Art: Aika for Nami

Here's a drawing I did for Christmas for the lovely Sugar-Nami.
I'm really pleased that she likes it! Sorry about the pupils in the eyes looking off - I just realised as soon as I scanned it in to the computer that they're slightly iffy.

Here I was inspired by Georgian style clothes and paintings from the era. I could just imagine her wearing a muslin robe en chemise along with a fichu for a saunter around the countryside alongside Cherry!

My Art: Sororicide

This post is well overdue seeing as I finished this piece in May! It is actually my final GCSE Art piece and got me an A*, for which I am very pleased.
 

Featured are Johan and poor Celeste, my two dolls that I played around with in order to get a setting I liked. They are Isul Johan and Pullip Nella, the set that Mitsukazu Mihara illustrated and designed. Instead of drawing them as people, I rather liked the idea of drawing the dolls themselves, massive eyes and all - and now we have a scene of a doll poisoning another doll! After all, the theme was "Fantastic and Strange", so you can't blame me for going all out, haha.

The story behind this drawing is that Johan, the younger brother, poisons his sister out of jealousy of her looks and beautiful dresses that their parents buy for her, earning her more attention. In my head he was a very lonely boy (or doll) and relied on the attention from his parents for everything, and when he realised that Celeste was fairer than him, he snapped and murdered her. It was inspired by a shoot in the Gothic Lolita Bible and my drawings of it, as I have done them in the same styles.

Good News and a Poem

This Sunday I have finished writing 40 chapters of When the Summer Ends, marking the end of my book! I’ve had so much fun writing this book lately, though at the same time I’m very happy it’s done. Now all I need to do is edit 35 chapters and then I can publish… Wish me luck!

For now, please enjoy this poem I’ve written:

When the Summer Ends

When the summer ends, and the leaves fall from the trees like embers,
I miss that sultry, blazing sun and the secrets we whispered mouth-to-ear on cloudless days.
Those summer evenings seemed an endless eternity, and yet autumn came all too soon.
The autumnal days brought us closer together as we made memories,
sharing school and heart.
Then winter came and autumn crumpled and died,
bringing with it a bitter curse sent to tear us apart.
And spring never came…
Not for many seasons to come.

Crossposted at Ellie Morris Books

Art: Midsummer Night Blues

This picture is inspired by a photograph I saw taken at the prom on somebody's Facebook, of my friends. It's a bit of a Titanic moment, but I thought it looked romantic and wanted to draw something Art Deco around it, based on the golf course scenery and Jazz-age balcony.
The dresses are 1930s and my own design, based around images on Pinterest and a scene of Jeeves and Wooster with Honoria Glossop in it; I could so imagine her in this scene with another Wodehousean girl! The Waldeck song "Midsummer Night Blues" is the title for this drawing, as the music sounds very slow and mysterious, perfect for forbidden romance on a summer's night!

This could be part of a series, as I'd like to do another Art Deco-like print drawing with a couple of boys next time. I'd also like to write a little something about these girls too!

Rococo and Victoria

Drawn over the past month for my Aunt's late birthday, as she prefers my traditional art over digital medias. I took inspiration from the history influencing Lolita fashion.

Art Exhibition and Prom

Here are some of my artworks that I have done in class for the past two years. I've also taken some photos of Wendy's art because I know she won't mind, and it's simply fabulous!

These last three photos are Wendy's work, not mine. My themes were Cells, Distorted Portraits and Fantastic and Strange, and hers were the first two listed, plus Food. 

I've actually got a funny story about this art exhibition for Year 11; the head teacher told me straight after an exam that there was an event on Thursday, but I was tired and heard Tuesday instead. That meant that my entire family was dragged to my school on the wrong day, though thankfully a caretaker let us in anyway and we got a preview of the exhibition. Embarrassingly enough, the head teacher walked into the library at that point and started having conversations with my grandparents. I apologised for getting the wrong day, and he was very nice about it and told us to take our time! 

And the prom! I've written a lot about the prom (which I actually enjoyed despite hating parties) but I won't bore you with it here. I wore my Innocent World dress, Angelic Pretty bag, pink shoes, and a neutral-pink ballerina cardigan that my mum bought me! The thing I enjoyed most was seeing what everyone wore, as every girl and boy I saw were dressed so glamorously and to their personalities! Here are some pictures. 

 I'm such a nincompoop in this photo, and I have no idea what I'm laughing at, but I still like it, haha.

Here I've realised that I was holding my invitation upside-down, so that's why we're both laughing!

Me and my friends, as my dad took from inside the building... Funny, because I never even noticed.

Creative Things

With my revision and exams recently, I haven't had much time to spend drawing, sewing or writing for myself; right now, When the Summer Ends hasn't been touched for months! I'm really hoping to pick it back up again very soon, after I've gotten back into the swing of things with a few writing exercises in my spare time. If things go to plan, I'll be writing by bank holiday Monday.

Here are some things I've done for school for the past few months. There is more, but that's all tucked away safely in my portfolio.

Posting these to my private blog won't get me in any trouble with examiners, would it? If so, I'd take them down pronto, as I've worked for days solid on this particular piece.
Yet it was so fun, as I love drawing elaborately detailed Gothic and Lolita clothes! These particular girls are from a photo-shoot in the GLB 53; as you may notice, the bonnets are so typically Triple Fortune!

Evangeline's Summer Dress - Design

 

This is the dress I designed for my character, Evangeline; her mother is very old fashioned, and although Evangeline is a tomboy, she sews and forces her to wear girly dresses. It was inspired by Jane Marple and the 50s, and I finished making it at the end of February! It has an otome-kei feeling and I love wearing it with 50s accessories.
It's a really comfy, loose fit and I wanted to show that on Evangeline's body. I made my own croquis this time, inspired by the How to Draw Vintage book and 1920s 'garçonne' figure. Whilst I enjoyed drawing this, it may be the last digital art picture I do for a while, as a book on fashion design has inspired me to get my paints out.

She is Sleeping

I've been sitting on this picture for a long time, since the end of September last year, so it's such a relief just to get this finished! To be honest, I have little interest or time for drawing at the moment, so it has been a while... I'm a bit out of practice. There are some things wrong with this picture, but I don't really care for critic right now. I just wanted to get it done...

This is a beautiful koitsukihime doll that I wanted to draw, and the title came from a BABY Lolita dress. :)

Elizabeth Rose Design

I've just been sooo busy at school and had no time to draw recently! This picture is a fashion design I made for Textiles at school, where the theme is "Japanese Street Style". Naturally I chose lolita!

These clothes and accessories are part of my "Elizabeth Rose" series, which contains a hard Victorian bonnet, a small velveteen cape, and a skirt.

Inspiration is placed around the Queen of England, as research tells me that British things are a source of inspiration for Lolita designers in Japan.

My colour scheme is grey and white, monotone colours, to create more of a mature, sophisticated side to a fun and alternative, upbeat fashion. Also, it represents the colours of diamonds bathed in light, seeing as the Diamond Jubilee was not so long ago. The decoration is mainly sparse, for elegance and simplicity.

I've already made the bonnet and am going to make the skirt for my GCSEs. I went easy on the frills, because, well, school... 

The rose fabric I manipulated onto the skirt belongs to IKEA, as I did not draw it. And the croquis base is by Azute Thank you!

Claudia, Child of Darkness

Claudia from Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire! I really love this character, as she's so cute, but so deadly! This is how I imagined her to look, as I haven't seen the film yet. I wanted to make her seem as young and girly as possible! The stars were really relaxing to draw.
 This took me so long to colour, and I'm not even sure why. ;w; Also, I was going to add chrysanthemums to the picture, to represent death (or something along those lines).

Magical Girl

This picture is for my lovely friend BunnyTheW as it's her birthday soon! <3 She loves Madoka Magika, so I thought I'd draw the character from that for her. Also, she loves everything to do with rainbows, so that's why they're in the background. I hope she doesn't mind me drawing her in a semi-realistic way! ...My anatomy is so rubbish anyway. XD

Self Portrait

This is a part of my Art homework, as we're doing portraits next term. Sorry for scaring you all. ;)

I could have put so much detail into the clothes, but didn't because I wanted to focus on the facial features. Also, I tried a new technique for painting skin with textured brushes. I used Photoshop for painting the skin, and SAI for the rest.

Where are the Vampires?

I've been really inspired by vampires and Anne Rice novels recently, so I thought I'd draw a gothic picture. Also, Malice Mizer music, and this new album I've found, which is the soundtrack to Verushka (1971). The music is really haunting, with wordless female Italian vocals in a creepy, sad tone of voice. I don't really fancy watching the film myself, as it sounds disturbingly sad by reviews I've read, but I really appreciate the soundtrack - it goes well with writing too!

The background of this photo was a photo that I took myself at a Tudor home, Speke Hall. The house is Tudor on the outside and Victorian on the inside. As this is my first attempt at drawing a background, I'm really pleased!

In my mind, the characters are vampire siblings (the girl is the eldest) that are being hunted down by humans to be killed. Those eyes in the background are the humans searching for them, vampire killing kit ready. The eyes were done by getting eyes of people from photos I've taken (family and friends, plus myself somewhere in there) and also some photos of my dolls' eyes.

Margaret's School

The character on the left is called Evangeline Basset, and the girl on the right is Margaret Baron. I wanted them to look a little bit like ball-jointed dolls to show their innocence and young age (plus the fact that I adore ball-jointed dolls). It was hard to decide their hairstyles; at first I went for short hair on both of them, kind of like a cutesy 60s style bob – Evangeline’s in a layered style and Margaret’s curled up at the edges. But I decided to stick closer to my description, which I’m actually quite glad of – I loved colouring Evangeline’s hair!

The dresses they are both wearing is their school uniform, which many say (in the story) is rather old fashioned. I found this gorgeous design on a Japanese Indie Lolita website (also called Margaret’s School, which coincidentally gave me the idea of this story somehow…) and decided that I needed to draw my characters wearing it! The design of dress belongs to this website.

Happy Birthday Aika!

I'm so happy I finished this today, because I wanted it done in time for her birthday (the 26th May) and I didn't think I would manage with all my homework and exams this month! There was going to be two more designs, but I was really short on time... And the anatomy fails, but really I'm just focusing on the clothes at the moment. (it's my dream to be a fashion designer or costume designer as well as an author)

The first design was something I made myself, based on 50s poodle-skirt designs and nautical style, and the second one is loosely based on Pullip Tiphona's stcok outfit by Innocent World, as you may see on my Pullip doll, Aika! These are only a selection of outfits I know she has, but really she has many more, and it makes me envious that she has the biggest lolita wardrobe of all my characters! Clothes are my favourite things to draw, so I count this as practice.

I swear I write and draw about my character Aika the most of all my OCs because she's my favourite; we have a lot in common! At the moment I'm writing a story about her called When The Summer Ends, and I'm just past chapter 15 right now (it's going quite slowly, but I'm really enjoying the experience!).

L'Après-Midi

I'm posting this now as I'm simply bored of finding time to draw this. There was meant to be another poodle (a chocolate coloured one) but because I've had a lot of exams recently, I've hardly had time to draw at all! Also, I'm sorry about how horrible the poodle looks; I really can't draw animals! The poodle design was based off one of my lolita dresses by Baby, the Stars Shine Bright, from the "Lovely Sweet Room" print series, which I really love. What I really wanted to draw was a Victorian dress from the back, as I love to draw detailed clothes.

Daenerys Targaryen

This picture is for my friend's birthday, as she loves Game of Thrones. I've never seen or read it myself, but I really enjoyed drawing this picture. The lady who plays Daenerys is very beautiful.

Wallflower

Practicing more realistic portraits, this time with my OC, Aika Rowland, as the subject! This was a lot of fun to do, and I think I've finally found a style I'm 100% happy with! Whilst painting in a semi-realistic style, I feel I can make the characters look more individual.

Down The Rabbit-Hole

I decided to do a fan art of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, as I love the book so much. It's so eccentric and inspirational, especially in aspects of Lolita. Also, there's a song by Ali Project that I like, called "Megalopolis Alice", that reminds me of Wonderland so much.

The textures I used were: Cloudy-sky texture by cloaks and moon texture by Zephroth. Thank you for the textures!

Character (c) - Lewis Carroll