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.