Standing Next to a Giant Toaster Oven

I just watched the special features on the Borrower's Movie. The one from 1997. I really wanted to see how they made the sets, with all those giant objects. And it was freaking amazing. There was some footage of the actors walking around the sets in their normal clothes, and it blew my mind. 

 

Also, can I just say that three of the actors are in Harry Potter? And one actor in the Borrowers had an enemy who went by Mr. Potter, and then his enemy in the later fantasy film series was also "Mr. Potter." Heheh. Random, funny parallels.

Chilean flamingo

The Cat on the Big Screen

Every now and then, theaters rerun Ghibli movies. I've gone to see them when I can, because there's some I've never seen on a big screen. And each time, I notice something I'd never seen before. Especially since I'm already so familiar with them that new stuff catches my eye.

Watching them on the big screen immerses you far better than it does on a little screen (our TV isn't very big because of the spacing in the living room TT^TT ).  Granted, I often multi-task when the TV's on.  I'll draw or do some kind of craft, so I'm not usually fully present in the movie. I obviously don't do that in a theater. So I come out of the theater feeling lighter, or cheerful, or whatever the movie leaves you with. It's a fun feeling.

Today I saw The Cat Returns.  

 (I just learned that there's a portrait of Louis in his house! Just behind him. I have the matching statues of these two, one of which I got at the Ghibli Museum in Japan. Then when I saw a statue of Louis for sale online, I had to buy it to reunite the two. It was important!)

There were some people in the theater who had never seen it before. It was funny to hear how they reacted. Lots of laughter at hos ridiculous it is (ridiculous, but still fun). It's pretty different than the other Ghibli movies. But then again, Ghibli Movies are often quite different from each other.

Sustainable art

I just read an article about sustainable (and biodegradable) pens and ink. Because plastic is not sustainable, and pens and their refills are usually plastic or some other unsustainable material. 

The solution? You can get handmade bamboo pens, and handmade walnut ink.  It's a dip pen, which I'd never used before. But it sounded cool. So I ordered them. I got two pens. One with a thick tip, and one with thin.

 I like it! I still need to practice some more though.

I think you have to take special care of the ink though - I probably should have ordered a smaller bottle in case it goes bad. Ah well. Live and learn. 

Anyway, if you have sustainable paper, you can make fully sustainable art! Or writing - you can use them like calligraphy pens too.

Amabie

 So, there's this Japanese mermaid-creature called the amabie. You're supposed to paste its picture around in order to keep people healthy. People started doing so during Covid. I thought it would be fun to design a version of the amabie and join in. They have three fins, and a bird beak.

I switched it a bit, making the fins tentacles. And the colors are those of a cleaner wrasse. Since those keep other fish healthy. 

I love designing creatures. Although I almost never post them.

Fanime

 I pre-purchased tickets for Fanime a couple years ago. Then covid hit, and Fanime was cancelled. They said we could use our tickets later.

Skip forward a couple years, and more stuff is starting to come back. I'm out of town visiting family when I get an email from Fanime. The convention starts in two days, and I have to use or lose my ticket. This is the first I even heard that Fanime was happening this year. They gave no option for saving my tickets until next year, or getting a refund. I emailed them, and got some form letter about me donating my ticket cost. When I replied again, they said someone would be in touch. No one ever was. I didn't trust those flakes to ever get it together. There was no way I could get my moneys worth out of Fanime, but I thought I'd try to get at least something. So I went to the last day. It was just a half day, and tickets for it cost less than what I paid. 

But I did have fun there. I forgot how much I love looking at the artwork. I didn't see many costumes, maybe because it was the last day of the convention. But I bought a couple big Ghibli prints. I don't usually buy large prints because of limited wall space. But it felt like a good time to mix things up.

 Grizzly bear

A Grand Tale

Evva's story is rather short. Though I've filled it out a bit in the past couple months.

Arrin's story is still bare bones. I think it will end up longer than Evva's story, but maybe not by much.

But Arith's story feels like it's going to be huge. I didn't think it would be, but the further I go, the more I realize I have to build. It's kind of exciting. 

Miniature donkey

Finding the Fitting Movies

So, yeah. Lately I've been analyzing cartoons when I'm hammered by stress. At first I didn't realize that's what was happening. But the movies/shows I analyze often echo the things that were making me stressed. 

 

Coco: 

It was little harder to figure out how Coco echoed my emotions, since it was the first time I'd analyzed a cartoon in this way. I wasn't noticing the parallels. I'm also madly in love with this movie, which meant I was kind of blinded about that. But I think the main link between this movie and what I was feeling was Hector. Banished by those he loved, like he was trash. Being slowly forgotten. It was several months after a best friend of 15 years basically shredded me and dumped me in the gutter, but I was still feeling it acutely at that point. So Hector's plight struck me even harder than it otherwise might have. 

(I'm going to slip this one in here, even though I only really analyzed one scene, but Steven Universe: The Movie was the same thing. The way Spinel felt was so much like what I'd felt. We were just some toy they'd thrown out when they outgrew us.) 

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: 

I came across this show soon after the start of Covid. The fact that Kipo was thrown into this bizarre dangerous world felt pretty similar to us getting stuck in the bizarre pandemic world. 

Wolfwalkers: 

I had actually seen this movie before. But when I watched it again later, there was a scene that resonated with what I was going through. People who I'd worked with closely for four years suddenly started treating me like garbage. I still don't know why. Going to work was stressful. And seeing Robin stuck working in that awful scullery pretty much echoed how I felt. Plus Wolfwalkers is just a stunning movie, so that made it easy to analyze. 

Beauty and the beast: 

Unlike the rest of the content on this list, I grew up with Beauty and the Beast. But I happened to rewatch it at another stressful time. The work situation seemed to have resolved for several months. And then it flared up again. I found some peace with Belle - an outsider in her town, and a bookworm like me. Plus Beast in the new version of the movie was in another show from this list. So that made for a fun little parallel. 

These have all been within the last 5 years. On the bright side, each one has been less intense than the one before it. 

Maybe they'll stop for now. 

The Completion of a Sketchbook

It took a couple years, but I finally filled up another sketchbook XD

So, as is tradition, I thought I'd post my favorite pictures from the book. I've really been slacking on backgrounds TT^TT But there are still some drawings that I'm pretty proud of. 

 

The pictures of Singe's tattoos. Especially the dragon and koi.

 

The dusk dragon - I like how his colors turned out, and that I managed to add a bit of translucence to the wings.

 

Earth dragon - I like how the scale plates and the wings turned out.
 

Evva, Haleth, and Belliner. This is actually the very first picture in my sketchbook. I especially like how Haleth's gray spots came out.