Sugar Plums: The 2019 Advent Calendar Challenge

Dec. 1

Christmas Beads

This year's was a lot more ambitious than I originally planned. I wanted to take this pattern and make it look like a beaded curtain that would add depth to a character. Picking Rya with a long flowey hair style would help me with making depths to play with. It was hard, since a lot of her was lost in the details of the pattern, so I had to be a lot more liberal with my hatching (messy as it is) and in the end, I chose to color the bead strings that overlapped to help with clarity. I definitely want to do this again, a different pose, shot, character, pattern, approach XD.... I also may or may not have decided to do some outfit editing....@_@ Well, she's had the same christmas outfit for over 15 years....its about time she had a little change, right??

Rya Li St. John and Neo Black 9 belong to me.

Dec. 2

The Present is a Gift

Things are par for course for a busy, hectic holiday, as I'm off to get some dental work done tomorrow. Let's see Dio try to draw while on painkillers! 8D Here's a cute simple Lucy with a bag full of presents. I'm thinking of trying to incorporate more washi tape and paper in this year's images. I had a little problem with her hair this time, but her pose is really charming. I added blue beads to her antler trimmings this time, and I rather like the look of it.

Lucy the WinterDeer belongs to me.

Dec. 3

Holly and Ivy

Still nursing the toothache from my extraction, but I wanted something a little more colorful. I'm doing another run at the paper color blocks with hatching and white pen, a technique I picked up from the artist Wai. I added some washi tape to kinda break it up (and to cover a mistake XD). The red paper had some really pretty punch outs on the bottom. Chronexci, as a camera goddess, has a lot of lenses in her design, along with her silver eyes (to represent silver nitrate), and iridescent hair (to represent light), which makes rendering her hard initially. I've managed to branch out in experimenting, but it makes the whole process really fun and rewarding.

Chronexci and Captured Time belong to me.

Dec. 4

Kelbi Alebrije

I really love alebrije, and being mexican, I just adore the craftsmanship. The patterns and color vibrancy are just so stunning. I can only collect small pieces (though i have a larger one from the movie Coco I recently got my hands on), but I would love to have all kinds of animals. Since I really like the patterns, and I had done this before on another day, I wanted another try at it and combined my love of Monster Hunter with it. I drew up a kelbi based on the style they use for the monster icons, and added some different patterns and colors. It actually turned out pretty neat, with some colors added, and I'm really proud of it. I just might start making some from paper mache and maybe sell them. Alebrije monsters (and maybe even pokemon) seems like the kinda thing I could totally get behind. I also like the numbering system the game has, as 3 would be a triforce/3 dragon scales shape.

Kelbi's and Monster Hunter belong to Capcom.

Dec. 5

Ruby Red

Wasn't sure where this one was going, only that I wanted a super limited palate. I thought about just reds and black, but I added pink cuz it made her hair pop. I also ended up coloring her eyes in. I might do this again sometime, but so far this wasn't so bad. I have to remember to put a piece of cardstock behind everything I color with copics, since they bleed like CRAZY. I do like their color vibrancy though. Definitely need more to fill out the lighter colors.

Akiva and Misfit Demon Manor belong to me.

Dec. 6

Growing Wings

As I dash off to my first of likely many holiday parties, here's Lunis and some potted plants. I included a sad christmas tree, a regular christmas tree, the christmas camellia, mistletoe, and pointsettia. I really like the look of petals edged in gold, so I might do that again. I haven't changed much in Lunis' outfit, but maybe I might as time goes on.

Lunis and Dreaming Dreaming Dreaming belong to me.

Dec. 7

New World Winter

I wanted to play with some negative space, leaving an asymmetrical layout. Choosing Calico from MapGunners, since she's a guide and pathfinder, I thought she'd look really cool in a tree setting. Traveling to the New World might entail some oversized trees with unusual seeds or flowers, and you can bet Hawkins is going to be drawing and writing very little detail in his notebooks. Calico, on the other hand, would wonder how edible they would be and if they taste good....

Calico and MapGunners belongs to me.

Dec. 8

The Land of Sweets

This one took a lot longer than I anticipated, but I'm happy with the work. Sunday I took in my first viewing of The Nutcracker, which I throughly enjoyed. I was moved to tears to see the music I had grown up hearing everywhere from holiday specials to cartoons, to my beloved Fantasia, being performed as a ballet on stage. The performance has been happening every Christmas season for over 50 years here, and its a damn shame I've only seen it now, at the ripe age of 35. I think I'm hooked on ballet now; time to see Swan Lake XD (other than the smashingly delirious Black Swan).

To that end, I wanted to draw up each of the Sugar Plum Fairy's entourage for Clara in the second act of the piece, and for some reason I figured some inklings and octolings would be a great idea, until I realized I was short 2 girls and came up with some new ones on the fly XD;;;. Most of my OC inklings/octolings are named for musical instruments, excepting Marimo, Mimiko, and her sister Lycoris/Higanbana and her crew, which have botany/flower names. Starting from the top left and moving right, we have Celesta who represents the Arabian Coffee dancers; intriguingly, the celesta was used by composer Tchikovsky in the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Mimiko represents Ribbon Candy (previously Russian candy canes in older productions). Calliope represents the Spanish Chocolate Dancers. The purple hued octoling is a new addition, named Ocarina (Rina for short), and represents the Chinese Tea dancers; I loved the idea of taking the "afro" bubble hair stayle for the octo boys and changing it to a girls' buns. Starting left again, with the aqua ink color is Viola (both a flower and instrument name) who used to be on Lyco's team, and she represents the Marzipan dancers. Lycoris/Higanbana is Marimo's elder sister (you can tell with the 2 tone tentacles), who represents the Dew Drop Fairy. The purple twintailed inkling is Mirliton, Mirli for short, who represents gingerbread for Mother Ginger and her gingerbread child dancers. Marimo covers the Sugar Plum Fairy, and last but not least is Lyra who represents the main character Clara (and I almost forgot to include her initially ;.;). I'm really happy with the designs for all the girls, so I'm glad I took the few days to really refine the image.

Splatoon belongs to Nintendo. OCs created by myself.

Dec. 9

A New Year's 9th

You guys know how much I like my color blocks, so here's another crack at my fave couple from NiGHTS: into dreams. I'd done it the 13th 2 years ago, with their "image colors" and I really liked the melding of my hatching style with the bold colors. I love my new copic markers, as they produce some really delicious vibrancy with little need to adjust settings on the scanning step. This one really has a lightness. Its very cute.

Claris Sinclair, Elliot Edwards, and NiGHTS: into dreams belong to Sega.

Dec. 10

Christmas Cakes

GIGANTAMAX ALCREAMIE IS THE BEST THING EVER. I stylized the cake layers to incorporate some washi tape, with my favorite ones using Laughing Bear's sweets and flowers tape I recently got. ^^!! The foil portions are super pretty an its slight sheerness allow colors to show through, giving such lovely variations. I like the outfit I managed to make in Sword/Shield as its Christmassy but also warm looking.

Pokemon Sword and Shield belong to Nintendo.

Dec. 11

Presents Just for You

A simple image, but I wanted to use a selection of metallic markers. It doesn't show up well when you scan it, but I like the look of it. I think this shad of red and this shade of green will definitively be the colors of her sweater but it still gives me fits coloring it. XD;;;; I'm glad I have copics that are closer to what I wanted for her hair.

Aina Fidela and Ragnarok Metropolis/Ragnatropolis belong to me.

Dec. 12

When the Saints Come Marching In

My boys from Distance are back. I haven't quite worked out how I'd render Rhys's portals, but the metallic pens was a good start. I'm so used to drawing JP during the winter, that I really ought to draw the twins more (though Rhys ends up appearing at least once a year in the all character XD). The color of Rhys' hair was originally the color I wanted to use for Niro, but I think it was a better idea to use a different hue. Going back to Distance would be a great idea in the coming year; I miss the world.

JP, Rhys Hunter, Ash & Oak Winchester and Boulevard of Distance belong to me.

Dec. 13

The Last Christmas

While I won't get the story done tonight, I will get the yearly Christmas story done by this weekend. This one represents the last Christmas Felipe and Arpeggio spent before they defected. While they're not holding hands, it really looks like the gentle touching that the Sailor Moon anime had with Uranus and Neptune during the episode where they were implied to be holding hands. I wanted this longing feeling between them to represent Felipe slowly breaking down and this is part of why Arpeggio makes that decision to violently leave the Music Corps. I love the new watercolors I could use, but the sketchbook I've been using sucks cuz while it says "mixed media", if it doesn't have a lot of cotton in the paper, it will buckle. I have tried to iron it, but it did put in the creases, which sucks but maybe I can edit it in a later stage. The fading shadow was something I really wanted to do. All in all, I like the composition of it. Most E.Q. images are melancholy but that seems to be the trend for the series.

Felipe (Bass), Arpeggio (Treble) and E.Q. belong to me.

Dec. 14

Snowglobe

Ichii stars in this simple drawing. Pretty much killed my Iridescent Mauve copic @_@, and its a lot splotchier than I wanted, but the sketchiness does lend a sort of looser feeling. Having him reading quietly is a cute, charming, quiet image.

Ichii and Forest Life belongs to me.

Dec. 15

Under the Mistletoe

Here's a new face. Niro's only been around a few months, shaping into what seems to be quite a ladykiller (or maneater, depending on his mood XD). This casual but enticing pose was nice to do, thought the wine glass didn't quite work out, but I rather like it. I find his asymmetrical boots rather charming, and while blue is his image color, the color red suits him quite nicely. I don't have very many long haired men, so drawing him a lot this year really seems to put me in a good groove. I like long hair, though I more often than not draw mid-to-shoulder length, or short hair. Long hair shows off movement very nicely.

Niro the mageknight and Threads of Yuugen belong to me.

Dec. 16

Holiday Cafe

I've been mulling over cute sweets that might be served at a holiday themed cafe. While the soda float didn't quite go over well (I couldn't decide if I wanted to do a parfait or a soda float and tried to do both ^^;;), but the gingerbread pudding and mousse cake really turned out nice. The ribbon candy tree was based on a tree decoration I saw at Michael's but I put a konpeito star on top. The coconut snowman is akin to a Hostess snowball, except with a poundcake center and coconut flakes on the outside. I also thought a candy cane made of taffy would be tastyyyyyy. The chibi Mei is very cute; you notice her dress has gone through a change, going from fur trim to a lace trim and having a double skirt.

Mei Asakawa and Creepy and Crawly belongs to me.

Dec. 17

MoonFlora Forests

I wanted to do another washi tape piece, and designed a light holiday outfit for my eye priestess character (whom appeared for the first time in this year's JulEYE challenge. I wasn't sure how to color her hair but in the end, a very light lavender seemed to work the best. Her hair flowing really came out great, and the eye detail worked out really well. i still don't know where to put her, but she's really fun to draw.

The Eye Priestess belongs to me.

Dec. 18

Ornamental

This last Inktober I did some pumpkins that had some filigree patterns drawn in with metallic pens. I like this line up of simple shapes of a tree, ornaments and a present, and tried to use different kinds of patterns in each shape. They look really pretty, but much better in person; scanners often have trouble with metallics. @_@

Dec. 19

A Star, A Star

Another JulEYE character from earlier in the year. I wanted to make an alien girl with galaxy eyes. I'm still working out the species, but instead of ears, they have these tentacle-like protrusions whathaveyou. Females have longer ones for the most part, and can sense sounds through them like ears; they also have long antenna and pearl-like ends to their eyelashes. Males have shorter tentacles, and have ball-like ends on their antenna. I haven't had a place for them yet but I like the design a lot. Practice on the tentacles makes it easy for practice with Splatoon cephalopods XD. The lavender color skin is one my my favorite points.

Sio the alien belongs to me.

Dec. 20

Birthday Girl Isabelle

Another birthday image for our best girl ever, Isabelle. I still haven't decided what style ends up looking best for Animal Crossing images; its hard to draw in the game style as I don't do it often, but I'm not sure how stylized I can go before I'm satisfied. In any case, this one is super cute (though I misspelled "birthday" initially 8D;;; I am so tired these days).

Isabelle and Animal Crossing/Doubutsu no Mori belong to Nintendo.

Dec. 21

Sagittarius Alebrije

Speaking of birthdays, here's my gift art for my sister's birthday. She really liked the alebrije art I was doing so she wanted her zodiac star sign with the same pattern. It was hard to think of different patterns so I used a few I'd already done with other patterned alebrije, and incorporated more color blocks. This one really came out nice. Happy Birthday, sis!

Dec. 23

Colors in Christmas

I was inspired by a floral artist named archerandolive on instagram with a rainbow cascade of flowers and leaves. I did the same approach as the background and put in Melody because her colors are really pretty, especially against the backdrop of many colors. I've forgotten her hair accessory though @_@ aaaahhhh. I should draw her more often yet I haven't quite found a sea green color I'm satisfied with yet. I want something a little more vibrant.

Melody the mermaid and Ever.Free belong to me.

Originally I was thinking a sexy, busty dominatrix, but that seemed even a little off for me. XD I mean we gotta think opposite, bizarro Santa, right? So what's the opposite of a jolly, fat man in a red suit? How about a tsundere bishonen in a black suit? That's more in line with my speed, I suppose XD. Barring that....maybe a robot overlord from the future? A tsundere girl with a giant paper fan? I guess there are tons of directions I could have gone with but maybe I prefer the Anti-Santa Daddy. XD