Batman was real. 

On a non-tragic note, I like to doodle while watching TV shows/movies.  I've been watching Jeremy Brett's version of Sherlock Holmes series and I made a little game of drawing things/person my eyes falls on, without pausing the show.  

 

This game proved to be a bit challenging and I haven't played it ever since. 

Undeniably, I haven't been practicing as much as when I was taking art classes.  On the other hand, I try to make a conscious effort to carry around a sketchbook and sketch people I see.  The people I sketch are mostly people I see at work and the people at work usually looking down...

Someday, SOME DAY, I WILL be able to draw and capture real people's likeness.

Just practice,practice, and practice....

LE SIGH.

I WILL PERSEVERE.

....I hope.

Pengasm

I had a boba/art date with a artsy homie last week and she showered me with these fantastically wonderful ballpoint pens called INKJOY.  My hands were having PENgasms. It was ...sigh...magical.  They just glide across the paper with heavenly smoothness.  Sigh, so lovely.

 When I sketch people from observation, I try to make it a habit to sketch with a pen so I would sketch faster and not be hesitant.  So the following are sketches I did during work using the INKJOY pens.

 I could see the scapula of the boy with the hat.  That was interesting in a non-interesting way.

This dude was mostly straight faced during the time I was spying on him but he smiled/giggled once when he was reading the calculus book. I don't hate on calculus and I've read that same book before...but I don't recall it ever being humorous.  

I cheated.  I referenced a photo. Please don't sue me.

Today's dose of coffee:  Large cup of French Vanilla coffee in the morning and a can of Espresso at night. 

A cup a day, keeps the headache away.

FanGirl-ing over Fuck No Greg Land

Lately, I've been a little obsessed with a delightfully amusing blog called Fuck No Greg Land

I am a first generation Asian-American.

So, I tend to levitate toward Manga/Anime.  It's written in our Asian DNA, really can't avoid it.  Therefore, I basically don't read or come into any close contact with American comics.

CURSE MY ASIANESS!!!

Anyway, the blog consists the frustrated rants from a despairer of Greg Land's artwork. 

At first, when I was introduced to the blog as a guide of what not to do, I was:

I was confused.  I didn't get it because, on a superficial glance, I thought Greg Land's art was kind of beautiful and appealing.  

As I started to read more of the blog and be exposed to more Greg Land's artwork, it Clicked!

Though he does indeed have some talents like in details and shading.......his work....is just so..........bad  and it hyper-sexualizes women. It irks me. Just, just, go to the blog.  Go. Amuse yourselves.  A part of me wants Greg Land to continue his bad work so the Fuck No Greg Land blog could exist forever.

I am an anti-Twihard and I am guilty of being a h8ter. Then, I thought to myself: wouldn't it be amusing IF they made a Twilight saga comic and Greg Land illustrated the whooooooooooooole thing? As a friend of mine said, it would be "beautifully horrible" because all that series needs is not hips, incomplete appendages, melon-like pancaked boobs, exploding biceps, and we cannot forget the key ingredient, PORN FACES, to really complete the Twilight picture. 

So I drew:

I basically put Kristen Stewart's head on Pamela Anderson's body and R. PatZ's head on Arnold Schwarzenegger's body.  I probably should have traced to achieve Greg Land's hyper realistic style, but I don't know, I didn't feel like tracing.  Greg Land also has really nice line quality which I don't have patience for.

Friends, please, allow me to break down my drawing into Greg Land elements:

The boobs and the hips were the hardest to draw for me because it went against all of my instincts:

"Oh, wow, these boobs are big.  MUST MAKE THEM BIGGAH."

"hmmmm. want to make curves, wait, no...HAVE TO MAKE TORSO LONGER.  MUST NOT HAVE HIPS."

To be fair, I have many many faults in my work and he gets paid for his work, while I don't.  I shall now leave you with one of my drawing that demonstrates one of my faults: The Floating Head

Done with water soluble color pencils.  It's supposed to be Yukari from Paradise Kiss Liive Action.  Supposed to be.

Random Post School Thoughts.

This past semester really inspired me to try to constantly draw in a sketchbook, even draw random thoughts. Currently, undergoing art classes withdrawal.   

Remedy: drinking and painting with coffee. 

Of course, taking one obsession to remedy another obsession's withdrawal is a perfectly sane and healthy solution.

If the Random thoughts are hard to read:

[top] "No more art classes. I don't know what to do with myself."

[middle] "Covertly claiming ownership of leftover coffee."  From a Potluck, of course.  I do not break the law.

[bottom] "Went to Japanese store....Saw Recent J-Fashion Fad 'Doll Face Make-up' And it FREAKED ME OUT"

A possible aftermath of a Ninja Cat combat

I think I might have witnessed the result of something epic in the restroom...

Drawn in Coffee, mixed with black and red ink.

That's how I roll...

...because, you know, I'm a Coffeaholic.

Revive the Blog

I'm reviving the blog and I'm going to make regular---ish updates, hopefully.

Still have shitload to do, so it's going to be a short, yet witty-less, update.

Inspired by a photo of a little boy saluting in front of his father's grave.
This is also my first sketches using a W&N Series 7 Brush.
It's like holding heavenly magic.

And on a funnier aspect of life, I tend to draw on the tables when they're covered with paper.  And that is what I did in class...

I'm currently obsessed with a Victorian Period Drama Series.

It has beautiful cinematography.

It has great dialogue.

It has engaging characters.

It also helps that the lead male is excessively Handsome.

It's called North & South.

and I am a fan girl.

They do say the first step to recovery is admitting the problem....