self-portrait of a trainer on her birthday

Well, I don't really post art here (I think I have posted a couple of Blythe sketches) but I have been playing Pokemon Sun and Moon -- both! -- and decided to draw my trainer. Then I decided she'd be holding Litten, because of course! It's my starter and my main source of serotonin right now!! Then I put her in my own clothes instead of the outfit she's wearing in the game, so it became something of a self-portrait in the style of Pokemon. Or at least, this is my attempt at the Pokemon style!

I never post art here because all I draw is niche hyperfixation stuff or portraits of my D&D characters. Not that this isn't niche hyperfixation art -- but I wasn't sure what else to do with this one, and my birthday's as good an excuse as any to post a self-portrait!

(I want to credit correctly: The embroidery in the background is from And Other Adventures Embroidery Co. I did not feel up to painting flowers but wanted some texture in the background!)

(It's my birthday, you can't stop me!)

Lately my bestie L has been playing Pokemon Sun on an emulator and streaming it for me via Discord so I can watch!! This has been incredibly fun because I don't have to do any battling or decision-making, but she lets me name all the Pokemon she catches, so I feel involved. Because she is incredibly enabling, she chose Litten as our starter and we named him "Li'l Boi." LI'L BOI YOU ARE MY EVERYTHING!

The Pokemon Refresh feature of Sun and Moon is wonderful... I love watching L clean and pet and feed Li'l Boi the Litten. So much so that I took a bunch of screencaps! Sooo cute! His little myaaas!

L's playing Sun, but I have Moon, and because L can't play 24/7 for me, I picked up Moon again. All the better to pet Litten with, my dears. This gave me further feelings on Pokemon Refresh, especially as compared to other features like Pokemon Camp in Sword and Shield. I also do like that feature, because yes, of course I want to play with Vulpix. Don't be silly. But Refresh really feels a lot like you are actively caring for your Pokemon, and when Pokemon are well cared for, affectionate and full of Poke Beans, they respond accordingly during battles. I've lost count of the amount of times I've said, "Diaper Baby, I love you!!" because my Vullaby (... named Diaper Baby) dodged an attack out of a developed relationship with me, or landed a critical hit, hoping to be praised!

I have been dipping into Shield again as well, in my hyperfixation, and I miss carefully brushing dust off my Pokemon! I miss the cute status messages about how in sync my Pokemon and I are, and how they are looking at me with intense eyes, or are curious about my fashion. Refresh is soooo cute.

Okay, this post was a Refresh to my soul! Thanks for putting up with it.

Birthday plans include:

• not sleeping enough (I already feel it)
• a pink birthday table courtesy my mom
• lunch with my mom and grandma
• watching stuff with bestie K!

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playing catch up

Hello, 2021!

Your girl's been sick most of the year so far!

"I really want to concentrate on my novel in January," said I, thereby cursing myself.

I don't have COVID (thankfully), just a lingering cough. I try to speak and I cough instead. It's no fun. And there's some unfortunate overlap between this and the whole winter weather situation going on in southern USA right now. It is not as bad here as it is in Texas. I'm so thankful for that. I've been through severe, national-emergency-type winter weather before, sans power, and it was traumatic! But last week was still rough. I'm pretty much in survival mode right now.

I fell really behind in Animal Crossing New Horizons last year, so while I've been sick and snowed in, I've been catching up. I've only just started December in the game. Above is the entrance to my island. I can't believe that the game's been out for almost a year!

Another thing I've been doing is sketching, mostly digitally. Anne's been doing digital art lately and it's really motivated me to get back to it! I just dabble in self-indulgent fanart and the like (I like to warm up by looking at Adventure Time media and sketching off it by eye), but here's a rough sketch of Olwenn.

I am not an artist; don't think that's what I'm claiming. I just wanted to post this here just because it's representative of something that's kept my head above water of late. As you know, it's all about getting that SEROTONIN!

Stay safe, y'all.

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Coral in her greenhouse, colored.

My "downtime project" has been coloring in this beautiful lineart by MLeth the last few months. Particularly if my internet was down or I just needed something totally different to concentrate on, I would get out my Wacom tablet, open up Paint Tool SAI (I love this program!), and begin to fill in color -- the exact same way you would color something in with colored pencils or markers, stroking a pen nib on a surface. This actually was a lot of hand and wrist movement! I had to take care not to strain my wrist, and be willing to leave it as soon as fatigue set in.

Finally, when I had colored all I felt like coloring, I transferred it to Photoshop to add in some lighting adjustments and textures. One sort of reminded me of dust or pollen floating. I also added a floral pattern to her tank top.

I envisioned summer sunshine blaring through into the protective walls of the warm, hazy greenhouse. There are little details that I could probably go on filling in for months, if I wasn't so scatterbrained. I'm ready to find some new lineart to color. This was so much fun!

(And, yes, of course she had to have pink hair! Her name is Coral!)

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hodge podge

Snowed in! As usual, it isn't possible for me to get cabin fever. Au contraire; I've been cleaning, practicing my ukulele, and wearing snow-inappropriate shoes!

Painted this little black plastic storage caddy that I've had for probably ten years... pastel pink! By hand. With a brush. It took about five or six coats and then a couple of coats of varnish. I don't particularly recommend doing this, haha! But I like how much it lightened up my space.

Fiddling around with learning what's what in Paint Tool SAI. I don't draw as much as I used to, but I'd like to figure out how to do decent lineart. My tentative pencil-pushings don't seem to be cutting it. I'm practicing with the tools by coloring in scanned in Disney coloring books (seriously) and free lineart.

I really like this lineart of a sweet mouse by twisk on DeviantART, available for coloring for people like me. It reminded me of my pet rats. I've had a fair number of them! So I actually colored the tail on this mouse in a manner that reminded me of some of my ratties' tails. They had pigment blotches that looked like birth marks. Rat tails are something many people are grossed out by, possibly because they look segmented, but in reality, they are very soft and warm.

This post is the equivalent of a toddler being like, "Look, Mommy, I dwewed a twee!" Will my mother see this??

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something super-cute

The other day my mom handed this to me and asked if I remembered it. I do! It hung in my bedroom when I was really little! She drew it way back in the early '80s, and it's super-adorable and few of the squares are things from my life, like the white cat we had when I was little -- and in one square, my dad! If I had to guess, I'd say it's about 13x13.

It's so old that it's a bit torn in places and bent up, just floating around in all my mom's stuff. She told me to find a place for it. I'd like to get it framed and keep it for always...

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pencil-pushing

This morning I randomly picked up a pencil and my sketchbook and drew this little Blythe. It took about half an hour, and my pencil (the only one I have, a mechanical Little Twin Stars pencil) lacked an eraser, so I just plunged on. It is truly a sketch in that way.

I was thinking, "Wow, I hardly ever draw anymore." I used to draw a lot in high school, but just for the lulz, never anything serious or artistically ambitious so much as little portraits and cartoons. I never enjoyed art class so much as my own leisure drawing. But with the time trapped in classes no longer a staple for me and Photoshop becoming the main medium through which I do visual things, drawing has been a hobby that's fallen by the wayside.

However, it occurred to me after I had finished that I do doodle little things semi-often enough... when I do felt applique!

When I am going to cut some felt, I always sketch out what I want in the size that I want it first, then cut it out and use it as a pattern (and reference point, if there are things to embroider onto it). Thus I have quite a few pages in the back of my sketchbook where random cute things are doodled and then, if I use them, cut out from their doodly brethren. The happy tooth on this pixie hat came from this page, and the hat has been sold, but the tooth of paper remains. :)

What is up with that cloud that turned into a deformed sheep, though? I should invest in an eraser.

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