Year: 2010

Mouse’s Marriage (ネズミの嫁入り) and my New Year’s resolution

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Click for larger version (PNG):page 1, page 2; click for PDF version: page 1, page 2. Click here for the list of dolls.

I drew this for my mom for Christmas, and she gave me permission to post it. I hope you all like it as much as she did! I’m still learning the ins and outs of kimono drawing, so please forgive any inaccuracies. The original Japanese story can be read here: ネズミの嫁入り (Mouse’s Marriage). I’ve been in contact with the maintainer of that site, actually, and she’s given me permission to translate the other stories there, so I plan to do a lot of those in 2011.

Speaking of 2011… Sometimes, people will e-mail me and ask how to draw dolls, and the advice I give is essentially just to keep practicing, using resources like SenshiStock and library books on figure drawing. That makes me feel like a fraud, because I myself am lousy at drawing humans, and it really shows in my dolls. (I’m happy with Ivy for now, but drawing her took days.) I look at the work of some of my internet buddies like Lys, who does this great daily fashion journal and Boots, who draws dolls in really natural, comfortable poses, and I think, wow, if I could draw dynamic poses like that, or if I could draw great faces like that, or if my hands had that much expression… But then, to borrow a phrase from Jane Austen, I have always supposed it to be my own fault—because I will not take the trouble of practicing.

I don’t have a great track record with New Year’s resolutions, and I believe last year I had none at all (which, really, I rather enjoyed). But I’m going to try one this year. I resolve to spend 20 minutes each day – or, perhaps, each day I can, let us not raise the bar too high now – sketching people. I know this is one I can do, because actually I have already been doing it off and on for a few weeks now.

Two questions for you all. First, would you like me to post the results of my progress? It might help keep me on the straight and narrow to just scan my sketches and link to them at the end of posts, but I can’t imagine it would be very interesting. (Plus, the idea is slightly frightening – I do these sketches of hands that look more like dead sea anemones, and my pride tells me “better hide those, Liana.”) Second, since I’ll just be using freely available reference and stock images and possibly a book or two from the library, would anyone like to adopt my resolution and join me? I was thinking, if there’s interest from a couple other people, we might set up some sort of blog or forum, pick out the day’s pose, share our sketches and keep each other motivated. It’s just a thought, but if you’re interested, whatever your skill level is, e-mail me or post a comment.

poll by twiigs.com

My next post will be on the 4th. Happy New Year!

1843 Christmas Evening Gown in White and Gold with Snowflake Pattern

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Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

I’m listening to the Librivox version of A Christmas Carol (specifically this version, which is wonderful). Since it was published in 1843, I thought I would do an 1843 style gown. Besides that, though, I let it go too late and I don’t have much else to write tonight!

White Christmas Dress with Red or Blue Candy Cane Striped Sleeves and Santa Hat

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Click for larger version (PNG):red stripes, blue stripes; click for PDF version: red stripes, blue stripes. Click here for the list of dolls.

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it! To those of you who don’t, I hope you can bear with three days of Christmas-themed stuff. If the candy cane stripes are just too much to bear, I think this wintery blue version is rather sweet, too.

Actually, this dress started life as a princess gown that had three layers right down to the floor, but the first two were too long compared to the third, and the proportions bothered me; then, I thought that the candy-cane striped sleeves looked kind of cartoony for a formal ballgown, but just perfect with a sassy above-the-knee circle skirt and a Santa hat! When I was sketching this gown out, I was thinking of the collectible holiday Barbie dolls of my youth: I don’t believe I ever had any, but I appreciated them. (That would explain the extra-puffed sleeves: I was a kid of the ’80s.)

Because of the placement of the skirt and sleeves, if you were to cut this out, you’d have to cut a space for the hand inside the skirt, just under the sleeves. If anyone attempts it, please let me know how it goes.

Whenever I put up two colors of something, I always have to ask…

poll by twiigs.com

Fallout Retro Blue and Yellow Vault Dweller Jumpsuit

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Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Brian and I got ourselves a PS3 for Christmas – a little early – and so this Saturday has been devoted to gaming, specifically marathon sessions of Fallout 3. We both loved the first Fallout (and I think he liked Fallout 2, though I never played it), so it was an obvious choice for our first PS3 game.

I took a stab at playing it this morning, but I’m not all that good at any game I deem “twitchy,” which means anything that requires more coordination than taking out your average Dragon Warrior slime, because, although it’s not apparent from this blog – at least, I do hope it’s not apparent – I’ve got some mild coordination issues. Thanks to rather a lot of physical therapy when I was very young, it only really plagues me when I’m trying to remember which button changes the perspective, and the camera is pointed somewhere at my feet, I may have accidentally given my pistol to a dead ant, and oh, by the way, there’s a pair of rabid molerats trying to eat me and I just simply can’t deal. On the upside, that doesn’t happen to me very often, because I play the kind of games where everyone takes turns beating on each other like civilized folk. I can handle a very small amount of twitch in my games – I did play through the first Fallout, once as a pacifist – but past a certain point, I’m pretty hopeless.

Also, I’m pathetically easy to creep out – something about horrifying post-nuclear wastelands just tends to make me antsy, you know? When I played the first Fallout, I nearly held my breath the whole time I was in the Glow. Still, I notice that Brian is just now, after playing all day, wandering around the area I got myself repeatedly killed in earlier, so I wonder if my problem is that I got in too over my head and didn’t realize it?

In any case, Fallout 3 features some nicely tailored, practical-looking Vault jumpsuits, but me, I’ve got a soft spot for the shiny retro ones. The Vault number is on the back, so you can choose for yourself which vaults Ivy and Grace hail from.