Nia Polly Tina

Why lookee here! It's the first completed piece of 2015! 

I may not see you but I totally know you're doing a victory dance in my honour. :-P

Anyway, as you can see, my art's developing one helluva sweet tooth. If this doesn't make you crave ice cream (let alone neapolitan ice cream) just a little bit, I'll be kinda shocked.

Useless fun fact: this took me three tries to scan in because I'm super meticulous like that. :-P

Puffy Pop (Plus Some Embarrassingly Belated Thank Yous)

First off, I feel so bad that I haven't had the chance to thank all those who came out to see me and Camille's table over at Akimatsuri so I'm doing it now! Thank you all so much for your support whether it was buying something, chatting, checking out my stuff or taking a business card. I appreciate it all so much and I'm already gearing up for the next convention in March. ;-)

Second, hope you all have had a very merry Christmas and the happiest of holidays. Also wanna take this time to wish you all a super duper happy new year! To say this was one of (if not) the biggest years of my life so far would be an understatement. I can't wait to see what 2015 holds! :-)

Now finally, onto the image itself! If your teeth aren't aching or rotting a little while looking at this, then I'll have failed miserably at my job. :-P

Akimatsuri 2014!

Hey everybody! So here's a big update for y'all! I'm gonna be doing another convention really soon! The convention in question? (Hey! That rhymes!)

Akimatsuri!

It's a one day anime convention that's gonna be held at UBC Robson Square in Vancouver, British Columbia on December 7 (which totally happens to be one week from today! *GASP!*) from 10:00 AM 'til 6:00 PM.

Admission is $15 per person buuuuut for an extra $5, you can take advantage of the venue being right next to an ice skating rink by getting some ice skate rentals and a hot chocolate from the rink's snack bar! Doesn't the idea of cosplay ice skating sound awesome? (COSPLAYERS ON ICE!! Coming to an arena near you!)

I'll be there with my usual wares but prints, mini comics, buttons and bookmarks but I'll also be debuting my new additions to my line of Lolita Christmas cards, magnets, the original "Madoka Magica" sketch cards in pretty, gorgeous frames plus a few new goodies like...

JOURNALS!

Yup, that's just one of the new pieces of merch I'm gonna be bringing with me to the con as well as another new and awesome product that you'll just have to go to the con and find out what it is. ;-D

Ooh, I'm such a tease. XD

Also, I'll be sharing a table with the awesomeriffic Camille of Dark Anachronisms Hats and Accessories  so be sure to check out her fantastic hats as well! :-D

For more info about Akimatsuri, check out the Facebook event page. 

Hope to see you guys there! ^_^

Christmas Lolita Collection Redux 2: Electric Boogaloo (UPDATED)

It's that glorious time of year again, people! My Christmas Lolita collection of cards has some brand new additions to the roster!

Now onto the commentary!

"Loliskate": The main change I made for this one was giving her a fluffy bunny hood. Other than that, the only real upgrade was a cohesive colour scheme of pinks, blues and white and better streaks of pink and blue amongst her blonde hair. Too bad her skating skills haven't improved since the first time I drew her back in 2008. :-P

"Gingerbread Lolita": Would you believe that this is the second time I've done a revamp of this particular lolita? I last drew her back in 2010 when I first wanted to update this series but I think this iteration feels a little more faithful to the fashion. Plus, I can finally draw classic old school lolita headdresses!

"Caroller Lolita": Another example in which I decided to change the skin tone and hair colour of the original design because hey, I love my diversity in my girls. I think the colours (especially in her outfit) came out a lot richer and vibrant and I love it all the more because of it. :-)

"Snowlita": This was originally the Snowman Lolita but I love my terrible puns too much. XD

Anyways, out of all my designs, this one was the most challenging (but fun!) to revamp into a more realistic lolita style. I know white face is considered a huge "no-no" in lolita but hey, I see shironuri fused with lolita fairly frequently so I figured, hey, this might work here as long as I don't get super literal with the snowman imagery. It's also safe to assume I had Mana (aka the Patron Saint of Gothic Lolita Fashion) on the brain for this design.

The Madoka Magica Madness Concludes!

And with the addition of Sayaka Miki, my series of "Madoka Magica" sketch cards is complete! I had such a fun time drawing them all and I can't wait to take on the magical girls again. ;-)

Yup, More Madoka Magica

Yup. I'm still workin' away at my "Madoka Magica" sketch cards and I bring to you Mami Tomoe! Fun Fact: this sketch card sent me out on a wild goose chase for all sorts of different yellow shaded markers. For that matter, I think I might've worked through some of my issues with the colour yellow through this card.

What? I just don't think I look good in yellow. :-P

Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The Sketch Card Obsession Begins

Well now...it's been a while since I last uploaded any artsy things around here. I guess you can attribute a lot of that to major life changes like, oh, let's say moving out. Trust me, the logistics pretty much dominate your life for a good while.

With that out of the way, as you can tell from the title, I've fallen pretty hard for the anime series "Puella Magi Madoka Magica"...or just simply "Madoka Magica" if you don't want your tongue to get all tied up. :-P

It's funny, I've kinda avoided this series because I absolutely DESPISE "moe" style anime art (their eyes always just looked so dead, vacant and soulless to me). Then I started hearing really good things about it in that it's "not what it seems". It finally took me watching JesuOtaku's review on the series at That Guy With the Glasses to really get into it. To make a long story short, I've already watched this series twice and I'm planning for a third viewing.

Yup. It's that damn good. 

So damn good that I just had to draw all the girls (with my own personal stamp of course! No moeblobs permitted here!) complete with the excellent soundtrack to push me through...

First up, we (naturally) have our heroine Madoka Kaname. So much hope and pink sparkliness.

Next up we have Homura Akemi. One of the things I really wanted to get across was the personality of the characters. I hope I managed to get her stoic nature with a hint of fighting back despair.

And now I have Kyoko Sakura. Along with individual personalities, I also wanted to give the girls unique facial features and body types (something that was pretty absent in the show's character designs. Can you tell I'm not a fan of "moe" style?). God I love how her hair turned out here. ;-D

Of course, I have Mami and Sayaka on deck. I just have to finish inking and colouring them and then they'll be posted...along with a collage of all five sketch cards put together because I'm a completionist like that. :-P

Is completionist even a word?