I can't leave to enjoy a few days vacation without the world falling apart?
Hybe vs. Min HeeJin. Not on anyone's bingo card this year. I have not caught up on everything but who tipped off Hybe about her dastardly plans? The timing of it all... and her little extemporaneous skit she did for a press conference was perhaps part of her plan to turn public opinion in her favor? She claims to have invented kpop or at least made it what it is today but out the other side of her mouth says she hates idol culture?
Hybe's not here to play, they will not be nice. I see no benefit to her for showing us the not so pretty side of the idol industry. Maybe that's her problem, she can't see what she's doing because she's too far into it. Thirty years in the business will make you lose your objectivity. She has no idea she is coming across as a greedy, spoiled, entitled, manipulative, narcissistic, emotional female in a male dominated industry. Basically a nut case.
The lady had a tremendous opportunity to perhaps take ownership of her company in due time, become a great example for female leadership in a country where corporate culture is steeped in chaebolism. Instead she squandered that and thinks she will come out on top. Did she miss the Hybe vs. SM Entertainment episode from last year?
Anyway.
RM's new album! RPWP!
The Monochrome pop up store is doing well!
Jin will be back after 6 Fridays!
In other news. I went to Las Vegas. This is what I saw:
The Bellagio Fountains. They're huge. The Bellagio is SWANK. I looked for Jimin in Dior and Tiffany, Hobi in the Louis Vuitton store, Namjoon in the Bottega Veneta store, but none of them were in there. There was no Calvin Klein store.
When Hobi, JK and Tae were there watching the fountains dance to Dynamite, they were standing here:
Passed by Allegiant Stadium a few times. It's huge.
Drove out to Seven Magic Mountains. I am happy to report the lowest boulders had no writing or graffiti. They were amazingly huge as you can see.
Joon's pic of the above rocks:
Went to AREA 15 and it was HUGE and amazing! It's impossible to show everything that its about, there are multiple buildings and installations and activities, gift shops, bars, etc. We went into the Omega Mart (mega art) experience which led to a maze of fantastically created chambers, each different from the last one, all pulsing with animated lights, texture walls, ceilings and floors.
And ate at Hobak Korean BBQ. We couldn't find out which tables the members of BTS sat at but I got a pic of the Butter album they all signed. There were other autographs from other famous Korean celebs but the BTS signatures were displayed in a more prominent place on the wall.
We also scoped out The Sphere. Also HUGE. The concert space is arena sized. I don't know who was playing there that night but the parking lot was filling up.
We also walked the Strip.
The Fremont Street Experience. That's an animated video screen overhead with ziplines running through the length of it. It's two blocks of casinos, restaurants and gift shops. People are also doing busking and shows at street level.
Hoover Dam, view of the dam from the highway bridge and view of the highway bridge from the dam. Spent a few minutes on the Arizona side.
Hiked in the desert. Saw cactus and wildlife. Drank a lot of water.
Drove to the Mojave Desert Preserve in California just to say we did.
We hated leaving. It was a fun trip. But damn, I have so much stuff to catch up on now. Hiatus my ass.
If Vegas is on the BTS comeback tour I promise I will be there this time.
We gambled at the airport on our way out. The slot machines were next to our gate. And in the baggage claim area. But as you can see, its not just about gambling there.
In case you didn't get it, everything in Vegas is HUUUGGE and FARRRR. Walk a lot, spend a lot of money.
Overall, Las Vegas was clean, the people were extremely friendly and welcoming of course, they might be teaching hospitality as a school subject there, I don't know.
I just realized I never posted photos of this really pretty harvestman i came across a while back. Note the green pedipalps and the dark and light spots on its back.
I'm not gonna screenshot it bc 1/it really doesn't matter that much and 2/the person who made the comment is a kid but: a while ago I made a comic that's supposed to be a genuine study and reinterpretation of someone else's sprite comic (made in the spirit of authenticity too - to recreate the vibes of the sprite comics from that era, iirc very specifically because it's funny) and I got a comment on that comic's post that's like "glow up"
which is a compliment obvs. and the commenter probably didn't mean anything by it, it's a common expression. but I've been trying to find a way to gracefully put that comment away ever since it appeared lol
I just very much don't want my art to be taken as trying to one-up someone else's art when that's not the piece's intention. especially when the piece that inspired my art is perceived as "low effort" or "shitpost" or stuff like that. I did mention in the tags of that post that my considering it a study is entirely genuine, and I can legitimately write pages about the cool stuff I find in it other than and inherent in the haha funneys, but that's not for you guys that's for me. I just think that approaching art competition-first like that is a miserable way to do it, and (tipping into overthinking here if the whole tiny-comment-got-stuck-in-my-brain-for-almost-a-month part hasn't given that away yet lol) I really don't want that to be the takeaway from my own art. at least generally. if I actually think the source material is trash and what I'm doing is genuinely categorically better I'd just come out and say it lmao
It's way past my bedtime ans my cat is sleeping-purring next to me but I thought I'd post the process of the @ailani-reillata Ailaniversary art I made today just to talk a bit more about it
Disclaimer: doing traditional art is cool until you need to scan it or post a picture of it 😂 also kinda long post below so ofc no obligation at all to read it!
Phase one: Sketching the Idea
My inspiration for the posture was a Yara Flor comic strip I found on Pinterest. Yara looks over her shoulder and her hair falls on the side of her face, and I loved the way it framed her face and thought it would look great with Ailani's hair.
I drew a little doodle on the page to help me visualize how the hair would be divided, and focused on 3 main parts (the lines, the bubbles, the empty space) which would - supposedly- help me during the lineart stage. Below are images of the final sketch.
I was hesitant on adding details to her arms, such as the folds of a dress, but I was so anxious about ruining the drawing I abandonzd that idea. I was considering adding her tattoos and was still not decided at this stage of the drawing.
Phase 2: Line-ing the Art
Is that even a real word? Idk, I'm too tired to English properly so we will say it is. Following the sketching phase was naturalle the lineart phase, which is one of my favorite stage when drawing. I bought new inking pens too so I was able to test them out, and it went quite well!
As you can see, the ribbons, outline of the skin and facial features have been done with my new pens, and i was quite happy with the result! It gives a more natural look to the whole drawing in my opinion.
At this stage I decided not to add her arm tattoos and consider this version of Ailani as the one you would find in the early chapters of Begged and Borrowed Time, so before she would get her tattoos.
Phase 2.5: Line-ing the Hair
This stage has it's own part because it was really fun to do! The inspiration for the way I draw hair comes from @/ssavaart (aka Scott Christian Sava on Youtube). I've been following him for a while now and I'm trying to push my art beyond my comfort zone and try new stuff thanks to him, and having fun with drawing hair is one of these things!
Look how beautiful these curls are. I'm not trying to toot my own horn or anything, but I'm really proud of the drawing at this stage 😂 it's the perfect moment where the inking went well and I have not yet ridked myself with the watercolours - so I always take a long sight (and tons of pictures) to celebrate reaching this stage without incidents.
Phase 3: Watercolours
Here comes the difficult part. It always makes me nervous because I always fear ruining my drawing and all the efforts I put into it by doing the watercolours. But I love the medium too much and if I want to get better I need to practice. So, testing the waters, I finally dive head first into this crucial stage.
The watercolouring goes well, I'm overall satisfied enough to take some pictures and even try to scan it, with the hope that the scanned rendering will be better than the usual "photographing and editing" I do with my phone.
Spoiler alert: the scan was NOT better than the pictures, and no amount of editing could change that. (Or maybe I am just very bad at editing.) So, back to my "photographing and editing" habits, I somehow managed to get a good enough result:
I still feel unsatisfied as I find these digital versions do not properly render the visuals I have on paper, IRL. With the digital versionsw the hair is either so dark we don't see the details, or too bright, the colours are too warm and light... And while Ailani looks light-skinned, the paper version has these visible brown tones that I struggled to find on the digital version, even when editing the pictures. The closest I got is the tone you see on the first picture, but the image is not lighted enough so the overall quality of the picture is a bit lessened by that.
Still, I won't complain too much, because overall it was a very fun drawing to do, I enjoyed every stage of it and I would love to do another piece like this! But for now I will go to sleep because it is Way Past My Bedtime 😂
If you've made it this far, thank you for your attention, feel free to let me know which stage is your favorite and what you liked most (or disliked most) about this drawing!
I for one really had fun doing Ailani's lips, as well as filling her hair, and colouring her eyes! 😊
Thinking about how the lovely person on deviantart who emailed me a copy of Undertale in exchange for a sketch of their oc when I was 15 will never know about the profound effect they had on my life..
I picked up this Dollzone Mo for pretty cheap because he was VERY old and yellowed (made in 2010 so he's very old!!) And the more that i thought about the direction I wanted to go with him, the more I realized I really wanted to reshell (basically same oc but in a different doll sculpt) one of my old dolls that i got rid of years ago. I had sent the original doll off to get his faceup done by a friend but had unfortunately deleted all the pics of this doll so all I had to go off was memory and not a muscle memory of doing the faceups years ago or pictures. He's not the same sculpt but he has a lot of the same features, ie the pouty lips, nose, and eye shape so I was pretty happy that when I got him yesterday, I could FEEL that it was gonna be the right doll to reshell Theo (old dolls name) into. The faceup was definitely a more complicated matter as Theo had a very natural looking faceup which um. Not my strong suit, I love doing big dramatic makeup but I was trying to recapture the same vibes i had from my old doll. With how yellowed he was, I also had to work with that when I was blushing as to not make the head TOO yellow or red. Thankfully I work on yellowed resin a lot so I was moderately confident that I'd be ok.
^ blank sculpt (isn't he so cute 🥺) and the first coat of pastels (hard to see there but they are there promise)
I did something a TINY bit different than my normal order of how I do a faceup and moved right onto acrylics. He has freckles all over his face so I figured doing them very early on would make it look the most natural under any other makeup I was doing. I used a toothbrush, dipped it in a warm brown-orange paint, and flicked it all over the face, cleaning up with a wet and dry q tip, purposefully leaving behind spots of pigmentation on the skin as it's something that I have under my freckles so I wanted to give Theo that too. While I was at it, I used a cool toned brown pretty close to the skin tone to add a bit of an eyeliner (in the way that it'll actually pop a bit with the eyes in place versus looking unfinished) and a waterline using a peachy pink color.
The freckles do NOT photograph super well but they look really good so I'm happy with how they turned out! I then return to the pastels to add more face shading and start on his eyebrows
The eyebrows were VERY hard to do and very scary. 1. I'm VERY bad at eyebrow symmetry. 2. The pastels weren't working so i had to only use a pencil (which I've done w a few faceups now but it was very scary). It was overall very frightening but I think I'm definitely getting a bit better at eyebrows in general :) lip blushing was started which I'll probably do a few more coats of pastel on them and then draw the lines on and be done. Really outside of that I'm nearly done :) natural faceups are a bit easier but they just are NOT what I'm used to so it's a bit of a learning curve to get it looking like a human face instead of whatever silly vibes I'm going for if I'm doing a more dramatic look
The sealant is wet here (forgot to take a pic before i sealed lol) but i just did small little darkening in some areas, I think my next coat will be adding some more shadows to the eyes and lips then I'll be done 👍)
I added some lashes as well as darkening the eyeliner and adding lip lines (hard to see in the pic but they're there 👍) and added some shadows but I finished minus the gloss! For how small he is and how I haven't done a natural faceup in 2 years, I'm pretty happy with it!
And one rq pic of him with an eye in :) I'm really happy with it and I'll have to make him a wig soonish but I'm really glad to have done my own faceup for this doll 👍
guysguysguys we went shopping today and picked up some cat stuff for the girls and for when Scooter arrives 👁👁
im so excited so i wanted to share arkarkark
we got such a pretty collar and nametag for him and a new feather toy, we also picked up a tunnel and Kitty has claimed it as her new nap spot LMAO
Maggie's favourite toys are the ones that are like sticks w a string and objects attached (i just call em feather toys) and we didnt realize until they both put their noses right into the toy and went crazy that it was a catnip one ahdgdjjdbd
We also nabbed a lil beetle plush toy a while back that ive been keeping for Scooter until he gets here! I don't want the other cats scent on it so he can have a toy of his own to start with :>
He's supposed to get here on the 14th at the earliest!!! I seriously cant wait, i just want to hibernate until he gets here aysgdjdjhd