Fire Bending

It took me a while, but I finally finished another Avatar portrait. This one is my best friend Sarah, who we'd already decided would be a fire bender!

I like how this turned out- I tried to do it the same way I painted up Sherry last night, and I'm pretty happy with it. It took a lot more work because Sarah had a lot more skin showing than Sherry did, but that's okay. I'm just happy it worked out.

There you go Sarah! All done.

Annie

3:07

An Old Friend

I revisited an old friend of mine today. I haven't drawn a decent picture of this guy in years, but Yukio is very dear to my heart. He looks scary, and he can be very scary, but he's a lot like a dog. A very loyal dog, willing and eager to serve. Without orders, Yukio will sit blankly on the floor, grinning at nothing.

He's very dear to me.

My poor, poor, brainless creature.

I promise, he's not as terrifying as he looks.

I haven't drawn him in so long because I felt his face shape was too similar to Rebel's- so this time when I tried to draw him, I decided I had to exaggerate how... wasted he would actually be. He hasn't exactly been 'alive' for many many years, he removed his soul as a young adult and stored it away in a vial he wears about his neck.  He doesn't take care of his body, everything functions on autopilot.

I pulled in his sallow cheeks, lengthened his fingers, removed some hair and reworked his nose and smile.

I find him more terrifying than adorable now, but I still see him as my emaciated, ugly puppy.

I forgot to post this last time I updated my blog because I was too tired!!

Sarah drew this for me in exchange for drawing her vampire character, Laurent.

Suffice to say, I was ecstatic.

Thank you Sarah, for drawing me such a pretty drawing of my lovely lovely Kara!

Annie

10:11

Suave

 Woo, finished my second art trade of the summer! And damn, did he fight me the whole way through.

I have a hard time with skinny characters, be they my own, or other people's.

When I was asked to draw Laurent as "suave" I must've looked at three hundred pictures of Fred Astaire. I'm a huge fan of Fred Astaire, and I don't think anything quite hits 'suave' as clearly as Fred Astaire.

Except George Clooney of course, who is awesome.

I PRESENT TO EVERYONE, Laurent. Impossibly fussy, whiny, prince.

Laurent belongs to Sarah, who is drawing me a picture of Kara in return!

Jessica finished this awesome picture of Ninja for me today!!

I love Ninja a lot, I really do, and even though she drives me crazy, I feel like she doesn't get enough love, so I was super happy that I asked Jess to draw her for me.

Hee, freckles.

Ninja's awesome, and Jessica has such pretty art.

Annie

1:04

A Little Redesign

So I decided to redesign Suka's arm, because I'd never really put a lot of thought into it before. I sat down, and worked out the mechanics to the best of my not-mechanic brain. I gave it a skeleton, and 'muscles' so to speak, and refined the design to something that made sense.

And then I realized what an awful, awful thing I'd designed. One well aimed attack and Suka's got a like, thirty pound dead weight drilled into the end of her arm. That, and it would be a bitch to clean. All that blood. Off all those wires. Yuck.

That being the case, I think it's time to hit the drawing board again and add all that outer armour I'd stripped off for the sake of an interesting design.

I'll see what I can do. I had much fun, regardless! I like it when I finish something and it turned out more or less how I wanted it to turn out. And hey, I finished something! This weekend is going to be dedicated to a lot of homework, but that's alright, I don't mind so much. Think I might also take the time to finish up the ID I'm working on for Sarah's Kingdom's of Calamity group.

Yay, work! I like getting the chance to finish personal pieces. I never want to ink things, so getting past that stage is a feat and a half for me.

Annie

11:58

School has Over Written my Life

I haven't been producing as much as I was this summer. I know that sounds like it makes perfect sense, but usually my creative resources dry up like a raisin in the sun during the summer, and they plump right back out once school starts and I'm around my creative friends.

Well this year, I drew all summer, and I have been too busy drawing for school to work on anything else.

Today I was determined to draw artwork specifically for me. Well, specifically for me and Sarah, cause it would have had her character in it too- but you know. Instead I wound up drawing Tina, trying to figure out how her face works. There are two actresses I think of whenever I think of Tinette. One is Jeri Ryan, who played Seven of Nine in Star Trek. She's gorgeous and has similar facial structure I imagine for Tinette. The character she plays is also like Tina, only Tina is a lot more ridiculously emotional. In a very angry way.

She's a lady, what can you do?

The other actress is Kat Stewart, an Australian actress who plays the character Billie in the show "Offspring". She has incredibly prominent cheek bones. The first time I saw her, I honestly thought part of her face was missing. She's really beautiful though, so I worked really hard to get hers and Jeri Ryan's features into Tinette's face.

If I could only get her to smile she'd have the prettiest smile out there.

Annie

10:13

Piles of Papers

As promised, I am continuing in my efforts to sketch more! As such, I have many more drawings than I typically do for an upload, and as such, I have broken it into many sketch dumps.

Instead of one giant one that gets resized into something you can't see.

In this pile of drawings we have some Sukas, some Jorns, some Tinas, and an Ainmire!

I did so miss my scottish oaf. I've gotten better at drawing him as the muscled man he is, which makes me happy because he no longer looks like a teenager. He looks like a good and proper twenty something or probably older. When I drew Baeddan this round I made him far too large. Eventually I'll get it right.

I have come to the realization that though Tinette is not overly fond of other people, she does like animals, and likes to take care of them. She has very few hobbies- she can't sew, or cook, or sing, or do any number of things she should be able to do because she was born into a family with many servants. I had a fun time coming up with hobbies; Dancing, fighting, horseback riding, reading, piano...

Yay!


And here I doodled some characters in their back stories, the other characters they happened to interact with, lalala-

This sketch dump is actually older than the one I already submitted. I drew Tinette and Jessica asked me if she was angry. I said yes. She said of course she's angry, because Tinette is always angry.

And so I started my mission to make her happy, which led to me drawing her with my first attempt at a horse.

Animals! They make even the worst people happy.

Shaari and Suka as kids, Phineas as a young adult and Suka as a teenager, Ninja with her new BFFL Jorn, and HUGS ALL AROUND!

Don't hugs just make you feel warm and fuzzy inside?

We had a lot of drama going down. It was going to end in hugs.

I'm not finished with this one, I don't think, which is why it isn't in any of the sketch dumps even though it's the oldest. I drew it reminiscent of a picture I drew a long time ago and was very fond of.

I'd like to colour it the same way, so they can sit side by side, like in a card set or something.

I have to ink it first though, ah ha!

I'm pretty sure I inked the last one digitally- but I'll probably do this one traditionally. It's easier, heh.

I think Suka and Phineas are adorable, but in a complicated spot. Suka still cares for Phineas, obviously, but she's given him up as a lost cause as far as relationships go- but Phineas on the other hand... well, he's got a ways to go.

The other day Sarah challenged me to draw some elemental ladies. After dicking around and ignoring said suggestion for a few hours, I decided I might as well, and I was having quite a lot of fun with them.

I only finished three, as I initially drew earth stick thin, and I don't know what I was thinking. I wanted earth to be heavy and real feeling, weighted with all the earth beneath our feet and trees above our heads. I made her really thin along the thought process of trees themselves- but earth needs to be everlasting, and needs to look capable of being such.

Fire was smokin' hot, of course, with a thin waist and giant hips and big boobs with crazy wispy flaming hair, and water needed to be soft looking. So I drew my favourite kind of figure ever; a tubby one.

Oh yeah, I love drawing heavier people. And now all I have left is air!

Once again, following the suggestion of my roomie, I drew myself as an element from her comic, the Awakened. We'd already determined last year that if I was any element, I'd be the element of rainbows, because I dress in fifty million different colours at the same time.

So, when I designed my human form, I just drew me, as I am every day. When I designed my personification, I was initially going to draw myself as my business card logo, which is a boar wearing a hat, scarf, my glasses, my earrings, with my hair, etc-

But instead I decided to go a little simpler, and took a boar, gave it some wings, added some bracelets, and as a final touch, added a scarf. My personification is a flying pig with a scarf made of rainbows! When it flies across the sky it leaves rainbows in its wake, like Nyan-cat. Only nyan-boar.

Yaaay!!!

Many many many drawings. Sketchbook cleanout!

Annie

7:36

Squish Loves

Bet you're getting tired of seeing these, aren't you?

It's a shame I'm not tired of making them yet.

This is a special request I made for Sarah. I don't think I've ever been straight up asked to draw something for someone before, or at least not seriously. Usually trades, ATC's, all that jazz, so this felt special to me and I wanted to make sure I did a good job.

I wish I was as on the ball with my commission. Tomorrow, tomorrow.

On a side note, I should never be given free reign to draw a curvy lady. I go nuts.

Sue and Chase both belong to Sarah, and are characters in her comic the Awakened. If you haven't read it, she's recently rebooted everything and started from scratch, and it's a really cool read. Don't worry, the first few pages involving Chase are nightmare fluid. You're not supposed to understand.

I've always loved Sue, since I first saw her. She's colourful, comfortable, fun, and often reminds me of me. Up until the reboot, all of her stat's matched mine too. Sue's awesome fun to draw because of all of her curves and colours; right up my alley.

Chase, I don't draw as much. It doesn't help that I enjoy spending my spare time tormenting him, and the fact that he's anorexic and skinny as a bean pole. I have issues with skinny people. Even my own. I just can't draw them properly. Thunder thighs, all around!

I tried to stick to mostly repetitive patterns for Chase, and I refrained from giving him vibrant blue arm warmers. All the various shades of gray were bothering me about as much as Irwin's bandaging was, but I managed. Chase, you so drab. Spice up your life! Wear a green hat or something. No? No? No funky accessories? Okay, I'll give you one of those later.

For now, I'll make you wear emo pants! This is what happens when I design costumes without looking at references. He normally wears ratty tatty baggy pants. Not emo pants. Oh well. And I doubt he'd wear the shoes I gave him, but you know what, I like those kinds of shoes. With some proper rubber soles on them. I like converse too.. I don't know what I was thinking.

For Sue, because she's Sue, I picked whatever loose pattern I had on hand. I really like how she turned out! She is wearing; the lime green boots I desperately want from Target that won't ship to Canada, the purple skirt I constantly regret not buying from old Navy, and a yellow sweater that I own but is much to small for me.

SUE, I AM SO ENVIOUS OF YOU RIGHT NOW.

Darnit.

Think I might change the texture I used on the skin tones... they sort of look diseased.

This was a lot of fun to work on, and it was a great way to start the break. My left hand is a little sore, but hey, at least my right hand is functioning properly again. That's all that matters, yeah?

Eventually I'll stop drawing heart bubbles and calling them backgrounds. I promise. I couldn't really think of anything else that would have been relevant to what I was drawing.

Without further ado, here you go Sarah, I hope you like it.

2:16

Annie

Part FOUR: How to Do It Without Wanting to Stab Yourself with a Pencil.

Yaaay! I didn't bother putting texture on this one, because I really put it together specifically for Chelsea, to show her the easier, more organic way I did these things. I did the majority of it with a mouse, because I'm still avoiding using my hand which is still not... totally feeling too hot! Perhaps if I stopped typing so much, it might make life easier.

That being said, you can find part four of my step by step thing here, and then jump to Part 3 for the texture tutorial. I don't really consider myself a master at anything or a very good teacher, but hopefully this will help out those few people who were curious as to what I was doing!

I've left this one as just the lineless shapes, because I think I want to play with some other options other than textures. I'm just not sure yet. I'll think about it while I'm at work, and get some idea's when I get home.

I also totally didn't draw on any folds or shadows, but that was my own short coming. Oh well!

Characters are my very own Sherlock and a slightly older, more mature Ninja. With boobs. Also, even though you can't see the line work that went into it, I thank Stacy for inking Ninja for me, because I was too lazy to do so myself. She did good! And I covered up over it all.

Today in character design class, we were all supposed to draw each other as children. I didn't participate, because of my wrist, but Enzo drew me as a child and sent me well wishes in return.

It was the sweetest drawing and the sweetest sentiment, I realized I was very much going to miss my teachers when I move into second year.

Today, is officially the start of break week. Tomorrow, Sarah's brother Andrew is coming over, and on Sunday I'm going to get my hair trimmed. Then on monday I start my full time job and have to be at the school for 7:30 in the morning. Harsh.

And between all of that, I have character design, painting, layout and story boarding homework! Seriously, is there no rest?

Animation, I refuse to accept you will eat up my entire life. I will sleep well, and socialize well over my break. Even with my job.

Money money money.

5:50

Annie

So Many Beautiful Drawings!!

Haha, I have so many pictures to post today, I don't know where to start! I usually try to keep on top of things, but I've been doing awful lately.

I've landed myself in a class where the instant someone get's bored it turns into "Do an art trade with me!" So I've been drawing and sketching and handing things out like mad and getting plenty of drawings in return!

It's fun.

It's also an exercise in drawing characters and people I don't know very well, which is great for commission work. Speaking of commissions, I gotta finish those anime girls...

Anyways! First up, some Tina. I'm also trying very hard to convince people to draw Tinette with their characters, but as it turns out all of my friends fear Tinette's wrath and wouldn't wish her unholy rage on any of their characters.

Oh come on, she get's along fine with Fray!

Psht, pussies.

I like seeing Tinette drawn by others! And besides, the only person she's ever actively beaten on was Lucas, and that has something to do with the fact that he shot her with a flintlock rifle. I'd beat on him too.

This particular drawing of Tina was drawn by Neilizza, a couple of days ago.

Next up, my baby Yukio, drawn by Stacy! Yukio doesn't get a lot of love. He's rather stupid and doesn't understand just about everything, but he's a sweetie at heart. If you can reach that heart.

He's changed a lot since his initial invention years ago- but his design is still very similar.

I just learned how to explain it better.

Kara get's some loving! Some loving not directly related to a particular cockney accented red-head or a kilt sportin' sexy man.

Just general fan love.

Kara get's appreciated because she isn't a skinny little twig; but I apparently gave Amanda a difficult time because Kara is an "in-betweener". She's not too skinny, or too fat, but is what normal people are supposed to look like.

Score!

I like Kara for that reason.

She's round and squishy and soft.

What's this? Some more straight up Kara.

Dalton drew this picture for me; he's got a really good, very cartoon network style, and I was thrilled he came over to join in all of our art trade fun!

Unfortunately I can't link to his blog or gallery, because I'm not sure where to find it. Tear.

Dalton's been working at drawing all of us in his style since last semester. I got the chance to lurk his sketchbook today, and we had a Star Trek vs Star Wars debate.

He actually doesn't like TNG-

HOW TOTALLY HEARTBREAKING!

I love TNG...

Whoops, I totally forgot to whiten the paper on this one-

Sarah drew this for me yesterday to celebrate Valentines. I came out of my shower and walked right past it and didn't notice till I sat down at my desk- and I found it hilarious.

They really don't make any sense, but somehow or another, angry plus angry equals harmony.

Or maybe just some really loud sex, I don't want to know.

The point is, they're 'getting along' and I really don't want to upset that balance because HEY, Tinette has a BOYFRIEND again, what is this nonsense?!

It's confusing. I'll leave it at that.

I love Leah's art. I suggested an art trade with her a little while ago, because even though I had portfolio's I was storing art in that people had given me, I only had two pictures from Leah. One was a disturbing pin up Suka, while the other was Tinette, inside of a spiral bound sketchbook.

She agreed, and I got the chance to draw GG. When I drew GG, I didn't have any reference, so I had to make it all up from my head- so when Leah was drawing Tinette, even though I offered her reference she refused, wanting to draw Tina from her head like I'd done for GG.

Tinette looks gorgeous and sexy; just sayin'.

These are some doodles from Chelsea's sketchbook! It's Suka, in purple, Sherry, and Sarah's character Asher.

Chelsea always loves my sweet and innocent characters, and then get's all heartbroken and upset when she realizes I plan to end their lives.

It's alright Chelsea, it's not too late for me to change my mind. Who knows, I just might.

The question is, would I be being crueler or no?

Dun dun dun.


And a final picture to close the day, something drawn by me, as my art blog needs a post from me- this is just a doodle I made after trying and struggling to draw an under weight Suka for the better part of lecture.

I am awful at drawing skinny people, yet my main character has an anxiety disorder and doesn't eat enough because she can't keep food down if she's feeling any kind of negative emotion, and she worries a lot.

I'm so smart.

Apparently I annoy my classmates because I draw myself too fat and always exaggerate my weight.

Man, I finally thought I'd gotten to the point where I could draw myself fairly.

Oh well. Going to finish this one up with some super fast colours so I can upload it as my new deviant ID. I probably shouldn't scream in Suka's face- I might give her a heart attack and she'll die.

Thank you everybody for all the beautiful artwork, I really appreciate it all!!!

11:53

Annie

Happy Valentines!!

Everyone's hating on Valentines big this year, so I felt the need to step up and defend it.

I don't really do anything on Valentines; I wake up, I go about my day, I go to bed. Today while in class, I decided I wanted to design a Valentines day card. Hater's gonna hate, but I figured I'd try to be positive about another Monday!

I couldn't figure out what I wanted to draw. Initially, I wanted to draw myself hugging my significant- and then I remembered I didn't have a boyfriend. Hm, that posed complications. I could pick a fictional character, but my favourite characters aren't much ones to provide amusement if I was to tackle them and hug them tightly.

After that, I supposed I could hug one of my characters! After all, I have a couple characters who would be very unhappy to be hugged- mostly being Ainmire and Sherry. Sherlock is horribly bashful around girls, so I decided to use him! And then I realized that no, I couldn't terrify the poor boy enough, and decided to make it funnier by including Chelsea. Chelsea loves Sherlock very much, despite the fact that it's similar to having a crush on my little brother. Ew.

I thought I should step in and try to spare poor Sherry- and that's where this came from. Bad Chelsea! No jail bait for you!

After I turned around and made a Valentines card that was directed to one of my friends, I decided to keep going.

The next person I wanted to make a card for was Sarah, where I ran through a couple options over the course of five seconds. I already drew a Valentines picture last month that summarized two of the more hilarious relationships I could have drawn for a card, so I considered something cute. My brain instantly filtered out Sue and Chase, as well as Suka and Chase, and my head went *click* when I realized I could draw Laurent and Ninja.

After all, Valentines is a celebration of love of all kinds; Not necessarily romantic love.

Plus this held more true to the picture I wanted to draw initially, though in my initial planning stages, Ninja was supposed to be wrapped tightly around Laurent, and Laurent was supposed to be trying very hard to pull her off. Until I realized he probably wouldn't want to touch her.

It turned into this!

Happy Valentines, SAD, half-price chocolate eve, or just happy Monday!

10:09

Annie

Too Much TV

I really wish I'd had cable way back when and was interested in Star Trek when it was popular. I feel so tragically out of date.

I recently finished watching TNG, and I'm so very sad that I have to move on to Voyager. I've been meaning to draw Star Trek art for a while, but for the time being, this is the closest I'll get.

I thought about t really hard, but I'd never get into Star Fleet Academy to begin with. I picked the blue uniform, figuring if I was anywhere other than art, I could see myself being a nurse. Well no, not seriously, because I don't think I could handle the pressure or the pain of being with people who are sick or in pain- But I mean I think I could learn it. So! Even though I'd love the idea of being an engineer, Science always escaped me, I'll have to settle for medical. Or maybe even command *scratches chin*. Nah, no one listens to me.

Today was another rough day-- I played in the snow for a couple of hours with Winona, Leah and Neilizza, and it was a lot of fun, but I came home, and Swazzle was struggling. I curled up with her and sat with her for a while. Offered her an apple, some cheese and a half eaten potato.

Less than an hour later, Swazzle had a heart attack in Sarah's hands and died.

I wasn't there to say goodbye- she was just.. gone. We were going to take her to the vet tomorrow to get put down because she was in pain- but this was sudden an unexpected and I'm broken. I feel like Elmer just died, and now I've had Swazzle taken from me. I haven't been much of a mom- I rescued her and bought her and then passed her off to Sarah to care for while I helped pay. I was the estranged parent who never visited enough, and I feel like a jerk for being so broken up when I didn't even treat her right.

Swazzle and Archie are both waiting for me on the other side- but I've got a long way to go before I catch up. I'm afraid to go to sleep again, I don't want to lay awake crying.

Bye baby <3 I loved you so much, even if I didn't show it enough.

Annie

2:20

I Quit

I have given up on this.

Hahaaaa, I wanted to just play with digital painting, but my bad anatomy was bothering me too much, and after having it pointed out I threw my arms up and was like "You know what Annie, go to bed."

Drew this a few days ago, during Chris Walsh's class. If anyone knows me very well, they'll know a few things. I'm loud and don't realize it, I'm impressionable, I scare easily, I love Sherlock Holmes, Tron, and Sarah recently got me obsessed with Star Trek and I love Data.

We watched first contact last week and I loved it very much.

Drew this while thinking about the movie; I wanted to play with things while colouring, but I have no idea what I'm doing so I stopped.

I'm so bad at drawing real people- On the other side of this sheet of paper I have a few doodles trying to map out Brent Spiners features. Like his massive nose, puffy eyes, huge forehead and defined chin. Plus I'm awful at drawing Data's particular haircut in any view but profile.

What a horrible week, I just want it to be over.

One more day, and then I'm plunged into my homework weekend of hell.

Annie

11:49

Sheridan Trading Cards

Happy early Birthday to my bestest buddy evar. I bet you can't guess who that is. Basically bust up shots of Sarah, Chelsea and myself, played off like it's some sort of awesome Sheridan trading card game.

Fake Japanese symbol is fake.

They were a lot of fun to do.

The full busts, as I cropped out quite a bit when I fit them to the cards.

I don't normally draw people I know because I'm really bad at characterizing, and I don't like to run the risk of offending anyone.

My room mate is really pretty, so I tried hard to make sure I kept the integrity of her features, not hide her eyes- and of course, got the eye colour all wrong.

ME I'm damn good at drawing, because I draw me all the time, with the fat cheeks and big nose.

Chelsea gave me a bit of problem- I drew her with a derp look on her face, and I was like, "Aw damn, I'm totally skipping all of her nice features and making her look retarded." I hope she can forgive me for that. She's much prettier IRL, I promise.

HOWEVER, her spirit is there!! Chelsea's patronus would be that of a seal.

I drew Sarah's birthday out over a matter of days, haha. Cupcakes thursday, hat on saturday, trading cards today- and now I have nothing to give her on her actual birthday tomorrow.

I'm so lame.

Annie

7:32

Monday's Hurt

This is a two way art piece...

My layout teacher recently lost his mother to cancer. His latest assignment was a request to draw a picture that demonstrated what "Mother" was, seriously, to each of us.

Also, Sarah and I just lost our pet cat today to FIP- and it was the most painful thing I've experienced in years.

Everything seems so trivial now...

This image has gone through a few stages- Originally it was supposed to be me, crouched on the ground in the rain, and mom was supposed to be standing over me with an umbrella. It was building off a past memory of when I lost my job, and mom took me shopping to make me feel better about failing in my endeavors.

It then changed to me crouching in the rain, sobbing, with mom behind me holding a blanket over my head, playing on "Mom is my blanket", still relating back to that one memory of mom taking the pain away when I'd lost my job.

After the events of this morning, my idea changed again. Sarah's mom came with us to take Elmer for his final vet visit. I cried, and I cried, and I came home and I clutched my pig tightly and I lay in bed, not wanting to do anything. I wanted my mom, and I wanted my dad. Last time I lost a pet, they were both there for me- and it's so funny that in a room full of people, I've never felt so alone.

This is an homage to both my mom, my dad, and a little kitten, who I will never, ever forget.

2:27

Annie

Annie-Fluence

Because I LOVE plays on my name, har haaar.

Oh yay, now I get to explain all this...

Alright, jumping the board a bit late, but I always wanted to fill out one of these, so I got bored and did.

1. =SADCAT My biggest influence because she's my best friend and the first person I met when I came to Sheridan three years ago. She taught me how to ink, offers her advice on anything I ask for, keeps my anatomy in check, helped me gain confidence in what I drew, and still helps me to this day, every day. She also helps me stay sane.

2. `budgie The person responsible for me coming to Sheridan. Always there to offer a kick in the pants when I'm lost, offer advice when I'm stuck, and help me iron out problems when I need them. I envy her gorgeous paintings and strive for such beauty in my own work.

3. *dustsplat My friend for years, one of the first real artists I knew. I'm constantly blown away by his idea's, his world's and the depth and detail in his work. He used to help me puzzle out poses and would draw things to explain them for me; a huge influence in trying to get out of the anime style.

4. *patrickbrown I adore this artists expression work, and how dynamic everything he draws is. I want such dynamism in my own work, and nothing is more helpful or inspiring than his gallery.

5. *Blithegirl (I'm usually influenced by people on DA) The liveliness and emotion in her figures gets me every time. I hope one day my drawings will be as fluid.

6. Disney! Specifically 'Princess and the Frog' because after watching this movie my art took a turn in the direction of "Oh, I get it!"

7. The books I read and the worlds within. Garth Nix is one of my favourite authors, and his world in 'Sabriel', 'The Seventh Tower', and the 'Mister Monday' series are so vividly THERE I can see it in my mind like a movie.

8. Classical sculpture, specifically Bernini and Rodin. The life and the dimensionality is something I strive for in my 2D work.

9. My friends and the people in my life who inspire characters and character designs.

10. Chris Sanders, but this image really just represents "Curvy people". I'm a huge fan of curvy women who are proud of their appearance and don't try to hide under baggy clothing.

11. Spiderman! No artist in particular, just the character. The way he moves and twists and acts pops up whenever I'm thinking about characters and action poses.

12. Greek Mythology; this image represents any mythology I've ever read. I love Celtic mythology, Norse mythology, Greek mythology, Native mythology- big fan of stories, is what I'm saying.

13. The music I'm listening to. No genre in specific, just whatever I'm listening to. I close my eyes and see pictures when I listen to music, and I can come up with some pretty awesome idea's when I'm not fully conscious.

14. Yes, I'm one of the fifty million people who are influenced by Alphonse Mucha. His design work makes me happy, and his portrayal of female figures in flowing drapery make me happy. I'm also going to link this to 'Fashion' because I mentioned flowing drapery.

15. Movies and TV show's I watch. Not specifically TRON, but that's been the latest inspiration. I'm also influenced by Xena, and Star Trek, ah ha!

16. Light. Love light and I try my best to have dynamic lighting in my paintings. I admit I fail hardcore at this, but hey, I try.

17. I didn't really want to give this one a number, but otherwise no one would be able to find it... Sheridan, my school and second home. Inside I have dozens of friends who's slightest idea's and suggestions push me to try and to experiment and to grow as an artist. I'm also enrolled in Animation, and my teachers push me to go further and try harder.

There are other influences in my life that I didn't include on the map; another major one being *Chib-bee, and deviants *Sahara-chan and *Saria-Sama who helped me get serious about drawing in the first place. Thanks guys!

Sorry the maps kind of all over the place, I filled it in and then realized they didn't totally go in the order I filled them in, ah ha!

Annie-Fluence, yaaaay.

More... 2:34

TRON Sue

And, I think I'm finished.

Eleven different characters drawn and painted in TRON glory, haha. Two of the characters weren't mine, and my twelfth drawing I never finished.

This character is Sue, and she doesn't belong to me, but to my buddy Sarah. I love Sue because she's funky and doesn't let anyone stand in her way. The way she dress reminds me of me, so I love her even more. She's also my weight and my height, so yippee!

I had to think about Sue's light suit; I wasn't sure how I wanted to design it. In the end I tried to make it incredibly asymmetrical, and I almost added a skirt. Actually, I was dead set on adding a skirt, and then I inked it and felt silly because I totally forgot the skirt.

OH WELL. Sue rocks my socks. I'm a little sad because despite my TRON binge I only drew one civilian/muse style program, and all of the others (including myself) were Gladiators. If I get bored again I might draw Suka, but she strikes me more of an Iso type than a program.

Think it's time to move forward and draw some more personal work.

11:13

Annie

Little Late

I always jump on bandwagons a couple decades after their peak.

Anyways, Sarah told me I should watch Star Trek TNG because I would probably like it. I downloaded the first season sometime last month (or was it the month before?), and started watching.

I immediately fell in love with Lt. Commander Data. He's adorable, a Sherlockian, and plays the violin.

I wanted my own Data to hug and love and confuse with human emotions!

So I built one. Mine is far less.. responsive than Dr. Soong's model.. but mine is also squishy and filled with rice.

I had a lot of fun making his tiny Star Fleet uniform, but I'm not a huge fan of fleece, I don't think. It's got a lot of stretch yet isn't very strong, like felt, and I got fuzz everywhere. His hair was also a new experiment for me, and I think it was very successful. His communicator and eyes are both made from painted and glossed sculpy- because I decided against buttons.

His ears are lopsided, his head is floppy, and I wasn't too fond of the head/body ratio of this particular pattern- but I love him anyways. Another doll experiment to stick under my belt!

When I stroke it thusly...

Christmas break started last Friday, and I kicked the event off with some TRON Legacy! I enjoyed every minute of two-dimensionality, abstract story and lack of character development. SO going to see it again.

I haven't actually slept since Thursday night. Instead I've been having little naps here and there when ever I got tired, and I gotta say, I'm pretty impressed with how much stuff I can get done when I don't have to sleep for eight hours every night.

I still have a lot of work to do- six pencil cases, seven pairs of jeans, two pillow covers, my sister's, brothers and cousins presents (and grandparents, oh boy) and most of those people I have no idea what to get for them. I don't think I have time to keep making everyone presents, as I spent a couple days on my dads instead of a couple hours. Still, tackling things one project at a time; I envy my sister who can make everyone fuzzy gifts for Christmas and all I have in my repertoire is drawing.

Christmas! Maybe I'll get my brother a coffee mug and stuff it with candy... "I'm sorry bro, I have no idea what I could possibly get you for Christmas!" *hands mug of candy*.

My cousins are more difficult because I don't know them very well- I love them both very much, but since my aunt and uncle got divorced and we both started college, things got a little.. distant. I wanted to buy Sarah a bath bomb, but I texted her and found out she wasn't really a bath person. I don't know what I'd get Laura either, haha.

As to my grandparents- I know what they want, grampa wants a portrait of the lot of us drawn by yours truly- but I'm terrible at human likenesses and at this point, I don't have the time to draw that. I don't know when I would have in the first place- I don't know what to get my nan either.

I am at a loss, oh no!!

Annie

8:05

The Final Product

I haven't been drawing much these past few days.

Actually, that's a lie, but everything I've been working on is a private project I don't want to show anybody at this point in time.

Maybe one day.

I'm making this post to post (to post to post to post) the contents of my portfolio for animation this year. One of my class mates was asking if she could see it, so she had something to compare to, but I'd given the hard copy of my portfolio to my mother, as she wanted to keep it.

In the following list of hyperlinks you will find scaled down images of everything I put in, with little comments from yours truly!

First up! The life drawing section.

Three accurate observations of the nude figure.

Set One
Set Two
Three
Four
Five

I clearly went above and beyond what they asked for-- but I'm also pretty certain it was a good idea to show I had strengths in different cuts of time.

Two accurate observations of an animal figure.

Set One
Set Two

Again I went above and over; I didn't have any strong observational animals that could fill an entire page, so I took the best from my trip to the royal winter fair and collaged them on two sheets of paper.

Two accurate observations of a hand, one anticipating an action, one carrying out the action.

Anticipating
Carrying Out

I re-did these a few dozen times and kept handing them off to my room mate to tell me if I snapped any fingers off. Which I did, and had to fix.

Character Design section!

Five Point Character Rotation (If you follow me, you've seen this already)
Expression Sheet, angry, neutral, happy, sad and shocked (Let it be known, I hate these)

Two action poses

Pose One
Pose Two

Story boarding! A four panel story board depicting a character finding a box, examining the box, trying to open the box, and reacting to the open box.

Adam the Child

My teacher suggested the age old joke of a boxing glove on a spring; I quite enjoyed drawing these.

Composition! Showing household objects resembling a sphere, cylinder, rectangle and cone in a space and then reacting to a particular event.

Before said event
After said event

I enjoyed drawing this, again getting a lot of suggestions of fun tidbits to hide in the second composition. It wasn't so bad once I let loose and just got creative with it.

Layout section! First a drawing of a character sitting or standing inside a space, then a drawing of that space from the characters point of view.

Character in space This, I reused from last year and just fine tuned a lot of the line work.
Characters POV THIS... I needed so much help on it wasn't even funny. Thank you to my room mate, who saved my life because I was drowning.

Five Personal Artworks

Really only has one box on the entire score sheet: "Creativity" But maybe that one mark could make or break it, I don't know.

Digital Painting 1
Digital Painting 2
Digital Painting 3
Water Colour Painting
Sketch Page 1
Sketch Page 2

I went ahead and included a bunch of sketches on one page and submitted it as a piece. They really like the red lines, a lot. They show a lot of thought and structure, so my teacher told me to make sure I included a lot of those, because the final, painted image? Doesn't impress as much as the work that went into it.

So, through the process of my portfolio I went to a main cluster of four people... My 2D design teacher, a third year animation teacher who agreed to meet with me, and my two room mates Sarah and Leah. I also got a lot of help from Chelsea, who kept me sane during the two weeks I was home alone working. I redid everything three or four times, but it got me a passing score.

Woo!

Annie

9:51

Frazzled!

I wanted to draw Ninja today. I wasn't sure how I wanted to draw Ninja. So I started drawing. this is what came out.

Ninja's very happy to hear the exciting news about animation.

I'm sort of failing at this "BE ENTHUSED!!" Drawing thing. In the last one, my back pain was ending my happy dance, and in this one I look horrified to be tackle glomped. Though I suppose in real life I would be.

This is far more fun to draw than something congratulatory! And it is congratulatory. Just in a very unorthodox manner.

I didn't realize that ALL of my room mates were headed home today. For whatever reason, I thought Leah and Andrea would be here until tomorrow, but alas, such is not so.

Everyone's gone home for the long weekend-- apparently some families actually do stuff on Easter, though in my family it never really got further than a chocolate bunny. I figured I'd stick around, do some painting, some house work, and relax.

Empty houses are creepy-- I keep thinking noises from my neighbor are in my house, haha! I'm so jumpy.

I rode the bus with Sarah down to the Via rail station, where we waited for the train, and my ipod's "solitaire" app became the coolest thing. I waved her off as the train pulled out of the station (I didn't see her, so I doubt she saw me) and then I waited a further forty minutes singing to myself for the bus to arrive.

I rode home, practically ran from my stop to the house, locked the doors and made sure the house was empty.

For the next three days, the girls get to be mine! Which is fantastic, except for the fact that Blimey is sick.. and I'm so terrified something is going to go wrong while Sarah isn't here. I couldn't do anything to help Archie, and I'm afraid the same thing is going to happen this weekend, due to the fact that my luck sort of really bites.

However; I'm being diligent (I thought that was spelt with two 'L's) with her medications, I know how to get to the veterinary clinic, and I know what to do in case of emergency.

That so doesn't help me calm down any. SO YES... Annie is the rat care taker this weekend! And I'm insanely paranoid about it!

Annie Hughes

11:43

8:21 Is a lie

Next time I set my own alarm to prevent waking my friends earlier than necessary... remind me to make sure the clock is current on daylight savings. Woke myself, and Sarah an hour earlier than necessary this morning.

I figured, no big deal, I'll catch the earlier bus!

The 8:21 bus i was banking on, apparently doesn't exist.

I just.. hurt something in my arm.

Alrighty then, a doodle I drew on Wednesday morning, during tea. I've settled on horns, cause they are fun. My two characters, Suka and.. Unnamed-as-of-yet. Pretty much lifted this scene right from an RP I'm in, because i had fun writing it and I think I'll have fun drawing it. When I get that far.

Still working out arrangements for saturday. It's sitting on either I get picked up in Brampton before six on saturday, or i spend the night at Chris's place (if the invite is still there) and get picked up sunday morning! Either way I'm good really, I'm just looking forward to a day in TO with my friends.

Hopefully I can finally check out that vegetarian restaurant on Oxford street I've always wanted to look at, but of course.. I'm always with the family and don't get the chance >< Brother sees "Vegetarian" and freaks out, unless it's on pizza.

Right then, I still need to hit up the bank and talk to my mom and dad about weekend arrangements!

Gonna have a shower and go play billards with the family. Wee!!