2023 Illustrations/Crafts

Wow, don’t even ask me where my mind has been the past 2 months since my last post (or more accurately, the last 2 years, if I’m being honest.) Looking back on it, it’s pretty much all been a blur. But as we get ready to throw ourselves headfirst into the holidays, I’m feeling a refreshing bit of clarity and peace, so it seemed a good time to dust off my blog and pop back in to say hello, catch up with all you lovelies, and get back to doing my thing and feeling more like myself again. 2023 wasn’t as big of a year for creative productivity unfortunately. I did manage to squeeze some time in for a few drawings and crafts, so here they are:

The angel and devil sketch I did was older but I went in and redid the line work and added color to finally finish it, so I’m counting this as a 2023 piece. 😉

I wanted to draw something with kind of a vintage retro feel to the art style but also wanted to add a bit of crassness to it as well. It was a fun piece to work on.

Cupcakes & Machetes and I had a blast decorating these ancient Greek inspired terracotta pots on one of our girls’ nights/crafting sessions. Hers is the Pegasus pot on the left and mine is the Cerberus pot on the right. That was also the night we discovered that you could order craft supplies from Michael’s via Instacart. Talk about a game changer! 😛

I had a blast making spooky Halloween wreaths with C&M and a friend of ours for Craft Club (like Book Club, but for arts and crafts!) Speaking of wreaths, I also made a Christmas wreath at that start of December at a very fun and festive wreath-making party hosted by Mr. Moth’s aunt. 🙂

Just a gargoyle (a Grotesque if you want to be technical) done in ink.

Pencil and ink on paper. Between having our own temporary front door spider we named Coraline and this drawing this year was a good exercise in facing my arachnophobia. 🙂

More crafting with C&M, painting cheeky little gnomes. 😛 The top batch are mine and the bottom batch is hers. We probably had TOO much fun painting these and coming up with the different sayings.

lol This was my very brief attempt at the Inktober art challenge this year along with the spider lady and gargoyle pictured above.

My piece I worked on for Imbolc earlier this year. I really enjoyed working on this one and hope to do more related pieces in the coming year.

I only managed to do like 2 drawings for Shark Week this year, but this lemon shark was my favorite. If life gives you lemon sharks, make lemon pun-based art.

I didn’t get to create as much as I’d have hoped this year, but 2024 is right around the corner and I’m ready to make the most of it. 🙂

Is there anything you wish you’d had more time for this year? What sorts of things are you planning on working on in 2024? Who is ready for the New Year??

Art Update: August 2020

Happy Friday!! ❤ I hope you guys are all doing well and staying safe. I know 2020 has been a total hot mess, but I hope you’re finding ways to keep yourself sane during all of this. I’ve been finding a lot of solace in drawing and it’s been really nice. Like spending time with an old friend from before the stressful days of adulthood. (Maybe it just feels like that because I haven’t actually been able to see any of my friends in-person since February due to the pandemic!)

For most of my life, drawing was such a huge part of my daily existence. The past 10 years, though, I found myself doing it less and less. Sure, sometimes I’d make time for it, but it just wasn’t how it used to be. Well, the past year I have definitely been at it more again and now I’m pushing myself to not just settle into my drawing comfort zone, but to work on new poses and techniques, and really work at strengthening my skill again. I’ve got a long way to go, and a lot of learning to do, but I’m enjoying being back on the journey. 🙂

One of the ways I need to push myself further with my art is getting back into digital art again. It’s been a long ass time. I’m strangely intimidated, to be honest. I got this great new art tablet but to quote the Joker from The Dark Knight:

“I’m like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught one”

Well, one thing that will eventually force my hand to branch back out into digital art is the fact that most of my markers/brush pens are on their last leg. Filling up that sketchbook I got a while back has been slowly murdering all of them. 😥

Plus, I don’t think I’ll forgive myself if by the time I eventually return to work, I STILL have not gotten the hang of the new art tablet. I mean, it’s literally been 5 months since my work had to temporarily close its doors due to the coronavirus. Usually I have the excuse of not having enough free time, but that excuse has kind of gone right out the window this year, hasn’t it?? 😉

I hope you enjoy the new art. I’ll be posting some shark illustrations soon that I’ve been working on during Shark Week for an Instagram art challenge I’m participating in. It’s been a lot of fun so I figured I’d feature them in their own little post at the end of Shark Week. 😛

What skills have you guys been building on during this year? What hobbies have you found comfort in?? What have you been doing to keep from going completely stir-crazy???

Thanks, as always, for checking out my humble little drawings and reading my ramblings! ❤ Have a great weekend!

Inktober 2019: Week 1 Roundup

Phew! It has been a busy week. Thankfully I was still able to squeeze in just enough drawing time to complete the first seven days of Inktober. 🙂 Some of the daily prompts were harder than others and some took a few tries to get the look I was going for, but it feels good to have stayed on track so far. I’ve been posting daily over on Instagram but I wanted to share a roundup of my first seven entries with you guys here on the blog. ❤

Day 1: The daily prompt was “RING” and I decided to go with the kind of rings you would see if you were to cut into a tree as my inspiration, rather than actual jewelry.

Day 2: The daily prompt was “MINDLESS” and I just decided to go with a cute little zombie dude. This one was a quick but doing the blood was fun.

Day 3: The daily prompt was “BAIT” and I jumped at the opportunity to draw an angler fish because they’re badass and interesting, so why not?

Day 4: The daily prompt was “FREEZE” and I decided to draw a guy being pulled down beneath the ice by a skeleton woman. I wanted to go with muted color accents for the “freeze” prompt and I’m pretty happy with how they came out. 🙂 I wish I would have added some bubbles, but it’s never too late to go back in later and add them.

Day 5: The daily prompt was “BUILD” and I made a mad scientist building her own creation. This one was pretty fun since this mad scientist is a character I used to draw a long time ago and wanted to make a comic about.

Day 6: The daily prompt was “HUSKY” and I just drew a husky. Wasn’t really feeling this one, but I still got it done.

Day 7: The daily prompt was “ENCHANTED” and I had a lot more fun with this one, drawing a whimsical fairy moth lady. I also really enjoyed adding some brassy, silver and gold with my new metallic sharpies. This one was such a delight to draw that I’m sure I’ll be drawing her again at some point. I may even utilize her to jazz up the blog a little. 😉

I hope you guys enjoyed the drawings and I look forward to sharing my next batch in a week. Are any of you participating in Inktober or doing any other fun challenges this month? 🙂

The Return to the Sketchbook

After some neglect, I finally brushed off my sketchbook and have been showing it a little love again. I figured I’d share some of my recent illustration-sketch thingies with you guys. 🙂 Here are my 3 latest pieces, all done with watercolor markers and sharpies. Some of you may have already seen them over on Instagram but I figured I’d share them here anyway. ❤

Not my usual color palette, but hey, it’s fun to tinker around with different colors from time to time. Yellow was a bold jump out of my comfort zone.

This one was kind of inspired by the dead twins in The Shining, but I was listening to The Birthday Massacre, hence the bunny mask. This one was just a quickie since I felt I needed to push myself that day to practice more. I wish I’d taken my time with it more, but hey, that’s what re-draws are for, right? 😉

Just did this one tonight. Was wanting to do a creepy spin on those cute poses couples do for photos so I thought it’d be fun to have a girl covering the guy’s eyes with bloody claw hands while he’s obliviously unaware he’s about to be dinner.

Hopefully there will be more of these art posts. Shark Week is coming up so I’d love to do some Shark illustrations soon, like last year’s whale shark drawing I did. Definitely need to buy some new watercolor markers soon. My poor little babies are drying up!! D:

Anywayyy, hope you guys enjoyed the drawings. What creative stuff have you been up to lately? 🙂 I’d love to chat about it!

My First Drawings of 2019

New Year, New Sketchbook

I mentioned recently that I’d try to make more time for drawing this year, and part of that goal is to fill up the new sketchbook pictured above! 🙂 I loved the cover when I saw it and figured the new sketchbook might help to inspire me to keep at it with my drawing if I had an actual set amount of pages to fill up. So far it seems to be working. I’m definitely rusty and I’m tinkering around with watercolor brush pens so that’s been fun. It’s taking some getting used to but I feel like I’m *starting* to get the hang of them. Anywayyyy, here’s some of the WIP drawings I’ve got going so far.

I did this Ignited Moth to be my profile picture and debut picture for Instagram. It seemed fitting to finally make a piece to go with the alias I’ve been blogging under the past couple years.

A WIP shot of the girl that kicked off the following WIP piece. I need to fill in a dark background for it and add some more details, but you get the idea. I’ve always been a fan of drawing monsters, so expect plenty of those in the art posts to come. 😉

It’s been interesting using the watercolor brush pens more. They’re definitely a good practice in patience for me. I have to go slowly and deliberately with each stroke and it can be difficult for me with my itty-bitty attention span. It’s kind of relaxing in its own way, too, though. Here’s a close up of the monster pictured above:

I don’t really know what exactly I was going for with this guy. Like a horse skull mixed with some sort of Krampus vibe is about the only way I could describe the creative notion behind him.

This drawing almost didn’t get beyond the sketch stage. I was originally going for a pinup Poison Ivy, then when it wasn’t going how I wanted I was going to do a whole Día de Muertos inspired makeup on her, but for now I’m leaving her like this. We’ll see what happens with her in the future. 🙂

Well, that’s it for today’s art post. I hope you guys enjoyed. What creative shenanigans have you been up to lately? What are your go-to art tools of the trade?

 

Found Some Old Drawings

I love finding old and forgotten drawings. 🙂 I recently unearthed a couple old charcoal illustrations I did several years ago and figured I’d share them with you guys. It’s no secret that I love horror movies, and I’m pretty sure I did these as quick Halloween pieces, but I scanned them in together as a single image, so here we have Frankenstein’s Monster and the Bride of Frankenstein!

 

 

 

TBT: Old B&W Comic Fan Art

Haven’t done a Throwback Thursday art post in a while, so let’s go way the hell back and check out some of my old comic-related fan art, shall we? 🙂

Up first is a piece I made specifically for a contest Roman Dirge was doing for his Lenore comics. I did not win, but it was certainly a fun drawing to do.

Next, sticking with fan art for comics from SLG publishing, here’s a couple different characters from the comic series Gloomcookie.

Aaaaand last but not least, is Harley Quinn. I’ve been a fan of Harley for a long time, so of course she was bound to pop up here and there when I was looking through some of my older drawings. 🙂

As a TBT post would imply, these are all pretty old drawings, but I personally enjoy looking back on the old stuff, flaws and all, just to remember what I enjoyed drawing at that point in my life and to see how my style has changed and evolved over the years. 🙂 All of these were done with pencil, pen, and sharpie, my old go-to tools of the trade!

A Smattering of Mini-Reviews

How in the heck is the first month of the new year already almost over?? Where is the time thief that is responsible for this madness? I demand answers! Seriously, though, every year that goes by makes me feel like time just keeps slipping by quicker and quicker.

I noticed that I’ve been slacking a bit in posting reviews for some of the stuff I’ve been reading and watching lately. Time’s really been getting away from me with everything that’s been going on, but I still want to shine a little spotlight on some of the stuff I’ve been enjoying in the past few weeks, so I bring you this post of mini-reviews! 😀 It’ll be like a little sampling rather than a full course of reviews, but I think it’ll certainly get the job done. 😉

The Plucker, by Gerald Brom:

This illustrated novel was a real treat. I’ve been a fan of Brom’s work for quite some time. Growing up, my mom had multiple books featuring his artwork and I was hooked from a young age. I loved the dark and twisted aesthetic he had going on. One of the things I like about Brom’s novels, is that he carries over his wonderful artwork and includes tons of illustrations, sketches, and paintings to accompany the story he is telling.

When a young boy’s father unwittingly brings him a gift containing an evil spirit known as the Plucker, it quickly makes itself at home and decides to claim the boy’s life for its own. It begins its reign of terror by going after the boy’s toys, the very things the child has poured so much of himself and his love into. Thus, the toys in this book have a life force all their own, one the Plucker is keen on taking to build up the needed strength to claim the soul of the boy and take over his body. What the Plucker has no way of realizing, is that aside from his toys, the boy also has one badass little old lady for a nanny. One who knows some things about magic herself. It’s a good story with fantastic artwork. I gave it 4/5 stars.

Stranger Things 2, on Netflix:

Remember when I mentioned how busy I’ve been and how fast time has been flying by? That’s the only explanation I have for why it took me sooooo long to finally  finish watching the second season of Stranger Things. I (and countless others) love this show and the awesome 80’s dose of nostalgia it’s been rocking. Season 2 was awesome. We met some new characters, got to see older characters continue to grow, and learn some more about “the Upside Down”. The horror element of the show continues to grow in a really satisfying slow-burn sort of way, but it never feels dull and boring because you love the characters so damn much. This was a solid second season to a great show, and I may have even liked it more than I liked the first season, which is really saying something. I would give it 5/5 stars. Can’t wait for season 3!

Phantasmagoria and Other Poems, by Lewis Carroll:

One of my reading goals for this year is to read more poetry books since it isn’t really something I’ve read a whole lot of. Since I have always been a fan of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, I definitely wanted to check out this book of poems from Carroll. I’ll admit, I wasn’t as smitten with this as I thought I was going to be. I liked the titular poem Phantasmagoria the best of the lot, finding that it had the most character to it. It tells the tale of a little ghost who has mistakenly come to haunt the wrong house. Carroll has a certain easy-to-read quirky charm to his poems, but this book wasn’t my favorite of his works. 3/5 stars for this one.

Milk and Honey, by Rupi Kaur:

Another book of poems! 🙂 This was a quick and moving read. I admire Rupi Kaur’s ability to pour her soul out onto the pages of this book. Divided into different categories, the poems contained cover topics like love and loss, surviving after trauma, and the power and unity of femininity. I think many of us will be able to find something they can identify with or relate to somewhere in Milk and Honey. 4/5 stars.

The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden:

I can’t believe I somehow never got around to reviewing this one. I read The Bear and the Nightingale with my book club ladies in December, and it made for the perfect winter read. It was both enchanting and addicting. Much like how the main character Vasilisa is enthralled with the fairy tales she is told growing up, you will become enthralled by the one she winds up living. Russian folklore and mythology enrich the story, and the backdrop of winter is capable of being both cruel and kind, with moments that are cozy and heartwarming, and others that are harsh and bitter. 4/5 stars.

 

December Updates

Hello, everybody! It seems I fell off the map there for a bit, but it’s only because things have been extremely busy and especially chaotic this month. Things are slowly, ever so slowly, getting back to normal just as the year comes to a close. Between my personal life and work life I’ve pretty much been in caregiver mode 24/7 and have been feeling burnt out by it, but luckily I have a nice little vacation coming up to hopefully squeeze some rest in and enjoy the holidays. 🙂

That said, here are just some random updates of what’s been going on as of late.

Update #1: Due to the previously mentioned craziness, I missed out on my book club’s Christmas party this year which was a total bummer. We always wear ugly Christmas sweaters and I had been so pumped to show off my new R2-D2 one. All is not lost, though, since I’m planning on wearing Christmas sweaters to work the rest of this week, so I can proudly display that one, my Deadpool one, and my “Bah Hum-Pug” one. One day I hope to have amassed enough ugly Christmas sweaters to be able to wear one each day of December leading up to Christmas. Mwahaha!

Update #2: I recently reached my goal of 45 books read for the year, though I’ll admit a lot of them were graphic novels. 😛 This was quite the busy year. I’m upping my goal for next year though and aiming for 50 this time. I’ve even made a list of some of the priority titles I’m looking to read in 2018. Some are new, some old, some are novels, graphic novels, and there are even a few poetry collections in there, too. It should be a pretty interesting year in reading for me. 🙂

Update #3: I’m seriously thinking about pampering myself during this time off by going to get my hair done. Planning on getting it chopped and colored. Thinking of throwing some purple and/or blue in the mix. It’s been too long since I’ve put any fun colors in it and I’m feeling like it’s a good way to kick off the new year!

Update #4: Started doodling again. Planning on doodling more in the new year. These are just 2 rough sketches with some highlighter and sharpie thrown in, but I’m hoping to really get back into it in 2018. Maybe even hook up my art tablet again. It’s been a while.

EPSON MFP image

EPSON MFP image

Update #5: I recently got awarded Employee of the Quarter (quarter of the year) at my job. I was really surprised since I’ve only been there a little over 6 months. Woo!

So, that’s it for my little updates. Hope you guys have all been well. I’ll be catching up on your posts to see what all has been going on. Feel free to fill me in on any exciting updates of your own. I’d love to hear about them. 🙂

Review- The Art of Alice: Madness Returns

It’s no secret if you’ve been following my blog that I have a passion for art and books. Because of this, I’ve always enjoyed books featuring art collections that range from rough concept sketches to beautifully detailed prints. My mom shares this interest and so we’ve collected many art books throughout the years. I figured I’d make a new category in my blog specifically for art appreciation where I can do artist spotlights and review some of the amazing art books in our collections. 🙂

To kick things off we’ll start with one of mine, a hardcover video game concept art book for American McGee’s Alice: Madness Returns.

Just look at this creepy, gorgeous cover!

This book takes us down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass so that we can get a good peek at the creative process behind American McGee’s haunting version of Wonderland. With an introduction by McGee himself, we really get to see the long and creative journey that went into making this game. Different chapters cover subjects like pre-production, creating the final look for Alice and her costumes, the separate world building that went into London and Wonderland, cinematics and more!

Whether you’ve played the game or not, this book is enjoyable for fans of all things Alice (assuming they don’t mind a good measure of horror thrown in the mix), as well as just art lovers in general. The images presented in the book are gorgeous and it’s definitely one of my favorite art books I’ve ever purchased. I’d highly recommend it! If you’re not already acquainted with this game, check out this old trailer for it. As I’m sure you can tell from the concept art seen above, it’s quite the surreal, nightmarish version of Wonderland.

Do you enjoy art books as well? What sorts do you prefer or collect? I’d love to hear about it! 🙂