Online Art Again!

I'm back with another online art post! There's a lot of art I haven't shown you guys yet, so get ready, people, for arrrrtttt!!!!

In case you were wondering, the heading picture that says "Online Art" is a screenshot of the Animal Jam art program I use to make online artwork and then I used Fotor to add words. :)

CHIBI ANIMAL JAM YOUTUBERS!!!!! It took hours to draw this art. I used the Animal Jam YouTubers avatars as inspiration and from there I made them into chibi people. From left to right is: Aparri, Bepper, Snowyclaw, Wisteriamoon, and Julian2. I don't really watch YouTube all that much. And I've never watched a Julian2 video in my life, but I felt like doing some of the most famous AJ YouTubers and Julian2 was one of them. I've watched a few videos from all the other YouTubers that I drew and the one I've watched the most of is Aparri. He can be pretty funny, actually. XD

I specifically drew this one simplistically. I used a the circle tool and a straight line tool for most of the drawing. There's not really a whole lot to be said about this art, expect that it was fun to do. XD

Pixel art is super easy! :o I enjoyed making this one a lot. When I had first set out to make the Masterpiece on Animal Jam, I was planning to draw kawaii cherries. But, then I saw how cool it looked without a face and so I made two masterpieces out of it. One with no faces and one with faces and the word "cherry." I'm not sure which one I like best, I think they are both pretty equal. XD

Okay, confession time, I love Disney Fairies. When I was younger, I read all the Disney Fairies chapter books my library owned over and over again because I loved them so much. I loved fairies so much, I seriously thought they were real.* 

Again, I wanted to draw a simple picture. I tried to draw a face for chibi Tinkerbell but she looked better without one.**:P

*Obviously, I'm mature enough now to believe otherwise. *snorts* And I totally don't have a homemade fairy house downstairs that I check every day to see if a fairy has come to live there. Pfffft, why would I have that?!  

**I know she has a strapless dress all the time but I wanted to change her slightly. 

MOMO, THE CUTEST WITTLE FLYING LEMUR IN THE WORLD.* There was one scene in the Avatar TV show where Momo sticks his wittle coot face in the camera and it's too adorable. So I got inspiration from that scene for this picture. And he makes the cutest little sounds too! *tries really hard not to think of the actor who makes those noises for Momo and Appa* #theTricksterfromtheFlashTVshowsomehowmadecuteanimalnoisesandheisacreepyoldman

*He's from Avatar: The Last Airbender. 

I haven't really done much scenery up to this point. So I wanted to try my hand at drawing the perspective from up high and far away. I think I did okay. And I like the way the butterfly looks. XD

  

I drew this for my sister, Lostfairy. She likes The Legend of Zelda a lot, like me. XD So that's why there is a Legend of Zelda fairy on the Masterpiece. And the background was supposed to look slightly like stone but I don't think most people would see that when they look at it. *shrugs* Oh, well. XD

I made a username Masterpiece for myself as well. For the two Masterpieces, I did one object that suited our personalities, and a fairy tale book is so me. XD I have a collection of a bunch of fairy tale books and children's classics. 

This is a inside joke between Lostfairy and I.* It may or may not have to do with a certain boy being certainly cute... :P

*It may look a bit like a dab but it is so not. XDDD 

I had a hard time with her nose and lips, to be honest. XD I think I did okay-ish... I still need to work on those two things. It was fun to draw such a big eye.* For the words, I used the straight line tool again. And then I used my mouse to draw tiny squiggly lines to make it look like it's breaking or something. XD

*And not have to draw another one to match. Sometimes it's really, really, really hard to match them up. >.< If anyone has any tips for having identical eyes in drawings, please tell me!

- - -

Sorry, guys, that this post turned out to be shorter than I wanted to be. I'm kinda tired right now so hopefully next week's post will be longer and better. :( 

How's your guys' week been? Did you like the art? I haven't posted all my online artwork yet, would you want to see more of it soon? 

Chibi Step-by-Step

I've always wanted to show you guys a step-by-step of how I do my art, so today's the day I'm gonna show you!! 

You, obviously, need a blank piece of paper and something to draw with. I like drawing with a Ticonderoga pencil, but any good ol' pencil works. And a eraser that doesn't smudge is handy, as well. 

I start my drawings with a circle for the first base of the head.* And it's okay if you can't get a perfect circle. You erase most of that anyway, so it doesn't really matter if it's perf. 

*I said first base because I then add a chin (second base) and later add hair. XD

Here I started getting the base for the chibi person body. If you don't know what kinda of pose you want you can look up chibi bases or find a picture of a real person doing the pose you want. 

I found a pose a real person was doing online and felt like making the whole person into a chibi drawing, so I did. In case, you were all wondering which picture I was using for my chibi person, here it is >>>

I know the pose is super model-ish, but I thought it would be kinda fun to try to do something like that.*

*I haven't really done that many poses with chibi people doing arm stuff. So I was kinda unsure of how this would turn out. XD

Here I added the eyes/month/nose* and a little bit of clothing. I've heard that the eyes on a manga person and chibi person are the most important part because they are so expressive. So I did them first for before I add anything like hair and most of the clothes. 

*Or, in less words, I added the face.  

Now I have drawn the clothes. Wrinkles make the clothes look like they are actually on the person. I haven't mastered where to put the wrinkles yet, but it's super helpful to have reference picture to look at. XD   

Hair time! I love drawing hair so much. XD I also added eyebrows and ears and pupils and light to his eyes.

Inking is next! My sister, Lostfairy, and I own three artist pens which we got last Christmas.* The brand is Faber-Castell. I use the black pen with the smallest nib most.**

*I adore them so much!! XD

**For those of you who don't know what a "nib", it's the pointy writing part of a pen. :P XD

For inking, don't ink all the extra lines you drew for the base.* I forgot to ink everything on this picture, so please forgive me. XD I accidentally didn't ink all the wrinkles on his left arm.  

*Because, obviously, that would look completely weird AND YOU GUYS ARE TOTALLY SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW NOT TO INK EVERYTHING. SO I DON'T KNOW WHY I SAID ANYTHING.   

Once I was done inking, I erased all the pencil lines. Note: if you don't draw lightly with pencil, it will be much harder to erase when you are done inking. And it will be more likely to smudge.

On to coloring!!! WOO!!! I was going to color this with colored pencils, but decided not to because it's fun to do black and white sometimes. I did the darkest shadows with my brush pen.* And little lighter shadows with my smallest nib pen and drew thin lines for the shadows. And for the lightest shadows I used my gray brush pen. :) 

I didn't fill in the eyes because I wanted them to stand out. And I think it worked. ^.^ 

*It's so fun to use!

- - -

Well, guys, I think that's it. What did you think of the step-by-step? Do you think I should do more???

Art Post and Posting Schedule Revealed!

The post you guys have a been waiting all week for is here!!* Art post!!! Yay!!! :P

*Actually, I have no idea if you been waiting for this all week or not... Maybe that's cuz I haven't said my blogging schedule yet... Hmm. That's probably it. Okay, I'm gonna say it now! Imma gonna try to post every Saturday! So check back here every week if you want to see more. 

So on to the art post! 

This girl turned out more like a Tinkerbell character than I thought I would have thought at first.* It took me months to actually finish this drawing. XD I had it left it for awhile with just a bit of coloring to do and for some reason didn't color it for ages. 

I think I like the way it turned out but it's not my fave. Don't ask me what happened to her hands and feet... They are hard to draw. XD I think I did okay-ish at the hallway, but I need to work on backgrounds/scenery more.

*If you know which Tinkerbell character, I will give you an imaginary cakey chocolate chip cookie. (I made those cookies with my sis, Lostfairy, this week. XD And they're yummy. :P) 

DA FLASH!!!! CHIBI STYLE!!!!! I had a lot of fun doing this! It was a bit challenging doing a side running pose. I didn't feel like inking this one because I felt like it didn't need it. I think it would make it look too bold and I wanted it to look like he was actually running. :P

Remember when I said I would post the first picture I did with my "new" colored pencils. Well, here it is, folks!!! I did a drawing of me and my sister and around us I wrote a bunch of our little sayings and inside jokes.* I drew us wearing clothes we actually wore a lot in the summer, so that was fun.** :3 

*I cropped the words out of the picture because they wouldn't make a lick of sense and they are kinda private. XD 

**In case you don't know who is who, Lost is on the left and I'm on the right. :P

For all of you who can't tell what it says on the bottom, it reads "Scary Sword Master Samurai with pet Dragon." 

I drew this with my sisters, Lost and Tracey, one evening. We were playing the Idea Game, which we got from my book Manga Crash Course. It's where you put together random personalities and abilities and other things and then draw a character with all those things you got. As you can see I got a Scary Samurai person with a pet dragon. XD 

I rather like the way it looks in the end. :) My shading has definitely gotten better. And I enjoyed making him look semi-evil. XD I love Chinese dragons and dragons in general and this is my first time* drawing one. :P I think this is one of my fave drawings I've done so far. :D

*At least, that I remember doing and doing well. XD

What do you think of these drawings I've shown you today? And are you excited that I actually having a blogging schedule?! XD

Best Books I Read in September

Hey people! I don't know about you, but I've been reading a lot of good books lately and I want to share a few with you! :D

Here goes nothin'!

Winter Turning by Tui T. Sutherland 

[source]

Man, this was a great book. The first part of the Wings of Fire series was good but not great. And now that we have a new set of dragonets to read about, it's just been fabulous!! The main character for Winter Turning was fun to read from his point of view. The main character, Winter, and another dragon named Qibli have the greatest snappy remarks to each other all the time.

If you haven't started Wings of Fire you totally should!

Matched by Ally Condie

[source]

I loved this book so so much. The writing style was a tad bit hard to get into but once I was in, I was totally in! XD The book wasn't so much about romance as I thought it would be, but that was completely fine. It was such a bittersweet book, just enough sweetness to counter the bitterness. And the story was so beautiful, gah! I just love it so much. XD

Upside-Down Magic by Sarah Mlynowski and Lauren Myracle and Emily Jenkins

[source]

Yes, I know this is middle grade book but sometimes those are just to cute to resist. XD And this book was definitively cute. The plot was sweet, the characters were adorable, and the different types of magical abilities was awesome. ^.^ And the humor in the book was so perfect for the book. I like this book a ton. :3

 Spell Hunter by R. J. Anderson

[source]

I read this book years ago and for some reason didn't like it that much. I reread again last month and I LOVED IT!!!! The way the fairies did things had a magical feeling even if they weren't magical anymore. The author has such a different take on fairies and it's awesome! Also, the romance was so darling between the main character and the boy. :) I think I may now have a minor crush on Paul... >.< XD

Stars Above by Marissa Meyer

[source]

Oh my goodness! This book was the darlingest thing ever!!!* I can't even!! I love this book soooooo much. Reading about all the characters you know and love as younger kids/tweens was adorable. This series, The Lunar Chronicles, is probably on my top list of book series. The characters were just priceless and the romance was the sweetest thing ever. (I could fan girl over Kai for forever...) 

If you haven't read that series yet, you must stop reading this and head straight to a bookstore and buy 10,000 copies to read and give to your friends. (Cause, trust me, you'll be recommending this series to everyone who you meet. It's that good.)

*Yes, I know "darlingest" isn't a word, but it should be!

The Fairy-Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley

[source]

The author who writes this book is so creative. He takes the fairy-tales we know and turns them completely upside-down! I love the mystery and adventure feeling in this book. It may be a reread for me but it feels like a familiar book and a whole new one at the same time.* The humor can be a little boyish at times but I still find it funny. XD Most of the time, anyway... :P

*Maybe because I forgot a lot of what happened... Or it's that good of a book.

The Return by Dayna Lorentz

[source]

DOGGOS! HOW CAN YOU NOT READ A BOOK ABOUT DOGS???! This was the last book in a trilogy called Dogs of the Drowned City and it was really sweet. Because dogs. I loaf doggos so much. XD The ending of the book was perfectly bittersweet. And the cover is so awesome! Shep and Callie are the cutest dog couple ever. <3 

Half Upon a Time by James Riley

[source]

You may or may not be able to tell by now, but I love fairy-tales, especially retold fairy-tales. So this book was very fun to read. I liked how it was a different take on people from our world going to another one, because the main character was from the fairy-tale world and the second main character was from our world. ^.^ The author sense of humor was clever and sometimes just kinda kooky. Even the author's bio in the back was funny. XD

Behind the Gates by Eva Gray

[source]

Truth be told, I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. But it was way better than I first thought! I don't think I've ever read a dystopian book where it takes place at a boarding school and this one did. The characters's personalities were all unique from each other, so that was a plus. XD I liked how all the characters had to each use their skills to figure out what actually was going on at the school. And the boys that are in the book for a little may possible be the best thing in there. XD 

What books did you read last month? Have you read any of the books I talked about in this post? If not, YOU MUST READ DEM ALL!!!!!! (Kidding! XD Maybe, sorta, not. :P)

A Study in Scarlet - Book Review

Hi guys! Sorry I haven't posted in forever!! I don't really have any excuses why I didn't post, I was just being lazy. Sorry.

As you know from one of my last posts called a Small Art Post, I had said I bought the book A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I read it in the middle of August sometime. It was really good and way different than I thought it would be. I guess, I was kinda excepting Nancy Drew feel but the main character is a guy (obviously!) and it being old fashioned. XD

Source

Yeah Points

• The main characters are just so kooky together.
• Sherlock is super smart and comes up brilliant thoughts on how to solve a case.
• There's some humor and it's funny. XD
• I could not figure out the mystery! (I think that's a good thing... right?)
• There's a bit of romance in the book.

Nah Points 

• Well, in the middle of the book, they switch the point-of-view completely. Like, the first half of the book is from Watson's view and then the second half is telling the whole tale of how the murderer came to be. (AKA. the first half is London and then, boom! It's in the New World/U.S.! Like, what? How could you do that to your reader?? I had a bit of a hard time getting into the second half because it felt like a totally different book. But it was still good. ^.^) 
• And I could not figure out the mystery. (Bad-ish because the author doesn't give enough clues and you don't even know who the murderer is before they are caught. And I kinda like knowing the villain before you know they are a evil mastermind.) 

To sum it up, it was a good book and if you like mysteries, you should read it!

Mocha, the Cutest Dog I Know

Hullo, everyone!

I felt like doing a post about an adorable little dog I know called Mocha. Mocha is a little Yorkie Pomeranian mix I walk every few weeks with my sister, Lostfairy. For the past two or three years, we dogsit her for a week or so in summer and sometimes a weekend in the school year.

Mocha has a pretty big personality; she's sweet and a wee bit sassy. (Beware: if you have any bag that rustles, she will think it must be her bag of treats. And she will sit and be a very good little dog so you will give her a treat. And if you don't hurry up and give her what's in the bag, Mocha will start whimpering and standing up on her hind legs to grab it.) She likes to lick quite a bit. If you have her on your lap, she most likely start licking your knees or something. She likes licking her toys, her couch, other people's couches, and basically whatever is in reach of her tongue. If she gets too cold in the winter when you're on a walk with her, she'll just stop and shiver. (Then you have to carry her home.)

Here's some pictures of her.

Isn't she so cute?!

Mocha is so sweet looking when she's sleepy.

She loves eating our grass, so she probably looking for some delicious greens when the picture was taken. Teehee! 

Mocha's hair got so long one time that her owner put her hair in a ponytail.

This is lovely closeup view of Mocha...

She looks so sad! And cute!! 

Dis is Mocha when she recently got a hair cut. She looks so tiny!

- - -

On a side note, I read The Scorch Trials by James Dashner a while back. It was good, but kinda violent. But thinking back on it, I enjoyed and I want to read the next book in the series. There are some things in the second book that make me curious about what the third book will have in store.

- - -

What did you guys think of Mocha? (Isn't she just the cutest?) Have any of you read The Scorch Trials? 

Small Art Post

Hi guys!

As you can tell by the title, I'm going to be posting my art today. I haven't been drawing that much lately so the art I'm showing is from a few months ago and a couple of weeks ago. 

I did this chibi adventurer girl a few months back. It was fun making up my own chibi pose and outfit. I love doing girls with long hair! So much more hair to color. (I love coloring hair). 

I like how my mossy rocks turned out. But I don't like how my trees roots look. That is for sure a point in my art that I need to grow in. 

Okay, when I first started drawing this guy, I was planning to make him Captain Hook from Once Upon a Time. But that did not work out, at all. Captain Hook looked like a teenager, not an adult. For some reason I couldn't get him to age. So I decided to just change it up completely. And that's what turned up. 

I think the eyes look good. (Yes, one is smaller than the other, but who cares? It's okay not to be perfect.) The smile is pretty good, too. I see things I would like to change, like the ears, for example. (Now I know for next time to make sure the ears are a good and proper size.)

This is the one I did a couple weeks back. I wanted to draw someone that wasn't just a head shot but not a full length picture either. 

Those hands were hard. I had to draw them so many times and they still didn't go out the way I wanted them to. I had inked them and then taken another look at them and saw they were awful. So I whited the worst one out a bit. Then I inked it again. And since the ink was done on white out it didn't dry that fast so I accidentally smudged it. I was like, "Phooey. Now it's wrecked." Then I realized I could improvise. So I drew a about of little black lines and smudged those, too, to make it look like I had smudged it on purpose the first time. 

I enjoyed picking out the colors for the magical smoke. And I rather like the way her hair is colored. 

A while back, I had started watching Book 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender with my friend on a sleepover. And we watched one where there was a blind girl in it. I really liked the way the artists made her eyes look blind, so I kinda tried to do that myself. I think it worked out pretty good. 

Here's a picture of the blind girl, in case you don't know what she looked like. 

Now that I'm looking back at her and my picture, they aren't quite the same but that's okay. 

- - -

A week and half-ish ago, my sisters and my mom and I had a girl's day shopping. I bought the first Sherlock Homes book. It looks like this:

I have never read any of the Sherlock Homes mysteries, but I want to give it a try. I think I read it early August. 

And then I also went to a giant craft store and got a big set of colored pencils. (I saw some brush markers but they were really expensive, so I didn't buy any.) But I'm really excited about using my own set of colored pencils! I got a pack of 74! This is what my box of pencils looks like. 

I haven't used them yet, but when I do, you guys will get to see the first picture I color with them!

- - - 

What did you guys think of my art? Have you ever read Sherlock Homes? What do you like to use best for your art; markers, colored pencils, online paint, regular paint or something else?