Character Concepts: Kanaria

Today, I'm going to introduce you to an old, beloved character of mine's

Made soon after the creation of Anaria (you see what I did thar with their names? I thought it was so original back then) back in... say, grade 4, and originally dubbed “Kanria”. She was pretty much an emo version of Anaria.
I won’t go into a whole back story right now, but I will say that she was lame. Recently, I’ve begun a whole overhaul of her design, keeping only the part where she is somehow involved with a demon cat. Other than that, if you looked at old pictures, you wouldn’t see the similarities.
I think Anaria is in way too deep to change, though. Pity; Kanaria revised is pretty cool.

Reference spam of Kanaria's background - but more specifically, the type of youkai (demon) she was and all about that stuff. Hope you can read my writing, but if not, these youkais are pretty much "half-bird-half-iunno" and they're full bird youkais' slaves.
And, hey,  look! Even this has some YYH on it.

Now more concentrating on Kanaria, her gestures, clothing, attacks, styles... yeah. Practice thing, pretty much.

Revamped her original dress design (because, back in the day, everyone had to wear one for some stupid occasion I can't even remember now)

Playing with styles. Trying to give her a style which isn't my default one.

I don't know if this belongs here, but this is the revamp of the cat demon she would turn into, but I scrapped that, so...
Oh well, enjoy Foopa. :D


Drawn on scrap photocopy paper with mechanical pencil.
The third and fourth picture is drawn on a Canson Basics Sketch book with mechanical pencil.
Stay tuned for more…!

(PS: Sorry for using weeaboo words here and there; back when she was created, I've always used those words to describe her, and I only found it fitting if I continued that)

Recipe: Chocolate Chip Candy Cane Cookies

I promised I would bring some cookies to my Scouts camp a few days ago. I planned on just using my trusted chocolate chip cookie recipe, but then remembered that there was a member in my troop which was allergic to peanuts. I’m kinda glad for that, because without her, I wouldn’t have been so bold as to put candy canes in my cookies. xD
And yes, though I put white chocolate chips in mines, I checked and they were peanut free (unless shea oil is actually a nut in disguise! :O) and, besides, the cookie needed the extra kick.

Cookie on the left was rushed and made without the dark chocolate chips, the right was made with care and with the dark chocolate chips.
Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies
Adapted from my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe in the Eyewitness cookbook.

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter (I like to buy the 1/2 cup sticks and just cut it in half, paper and all)
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour (I don’t really shift my flour or anything, I just fill, like, 1/4 less of my cup with flour; any other flour works fine, too, though I’m not very fond of pastry flour, but it works)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda (I mistaken it for baking powder for my first batch of cookies, but really, they turn out the same :P)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (or if you have the weird ones that only has one which says “just a pinch”, use that one)

The good stuff:
I estimate when it comes to this. I just use whatever I feel like looks good.

• peppermint candy canes (I use 4… even when I doubled it; use the pretty colourful ones!)
• white chocolate chips
• (optional: dark chocolate chips, but I think milk chocolate might taste better… don’t add too much, though, because I find it takes away from the delicate white chocolate taste, but, whatever; my mom likes the dark chocolate)
  

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t know what it is in Celsius, but that’s what the internet is for. I’d strongly recommend using a convection oven (which, in that case, you would need to preheat it at 345 degrees) for any baking because the outside colour is nice and even, even on the bottom.
2. Crush candy canes until there are no pieces bigger than 1 cm or so. I put them in a Ziplock bag and go wild, using some kind of blunt object to break especially stubborn pieces. If you prefer a more minty and crunchy cookie, leave the pieces bigger. Put aside.
3. Cream butter with brown and white sugar. I like to leave my butter for a few hours before I use it to make it easier to use.
4. Mix in the egg, then add the vanilla extract.
5. Add the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, and salt). They say to add it “a little at a time” but I just dump the whole thing in and mix.
6. Add crushed candy canes and chocolate chips.
7. Line cookie sheet with wax paper (because, believe me, even non-stick pans lose when it comes face to face with melted mints – so line your cookie sheet!) and scoop about 1 inch in diameter balls, roll them into balls, and squish them into the cookie sheet. The dough is a bit sticky, so make sure your hands are covered in flour, or to make them a bit more neat, you could wrap rolls of dough in plastic wrap, leave them in the fridge till they’re hard, and cut chunks off that.
8. Bake for 15 minutes, or when you can stick a toothpick in it, and it comes out clean. For a convection oven, I’d say around 10-7 minutes. For a softer cookie (and those are the best) leave it in for a few minutes less, or just gobble them up when they’re warm.

Yes, this recipe is easy - so easy that a 3rd grader (or so) could make them. I know because I’ve been doing it till then. I’ve got the whole recipe memorized, man! Chocolate chip cookies are like my speciality.
So yes, I think it’s a semi-festive treat for a cookie loving holiday.

Improvement Timeline: "That" Face

The reference picture:

First picture: I was still practicing my realism skills so it's a bit rough. I had this thing for elongated features back then, too, if it wasn't obvious. Needless to say, it looks nothing like the original picture.

What the hell happened here?! I got worse in my second sketch. This just looks so screwed up that I don't have words to describe how screwed up it is.

Redrawing of the above pic. I just wanted to see what I could do with a retarded picture and if I just used it as a reference, could I make it look what the reference photo looked like? Well, obviously not, but this looks the most normal of the bunch.
Well, that is until I drew this:

Whoa! Super improvement, I'd say. o-o It started with shit, ended up shittier, and suddenly looked a bit normal out of some freak accident. Though, of course, it's not perfect (like, come on, she's not even facing the right way) it's way way way better than the other ones.

See, practice man.


Made on Strathmore Sketch notebook and (for the first pic) a graph paper pad using mechanical pencil.

I suck at knitting

They say practice makes perfect. My fabric arts teacher things so too. That's why she got us to make 22 stiches by 22 stiches swatches to practice our knitting.
However, I guess the rule doesn't apply to me.
It's been three months into my fabric arts class, and see what I've accomplished so far!

From left to right: knitting swatch, purling swatch, stockinette swatch.
I even revisited my knitting swatch recently (because A: my other one sucked, and B: I gave it away) and you know what? I still see the suckiness still lingering thar.


Made with borrowed-from-school plastic knitting needles and purple cotton yarn and 100% half-assness!

Halloween Jack-o-Lanterns

Belated much? Oh well

From left to right: Moono, an owl.

Guess which one I did? Moono! Of course.
I also did the owl one, that is, if I were as talented as my sister is at pumpkin carving. Apparently, a trick-or-treater's parent came to our house and told my mom to relight the jack-o-lantern because it was so nice. Of course, it wasn't my jack-o-lantern.

Even the camera could focus itself on the Moono-lantern because it just sucks that much. *sigh*

School Doolies 5: Super Spam Tiem

...Well, I can only post five things per day, SO NOT THAT MUCH SPAM, I GUESS.

Monster... things. I need to work on my creativity, seriously. *sigh*

Super sketch spammage! Started off as SonicShit fanart (who is a fellow dA user, I'm just really mean to his "art". His name is not "SonicShit" btw, but I guess it's good that I didn't put its real name there) then evolved to character designs for a manga my friend and I are collabing in. On the bottom, there's some gesture practice, and some more creatures.
If you haven't noticed, faces are a reoccurring additions to my sketch spammage.

Playing with ink. I kind like just inking the outlines and keeping the pencil sketch inside.

Moar fanarts! Who do you see?
Also practicing my animal drawing abilities (or really, feline and canine drawing abilities :P). Ever since grade 4 and I just stopped drawing animals at all, I've really deteriorated (not that I was much to begin with).

Believe it or not, I actually draw things not anime. Some stalker sketches of faces of classmates in my art class. It's kinda hard when they're moving about and I can't draw realistic faces for shit. I also copied some poses in a magazine. The bondage pose picture I found the magazine was just so interesting that I had to rip that page out. (Don't worry, we were destroying these magazines for our collage anyways)


Made on photocopy paper and (in fifth pic) some fancy drawing paper with crappy mechanical pencil and (in third pic) Faber Castell medium PITT artist pen in black.

Belated Halloween 09 stuff

I suck.
I mean, October is my favourite month (followed by December and the summer months, lawl). I love the holiday months. When you see the holiday section of your department store beginning to bring back to life, it's just feels so... festive.

Like last year, I tried to finish some Halloween pics. Never did.
Correction: I never did upload it.

First one I got inked. I think an appropriate name for it would be "Get out of the candy". Yeah, I think I'll call it that.
I figured that since I drew a witch last year, I'd draw one this year. I don't think it holds the same "appeal" as the other one did, though.

Second one is a mage... thing. Or an alchemist; whatever you prefer. Not inked, obviously. Of course, the alchemist circle was half-assed, but whatever.

All done during art class! I don't think my teacher cares too much if I slack off (so long as I'm doing some kind of "art")


Made on bristol board with (first pic) Prismacolor Premier 0.05mm fine liner in sepia, Sakura Micron 0.05mm fine liner, (second pic) and a mechanical pencil.