Request: OC Refs

You know I'm always down with requests from friends, right? So long as they're not exploiting me, claiming it's their artwork, or anything else despicable, I have no problems cranking out a picture or two. In fact, if I know you, dear reader, enough and you asked, I'd probably say yes.

But anyways, a friend asked me for a picture not too long ago for her OC. All I had was a description to work off of. That's good for the artistic freedom, bad because it's always easier to look at an arm than be told how it looks like. It helps than her ghost form was pretty much a tweaked version of Miku Append (who can be thought of as Miku ver. 2).

My initial sketches of the characters:

Human form.

Ghost form.

But when I showed it to my friend, I found out that the character is supposed to be 14. Obviously, what I drew didn't resemble a 14 year old so after some convincing that I was fine with redoing it (the sketch didn't take that long to do anyways), it was back to the drawing board.

Luckily, my friend wasn't some assholey-client and I got the okay for the second sketch. And it was smooth sailing from there.

Human form on the left, and ghost form on the right.

No shading because I figured it was a ref and in refs, usually just solid colours are used. I think I only highlighted the hair, eyes, and the lips. Fine with me. Probably easiest colouring job I've done because my lineart was nice enough for once just to use the magic wand tool to do all the work for me. That and my friend gave me the hex codes for her eyes and hair.

Such a shame that a lot of detail I put into the ghost girl's outfit is lost either due to shrinking the picture to half its size after I was done (a little tip if you want to make smooth and thin lineart easily) or the grey being too dark for the lines to appear properly (since most of it was focused on the belt).


Lineart in openCanvas.
Coloured in Photoshop.

Recipe: Blueberry White Chocolate Swirls

Not chocolate chip cookies.

Fresh from the oven. Looks like one's already been devoured.

Made them in the spur of the moment yesterday, with my mom pushing me to make it because it was "healthy" Plus, we didn't need to buy anything as everything we needed were readily available. It was like 9 at night when I made them. I don't know why I  had to make them, though, since it was my mom who saw the recipe in the newspaper and all (and I would have much preferred baking a cake instead).


Blueberry White Chocolate Swirls
From the Vancouver Sun
(There's also an additional lemon glaze that comes with it but we opted to go without it because it's "too fattening".)

• 2 cup flour
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenhiet.
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine milk and oil. Add wet mixture to dry.
3. Sprinkle flour onto the work surface and roll out dough into a rectangle. Press blueberries and white chocolate chips into the dough, and roll it up to make the swirl pattern.
4. Cut into 8 - 9 pieces and bake for 25 - 30 minutes.

I guess they were pretty good, considering they're all gone now, haha.

Fanart: Skyward Sword Zelda

Zelda's Skyward Sword reincarnation

Even though there isn't a clear release date yet (other than "the holiday season" according to Nintendo at E3), I've already preordered a copy of Skyward Sword. Yeah, I didn't know it was possible until my sister told me one of her friends did it. It also helped that it was on sale on preorders for E3 games, and Skyward Sword just happened to be one of them.

Well, being a Zelda fan, I'm excited. I didn't know there was already all this stuff released about the characters and the world so I spent my sleeping time seeing what I had missed out on. I really hope that it's true that the graphics would be upgraded before the final release of the game. I know it's not going to look like Twilight Princess, but I wish there could be another game in that style. Maybe for the Wii U?


Drawn in openCanvas.

I-Should-Have-Been-Taking-Notes 7.3: Psychology

I'm updating my blog when I should be cleaning my room, especially since there's a bunch of stuff on the floor which makes it difficult to enter my room without stepping on mounds of paper. My priorities are in the right place.
But seriously, I had scanned these in a while ago, after emptying out my school binders. I've been meaning to upload them, but laziness is always pulling me away. That and other obligations, but they're usually aren't all that important, like cleaning my room for example.


So why does psychology get it's own post? Is it because I drew the most pictures during that subject? Is it because the teacher would sometimes start the class off with asking us to draw stuff on a sheet of paper? Or is it because the pictures here are particularity kick ass because I coloured them in with crayons my teacher provided? Well, the answer is all of the above, and with that, I'll start.

A girl holding a cup or a bowl or something like that.

People and animals. The animals frankly look so much better.

A beautiful brain I copied from a textbook. I only know all these parts because I learned them in Bio. Despite the implied evidence from the graph, I learned less about the brain in Psych than I did in Bio.

A chart about the harmful effects of stress that grew into a zoo for neon-coloured animals.

Things I want. Can you decipher it?

A nightmare I had...

...and the other half of it. I've been having dreams daily now, I hate how I keep getting chased by a mad man in all of them.

How depression looks like. I'm not being emo; that was what was asked for.

Check the rest of the series out:

• 7.1 Sciences
• 7.2 Languages
• 7.4 Misc
• 7.5 Art

And since I'm on the subject of school, did I mention I received the subject award for art? I was totally not expecting that, art being such a subjective... well, subject.


Drawn on paper with pencil.
Coloured with crayons.

I-Should-Have-Been-Taking-Notes 7.2: Languages

I'm updating my blog when I should be cleaning my room, especially since there's a bunch of stuff on the floor which makes it difficult to enter my room without stepping on mounds of paper. My priorities are in the right place.
But seriously, I had scanned these in a while ago, after emptying out my school binders. I've been meaning to upload them, but laziness is always pulling me away. That and other obligations, but they're usually aren't all that important, like cleaning my room for example.

And now stuff from my two languages, English and Japanese.

Faces.

A head.

Concepts for my Eng comic I never uploaded. Strangely enough, it was found in my Japanese binder.

Some concepts for yet another Eng project that I would explain but it was a stupid assignment anyways. Included is a picture of an angel I drew to show people I could draw with pen, and a kick ass dinosaur.

Animals and body parts.

More body parts. What does this mean?

And yet again, more body parts, but now with people... or at least, half of them.

Check the rest of the series out:

• 7.1 Sciences
• 7.3 Psychology
• 7.4 Misc
• 7.5 Art

Drawn on paper with plain ol' mechanical pencil.

I-Should-Have-Been-Taking-Notes 7.1: Sciences

I'm updating my blog when I should be cleaning my room, especially since there's a bunch of stuff on the floor which makes it difficult to enter my room without stepping on mounds of paper. My priorities are in the right place.
But seriously, I had scanned these in a while ago, after emptying out my school binders. I've been meaning to upload them, but laziness is always pulling me away. That and other obligations, but they're usually aren't all that important, like cleaning my room for example.

Lets start off with the things I did in my two sciences, specifically Chemistry and Biology.

I had half an hour left, and all we got was a review package. Guess I'll draw.

Bunch 'o poses. Can you guess who these people look suspiciously akin to?

Viza with an ice pick and brass knuckles.

Someone in a dress. I drew it while dissecting a pig. FUN FACT: I don't wear gloves when I dissect things.

Body parts, faces, a chibi, a person, and an enzyme on the back of a grad survey I obviously never gave back.

Sorry, too haunted by the equilibrium question I didn't crop off to write a proper caption.

The outfits I wear that inspire me enough for me to draw them. Summer time = me in less scrub clothing.

What do you mean all girls don't have volley balls taped to their chests?

Check the rest of the series out:

• 7.2 Languages
• 7.3 Psychology
• 7.4 Misc
• 7.5 Art

Drawn on paper with plain ol' mechanical pencil.

Recipe: Chicken Teriyaki

This angle makes me artistic.

More eye and stomach candy.

The "LOL presentation" bowl of left over chicken that couldn't fit so beautifully on the plate.

Naw, I don't really have a recipe for you, or at least the one I made today anyways. I didn't measure anything at all, and coming from a person who still doesn't know how much a pound is in relation to something or how approximately a meter is, you should be afraid.

But since the title promised a recipe for you in the title, even though I discreetly said I wouldn't, I'll summarize what I did. Basically, I deboned eight chicken thighs into filets after finding out cutting through bones to make chunks (I called them "nublets" in my head... don't ask why) or cutting them into chunks in general even with the bone removed was too difficult. I then marinated it in equal parts soy sauce, mirin, brown sugar, and about four parts water. I even threw in a smashed tangerine slice to add that acidic kick I don't think really did anything in the end. After that, I put on the blue apron I made in home ec 8, pan fried everything, and when it was nearly cooked, poured in teriyaki sauce (equal parts mirin, soy sauce, brown sugar, half a part ginger juice) in a pan and let that reduce for about a minute. Oh, I flipped the chicken, too, halfway, and threw some green onions on top while it was reducing. I guess that's kind of important too.
And if you don't trust me, you can always trust the internets because I trust them more than I do myself too.

And why am I so excited over this so much? Because it turned out good when the last time I cooked any meat lead to something so horribly undercooked that I called my friends telling them I might die the following day. Over dramatic? Well, you didn't see my meat.

Now it's on rice. The difference.

 My sister gave me an "I approve" so I guess that's good, right? After all the chicken had been eaten, my dad took the sauce-laden dishes so he could salvage the rest as a topping for rice. He even told me I should make more dishes. Booyah. Slowly, but surely, I will one day get rid of this "I cooked something - BEWARE" title I have hovering over me.

(Insert Synonym for "CG Dump" Here)

Let's start off with something from today.

Bleh. Nothing about this picture leaves me proud enough to keep on opening the picture to look at it.

The filename is "Maya" but I don't really have a name for her. She's an OC from the good ol days, but one I never really expanded on because her only purpose was to suddenly appear and cause drama in the protags' lives. She's not really an angel either, she's just dead. The dress she's wearing also looks very familiar, like I've seen it from somewhere.

I think the whole purpose of making this was to find a quick, "sellable" style that would be appropriate for commissions and prints and the like. Something a bit neater than my freehand painterly one I have already. Haven't found it yet. Back to surfing through the internet, stealing finding inspiration from other people.

...and now for things I didn't do today.

Another enviro study. Haven't done these in a while. The clouds/sky actually don't look so bad, especially the big one in the left-hand corner. But then it gets all crappy once you look down from there so just pretend that part doesn't exist.

If I were to explain the inspiration for this, I could probably pass it off as something artistic or that I knew what I was doing and generally leave you all impressed by my knowledge of fine art. But since it turned out so "wtf" that even slapping on the label of abstract wouldn't save it, I won't. Frankly, I don't even know what the heck that's supposed to be anymore.

My tablet wouldn't respond to pressure sensitivity. It was awful.


First and last picture made in SAI.
Second picture made in Photoshop.
Third picture made in openCanvas.

Harvey Moiseiwitsch Volodarskii

Been a while since I've done one these messy, one day couple-'o-hours head shots, right? I've been trying to avoid 'em because I'm not really improving all that much by doing 'em, but I guess you can argue that I'm not really improving all that much by drawing naked people either. At least the latter looks more impressive. Anywho, we're talking about headshots. Yeah, I made one today.

"It's showtime!"

Okay, background time. Volodarskii is a Russian (?) magician by day, and an assassin by night (or whenever he's called to do his assassin job). He wields two weak beam katanas - and I'm sorry everyone for how lame that sounds but I didn't make this up - but it's really when he flips everything upside down when you start getting screwed over. Did I also mention he's from No More Heroes? I guess that's kind of important to know, too.

I love his theme, too.

It's such a shame that he's looked over in the game because he's not a girl and he was kind of easy to defeat. But look at his name. His name. (Plus, he's ranked fourth, so in theory, he shouldn't have been that easy.)


Made in openCanvas.
I wish I had an event file to show you guys, except when oC asked me if I wanted to save a project file, I accidentally clicked "no". Woops. This is what happens when you complete a picture in a couple of hours.

Doll: JBF

After a year of on and off (mainly off) work, I've finally finished it: my tribute to Luka's signature song.

Yes, I think I started this back when I just finished my Korean Hello Kitty bride one last year. Yeah, that's long, but in my defense, maybe if stupid Windows Update didn't restart my computer on me I would've finished earlier. Sure, I could've just saved the WIP before hand, but how many of you remember to safety save, anyways?

Well, what do you think about the resemblance?

 My god are his pants bad. And his shirt. And pretty much everything about the boy because he's rushed. Luka was completed about a year back, or at least her hair was anyways. I think she looks way way better, but maybe it's because she's more colourful than her monochrome counterpart.
But you know what really steals the show? The balloon. Like man, you don't know how proud of it I am. It came out looking so good. Sure, it looks pretty bad in a dark background, but in a lighter one it's not so bad. I should've animated it because it looks so awesome, but that would also mean I need to add in blinking animations, which isn't cool, especially since there's two people.

And the JBF sign looks like poopie. Don't look at it. I just didn't have the heart to remove it because it took me so long to do.

Made in Paint.
Base by wish04.

Recipe: Whhite Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake (&& BONUS Parfait)

Ugly angle.

LOOKS DELICIOUS.

There's like huge fissures on the top of the cake. It kind of looks like the raspberry jam evaporated out, leaving just an imprint, which facilitated further cracking. At least when covered in the top layer of jam, it evens it out pretty well. Being a translucent topping, you can still see the shadow of the crevice, but that's what additional toppings are for.

But, aesthetics matter not because this thing tastes awesome. Okay, maybe I'm jumping the gun a little, the cake still residing happily in the fridge, but the residue left from the sides of the pan tasted awesome anyways.

I feel kind of bad for putting these recipes up, because it's suggesting as if I came up with it. No, I just modified one I found via Google (through the help of helpful commenter, of course!)

White Chocolate Raspberry Swirl CheesecakeFor a 9" pan. (Since I only had a 6", I halved the recipe when I made it.)

• 2 cups Oreos
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 6 tbsp seedless raspberry jam
• 2 cups white chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup half and half
• 3 pkgs room temp cream cheese
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sugar

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line the bottom of the cake pan with wax paper.
2. To make the crust, crush the Oreos, along with the filling, until they're crumbs. Add in the butter and sugar, and press it into the bottom of the pan. 
3. Put chocolate chips and half and half in a metal bowl. Place the bowl over a pot of simmering water (or use a double boiler, if you have one), and mix until smooth. Let it cool until it's lukewarm.
4. Mix the cream cheese until smooth. Combine with sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Finish with vanilla extract and chocolate chip mixture.
5. Microwave the raspberry jam until runny, and let it cool for a while before using. Pour in half of the cake batter in the pan, and drizzle 3 tbsp on top. Repeat with the rest of batter and jam. Run a knife through the cheese cake to create marble effect.
6. Wrap the bottom of the pan in tin foil (if using a pan with removable bottom) and place on jelly roll pan and place in oven. Fill the jelly roll pan with hot water. Bake for 55 - 60 minutes, or until filling has set. If water evaporates, add more. Once finished baking, turn off the oven, and leave it in there for another hour.
7. Cool, then cover the top with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 8 hours. Top the cake with the rest of the jam.

Finally, some tips to help prevent cracking which I wished I had read prior to baking:
Tips for Cheesecakes
Perfect Cheesecakes

And walla! You're done! It's a long, long, tedious process, but all cheesecakes usually are.
Can't wait to cut into this baby.


And I mentioned a bonus parfait in the title, right? Well, a day or two prior to Canada day, my mom was fussing over what dessert to bring to our uncle's barbeque. While she was stifling through old recipes, I was hungry. So I made a parfait. And before you know it, it turned from this:

I actually have the perfect parfait spoon at home. Can you believe it?

 

To being mass produced into this:

Reusing plastic cups that I used for my trifles ftw.

Thank you, McD, for the idea. It's pretty much chopped strawberries and bananas, layered, with vanilla yogurt, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. In my mass produced ones, my mom bought some whipping cream, so we topped every one of them with a serving of that. I think I might be improving with the pastry bag.

brb EATING DERICIOUS CAKE.

Study study study study

Lets start off with something completely from my head, something I haven't done in a while: an outfit post.

 

Granted, I wasn't really wearing that today. Because I didn't go out, I was just in my plain ol' oversized t-shirt bearing the symbol of a Guide camp I went to (yeah, it's one of those t-shirts). I figured that was boring, so here's something I wore a while back. Enjoy the picture because it's the only decent looking thing to follow.
Used Photoshop instead of my usual SAI/openCanvas. I do enjoy doing these kind of quick doodles on PS a lot more because the lines are bit thicker and sharper.

While I was already on the program, thought I'd do my enviro on it too. Unlike oC and SAI, PS has textured brushes. I really wanted to be good at using 'em. It didn't save how horrible the enviro came out though, but that should've been expected by now.

Note to self: colour in the background first instead of doing the foreground and then doing the background around it.

I hate shrubbery. Takes forever to do and it looks like crap.

Some 30 second figure drawings using photos and not 3D skinless models.

And finally, more figure drawing, but without the time limit. Yay, I get to analyze pictures of naked/scantily-clothed people longer!

I also started a painting in the morning. All I'll say about that is masking fluid is a pain in the butt to remove.


Made in Photoshop or with paper and pencil.

I wonder how many of these I'll have to do before I actually see improvement

I feel motivated. Since it's summer, and I've got nothing better to do, I guess I'll try improving on my art. Doesn't sound that hard, right? Just two months to become pro. Nothing difficult.

But like any person who wishes to get better, their starting work is gonna suck. I'm no exception.

Here, enjoy some crappy colour practice I did in the past two days.

...and this is the only thing from my head I'll post up. I didn't put too much effort into this one because before I really began, I got fed up with my lack of colouring ability and started to do some study-like practice.

Now get your eyes ready for some crappy enviros (as if the hands weren't crappy enough).

What the hell...

...is this shit?

I'll spare your eyes and move on to something I'm better at: body parts and people.

When in doubt, draw yourself.

And time for something done traditionally.

I sense long nights of practice in my future.


Made in openCanvas.
Last picture drawn with pencil on paper.