Animazement Artist Alley Loot

Today's blog is to show off all the awesome art I got from Animazement's Artist Alley. =)

I'm going to start with the buttons. My good friend, Melissa, bought the top two for me. The first one is China from Hetalia--he's a guy with long hair and a panda, what's not to love? The second is Mai from Avatar: the Last Airbender--she got the trio of bad girls, Azula for herself, since she was supposed to have been cosplaying Azula, Ty Lee for my cousin, who was cosplaying Ty Lee, and Mai for me since I was cosplaying Mai. Sunday I went back and got the bottom two buttons + an Aang. I gave the Aang to my other cousin who was at AZ and cosplaying Aang. The Zuko is for my husband, and the Iroh is for our friend who was cosplaying Iroh, but he left the convention before I could get the button to him. So, it'll just hang out on the yarn braid here (made for me by Ty) until our next D&D game.

Next up is this amazing print of Terra from Final Fantasy VI. I loved the coloring especially, but the whole print is just plain awesome. I had to take it home with me. XD I'm thinking the artist was just trying to get rid of these prints since she was selling them for only $1. Honestly it's worth a lot more in my opinion. I also bought a key chain from her table. It had Lina on one side and Gourry on the other. <3 Slayers!!! There aren't any pictures of the key chain because it's attached to the car keys which are in my husband's pocket. XD I really liked this artist; she had tons of non-mainstream stuff.

Dumb flash on the camera wouldn't function properly this morning... During our wanderings of artist alley, Ty made sure we found every artist selling Pokemon stuff. This one had a set of bookmarks to go with the various Eevee evolutions. She was out of my favorites, but Ty liked the water one, and the fire one is one of my runner up favorites, so I picked out the set of 3. The water one will go to Ty, the electric to my mom, and I'll either keep the fire one or give it to Luke. I want to laminate these so they're usable without risking tearing them up--this is why I laminate all of my bookmarks in really thick plastic.

This artist had a lot of cool Sailor Moon stuff, and it was tough to narrow down which prints I wanted to buy. With the chibi Sailor Moon set, I got all of the inner scouts, so I didn't have to pick which one I liked the most. =D I got the Ouran Host Club print because 1) they were on special if you got 2, and 2) I've been more than a little obsessed with Ouran High School Host Club lately. XD I really liked these chibis though; they pretty much nailed the cast and their personalities.

Finally, I got 2 badges and 2 magnets from Mystcloud (the one artist I actually have a gallery address for). I got the Sailor Venus because she's one of my favorites--love the color orange (purple's my second favorite color, but it's on my sites because purple goes better with a Gothic Panda than orange). The Nekozawa badge and Kyoya magnet go with my Ouran High School Host Club obsession. Kyoya's my favorite host, and Nekozawa is just plain awesome. The James magnet was for my kids to go on our fridge--they're all obsessed with Pokemon. The camera would not cooperate with getting pictures of these. Flash on: there's a glare. *fail* Flash off: the camera won't focus. I'm posting 3 picutres, 1 with flash, 1 without flash that's almost not half bad, and 1 without flash that reflects what pictures taken indoors without a flash usually look like. XD

Flash: Horrible glare on Nekozawa.

Almost not bad; Sailor Venus and James are ok at least.

This is what my camera normally does w/ no flash.

Wednesday WIP - May III

A lot has been going on this last week. This is one of those instances where I'm glad I'm doing this on Wednesday. I was feeling buried, but putting this together makes me see that things are getting done. =)

Moogle:  Finished. See it here: http://kasumiangel.deviantart.com/#/d3g3nwf

After

Before

Cosplay: Sometimes I forget why I like doing this. XD So, let's go down the line-up. Mai: I started the wig. I've included before pictures and "after" -- try and keep in mind that the final version should look a little better. Right now a lot of the hair has just been partitioned out for the 3 buns or various pieces hanging down. I am so glad I did not try styling my natural hair like this--it's doable, but it would have been such a pain in the butt, plus I don't think it's long enough anymore right now (I got mad at my hair back in February and chopped it all off--it went from waist length to shoulder length). Zuko: I've got a pattern mostly together for his boots? Nothing new worth photographing though. Jet: Mostly done except for details; I need to get supplies for the armor and leg wraps--I will be going out next Monday for that. Random side note: It's an hour each way to get to the nearest fabric store and another 15 min from there to the nearest craft store, so that's 2.5 hours driving just to get supplies; it's been weird because that means I have to plan a whole lot better than I'm used to since last minute trips to the store for little things just aren't going to happen with gas prices like they are. Momo: Hahahaahaha... yeah... nothing here, still a pile of fabric. Azula: Pants are finished, shirt is in progress, mostly still a pile of fabric. *fail* XD Props: They've been sanded, have a layer of primer and been sanded some more. I'll paint them soon. 
 

 Nine and Ten of Wands: So I did stuff that wasn't cosplay this week--I liked that; I was getting a little burnt out on the costumes. Here is the lineart for the Nine of Wands--Witch Hunter Robin, and a sketch for the Ten of Wands--Wolfwood (<3 Trigun). 

 Mages: This is a project I actually started about 2.5 years ago, but they sat as sketches for about 1.5 years. I then scanned them in and put a base layer of color down and let them sit for another year. XD I'm trying to get them finished now to go in Animazement's art auction. For the auction they will be printed as 11x17" posters and framed. I think I've really drug my feet on these ladies because this isn't stuff that I normally draw--it's not my style. They were started as a challenge at AWA 2009. The guy at the table behind me had nothing but fanart posters of pin-up girls like this (a few guys). They all had the same vacant (I guess sexy) expression. So, I was like: "Pft, I could do that; I just don't want to." Friend and husband: "Really?" (skeptical) Me: "Yes... >_< ... Fine I'll prove it." This is the result. I refused to do something like this with straight-up fanart--I did pin-up girls based off the Final Fantasy I mages instead (yes more Final Fantasy, I know I'm obsessed). This made it more interesting for me. Currently trying to finish up White Mage, then I'll move to the other two. The black background is there to help me fill in the color and find where I'm missing stuff.

Toothless: My newest plushie design-in-progress. Right now I'm debating what parts I'll keep and what I can get away with leaving out. Since it's a chibi version, I can't include all the little ridges and horns and stuff. Right now I have the legs finished, and one "ear." I will definitely include the 2nd ear, the tail and the wings. Once I have those pieces pinned on, I'll see what can and should be added.

Wednesday WIP - Edition 3

For all my whining about motivation on Twitter, it's actually been a fairly productive week. I'm going to start with updates on last week's projects, then move on to newer projects.

Eight of Wands: Howl is finished! View him in all his glory on DeviantArt. I will eventually post him on Etsy, but I've been waiting till I get a little closer to finishing the whole tarot set before starting to post them there--6 cards left, so I'll probably start posting the Tarot cards as soon as I finish with the "What Would ___ Do?" set.

Beholder: Still not finished with this one. It has 2 eyestalks now though. =D I really like how it's coming out so far. I'm going to aim for 6 eyestalks for now and see how that looks and add more if I need to; looking at it, I'm thinking 10 eyestalks would be too much. The eyestalks should also be somewhat poseable.


Blanket: Yes another one, and this one isn't exactly a new project. I was too lazy to get pictures last week, and it's been on hold for a while anyways. Technically I started this blanket last July. Pictured are samples of some of the hexagon pieces for this blanket. The sketch diagram thing should give an idea of what it will look like when it's finished. I'm working on the green hexagons right now; the yellow, orange, pink and purple ones are all finished. Future WIP updates, I'll probably only note the # of hexagons left since photographing the whole thing is a bit unwieldy to spread out to show progress--the completed blanket will be approximately 4.5 feet across. Right now for the green, I have 10 out of 36 hexes finished. After that, I have 30 blue and 43 white hexes.

Mai: This year at Animazement, my cosplay group is going as Avatar: The Last Airbender characters. I'm going as Mai, and my husband is going as Zuko. I think that couple is so adorable. =D I started this costume a couple of weeks ago, but this is the first week that I've had something to photograph aside from a pile of fabric. The pants are finished and her overcoat thing is almost finished--I just need to sew the gold buttons on the front and back. I also have the red shirt that will go under the overcoat mostly finished. It needs a zipper in the back (which is why it's not on the dress form--I got the back basted together, but had the wrong zipper. I have a new zipper now, but I haven't gotten it put on yet, and I didn't want to undo the basting just to take a picture for this blog post), lining added to the sleeves and the bottom edge hemmed. All in all, there's not much left. I still need to figure out how I'm going to do her shoes. I also really want to get a wig for her hair, but I may have to deal with my own hair--awkward since I don't have bangs. I am lacking time and, I'm really not all that good at dealing with wigs anyways.

Anime Artist Girl: This is a rough sketch of my design for the logo contest held by the Anime Artisan's team on Etsy. The contest is for members to design a boy and girl character to be the team logo. Once entries are in, members will vote on what they like best. I won't go into the number of versions I've trashed working on the boy design. XD