Returning to the Sneetches

So I survived the fiasco of reading to the little children and I drew a thank you card for allowing me to read to her class.  I thought the card came out kind of cute:

It's summer.  And it's really bright outside.

 The inside of the card.

It took me forever and  a day to write in this font (also, I was an idiot and used ink and brush).  And then,  I misspell The Sneetches.  Yes,  I perpetuate stupidity to the unsuspecting generation. Yes, I know, I should be ashamed of myself.

I used FW ink again.  I diluted the ink to make it a more water colour-feel.

I just finished watching a J-drama TV series and movies of live action Nodame Cantible.  And this here is how I should my appreciation, by drawing the naughtiest conductor of the series, Streissman:

Streissman is blessing you.  You have been blessed by a 2-D entity on a whiteboard. Pretty much how I  spend my time at work.  Welcome to my religion.

Also, my mannequin is fabulous.

I think she needs a better photographer than me to really execute her fabulousosity.

Dealing with my obsessions, one fan art at a time, while busting out my rusty Photoshop skills to Shhhh

A little while ago, I bought a new pen holder and nibs from the "Manga" section of a Japanese bookstore, mostly out of curiosity. And, they're Made in Japan.  Clearly, they're far superior than the Made in USA ones.  I mean, come on, Japan completely knows how to make their manga-makin' swag. All kidding aside, they are actually rather lovely, and currently my favorite babies for art-ing, or, I guess lately more for fanart-ing

Obsession 1: Haruno Sumire and Takarazuka

Takarazuka is an all-female musical theater troupe in Japan that has been around for almost a century.  There are 5 main troupes in Takarazuka: Flower, Snow, Star, Moon, and Cosmos.  The Takarazuka actresses are generally split into otokoyaku (actresses who play men) or musumeyaku (actresses who play women).   I can go on and on, but essentially these actresses are triple threats: they sing, dance and convincingly act their assigned gender. 

Takarazuka holds a special place in my heart because I discovered them the summer I was going to transfer from a community college to a big university.  That summer I was scared shitless. There were days I felt really hopeless, and I just wanted to roll up in a corner to forget the world exists.  Then one day when I was looking for the clips on Youtube for the Viennese musical, Elisabeth, I came across clips of Takarazuka's Elisabeth. And, I fell in love. 

Yes, that is the story of my life.

A few weeks ago, I went on a Takarazuka fan art spree. So, Voila.

Haruno Sumire, a former Flower troupe otokoyaku  top star (2002-2008), is my favorite Takarazuka actress.   I mean, look at her (she's Death, or Tod, the Emperor of the Death -- The one with the white wig and military-like uniform).  She is so lovely and graceful.  Like, her voice and smile are hugging you.

I don't know, my Made in USA nibs didn't want to behave and kept on dripping on Haruno Sumire.  It was a bit frustrating, why USA? WHY? 

Otozuki Kei, Former Snow troupe otokoyaku top star (2010~2012), is bunches of cute.  She's interesting because she looks like a short little girl, but since she is an otokoyaku she is a little taller than the average Japanese woman and once she starts acting, she BOOM turns into cute little boy.  She did a cover of K-pop boy band's song Doushite Kimi wo Suki Natte Shimattandarou  and I was confused because I couldn't figure out if she was playing a woman or a man.  Based on the lyrics and the original K-pop version, I'm going to take an educated guess and say she's playing a man.  I might be biased, but I thought Otozuki Kei's version was much more heart wrenching and better story-telling, and, well, better everything.   

There's a move that she does in the music video that I really love....Little did I know how difficult drawing dance moves is.  *insert nervous laugh*

I actually have original Takarazuka actress characters who are best friends.  The otokoyaku (left) was actually a pop idol before she joined Takarazuka and her musumeyaku partner(right) is her bff who marries the otokoyaku's twin brother after her retirement. This explanation would probably less confusing if I actually assigned names to these characters, but I seem to be never be able to make up my mind.  I'm Japanese, I'm indecisive.  

My OCs are probably awkwardly sitting in back of my brain wondering why they even exist or if they should even bother having their existence known...since their creator is too lazy to even properly tell their story or acknowledge their existence. 

Also, I created a secret love child of the otokoyaku character, and called her Ryu but she isn't aware of her parentage. Ryu has a bit of darkish and muddy past.  She was kidnapped as an infant and raised to be a child assassin by a secret organization.  However, when she was 10, she was rescued by a woman and she is the only adult Ryu trusts.
Yes, I realize it's a very manga-like plot.
I lived and breathed manga during my developmental period.  It's soaked into my brain.  

Also, I'm Japanese.  It's in my blood. 

There simply is no escape for me.
I'm not sure why I'm having a child have such a life. I'm a horrible, horrible adult.

Ryu (right) originally had a different character design for a really long time,but I really like Otozuki Kei's appearance, so I changed her design to resemble Otozuki Kei.

Obsession 2: Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin

Shingeki no Kyojin is a great manga.

It is.

Shhhhhh, don't question it. Just accept it.

I really like the character Petra.  I like her because she is femininely cute, sweet, and kind, yet she is a soldier who has mad survivor skills and has respect from her superior.  She is also one of the few characters who still treated Eren with humanly kindness even after he was discovered to be a titan.

  

There is irony in this fan art.  Just a tad bit.  I'd like to think that she was happy on a tree once.  I think she deserved at least that.

I drew most of these with FW ink.
I was a little horrified when I scanned these drawing because I found out that everyone's heads were too big for their heads to be supported by their bodies.  So I had to search for my long lost photoshop skills and fix their heads to look less terrifying.  It was a pathetically long task because my skills were like covered 2-inches of amnesiac rust.

Until next time, amazing people who kindly read this through the whole thing.  I tip my imaginary Daiso Fedora to you.

Belated July 4th, y'all

Happy Belated July 4th...

I really wanted to draw American Girl, Felicity and Ben and they are from colonial America era, I thought it was kind of appropriate for Independence Day...

oh? What is Ben holding an in accurate colonial American flag, you ask?  I am not sure, I guess he felt futuristic and patriotic?

I have been collecting various colors of FW inks the past few months and I wanted to play with them so I wouldn't regret buying them.  I also bought some Japanese nibs.  They are AmaaaAAAaaaaZing.  I could be biased though, because I'm Japanese.

My Board-- mostly because I couldn't think of an intelligent title

For two weeks or so I  lugged around a 10" x 24" wood panel to and from school to work on a "late" project for my illustration class.

Ready for Painting Adventures, I was.  Readily equipped with paints, gessos, water containers, and different types of brushes.  Ready, I was.  Very much awkwardly, too. And, my arms got exercise. Yes, they did.

I wanted to avoid painting at home, so I tried to paint at school as much as possible, leading me to paint and ink in public often.  Consequently, I got interesting questions/conversations from random strangers:

I originally wanted to respond, "With paint and paint brushes."  But, I thought that that might be rude to strangers, so I pretended that I didn't speak English.

Also, For motivation and to help me to stay up at nights, I decided to take pictures of my process, and I even posted some on my Facebook.

1.) Phase One:

At this point, I was kind of feeling good about myself. =D


2.) Phase Two:

Still feeling pretty good at my progress...

3.) Phase Three:

Despite the fact I spent some quality time with Google Image looking at tube images and I had been marching band for 6 years, I did not seem to know what a tuba looks like.

Also, at this point I was pretty much:

4.) Phase Four

Barbara Streisand Fish is riding a float made from flowers.  Such fun. And look at 'em rain clouds turn into roses.

Also, I was starting to feel a bit of despair because it seemed no matter how much I worked on it, it never seemed to be close to finish:

5.) Phase Five

Done! Or, close to done as I could get.

Oh. If you're curious what the actual assignment is, it was to illustrate three phrases.  My three phrases were:

Don't rain on my parade.-- Funny Girl
And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow. -- Gilbert K. Chesterton
I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge? -- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

If you look closely, you can see these phrases throughout the panel.

I used a combination of acrylics, regular and clear gesso, and FW ink.

Sketch break with a tid bit labor of Love.

I wanted to try a style that was inspired by mashing up Mucha and Phil Noto's styles. My subject was Todoroki Yuu, a Takarazuka Otokoyaku (male role) actress.

I say Sketch Break because I wanted to draw something I didn't have to think too much about and outside of the projects I have to do. And, I wanted it to be relatively quick. I say labor of love, well, because for me to get to this point it took two pages of quick sketches of Todoroki Yuu and then some cursing with the copic markers. And yet, I still trudged on...

Make-up is both fun and hard to render.  It frustrates and delights me, pretty much the same way Takarazuka actresses confuse me with her gender-bending ways.

I used copic markers, sephia FW ink, and color pencils. I am both happy and upset with this.  I'm happy because it looks decent and I was able to color a face without using heavy outlines like I usually do. I'm a little upset because it doesn't really resemble Todoroki Yuu, rather she just looks like a typical Takarazuka Otokoyaku.

Now, please allow me to tell you a little about Todoroki Yuu.  Well, she is fabulous.  That's all you really need to know about her.  When you click on her name, it will lead you to a clip of her playing Ceaser, the "dude" in the white toga, with a fabulous entrance. No, THAT is not a man in drag.  I know you want to believe it's a man in drag but that is a woman with feminine make-up playing a man. (The other "man", with black hair, Brutus, is played by Sena Jun.  She is many degrees of adorable)  Here, another clip of her playing a man. She is amazing, isn't she? Such a convincing man.  What kills me is that when she is not in character,  she is elegantly feminine. Just go, click on the links and be seduced by her manliness, and then question your sexuality.  When you're thoroughly confused, come be confused with me. It'll be fun.

Doodle this Deedle -- part 2, I guess?

I  haven't been doing as much of the Doodle this Deedle Blog daily doodles as I would like and I missed a lot of fun doodles themes.  It's okay, I might go back and do some when I have time or bored.

My name is Rie.  I have a problem.  I buy art supplies that I really don't need.
So when the art store had a sale, I bought FW inks: Marine Blue and Burnt Umber.  To be honest, the Marine Blue wasn't as blue as I wanted but I still found it very lovely.

One  Daily Doodle was to: Draw something that makes you happy!

I have an unhealthy obsession for a former Takarazuka actress, Haurno Sumire, who was the top star for Flower troupe from 2002 to 2007/8.  Her singing is magical. 

:

To me, Haruno Sumire is a goddess.  True goddesses are hard to draw.  That's what I keep on telling myself ...as an excuse for not being able to capture her full loveliness.

This was fun one to do. The theme was to draw a Puke Fairy.  At first I was going to draw something gross. and anorexic, but I realized that I didn't really want to draw gross. Then I had an urge to a womanly woman. Rather, I drew this fairy who is a matronly English lady who helps you puke, and then give you tea and biscuits  She is fully equipped with a face mask and a puke bucket.

Yupe, drawn in coffee and Marine Blue FW ink .

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