Tried My Hand At Drawing Again. It's Been Years Since I Had The Inspiration To Draw, But I Was Really

Tried my hand at drawing again. It's been years since I had the inspiration to draw, but I was really feeling it yesterday. I did cheat a little by tracing over the general shape of an anime girl in a drawing how-to book I have, but the outfit, hair, and eye details are my doing.

I started by referencing the picture I traced to refine the details, then used inkpens for the outline. I smudged the eye a little but it's fine, I'm fine, I'm not mad about it. The hands turned out better than I expected.

Colored with colored pencils and shaded with graphite. Smudged the eye some more, but IT'S FINE.

The coloration was tough because the paper was kinda grainy, and I didn't wanna push too hard on the pencils. Overall I'm pretty happy with how she looks. It took a couple days from start to finish, but it was a lot of fun. Turns out art is fun, who could have guessed?

Latsu Villeforte, maker of beautiful dresses and causer of 70% of her stepmother's headaches.

I've been obsessing over this particular character of mine for weeks so prepare for lots of info dumping about her and all related stuff.

Made in LoveNikki

Buckle up, kiddos. We got a long post.

I was going through a box of old school stuff. Found a folder full of old artworks, and now I shall dump them upon the internet. This one's about keyblades.

Way back in 2005, my best friend introduced me to a little game called Kingdom Hearts 2. I had no idea what a Kingdom Hearts was, why there were two of them, or why there were so many Disney characters. But I became o b s e s s e d with the game. I played it constantly every day after school, and all day on the weekends. I introduced all of my cousins to it, and they became varying levels of obsessed as well.

My favorite part was the cool Keyblade designs. So like any artsy kid obsessed with a cool thing, I drew my own. The original page was ripped and stained, so I spent some time redrawing it on fresh paper. It's slightly higher quality than the original, so... There's that.

I got stuck on one of the bosses. Turns out I was pretty bad at the game lmao. After hours of frustration, I gave up on the game entirely and it collected dust for years. But my obsession continued, and I consumed all the Kingdom Hearts knowledge I could fit into my little goblin brain.

A few years ago, my boyfriend and I were obsessing over KH together, and we ended up designing a keyblade together. It's got a formchange, 'cause I thought that was the coolest idea ever.

The text on the Zodiac Moon Bow page says "Form change of Aimless Knight. Stars change color to reflect the element of arrows in use"

Anyways, this concludes my long post about keyblades. If you made it this far, I love you. Mwah

Visiting Mum's house for Christmas. Received a stark reminder of my days as a RWBY stan. Done with cheap acrylic paints on canvas.

Origin of the Nameless Wretch

The country of Summerland had a very deceptively warm name. In truth, it was a frozen place, further north than any other forms of civilization could go. The country only had a name because the scholars needed something to call it by, and saying “the frozen northern wasteland” was too much of a mouthful. There were only two seasons: winter, and deeper winter. One might assume that, with all this harsh freezing cold, nothing could possibly live here. In any other place, this would be true… But in Summerland, the earth was saturated with life-giving energy. Queen Haelyssa, the Mad Dragon, had been buried there, miles beneath the earth for thousands of years. Her magic had permeated the soil, creating a large expanse of land where only the lightest dusting of snow would fall and the wind blew in gentle breezes. There was plant life abound, lush green powdered with a thin layer of white, the plants sustained and protected from deadly cold by the magic. Even after the Mad Dragon escaped her subterranean tomb and flew off, Summerland's little oasis remained. Botanist Heather Snow heard rumors of the oasis while in the Dragonlands. A cheerful half-dragon man had shared the rumor with her one warm festival night. Unable to resist the allure of extraordinary plants to study, she pleaded her case to the council in charge of funding expeditions. With their approval, Heather assembled a team of scientists, escort soldiers, and a guide. They reached the oasis with some injuries, mostly frostbite, but no casualties. The group camped in the oasis, and all was well for the first few days…

Then soldiers began to go missing during the long nights.

Once the soldiers were gone, scientists went missing as well, until all that remained was Heather and two assistants. Terrified out of their minds, the trio attempted to flee, but the predator finally revealed himself. Their guide--now a massive frost dragon--blocked their escape, killing one of the assistants while Heather and the second assistant fled to their shelter. The dragon gleefully tore into the shelter, killing the other assistant and gravely wounding Heather. The shelter was torn from the ground, along with massive clumps of dirt and plants, and Heather was flung to the ground while the dragon feasted on the assistants’ bodies. As she lay in the dirt, shivering, bleeding out through lethal claw marks across her torso, Heather begged for help... Help, please... Please... A being came to her, a fever dream of a woman with white hair and silver eyes and cold skin. The being offered her a deal, granting her strength and life everlasting, in exchange for just a few old memories and the soul of an evil creature. Desperate, Heather agreed, and the deal was made. Heather rose, her wounds already healed, her body vibrating with power. With a mighty scream, she snatched a broken pole from the ruined shelter, using it to spear the beast right in its roaring mouth. As it trashed and roared in pain, she grabbed the beast by the jaws, hands on top, feet braced on the bottom, pushing and stretching. Its teeth tore through her hands and feet. It hurt, but the pain didn’t stop her. The beast’s saliva was frigid, but the cold was nothing to her. She pushed, pushed, pushed, until its bottom jaw and part of its throat was ripped clean away. The gaping wound baptized Heather in a spray of freezing dragon blood. The beast was slain, and Heather collapsed in the dirt once more. When she awoke, she was no longer in the Summerland oasis, but instead on the border of the nearest country... Her limbs still burned with power, and her clothes were soaked, frozen stiff by her blood and the dragon’s. She was strong now, stronger than anything she had ever known... But strangely enough, she could no longer recall her own name... The Deal Maker had taken all memory of her name, but the powerful woman didn't mind too much. What was a name when one could rip a dragon's jaw off with simple brute strength? She began to wander. She had no home now, nowhere in mind to go… But she had a mission: seek out an evil creature to finish out her end of the bargain. She was quick to make a name for herself--the Nameless Wretch--working for whoever hired her, killing whoever she was paid to... Forever seeking the most evil being she could find. She wanted it to be a special gift for the Deal Maker, an extra special thank you for this new power...

The Mystery Circus

It was a once-in-a-year event. For one week only, the Mystery Circus settled on the outskirts of Bay Cove, a bustling city on the coast of the ocean.

Previously it was a sleepy little fishing town, until the day that a woman approached the mayor with a deal. Her circus would come to their town, set up shop on the outskirts for a week, then leave. The mayor was hesitant of course--a circus was unlikely to do well in such a small place, and Bay Cove was hardly equipped to deal with tourists--but the woman offered an obscene amount of money as compensation. So a deal was struck, and for that one week, the circus seemingly appeared overnight. The tourist population swelled to insane numbers, quickly overloading the small town’s only motel.

After a few years of consistently renewing the deal, the city council created an entirely new section to the city, dubbed Tourist Town, complete with hotels and gift shops and typical tourist-stuff. Most of Tourist Town was only open from the week leading up to Circus Week and closed the week after, but it still brought in an unfathomable amount of money...

No one knows why Bay Cove was the city of choice for the Mystery Circus... Did it really matter? It always showed up in the second week of May, always on a Friday, and it stayed for exactly seven days before vanishing again... The huge circus showed up like magic, simply not-there one day and there the next, and even the curious souls who tried to spy on the designated circus grounds had yet to see how the circus showed up. Anyone attempting to watch were caught and chased off by security guards, sent home with nothing but a stern warning to show for their effort.

Most of the food and game stands were run by locals. Flyers for jobs would appear during the month leading up to the circus, and anyone could apply to work there, but even the temporary employees weren't told the secrets of the circus... The rides were run by women who appeared and disappeared with the circus, but everything else was operated entirely by those who signed up for the jobs. The pay was great, well above minimum wage, and the temp workers were allowed to enjoy all the attractions for free.

Mystery Circus was renowned for its wide range of attractions. It had a large selection of carnival rides, from roller coasters to haunted houses, a large kiddie land to a giant ferris wheel. There was a section the size of a city block dedicated to carnival games of all types, an arcade, and two food courts with individual food stands scattered throughout the grounds. In the center of the circus was the main attraction, Big Top Tent, a massive tent made of rainbow-striped silk fabric that housed all the animal and people acts.

Oh, and another thing that made Mystery Circus so special... A large number of the animal acts were performed by monsters... There were normal animals too, but somehow Mystery Circus had over a dozen different types of monsters under their employ. You won't find that in any other circus.