Oh hay, Blogger's got a new look

Vanilla sponge cake with strawberries

I baked a cake for a friend last week for her birthday. It's a shame that I never found out if the cake tasted good or not, because my mom kept bugging me for a piece when I was making it.
Did I mention I failed the first time and ended up making burnt egg custard instead?


And stuff I bought over the weekend at Michaels.

Canvas board, angular brushes, and Triple Thick glaze

I bought them brushes because I was tired of ruining my semi-good brushes with things like glaze and masking fluid.
I'm waiting for next week's coupon so I can pick up a more expensive item I wanted.

Moving on, I just updated to Blogger's new look. I don't mind how the front page looks; it just looks like a cleaner and bigger version of the previous homepage. The editing screen on the other hand... it kind of reminds me of something you would see in Buzzword (is that even what they're calling it nowadays?) or Google Docs. Less a forum you can type in, and more like an online editor. Don't know how I feel about it.

I know that I don't like how Google's trying to integrate everything with Google+ now. Google, man, no one is using Google+. I mean, I have it, but the only thing I've ever done on it was accept my cousin's invite to join it. Woo.

And Picnik's closing too.
...yeah, I don't care about that either.

Haul: Spoils From Hong Kong

So like I was gone in Hong Kong for a while, for anyone who cares. Picked up a lot of stuff there, which includes art supplies.
Even though there's a lot more that we got, this is the stuff I specifically picked up for myself.

Zebra Drafix Pencil

You don't know how long I've been waiting to get a new drawing pencil. Three years, yo. Three years (ever since I lost my last one).

Tombow Mono Eraser

And here's a new drawing eraser to boot so I don't have to used the worn out piece of crap I currently am.

Masking Fluid

For wartercolouring purposes... if I ever get around to painting anything in the near future, that is.

Copic Markers

HELL YEAH, THAT CASE COST ME EXTRA.
And I got duplicates. So sad.

Deleter White #2

Dewd, it's like a thick-ass, white paste inside. Yeah, a paste. Smells a little toxic, too.
At least it's opaque.

Nikko G-Pen Nibs

Yeah, this is what all manga artists used. That's right, kids. I've gone to the dark side.
I've actually got no nibs which look like this one. I mean, I've got a smaller version of it, but not these exactly.

So lets see how they preform on plain ol' index card:

G-Pen and Deleter White tests

I like using it. Yup.

More dip pen tests

So, it'll probably be a while before I end up posting for the month so here's a belated haul post thinger-ma-jigger.

Finally got a proper caligraphy ink set to go with my dip pen set.

Silver, black, white, and gold ink.

Don't you love the backdrop of the math homework I should be doing now but is instead writing this? Yeah yeah.

Oh, and can you guess what this is?

I'll give you a hint: it makes the big bottle I bought not too long ago a big waste.

They're even the same brand as the nibs, Speedball, too, so I know they should work fine with them.

And fine they did:

Ink tests

Holy shit man. If you actually bothered to read the writing chicken scratch, you'd see that I spent a considerable amount of time ranting about how awesome the black ink was. Also found a new favourite nib. Amazing what proper ink can do, right?
As for the other colours, the chunks of glitter in the gold and silver ink produced an overly thick and heavy line for me. Plus, combining the ink with smaller nibs makes the line too transparent and not glittery enough. I have no choice but to stick with the bigger ones. Oh well. Still beats using marker ink instead.
And, I probably don't need to say it, but I also tested the white ink out there, but being white, you can't see it.

What else is cool is that, unlike Sakura Pigma pens or something, this stuff is permanent when it dries. You can actually feel the texture, man. It dries 3D.


Drawn on a piece of index card.

Dip pen tests among other things

I get excited over art supplies. No surprise, no?

Check out the stuff I bought over the weekend:

Speedball sketching set

WOOT. The coolest and the most recent thing I've gotten: a dip pen set. Comes with six nibs and two pen holders. Now all I need is some gold ink and I'm all set for what I had been planning to do all this time.

Did some trial runs with them on a piece of index card. I used some green ink I had which was supposed to be used for refilling Tria markers. Only used the three big pen nibs, though, because they looked a little easier to clean.

Dip pen tests

Serious ink blotting, much? I partly blame that towards my inexperience, and to the fact that I couldn't really dip the nib into the ink as it only had a spout used to refill empty markers with.
I love how the tip of the nib always catches onto the paper when I draw with it, too.

Always good to practice good care taking, too. Thus, I got an excessively big bottle of pen cleaner.

Pen cleaner - 150 mL - imagine that it's flipped counterclockwise for you

I was about to buy a slightly smaller container of it I found on the sale rack because it was used and was dripping the stuff everywhere. However, my dad had a problem with the dripping.
Sucks that I got such a huge bottle of that when I bought a puny tub (if I can even call it that) of brush cleaner:

Old Master's Brush Cleaner - 1/4 onz

And I just started to get into watercolours, too!
I love the smell. Reminds me of lemon dish soap, except less strong.

Oh, and I bought a Moleskine notebook.

Dark blue Moleskine

 Nope, still don't see why people love them so much. Maybe it's because I bought a notebook instead of a sketchbook. Because I really wouldn't be able to do any paintings in mine's when I can't even write in pen without it showing on the other side.

I think you guys all say my Artist's Loft watercolour set, too. I don't know, though there's more colours, I kind of prefer the Talens one over it. Just *something* about the paint that bugs me.

Haul: Yarn and knitting needles

I went to Michaels yesterday to buy some stuff for Fabric Arts. Huge knitting section they have there. :O

The yarn’s really soft and fluffy. In fact, on the paper packaging binding it, there was a baby onto of a crocheted baby blanket. At first, I wanted some pure wool ones, but I found out acrylic felt better. And the colours!

The needles are a size 6 (close enough to my 5s) covered in purple aluminum. The colour I’m not very fond of, but hell, better than those cheap plastic green ones I borrowed from school. It’s still better than those matte metal needles I see people carrying. It comes in one colour: grey.
(Good thing, though, is that it comes with its own case. Mine’s might scratch. :()

Some pics:

Used my phone camera for this. I should really invest in a new memory card because mine’s is just so screwed up. I hate having to push it down so I could take a picture and uploading these pics too.