#art posting backlog is done- time to draw and post my next image in a month or 2 dsfashfbdjs
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Alice and her dolls
#Alice Margatroid#touhou#art#csp#art posting backlog is done- time to draw and post my next image in a month or 2 dsfashfbdjs#I want to draw my ocs or work on a live2d comm next since my touhoufest grind is done#ty for enjoying my touhou art again..!!!
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2/1/21 - Hourly Comic Day Part Three
Image descriptions below the cut
[Image Descriptions:
First image is A single image comic done in ink. It is entitled âHourly Comic Day 2021, 5pm-6pmâ. There is a sketch of the book cover of âMemorial: a novelâ by Bryan Washington. The image on the cover is chopsticks standing up and a grocery bag attached it waving like a flag. The caption reads âFinally reached the death while reading during work downtime.â There are multiple crossed out errors.Â
Second image is A two image comic entitled âHourly Comic Day 2021, 6PM-7PMâ. The first image has âBreakâ in all caps in a box. It is a drawing of out arms stretching out fingers, interlaced, the perspective is to mimic that it is the arms of the viewer, also captioned â(Clearly stretching hands)â. The next image is a simplified version of an Amazon packaging and 7 dnd or ttrpg dice and its captioned âWrong colors again!â In all caps and a frowning, angry emoticon.
Third image is A single image comic that is entitled âHourly Comic Day 2021, 7PM-8PMâ. The comic reads âCanât talk about work so hereâs a self-portrait via using my turned off phone as a mirror.â The drawing for the comic is of a iPhone and a close up of a face of a tired looking person wearing a headset and glasses. The pen strokes are very messy and streaky. The phone is framed by the words âBored & Tiredâ written in vertical columns.
Fourth image is A comic entitled âHourly Comic Day 2021, 8PM-9PMâ. It is labeled âDinner Timeâ in a box. There is a list with illustrations. The list reads âFried eggs, Rice, Chinese sausage, Curry Chicken & Green Beansâ. The illustration of the chicken and green beans are captioned â(Donât ask about the chicken art)â
Fifth image is a Two panel comic entitled âHourly Comic Day 2021, 9PM-10PMâ. First image is of twitter mobile a simplified version of a userâs twitter thread and âAdd tweetâ button. Caption reads âPosting backlogâ. The second panel is an open book that has âYear of the doodle by Dawn DeVries Sokolâ on the left and the right page has February one and two. There is a small drawing of a person with long hair and a dark hoodie, there is clocks with different times surrounding their head. Three pens to their left and âHCDâ to their right. It is captioned âDaily Doodleâ.
Sixth image is A comic that is two drawing of a phone and text drawn in ink entitled âHourly Comic Day 2021, 10PM-11PMâ, subheading âSocial Media:â. The first phone is tumblrâs activity page and shows notes from some mutuals. User âgunnarollaâ liked a post. It is captioned âFour year old post liked by the person I made it for.â The next phone shows âLikesâ and is stylized to be simplified Twitter screen. There is a text tweet and a tweet of a woman on top of another putting make up on, they have a scribble username and emoji. The image is captioned âI like some art of someone that  had almost the same exact display name as a mutual, and was I amused.â There is a final caption that reads â(There was some serious news today, but thatâs a hard sell for HCD)â.
Seventh image is A one illustration comic entitled âHourly Comic Day 2021, 11PM-12AM.â A symbol in grey ink that is of an eye with an X crossed over it, under it reads âS2E7â. There is a drawing in black and grey ink of Mabel and Dipper Pines from Gravity Falls. It is captioned âGetting closer to revealing some secretsâ. At the bottom right had on the page it reads, â(Thanks for joining me!)â
/ End ID]
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Yugioh Season Zero: All Your Friends are Cursed
You know what? Itâs been a while, lets revisit Zero.
For those new here, Iâve been also very slowly going through Season Zero alongside the show we are more familiar with, which is not at all the same as the other seasons. If you want to read just the recaps of Zero from the beginning you can do that by clicking on this link right here. I think Iâve only done like 3 or 4 so far.
OK. Itâs been...a time since we ventured here to this very weird place, where were we?

So, first off you may have noticed there was a wee gap in updating, this is mostly because I burned up all my backlog when I got sick for two weeks (and Iâm still hella tired) so...Iâm playing catch up and this is a hobby, so it takes a back seat. But also, itâs partially because I was like suuuper conflicted with what I should do about that logo. Like, I did feel like I had to blur it just because I donât want there to be confusion if the images ever get pulled away from this post, but I was seriously considering just repainting every cap because it sure bothered me a whole lot.
It was Illustrator OCD Problems that in the end donât matter, but you can see my quandary of the right corner in the rest of these. Anyways, thanks Team Millennium for the fandubs so I donât have to cap over subs. Yâall did a good job, and I get why they need to watermark since like...itâs Youtube so every random bot channel is stealing any other video getting clicks.
Also, this took a while because itâs like over 60 caps long. These Season Zero episodes are just...so much content. Theyâre so much. And I thought this one handles some interesting themes, so grab yourself a snack, because this is gonna be a little bit of a marathon. I could split it into two but like...I donât know where to split it, so enjoy. This post is basically a 2 for 1.
Anyway, Shadiâs back. I didnât really expect for him to be back so soon, but heâs here with a vengeance. He spooks up on Grandpaâs old Egyptologist friend (whoâs name I have forgotten) and this guy kind of already knows whatâs next.



In this episode, as you can see from the title, everyone is gonna get cursed. Except Miho, but like, I tend to forget she exists. We start off with Yuugiâs Grandfatherâs friend getting tossed out a window, which is sort of strange because you figure that this guy wouldnât let a girl drown down a well for a rare coin (which was the Shadi metric for if you deserve to be eaten by a chair). But apparently we were wrong and Grandpaâs friend has actually been a jackass this entire time.
"Your friend has actually been a jackass this entire timeâ is another underlying theme of this episode. Whatâs wild is that Yuugi and his Grandpa are not at all surprised by this revelation, nor do they seem to mind.

Shadi says something cryptic, decides he wants a rematch with the alter ego of Yuugi Muto, and then has the weirdest plan of how to do it. The rest of this recap is basically all of Shadiâs master plan and itâs...pretty...something.
(read more under the cut)



Since we havenât gotten a Miho episode, I havenât really gotten a chance to learn what she...is. Right now she just seems like a G rated Cheryl Tunt. Which is probably incorrect, I dunno maybe this girl will end up being their savior but for right now she just kind of uses Tristan for favors and enjoys spooky stuff maybe a little too much. Iâm not sure sheâs even aware what planet sheâs on.


Shadiâs also looking more and more like a bird this episode with the artistic choice to join the brow to the nose with a deep shadow like this. If thereâs deeper historical meaning to that, I have no idea. Went on a little deep dive through Google to see if it matches from art and sarcophagi from Egypt and Greece but like...nah. You do get a strong thin nose on golden sarcophagi that can give it a really cut look since itâs usually covered in reflective gold, so that could be it. But overall, joining the nose to brow is something more modern, I think. Just our own touch to make him a spook.
And honestly Yugioh really does enjoy putting a very heavy shadow between the eyebrows, but usually in the form of lots of lines and not a solid black shape.

Youknow weâve never had the chance to enter anyoneâs mind space before. I kind of assumed that no one other than Yuugi even had one. So Anzuâs mind, shouldnât be too ba- oh



Just take this whole sequence, put some generic lo-fi on it, and you have yourself a youtube channel. Itâs amazing how, since the 90â˛s anime style is back into fashion, this bizarre sequence just hit so many good notes. Those pink and blue flowers matched with a silver metallic tree with weird purple fruit? Not gonna lie, thatâs some good inspo material. Maye not the weird bird and terrifying 90â˛s sun--I donât know why heâs here--but everything else? Shoot.

This hasnât come up before and the only guy with G in his name that I can think of is Gozoboro and he cannot be this guy. Maybe just a reference to some comic book stuff because he does have a Superman shape to that G, but I donât know comics well enough to know if this was a manga Superman parody.
PS now that we know that Teaâs mind is just a lo-fi channel, we now know that Bakura and Marik have just been hanging out next to a weird silver fruit tree, staring at a horrifying green sun and avoiding eye contact with one single green bird for basically this entire Noah arc. Assuming of course that a piece of Bakura is still in there in Teaâs mind, which he may have decided to vacate at this point because whatâs he supposed to do in there? Do barre?
Maybe they both just do barre workouts in the tea mindfort while a parrot awkwardly watches.




So Shadi has been just hanging out in Teaâs head for how long? Like half a day now?
She really has always been the ghost uber. From the very beginning. Wow.
Also, speaking of vaporwave, the pink to yellow tint on the irises? A+. That could be your lo-fi thumbnail, easy.
Anyway we are blessed with another tiny Yuugi this episode. I think Iâve mentioned it before but Iâll mention it again, I love it when artists have to draw their characters as small as ants because then the characters are given their rawest, purest form. Which in his case is just being very squat and having hair with spikes.

And then Anzu somehow hides in this closet and tips over a bunch of beams at him. Are these cross country beams? What are these? I did water polo and swim team so I just have no idea what you land people did.

When beams donât work out, Shadi sets in play the next step of his super evil and sinister plan. Please remember that this guy is a 5000 year old very scary ghost with crazy OP powers.



So then Shadi starts his third phase. So far weâve had a bunch of poles and a basketball, what will be next? Will Anzu come up with two chalkboard erasers and start pounding them together to make a sick chalk cloud? Will Anzu step on the back of Yuugiâs shoe so his foot falls out? Will Anzu unzip his backpack when heâs not looking so all his books fall out? What dick move will Anzu do?



SOOOOOO
This is a thing that canonically happened in Yugioh.
Itâs like finding out that Big Bird once violently choked out Elmo in Season One but now theyâre good and they donât want to talk about it.
Like...this is a lot and itâs not even discussed in this very episode!



The one time.
The one time they should have just ditched.
This is the one time you should just find a boat/blimp, smuggle yourself on board, and then play cards for a straight week with an evil psychopath. The one time.
No wonder they go out of their way to avoid this school for the rest of this show. They ditch just to survive their 1st year of High School.



So they decided to split up which...theyâve made worse choices, and only Yugi finds Tea. What would Shadiâs plan have been if anyone else was up here first?

Reminder that in the second or third episode of Season 1, Joey and Yugi came up here to reminisce the good ol days. I had no idea at the time that the âgood ol daysâ involved being dangled on the edge of whatever this weird contraption is called.


Eat your heart out Jeffree Star and Rituel de Fille, Shadi here did black highlighter first. In 1999. And that nose is snatched.

Appropriately, Honda is still embracing his janitorial duties. Maybe thatâs why heâs not a janitor anymore? Because he was getting tooooo into being a janitor? Like if you go janitor while being a zombie thatâs toooooo much janitorial.
Another thing Season Zero does that may either be a limitation of their budget or just a limitation of their experience is that, unlike most foreign films, the pacing of the cuts are really quick. Like REALLY frantic. (And yeah Iâm generalizing a lot when I say that Western shows and movies have quicker cuts, but lets just say that itâs true about 90% of the time. Not better or worse, just different.)
And like, this was the 90â˛s, a time period I donât really remember, but back then we were into bizarre editing. It was a very experimental time in film because suddenly there were a lot of computer and filming tools available for a decent price and people kind of lost their minds. They were getting into doing tons of dutch angles and tons of filters and it was just a real...interesting time in film. Itâs gauche by our standards but like...art kind of lives in the time period itâs from and you shouldnât pull it out and compare it to our current standards too much because--welcome to 90â˛s Xtreme cuts. Docking something for being too 90â˛s is like saying that medieval art sucks balls because they didnât want to use perspective and all their cats look weird. This was the time.
Itâs just interesting to me that they decided to attempt to copy this frantic editing style into a cartoon when itâs normally done splicing together live action shots that were done with three+ different cameras. They planned out each cut in a storyboard and drew every frame. It was a lot of work. And it didnât age well, which is a shame.
And it could have been that because this is a horror show, they decided to experiment. Itâs a pretty edge show based on a pretty intense manga. But, itâs...interesting. Canât exactly cap it, youâll have to watch it for itself but itâs...interesting. And overall, I honestly feel like I canât come to any conclusions about the direction that Season Zero editing has taken since Iâve only seen four episodes, so these are just my five cents, donât quote me on it. I may take back this opinion a few episodes from now.


Yâall this was never told to us until like Season 2. Season Zero told us this in like episode 4. Would have been really nice to have this information a little earlier.

So then we introduce the mummy mechanic of this âgame.â Anzuâs plank contraption is tied to these baby mummies. Kind of looks like theyâre chocolate mummies you get from the Egyptian museum store. In fact, They might actually be museum gift shop chocolate mummies that Shadi shoplifted up after he killed that fat guy.
Not sure how he set any of this up, especially when he totally botched it with the beams and the basketball and the strangling, but somehow, Shadi got this complicated knot system all ready to go. Weird how Marik was the one on the boat when Shadi has like a degree in knots.


So I said this in the last episode but we get this reoccurring theme in Season Zero where Yugioh is a little boy learning to grow up and be a man, and yet every guy he meets has just a pile of toxic misinformation about how to be a powerful adult. In Shadiâs case, he believes that weakness stems from caring about other people and relying on them for support, hallmarks of mortality. Which is easy for Shadi to say because heâs some 5000 yo undead (I think?) with no friends, unless you count Chair Barney. But Shadiâs pretty sure that attachment to living people will only ultimately hurt you, especially when theyâre complete assholes, which most of Yuugiâs friends are. Theyâre good assholes, though.
Itâs a pretty common anime trope and Iâm surprised it took us this long to get to the power of friendship. Freakin finally. And thereâs nothing wrong with tropes. Itâs how stories are made.
Anyways, in case you thought this episode would not address the teachers, they actually did for about 3 seconds.

Neat that this is the most unsafe school in all of Japan.

I am a fan of the combo of blue, purple, green, and very large teeth. I will give Chair Barney that much. Anyway, lets see what game Shadi made.

Oh cool, itâs the game I made to go in my babysitting kit when I was like 11.
Granted, so were playing cards.


Wow everyone is just assaulting each other this episode, damn!


Back on the roof, Yugi calmly wins the game without ever flipping a tile.

Now for some reason I missed the part where he says âtwo feetâ and so I was missing a pair of things and so I listened to this part again and either my sick brain missed it three times (cuz yâall I have had the plague and my recovery has been so sloooow) there were these shapes on the tiles that looked like kidneys and I thought--but itâs not two kidneys, right? and I was like what else is a pair and round and lobby shaped? and then I didnât really want to go there, and assumed--FEET.
Knowing full well feet are not kidney shaped, but Iâm gonna assume he said feet. If he actually said weird monster testicles, youâll be sure let me know.
And then this happened and itâs pretty legit.

We have never actually addressed the fact that Yuugi forced his friends to like him. Like itâs a pretty effed up origin story that Jounouchi was like like âI feel like very strongly I should be his friendâ but doesnât really know itâs because he got cursed. Kinda figured the show would just breeze by it, but no, here we are, and Yuugi has to face the fact that maybe the only reason heâs not a loner anymore is because he won Jounouchi as a prize for finishing an accessory.
And whether or not Jounouchi would have been his friend no matter what isnât really whatâs being tested, itâs whether or not Yuugi believes that this friendship is actually real, or a curse. Like Jounouchi did try to defend Yuugi before Yuugi finished the puzzle, but does Yuugi know that? He was passing out at the time. Itâs a real insecure spot for Yuugi since before Jounouchi he was just a little punching bag playing board games alone in the homeroom. Jounouchi was introduced as someone who was legitimately bullying Yuugi and tossing that puzzle out a window. Thereâs going to be the underlying fear that Jounouchi would go back.
In the S1 anime, they basically wrote that plot point out of the show or decided that because this was done in Season Zero they donât need to retread on old territory. Joey, Tristan, and Tea arenât cursed to be Yugiâs friends, as far as I know.
But this test between the friendship of Yugi and Joey is recreated again in S2 with Marik when they were both tied to an anchor and one had to choose to kill the other or live. But thereâs some pretty major differences. This time, instead of Joey being possessed by Marik and being forced to kill his friend, heâs just Jounouchi sans curse.
Although Jounouchi is still somewhat mind controlled as he is just an illusion. Heâs just...not as badly mind controlled as the whole Marik thing. This Jounouchi has more motor control and doesnât seem to have any inner conflict at all. Because again, this isnât so much Yuugi vs Jounouchi, this is Yuugi vs Yuugiâs fear of being alone again.
Thatâs a realllllly different takeaway. And honestly, itâs pretty interesting.
Also, instead of Tea with a shipping container over her head, this time Anzu is walking a plank. Really didnât expect that Shadi would basically turn into Marik but without the cards. And without the underground bunker lifestyle where he kills his own Dad.

The game is kind of hard to show in caps but they have to drop the puzzle in the direction they want the other to walk. Mostly itâs just another reason for Jounouchi to steal Yuugiâs puzzle again and relive the trauma.
Remember that time that Jounouchi tried to get Yuugi to punch him and Yuugi broke out in tears because he didnât like violence? I mean honestly, out of everyone Yuugi knows. Jounouchi was probably the nicest bully he had. Doesnât mean Yuugi isnât incredibly insecure about it.




Instead of fighting back, Yuugi decides to skip his turn. Itâs a contrast to the other Joey/Yugi fight because instead of just throwing a fireball in his own face until Joey snaps out of it, Yuugi has decided to rely on trust.


And, much like Grandpaâs Blue Eyed Dragon that would not perform under Kaibaâs reign to kill Yuugi, neither would Jounouchi under Shadi. They even disappear into the aether with the same smoke effect.
And what I think is the most interesting part of this is that the question of âso would they have been friends without the puzzle?â is mostly left open ended.

And if the friendship were solid as a rock, then this whole debate Yuugi has with Shadi wouldnât even be a debate. Shadi is certain that people will betray you because they can, Yuugi is confident that, even though they do walk you to that ledge, they can change although there is a history of hurt. Shadi was convinced Yuugi couldnât overcome his lonely past, and Yuugi had to prove that the past canât hurt him anymore, the past being also his best friend.
Like itâs just something never mentioned in the S1-3, that Yuugi has a lot of issues because all of his friends have been his bully at one point. And like, not to get too PSA, but every friendship has to be looked at by a case by case basis. You canât generalize and say âeveryone who betrays you can change.â But the message here isnât about keeping any relationship that is toxic, itâs about overcoming the pain of the past.
Also Jounouchi is hella cursed so he wonât be back to his old ways anytime soon.




Kind of hard to tell, but Honda got covered in a layer of white fire extinguisher juice and itâs a look that uhhhh we would never illustrate this way in 2019. Times were more innocent in the 90â˛s.
Just kidding, they absolutely werenât, I have no idea who allowed Honda to be drawn this way.

Reminder that Kaiba is just sitting pretty in one of these classrooms, maybe watching Joeyâs ass scrape up against the window while Honda completely covered in mysterious white stuff screams bloody mercy. As the teacher teaching this particular class ignores all of this, Kaiba would just be thinking to himself âAw. thatâs fun.â

And so ends this really long but honestly, pretty interesting episode. Season Zero has a lot of rough patches, like Iâm probably not going to do every episode of it, but when it connects to what weâre watching its neat to compare and contrast the two. Kind of wish we had more of Yugi facing his past in the current anime but instead itâs Kaiba facing his past. So we...kind of get it? Just with a different character?
Shadi picks up his key and walks away unscathed. Mostly because Yuugi does not currently know how to mind-wipe. Seems that that is mostly a Pharaoh thing and as far as I can tell Yuugi is still just one person with an alternate personality.

Off he goes, that bastard.
Amazing that everyoneâs pretty much on good terms with Shadi by the end of S1. Like heâs just kind of a pal that shows up and âaccidentallyâ leads you directly to kill your own Dad when in Season Zero he is...really outwardly evil.
Anyway, that was a hellton of content haha, next week itâs back to Joey dueling a lawyer while Kaiba gets lost in the woods.
#yugioh#yugioh recap#season zero#photo recap#yuugi mutou#jounoushi#anzu#honda#shadi#genuinely shocked that none of them had to go to the hospital at the end of this one.#Despite being strangled like 10 minutes ago#yuugi muto
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On a photo of a not exactly human face I sculpted....
labratbren said: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â What do you do with them when they are done? Do you ever post pictures of the finished product?Â
Ah, well, um....short answer? Nothing.
Hereâs the longer answer (VERY long)....
While I was always drawn to sculpting, I really didnât sculpt growing up.Â
I mean, I tried to use clay I dug out of the ground, drying it in the sun, when I was tiny. Naturally it crumbled except for this lump of a head I still have. In Kindergarden the art teacher had his own kiln and let us use the scraps left over from the pots he had us make. I still have a loop armed alien and creature head I made, but he left with his kiln the next year. The dough art they had us make in second grade was gone by the next year, âcause this buggy and humid climate doesnât agree with it. My parents gave me modling clay, but I hated it. I wanted something that would âstayâ.Â
But everyone acted like sculpting was hard, so maybe I wasnât missing out.Â
Then one day, when I was 19 or so, my hands got bored. Anyone would have laughed if Iâd said I was bored right then. I had a book open to one side of me, a magazine on the other, as I went back and forth reading both. I was also  listening to music AND watching the movie The Brothers Karamazov at the same time. I have this problem where I always feel like I should be doing more, and when I am doing something I get itchy to be doing something else. Like my brain isnât fully occupied even if Iâm really enjoying whatever. That day my hands needed something to do, and there was this block of clay left over from a project one of Popâs projects (a river system display, I think) It was just sittinâ there on the porch so....
And it turned out sculpting was easy! I mean, maybe not art bit doodling around having fun making faces. Do NOT be intimidated by sculpting! It comes so much more easiy than trying to convert our 3D world into some 2D drawing. Seriously, try drawing a nose head on! But toss on any wedge on a sculpted face and you have a nose...
Ok, maybe I just am bad at drawing! But I really do wish more people would try sculpting.
Anyway, the clay was another dead end, but it did inspire me to hunt for something I could âmake stayâ. And that something was sculpey.Â
Whenever I was certain I would have the place completely to myself for a full hour Iâd go stand out on the ramp behind the house and sculpt. It wasnât too often, what with the house also being the office of the family business and my family being the sort of close one that did everything together. I couldnât sculpt and be watched. All I needed was an our because I sculpted quickly. In an hour Iâd have a little bust, rough as heck but with some detail I liked.
But then I ran out of places to put my busts in my already overstuffed bedroom. I solved this by just slicing the faces off and just baking them. I could glue magnets to them and line all the edges of my metal bookcases.
I did dabble in other things. I tried a full figure and made a few little stick figures. I sculpted something from Babylon 5 for my brother, mixed my box painting (I used to paint boxes when I had a table) with sculpting for a Discworld box for Mom, Easter bunnies for my parents, magnets for everyone, Christmas ornaments...
When she saw the Christmas tree ornaments my cousin Katharine, dollhouse collector, roped my into making her a doll. She had specific requirements for a 6Ⳡtall Beast in what I gathered were Regency era clothes from her decription. In my ignorance I assumed the doll would have to have a jointed body, fabric clothes and furry fur, which kinda drove me nuts! But somehow I pulled it off! I sculpted a few more of those little dolls (no sewing on these!) as gifts for my parents and brother, as well as a bit of goofing around for myself (I liked my little  Sleestack a couple decades late for little me). But that was that.
Then the weirdest darn thing happened: I was suddenly stricken with a full imaginative block!
I stopped sculpting. I stopped painting boxes. I stopped writing stories. Worst of all I stopped dreaming! I still remember how upsetting that was, this sense of loss. It was like having a part of me paralyzed. Â
It lasted years. Terrible years.
When my father became sick right after my irreparable rift with my brother, as I was facing the most terrible external loss of my life, something woke back up in me. Constant, vivid dreams, elaborate epics spiraling through night after night, images and stories that writing didnât full  satisfy the need to express. I started painting miniature boxes again. Box after box after box....
But no sculpting.
I dunno why I still didnât sculpt. I just didnât.
Then my father died.
Popâs death was a devistating moment. My father. My best friend. When Pop was sick I told him he couldnât die because I wouldnât have anyone to talk to. There is a lot of truth in that.  I love Mom dearly, but our brains work very differently. Pop might have been smarter, and his depth of knowledge was certainly mind blowing, but our mental wiring followed a similar eccentric pattern. That said, somewhere along the line my parents and I had become a sort of unit, functioning as one. Think one of those anime giant robots made of smaller ships, Voltron or something. Then imagine it functioning with the head section missing. Five years later we still feel that void.
So anyway, Pop was dead, the family business gone with him, and I was unemployed with no qualifications in a rural area with few job opportunities anyway. This was, and frankly still is, not a good situation. And my cousin Katharine thought she had a solution.
Katharine sent me a letter suggesting I make dolls. Sheâd shown the doll Iâd made her to a dealer who said I had talent, and she sent me a copy of Art Doll Quarterly to show me that my âweirdâ stuff might have a market...
Honestly I felt inspired by this. I immediately seriously considered it. Iâd work a bit bigger than 6âł scale, sculpt the clothes instead of the stress and tedium of sewing, and figure out a way to do ball joints. Because each thing would be unique (until I could teach myself mold making) and letting go of something I make is soooo hard for me, I decided to use the story of one of my painted boxes as inspiration. Iâd make wolf people, which I figured would create enough sameness to help me let go, but enough variety to keep me from being bored. I quickly sketched out a reasonable design and got to work.
Obviously things didnât turn out to be so simple. Sculpting ball joints by hand is fiddly to manage. It would need a bit of experimenting. I could do a head on day, casually. I could do the upper body, arms and waist joint  with a lot of effort another day. A third day would be waist and legs. Fourth day was the hellish threading. I wasnât set up for safely storing unbaked work in progress, so I had to do these marathon one sitting sculptings on the bodies. Then Iâd rest up a few days and just sculpt a few heads.
The ball jointing drove me nuts. So I gave myself permission to not worry about wolfheads, but just sculpt whatever head happened. From the backlog of heads Iâd just pick one to experiment with body making. In just a couple months I was making progress.
The first discouragement came with an art show. The county has a sort of art society and they were having a sculpture show. I was scared silly to show my work to anyone, since at that point it was 2014 and I wasnât even on Tumblr. No one had seen them. Still, when I went to see about entering the lady there was encouraging. I was soooo nervous and tentatively hopeful when I went to the grand opening with Mom amd my cousin Shirley. I was soon deflated. No one seemed to notice my figures. My work was the odd one out anyway in a sea of found object sculptures, colored paper masks and ceramics abstractly suggesting the figural. Also, everyone there knew each other and so no one was talking to me. At one point I did this really sad thing of hovering near my figures in case anyone came near so I could sorta maybe get them to notice them....
When the show ended a few weeks later the lady very nicely said at least a couple school children had liked weird figures, âcause, you know, kids like that fantasy stuff.  I definitely should sculpt a lot bigger and maybe use terra cotta instead....
Yeah. I felt my stuff was crap. I was crap. Why had I ever thought anyone would like my crap? Heck, Iâd thought Iâd at least find a club I could join, belonging, friends....
But, I kept at the doll making experimenting, crap or not. That winter it was too cold for much sculpting in my unheated house, but I could work on trying to figure out how to paint them....
Then life happened donât ya know. At first I thought it was a temporary break while I dealt with crisis after another. I kept sculpting heads, strictly sculpting a head a day (still just an hour each)....until the spreading collapsed floor situation forced me to move the box Iâd made for storing the bodiless heads out. And that was that for doll making.
Still, I kept sculpting. I went back to just the faces....
And thatâs where I am now. I gave up sculpting every day, because I no longer have time. I watch a movie and sculpt. I bake the face and take pics I post on here. I wrap âem in tissue and put them in a storage container....
And thatâs it.
I donât do anything with them. Iâm not entirely convinced there is any point anymore. My life isnât going to include free time. Or tables to work on. It has been years after all, and it gets less and less likely Iâll make anything more than a few boxes full of chipped up sculpey faces for the nephews to find when I die. Well, unless they follow my brotherâs advice and throw them out unopened! LOL
I sculpt just âcause I sculpt. I post pics of them on Tumblr, âcause Mom isnât really all that interested in looking at them. They arenât ever going to be anything, but I guess if I enjoy making them and someone out there likes looking at them thatâs okay. They may be nothing, but thatâs something.
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Commission: Zethes the Pixie
Phew   I'm so glad to have this done! This was a commissioned piece for DoseOfStardust of her Winx Club OC, Zethes, a wintry-themed Pixie. It took me a little longer than usual partly because of some IRL stuff that came up and also I was having a fit over the pose right from the start.  Which is kind of a shame because I was particularly excited to work on this one after discussing the details of the character. But I did eventually get down a pose I was happy with (even if I did still have to hide a foot because I could not get it to look right and felt like I was spending waaaay too much time on it) and was able to move on to other things. As an aside, I think I'm getting better at doing line art and everything in Photoshop alone! And at drawing guys!  (I guess that's what happens when you draw them more often, right? ) I did enjoy getting to flex my creative muscles a bit with a lot of the details. This marks the first time I've done a full finished Winx Club piece in my own personal style, rather than emulating the exact show style. And to that end, I've determined I will take Winx Club Commissions like this, though I'm still uneasy about doing them in the official style, as that takes a LOT of extra time and effort on my part because I'm sure a perfectionist about it. Doing it in my own style takes a lot of the pressure off! I kind of went in on the clothing detail, based on what the commissioner and I discussed of Zethes as a character. On top of that, I tried to go for a wintry palette that wasn't too cliched/obvious, based on a few different wintry images that I made "base palettes" to work from out of using Adobe Color. (And I may have been subconsciously channeling a bit of Valtor imagery based on certain trailers that dropped recently...) The wings were actually the easiest part; I immediately had the idea for an icicle sort of shape/look, and then I added the swirls because the icicle shape was visually begging for it to my eyeballs. Getting the texture was a little tricky, but more so on just figuring out how to do it. I also tried to dot a bit of frost on his clothes, but it is very subtle because I didn't want it to look too much like it had just been plastered on as an afterthought. Then I added some snowflakes and wind swirls in the background and a border to spice up the gradient. Which, another side note; thanks to the lovely folks in the art community on Twitter, I've recently switched from having a pure white background in Photoshop while I'm working to a muted grayish-blue color, and let me tell you guys, it is indeed SO MUCH BETTER on the eyes!! I'd already invested in a pair of anti-blue light glasses for working on the computer to help preserve my sight and give me the ability to be able to work longer on the computer, but my eyes would still get tired what seemed like fairly easily while I was working on digital art; I saw the above tip (about not using pure white in the background while coloring) floating around and decided to give it a try. I've done two pieces working this way, and I've already very much been converted and convinced it's working. So, to my fellow digital artists, GIVE IT A TRY! That's about all I've got to say on this piece; Overall, I am quite happy with how it turned out. Next up, I've got three personal pieces backlogged (I wanted to finish and post this commission first), that'll I'll be spacing out over the next few days. Some experimenting with watercolor, and one other experiment that I'm very interested in seeing the reception of...so stay tuned! ____ Artwork (c) me, MysticSparkleWings Character belongs to DoseOfStardust I do not own Winx Club ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |  Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram
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