Welcoming Winter: The 2017 Advent Calendar Challenge

Welcome to the 2017 Advent Calendar! Last year was the 10 year anniversary, and this year was my first Inktober, so I plan to keep the steam going ahead now that october warmed me up. Format has changed since we're still restoring the images to the site. Enjoy!

Dec. 1

Snow Queen

I chose Fade for today's image, and using the improved hair hatching I practiced during Inktober this year, I rendered the image simple with blocks of color and a pattern for depth. I saw a similar image done by Naoko Takeuchi, drawing a snow queen Usagi, and I wanted to evoke the same style. I owe a lot of my current style to hers.

Dec. 2

In Memory of Boo (rough)

Sadly, on the second of December, my precious baby Boo passed over the Rainbow Bridge. She had been ill since thanksgiving, and heartbreakingly, we had to make that painful decision to let her go. That day, I just couldn't bring myself to make a piece, and while I have sketched out a tribute picture of her based on her last photo I have of her, its been a lot harder than I imagined. I intend to come back and work on it slowly as I work through the loss, so I thank you for your patience. She was a beautiful soul, who always was eager to do anything even at the age of 12, looking at life with so much joy and happiness. My mother's other dog, Sheila, passed about 2 years before her, so I hope wherever they are, they're together again. We will miss you, Boo. You were loved dearly.

Dec. 3

Sweet Treat Night

Another sketch since its been rather hard to stay in the spirit after losing Boo, but this image came pretty quick after looking through some art folders I have. I'm taking another crack at that super big-eyed chibi style, and it has a little in common with Lunis' piece from last year's December 12th. I hope to lay it in with bolder colors and a soft pencil background. Maybe purple buildings to offset the yellow moon.

Dec. 4

Shadow Candy

Today's image was based on a pic I had somewhere of Miku Hinasaki with a shadow made of an entirely solid red color, and I wanted to try that with Regina, who appears courtesy of Decon's series Heaven's Order. Somewhat in flux for rewrites, we've been refining her role as well as her image; she's a little older now, a bit more responsible, and has some varied supernatural powers. With the HO crew, I went with jewel tones the last time I drew them out in 2010, rather than the reds and greens the C&C crew had. Regina's outfit is a little on the simpler side but I preferred it, so I could spice up the sweater with little holly patterns and bells on the ankle straps. The shadow was a little tough; in retrospect, I should have had a light table to trace the overall outline and shifted it over, but it wasn't too bad. I ended up adding the white peppermint stripes for flavor (heh). Its pretty cute all things considered.

Dec. 5

Candlelight Eve

I had the roughest day today, so I went and drew up something in hatch style because its rather calming. It feels really good to lay in the lines; I used to think it took too much time, but now such images come really easy now. I used just pink for her eyes and a little silver for her leaf hair ornaments. Melody is good for images with flowey curvy images, like mist and smoke.

Dec. 6

Advent Queen

I missed a day due to the fact i was running on absolute fumes from stress and lack of sleep. I need to kick it into gear if I want to stick my landings. Another hatching style, but I wanted to go for the super loose style I used in 2013's day 3, 2014's day 10, or 2016's day 14. Sadly I didn't have the time or patience, so the background was hastily put in. Yet, I like the look of it somehow. It has a sort of wrinkled cloth-like quality. The wiggly lines didn't stick through though. Still I do like it. Not what i wanted but its very striking.

Dec. 7

Mirage Silhouette

This one was inspired by a photo collage. A high contrast picture of a person's silhouette had been hand cut from the background of a gray sky, so I tried my hand at the hand cutting. Most of it was with a pair of scissors, though the more narrow cuts were an exacto knife. Clio's profile turned out better than I expected, and with the bright red background, it really pops nice. This has the same feeling of Regina's pic this year, so maybe next time I do a colored silhouette, I'll just cut it out of colored paper. I upped the contrast and saturation minutely on the scan, because if I messed too much with it, I lost the cloud details.

Dec. 8

Hearts on Strings are Wonderful Things

Another photo inspired image, this one is a bit more busy than I anticipated. Aina's hair is such a special color that I still only have a pencil to color it in (in other images her hair has been sort of a light brown, but I much more prefer this golden honey color). Her sweater ALWAYS seems to change color, year to year. XD;;;; I think i much prefer the vibrant red and rich green, but this one I made the mistake of using a green that was much too dark and rich. The heart overlay was inspired by a similar pattern in a double exposure picture I found, but they look much nicer in pink; the transparent look really looked nice when I colored them over her. My favorite point was the heart on her neck and the barest hint on her shorts. Even the date looks cute XD. Writing the dates so they're not too obvious but fit with the images are the hardest part of the final compositions.

Dec. 9

Forest Presents

Had a long day, and its late, but here's a pic of Ichii and Shizu from my newer series Forest Life. Ichii's appeared in the first day last year, and is famously (XD) on Decon's album Chiaroscuro. I'm hoping to finish tomorrow and catch up with older ones...@_@ This month is getting busy. All I need to do is get sick and I'll be par for course. XD;;;;; JINX.

Dec. 10

Ornamental

I missed another day; I've been so drained, I literally fall asleep almost sitting up. So I thought up a quickie with Lunis in an ornament. I thought having him in a clear glass vessel with an ice cream soda would be cute. I wasn't paying attention and I nearly forgot to leave room for Lunis holding a marshmallow XD;;;; The copic marker I used for the soda portion was really light and it needed a lot of layers. I'm also still getting used to doing skin tones with copic. His face is a little different to me, but I only ever draw him once a year, so it might be just me XD.

Dec. 11

Mage Tree

Rya makes her yearly appearance. Neo Black 9 has been around since high school for me, and she's probably second most of the most drawn girls for me (first place belongs squarely to Mei Asakawa). Her dress this year is closer to her original concept for the outfit, a pale blue instead of sky blue, which is also the original color for her default outfit. The bright yellow and orange came out nice and vibrant, needing very little scan adjustment.

Dec. 12

Kaleidoscope and Diamonds

Looks like E.Q. may be making multiple appearances this year. XD I've been mulling this image over for awhile, wanting to use a book with a patterned drawing over it and hand cut images to show the paper. I ran out of plain green paper, so i found a striped piece leftover from some album covers, and found a page out of my Norton's Anthology of Literature that had song lyrics. This page shares the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" with the last 2 stanzas of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" at the top. Its nice to see even music lyrics count as literature, because I always felt it was. THe pages were super thin, so tearing them was a challenge, and it even ripped when I was gluing, but I think it adds to the handmade look. Very rustic. Balance to me fits the songs pretty well, though if I were really talented, I might've put Diamond from Land of the Lustrous instead. XD

Dec. 13

Dreaming with You

I usually try for a NiGHTS pic every year, though I very much enjoy drawing Claris and Elliot, I haven't drawn the titular character in years. XD;;; They're just such a joy to draw for me. Couples drawings are kinda hard but these 2 always bring out the sweetness so easily. I'm quite fond of the color silhouette style I'm practicing. The Ideya turned out good too. I bumped the contrast and saturation a smidge to capture the true colors of the markers, and it nicely blew out the Ideya's color to even it out, while keeping the penstrokes for the kids' colors visible. This is one of my favorite Elliot and Claris images.

Dec. 14

Hats Off to Christmas

I've been so busy with the holidays, I haven't been back to playing Super Mario Odyssey. But I've been wanting to draw a Santa Cappy since the game came out. Instead of coloring Cappy, I ended up using colored paper instead so it would look more solid. I'm not sure I nailed Mario....I think his proportions are off, but I did my best XD;;;. It looks really cute. I want a Santa Cappy.

Dec. 15

Winter Tea Time

This one has been stewing for years, the original sketch was drawn the same time as the original sketch for 2014's day 18. Both those ideas were formed around 2013, when I also did roughs for that year's 2013. With the perspective and posing, it was a complicated composition (like Aina's day 18), so I put it off for years, intending it to be a day 16 image; Day 16s are always strong days--in addition to day 15s--so I've been wanting to save it for when I knew I could pull it off. I wouldn't say it was exactly perfect, but I'm much happier with it now that I knew I could do it. The stickers and pieces of paper really make a nice touch; my favorite part is her blue tea, with the sparkly sugar stars. Overall, I'm happy with it.

Dec. 16

Lookin' Good in the Neighborhood

Team Socks! Cuz when you got good legs, ANY pair of socks look good! XD I was thinking on this image when Splatfest was announced. I have a huge liking to not only thigh highs, but also cold shoulder tops. So snipping a sweater at the shoulder seams and wearing thigh high patterned socks with chucks would be my ideal outfit XD. I'm still working out my inkling Marimo's "hair"style (not sure if I want a ponytail, or long locks or what), but I based Calliope's on the default pink inkling design they use for promos and amiibo. I went with watercolors, cuz what else would I use? The paint splatters are a little hard to see, but I didn't want to overdo it. Overall, its a nice fun, dynamic piece (Marimo has a little Dante in her pose, don't you think? XD)

Dec. 17

Hue-liday Wishes

I was super inspired by an artist I follow on Instagram, Wai, who has a beautiful flowy style, and sometimes uses colored paper and post-it notes as blocks of color and draws over them. I wanted to take a crack at that too, so I found some paper scraps, and used a nifty paper puncher I got from my friend Jupigare. This one came out pretty quickly and satisfyingly, but my favorite points are her expression and how her hair flows. I really love this color block technique.

Dec. 18

The Intimacy of a Cup of Cocoa

In the blink of an eye, December is nearly over. @_@ I've been so busy and rushed, it's been hard to keep up this year, as well as not being able to do very many color elaborate pieces. So many of this year have a lot of white space, so I'm trying to fill them with more color. This quiet picture of Rhys was simple but I do like the mood. The title comes from the quote "Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee affords"; this was Hisoka Kurosawa's favorite quote by Richard Brautigan in the game Fatal Frame 5. The english translation didn't use the exact quote, which sadly was a failing of the localization not knowing the quote in the first place. I like how it fits the image, that sometimes that warmth is exactly what someone needs when they need it the most.

Dec. 19

Fruit Cake of the Wild

This one was a little tough to organize, but it turned out really sweet (:3) in the end. My favorite part is the way his hair turned out. It looks really nice. The new DLC came out and I really want to play ;.; but its been so busy!! I wanna ride a sexy bike in Hyrule. The Champion Blue came out nice though, with a little bump in the scan. The date is written in Hylian, and the number system is I think from Wind Waker, which is a little tough to work out. I hope I used the right alphabet. >> Now I want fruit cake.

Dec. 20

Happy Birthday, Isabelle

Its Isabelle's birthday today, so here's another sweet drawing. This one turned out really cute. Isabelle makes for some really cute pics.

Dec. 21

Happy Birthday, Little Sister

Its my sister's birthday and I cranked out a drawing as best I could, though I have entered crunch time and don't have time for anything. ;.; I added her favorite things, like Legend of Zelda and Sailor Moon, and the best marker/pen rendering of a bottle of whiskey I've ever done. I used her character from Animal Crossing Pocket Camp as her base, and did a little spin off of the chibi style I've been experimenting with. Its really cute all things considered.

Dec. 22

Concordia

Its been rough trying to keep up with E.Q. since I haven't had time to write, but I wasn't going to miss the annual christmas story. Its a quieter, sweet story, and has one of my fav characters, Quentin, as a main player. Its been awhile since I shaded with pencils but it gives a really quiet, warm look. Still need to work on fold rendering but I like the overall look. Quentin's expression came out really well. The eye color is pen, but it pops nicely with the monotone mood. Originally, I was going to use the title "Concordant" but "Concordia" flows off the tongue nicer and its meaning is closer to the spirit of the story.

Dec. 23

The Christmas That Really Kicked Ass

So the Dinosaur Dracula prompt from the funpack this year was making up a christmas special so I remembered a title I heard in an old MTS3k episode with Joel as he and the bots go through specials on tapes, nabbed some reference pics of Daft Punk, and added Gamera because Gamera is friend to all children. If anyone actually makes this a film, give me "special thanks" credits, innit?

Dec. 24

Cameos

The first pic is a scan, the second a photograph to show the foil accents on the papers I used. I made cameos this year, though this version was more like silhouettes XD. There were a LOT to do (and every year it grows XD;;;), but I was pretty happy with it. My only regret is using ink to color the face instead of cutting them all from black paper.