twenty

Sleepy, sleepy... Here are some pics from today:

nineteen

Last year, I think, my sister bought me a Gudetama perler bead kit and told me to report back if I thought she'd like it, since she's been looking for new hobbies to get into. At first, I was thinking she probably wouldn't be into it because it's a very time-consuming sort of craft, y'know? ("I don't want to do a diamond painting sort of thing," she says. "I'm not 80." and it's basically the same idea...) But then I just recently found out about ~ 3D ~ perler bead designs and thought that would be a bit more exciting for her! So, I bought her a set of beads and have been looking up a bunch of patterns to send her, and I figured I might as well share a few links here, as well! (These are all in Japanese, by the way.)

• blog.3d-perlerbeads.com: this site is only accessible via the web archive now, but it's got a lot of cool designs. I specifically linked to the Pokemon tag, but they also have animals, anime characters, etc
• voxelbeads.com: tutorials of basic concepts behind making 3D perlers and various tips and techniques, like building working hinges
• eigotochinouasobi.com: again, I linked to the Pokemon designs, but there are a lot of other options: Sanrio, plants, various seasonal / holiday designs, etc
• @3dbeads2961: also, I found this guy on Twitter who seems to post a lot of cool (again, mostly but not exclusively Pokemon) designs

...Now that I think about it, though, she'd probably still think this is too tedious... I'm really not sure. Hopefully she'll like it... In any case, I also ended up buying myself a set of beads, just to try it out, lol. Here's a Vaporeon based on another one of @butterberrycafe's cute pixels, compared to a cross stitch with approx the same number of pixels:

The perler is obviously a bit bigger, but also much quicker to make, and miscounting is much less devastating... It's also really nice to be able to place two beads at once!

In other news, I got a job offer -- data entry at an office, starting in January. Woo!

eighteen

Today, let's talk card games!

When I was younger, I used to always carry a deck of cards on me -- in fact, I kinda made it into my whole personality for a while... Like, for a painting class in high school, we had an assignment to paint on something that wasn't paper and, for some godawful reason, I thought it'd be a good idea to handpaint a deck of playing cards on pieces of balsa wood? I still have them, but I think I still have a few cards left to paint, lol. I also have a drawer full of different designs of cards (mostly anime-themed or stuff like rocks & gems), but I think I ended up throwing away my most sentimental deck: the one me and my friends would use to play (ersatz) Uno during lunch everyday in middle school (they got sticky). In New Orleans, there was a little shop devoted to playing cards and playing card-adjacent-things, like Tarot and other oracle decks, which was pretty neat! I don't really keep tabs on card designers or anything like that, but I have been eyeing SablingArt's Pokemon decks for a while now!

Specifically regarding games, one on one, I tend to default to War or Garbage. At family reunions and stuff like that with a bigger crowd, we'd always play Rummy. More recently, though, my aunt's started having monthly Euchre nights, where every meets up and plays while having a light snack (which I'm bring this month, by the way, and I was thinking about making some kind of cute little tree cookies? not sure yet, though). At Uni, I was also a part of the Euchre club but often we wouldn't have enough people to actually play Euchre (most of the time it was just me and this other woman), so we'd just do whatever. Like we made up a fake version of Euchre called Yuker that had increasingly specific, crazy rules -- like, at one point you'd just throw the card box somewhere in the room and play bocche ball with it, using the leftover cards. Also, at some point, another girl taught us a game that she called something to the effect of "One Came Around the Mountain" (but it seems more commonly known as "Egyptian Ratscrew"?) and we played that a lot -- it's kind of like slapjack, but with more slapping conditions. The President of Euchre club (who was rarely ever there) also taught us how to play Durak.

In the more modern era, though, I do more solo gaming. The only proper version of Solitaire I know how to play is Clock Solitaire whi I learned from reading Yugioh, lol. Otherwise, I like roguelikes and/or Carta-style ttrpgs, like Delve, Cryptkeeper, and Necrocarta. Basically, I really liked Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and I'm hoping to eventually find an analog game that kinda replicates those sorts of mechanics. I also just think it's really interesting to see the different ways people have found to tell stories with cards!

seventeen

Some sketches of random plants / flowers:

I guess this is kind of a meme / Tumblr-ish assortment. I'm pretty sure I first heard about bee orchids on Tumblr, like everything else in life, and the dwarf chenille plant I saw at a seasonal plant market a while ago and it reminded me of the Worm on a String-thing that was popular a few years ago. The giant allium is also crazy to see in real life -- so Dr. Seussian...

I'm still surprised by how opaque the Neocolors are, even if I'm not really sure how to use them.

sixteen

Yikes, almost midnight! Behold, my favorite gif on the internet:

The first time I saw this, it was set to "Carmen" by Stromae and I'd recommend that for most enjoyment!

fifteen

Oh, I just realized why the Dungeon Meshi OP sounded so familiar: it's the same band that does "The Hammer Song and the Tower of Pain"! Brought back a lot of memories, I specifically know it from this APH fanvid from way back in the day:

Somewhat related, here's another iconic vid from the same era for an extra hit of nostalgia:

Ah, I really haven't properly engaged in fandomy stuff, or even watched any new anime at all, for such a long time, I should try to get back into it...

fourteen

Oops, got distracted watching Delicious in Dungeon and almost forgot to make today's page! I'm super late on this series, but I'm really liking it so far! Laios is such a freak (affectionate)... but I can't think of anything to post, so please accept this humble offering of some cute pics of my cats:

The orange is Gus (but we also call them all sorts of nicknames, so he's also called: Gustopher, Gustavo Fring, Fungus, etc), tortie is Snazzy (aka: Snazzaline, Razzaline, Raspberry, Rabby, Rabert, Rabertina, etc), Siamese is Belly (aka: Baby, Beetle, Beetle Bailey, etc).

thirteen

Happy Friday the Thirteenth! I was working on a painting for a Secret Santa exchange (which I can't show yet, obviously), but I did some little sketches from Madoka to warm up!

Did I mention that I did end up buying the Neocolor IIs? I'm sorry, the Instagram posts wore me down -- they just looked like so much fun to use! and they really are! I ended up overworking both of these quite a bit, oopsie, but I do really love the textures you can get from these. Also, you can put light colors on top of dark colors, which is so crazy from a watercolor perspective!

twelve

I kinda have a tea cup collection -- more specifically, I've inherited a teacup collection. Before the estate sale at my grandparent's house, we were told we could take whatever we wanted, and I just have fond memories of these tea cups. There were a few other sets there as well as tea pots, but if I took every cool teapot, I would be drowning in teapots rn, y'know? Here are some of them, though:

This one is pretty cool; if you hold the cup up to the light, it has a lady's face sculpted into the bottom:

And, a mini tea set from my maternal grandma (the others were from my paternal grandparents):

Finally, I've shown this set off a few times already on this site, but it's my go-to for actually drinking tea. I'm too lazy to go to the kitchen and get the one I drink from, though, so here's the one with a little fella living in it <3 :

I think teacups are adorable & I really like their crafty possibilies, but, honestly, I don't really drink that much tea. The prof of that Russian Lit class I talk about all the time set up a little tea party for us once and that made me get really into it for a while, but I don't remember the last time I actually had some. I think I decided either Earl Grey or Bigelow's Constant Comment were my faves, though.

eleven

Uh... Let's talk art supplies! I kinda default to using watercolors -- they're just very straightforward, portable, good for quickly and casually adding color to a sketch. When I was younger, I started by using my sister's Michael's brand watercolor palette (it was much better than the shared Crayola class sets we had at school!), and also watering down cheap acrylics (Apple Barrel? the kind you buy at Walmart). They were super chalky, though, like you could literally scrape the paint off the page...

I think it was just, like, last year that I actually bought some better quality paints: the ten color mixing set from Van Gogh. If you were in this situation, by the way, I'd definitely recommend getting a mixing set from a nicer brand! Not only does it make the colors in your paintings more harmonious, mixing is genuinely the best part of using watercolors -- I have so many pages in my sketchbook that are just random color wheels and rainbows under different "filters." Somewhat recently, I added a new color to my palette, Quinacridone Magenta, and it's been ~ life-changing ~. It makes such beautiful purples, it brings so much life to any color it touches, and I can finally make pink flowers (and not just light red!)!

[edit: Here's an example to make this entry more exciting, I guess:

I've been posting very sanitized sketchbook pages, but these are the ones that I like doing the most, where you're just kinda spacing out, having fun with different little shapes and colors, not caring about the outcome at all... I tend to just get too in my head about everything.]

I also have some colored pencils, but honestly, I've mostly just tried to use them for outlining watercolor paintings, not really as their own medium. And I haven't used my gouache in a while -- it's just a bit more demanding than watercolors and that kinda stresses me out... I tend to cycle between artistic mediums and hobbies, in general, and I guess now we're very much in a fiber arts & watercolor era.

(On that note, now that I'm done with the plushies for my cousin, I can go back to needlefelting! It has kinda been a side quest in my life for a few months to find the *perfect*-sized basket for a little fella to live in -- you'd think it wouldn't be that difficult, but, like, every listing for baskets online is either literally miniature (like an inch diameter or less) or it'll say "small" but be like 7" wide with no in between! I was fully prepared to make my own nicely palm-sized basket if I had to for this, but finally, I went to a thrift store a while ago and found one and I'm so excited!)

ten

Quick sketches of some plants I'd want to put in a fantasy garden:

Specifically, a garden with only non-green foliage. Like, I love the color green, obviously, but it's so synonymous with cozy, homey vibes that I think the complete lack of it would be utterly alien and terrifying, like you were dropped on another planet. Seriously, look at a pot of Begonia 'Escargot' and try to tell me it doesn't look like it's straight out of a live-action Alice in Wonderland movie!

nine

Oops, stayed up very very late last night reading a book, and just kept reading all day today. Eventually I'll write a review for it, but for now... I've started making like a little analog art inspiration scrapbook sort of thing, looking at artworks I like and trying to pick out what specifically I like about it. Here are a couple pages:

I don't know if you can actually read what I wrote, but the first is Bob Hines. He's mostly known for his watercolor paintings of birds for the US Fish & Wildlife Service, but I just find these ink drawings to be so beautiful... There are a bunch of flaps because I legit could not narrow down which I liked the most -- they're all breathtaking. The second is Heinrich Lefler, an Austrian illustrator. I actually own a physical copy of one of his books, a collection of German-language nursery rhymes. I can neither read German nor musical notation, but I just really like the artwork, especially the use of frames and intricate patterns. I'm just such a sucker for the Art Nouveau aesthetic.

I also have a page for Sailor Moon backgrounds, and I'm thinking the next one will be Simpsons scenery and perspectives, lol.

eight

This was a while ago now, but I went to a craft fair. Here's my haul:

(Not pictured: a little bag of peanut butter cookies that I ate on the way home. :3 ) I thought these crocheted lily of the valley-ish flowers were very cute, though! She had a whole booth of crocheted flowers and other plants (like string of pearls), and I thought that stood out well. Also, I know the clam was just a dropshipped thing as well, but: a) she had other handmade stuff in her shop (like paintings that were pretty but out of my price range, and I still wanted to support her), and b) ...I'm just very weak for little boxes and tins, rip.

I was kind of expecting more handicrafts, but instead it was more Etsy-ish, if you get what I mean... a lot of tumblers or t-shirts or whatever else printed with generic premade designs, or dropshipped stuff. Also, this is silly to say, but, I honestly hadn't realized how conservative my community is -- I still tend to live more on the internet than real life, so I just wasn't expecting all the Trump stuff and "You triggered, bro?? XD"-tier edgy sayings on everything... I avoided any booth that had that sort of stuff, obviously.

There were a few other more unique booths, but they weren't really my style, honestly -- like taxidermy and furs. There was also a guy who was selling handmade, fancy wood-turned pens, but they were all ballpoint (and kinda expensive). Thought it was cool that he had it, though! Wish there was more stationery-ish stuff there in general, but I guess it's just not that profitable...

seven

Made the Bulbasaur ornament I sketched a couple days ago:

I thought it'd be cute to try and make him be a double-sided sort of thing, but I don't think it really worked at all, rip. It seems like when you do these little felt things, it's best to stay simple and try to use fewer distinct layers. Much more research / experimentation needed...

six

Uh... here's a bonus outfit I made a while back for the Clefairy plush:

I was always so bad at this minigame in Pokemon Stadium, omg -- like I have no short term memory, at all. Ah, this game was such a big part of my childhood and I still quote "What's the matter, trainer?" all the time in daily life. I still have my N64, but the last time I checked that cartridge had stopped working (though, oddly enough, Snap worked just fine). It might be worth it to get Switch Online just to play this again...

five

Some little felt ornament ideas:

I do really like the idea of the Aipom one where he's upside down! Maybe holding a Pokeball instead, though? I don't really do anything for the holidays, so I'm not really sure what's even "Christmas-y" -- like when I was little, we used to put a tree up, but the only ornaments I remember were trains for some reason...

Anyway, I've mentioned this before, but I'm still kinda low key obsessed with this style of old school felt plushes you'd see on DeviantArt circa 2011 (ex: one / two / three). It imprinted on me at a tender age and I just find them so endearing!

Also, still trying to get used to using the dip pen. It seems like you get better results if you kinda spin your paper around as you're trying to make lines rather than just keeping it in one position.

four

At long last, here he is, pincers and all!

Ah, it's so difficult trying to take attractive photos of 3D objects like this! Bonus pic:

(I'm only just now realizing that it wasn't really necessary to dangle him up in the air for this shot... I thought it was a cool idea in the moment, at least!)

I'll put a more in-depth write up about making him on my Dreamwidth eventually, but, for now, enjoy!

three

...still have to finish up the Spinarak's pincers, orz. In the meantime, we had our first proper snow of the season last night! And it looks like we've had quite a few visitors already:

When I was younger, I had a field book to identify all the different animal tracks, but it got lost over several moves, unfortunately... Google is completely useless these days so it's difficult to tell, but I wanna say a lot of these are cat prints? We have a bunch of stray / outdoor cats in this area, so it would make sense! Like, a couple days ago this cutie came by:

Absolutely the friendliest cat I've ever seen! She just came up and dolphined into my hand (I wasn't sure if other people call it that, but that's the only way I can think of to describe this behavior), then plopped over in the leaves and let me pet her belly! 🥹 When I finally went back inside, she was still waiting outside my window for a while... This was actually the first time I've seen her, but her owners apparently live a couple houses down and came down to chat, her name is Cupcake.

Other frequent visitors include Pearl Claudine (an all-white cat), Holly-Go-Nightly (an all-black cat), Xena (a grey tabby) as well as another cat who apparently looks exactly like her, etc. Sometimes Pearl will let you pet her, but otherwise, the other cats tend to keep their distance, so this was quite a surprise!

two

Today, we've got some little sketches based off plants / other little artifacts from the Mindas Ruins in Legend of Mana:

I've never actually played it, but I happened to see some screenshots and, what can I say? The storybook aesthetic stole my heart! And, obviously, I love the watercolor-y look it has, as well! I started with sketching some of the variations of trees and plants in this particular part of the game (so many shapes <3), but the character and monster design is also top notch, so I might have to revisit this series soon.

❄ ❄ ❄

In other news, after many, many years of fierce internal debate, I have finally given in and bought a pen set and some ink. A small twist, though: it's a dip pen, not a fountain pen. I wanted some ink that would be waterproof so I could use it for lining watercolor sketches, and apparently waterproof ink absolutely *kills* fountain pens... so I guess that decision was pretty much made for me. You have to stop every once in a while to reink / clean your nib, which is a bit of a pain, but this seems like a much better option in the long run than continually having to buy disposable Sakura Pigma Microns, doesn't it? Also, these nibs let you have varying line widths but with more control conpared to brush pens. Again, much more practice required, but it seems like this will work out well!

The trees in black and white were drawn with a cheap, non-waterproof marker (even though it says it should be >:( ), but it is still kinda cool that you can shade with them, at least. The others were done with Ph. Martin's India Ink in either aqua or black. The aqua works better for lineart than I thought it would, actually (I'm still really bad at making sure there's the right amount of ink on the nib...). Everyone on the pen subreddits was right, though: this just makes me want to buy fifty thousand more colors of ink! Just barely resisting the urge....

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Tomorrow, I'll try to finally finish up that Spinarak plushie I've been neglecting for a while. He's pretty close to done, actually -- I just have to sew on his face(s) and pincers... but, also, I've been putting that off for like a month at this point, so who knows?

one

Sorry for the radio silence throughout November, I was kinda stuck in a depressive slump, but let's see what this month brings... Making this advent calendar was a spur of the moment decision, but I was planning on doing some little sketches / art studies everyday, anyway. So, without further ado, here's the first one!

I was tumblring as per usual and stumbled across a series of woodblock prints by Czech artist, Bohumír Jaroněk (1866 - 1933). The colors, composition, the way he depicts foliage -- it's all just so... *chef's kiss* Love everything about it! You can find more of his paintings on Wikimedia Commons, by the way, if you were curious.

Anyway, I've been wanting to practice simplifying forms and color blocking for a while and I figured pixel art would be less effort to set up than more traditional mediums, like gouache. I also just really like pixel art in general, but have never really dabbled in it besides some basic little Pokemon sprite edits... so, basically, I have no idea what I'm doing probably made a ton of mistakes. I'll try to do more research into pixel do's and don't's later, but, again, this was more just an attempt at playing around with shapes and color more than anything. In that regard, I'm still really surprised by how readable this turned out, even at such a small size & color count!

On that note, I'm using the same canvas size as the cards from the Pokemon Trading Card Game 2 for the GBC (64 x 48px) and picked my colors from a GBC palette I found online (I didn't follow any of the actual rules associated with how the GBC handled color, though, because that all sounds crazy, omg). Another benefit of working at this size is that I think it'd be fairly doable to cross stitch (if I wanted to eventually, that is).

I'm not really sure what I'll have for you tomorrow, but see you then! ^^