new artists, new doodles.

It's been a rough while.

Part of a challenge I've made up for myself. Explanation here.

My rendition of Lewis Carroll's Caterpillar (from Alice in Wonderland). For purposes I don't feel like explaining. 

Sketchdump! 

I've also recently fallen in love with the art of Daniela Uhlig and Alexander McQueen (because fashion can be art, you know). And darling moosekleenex of the deviantART community has recently sold me two very lovely prints, of which I will have pictures once they are both safely in my possession and framed. (I also own something from Twelfth!) 

StumbleUpon and it's "anatomy" label are my heroes at the moment. Some very fun things to play around with - if only school wasn't in the way!

Now excuse me, for I have to get up for work in about three hours. C: <3 

Enjoy some Beyonce.

i would really love if you pulled this thread,

I pretty much leave you with this sketch and a word of a project that I may or may not finish. (:

(The first doodle is a doodle I did on no sleep. It sucks, ktx.)

if there's anything,

So, I understand it seems like I died. I didn't, really.

Actually, tomorrow's my last official day of school. After that, it's three exams and I'm out for the summer, and as soon as Mr. Morrow cuts off the last note at the graduation ceremony, wherever I may be, I shall no longer be a freshman. And yet, I shan't be a sophomore either since you're not really one of those until school starts up in September, and so I'll enjoy the state of limbo and just call myself a high-school kid.

But if there's anything I've learned this year, I'll state it here and now while I'm still conscious and able to procrastinate on my art project.

1. Misjudging people is definitely something I learned I'm capable of. The biggest, most annoying jerk in orchestra has turned out to be a good friend of mine, and the kid who always skipped earth science is actually one of the funniest people I've met this year. I guess I need to bring myself back down to human level.
2. Honors is a weird thing. I appreciate the opportunity, but my motivation levels are so low that doing my homework becomes more of a chore than usual, and my grades end up slipping because of that.
3. Orchestra is probably one of the only reasons I stay at my school any more.
4. German class is a joke.
5. It's good to know how to keep something to yourself, be it your own secret or someone else's. Likewise, it's good to keep certain opinions to yourself, and sometimes it's just nice to shut up and bear something.
6. I find it helpful to not bear a grudge against teachers for the way they do things, but instead take my education into my own hands and attempt to keep up.
7. I'm gonna miss Newman's class.
8. Things take time. Feeling uncomfortable is a commonality, especially in a classroom. Don't be afraid to make new friends.
9. Swearing is useless.
10. Jealousy is useless.
11. People are useless.
12. Art is a way to sustain the soul, and therefore is the reason I must keep my hands in tip-top shape.
13. Don't spread yourself out too thin.
14. There is no such thing as 'dorky' or 'cool'. There is only right and wrong. You wanna join some kids for a game of D&D? Cancel plans to study? Cancel studying for plans? As long as everything balances out, you're fine.
15. Be nice to everyone. Grudges are irrelevant, people change.
16. Stop not waiting 'till college. Enjoy high school while you can.
17. Don't bother calling yourself fat or ugly. You don't like something about yourself? Change it.
18. Yes. You do have the power. And it is your choice.
19. Mind your own business.
20. Dr. Seuss is always right. "Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."

So, to conclude Leyla's top 20 things she learned freshman year, I'd like to just thank everybody for being patient. I know I'm not perfect, and I can be annoying and weird and lazy, but I clearly have some friends sticking around.

Thank you.

See you all after my summer hibernation!

there's an angel by your hospital bed,

desperate to hear his name on your breath;
as he looks down you're not making a sound.
open your eyes, look at me!
i'll bring to you whatever you need,
and i'll tell you i'm sorry
that i can't take this pain away from you,
and i'd put it on my own body if i knew how to!
can't you see?

Oh dear sweet goodness gracious. Have I really not updated since October 27th? Daymn! I'm starting to feel kinda like Jordyn, who never updates even though she's so damn good. Har har. Shameless thrashing of a friend.

Not much has really happened in recent times. I'm rather accustomed to being in high school now, and I've made lots of new friends that, otherwise, I'd never have made before. A few of them are siblings of people in my grade who I think need to be taught a lesson on how to not fail at life, ASAP, which feels kinda strange to be frank.

I've spent the last few days kinda sick. Wednesday (at 4:47AM and 11:35AM respectively) I found myself throwing up, and I've been eating minimal amounts of food ever since. I also went to a music department holiday party that same day (around 7PM) and completely shot my legs dancing. :'D

And now there's like, two feet of snow outside (and we're expecting another foot tomorrow) because of a snowstorm, as a result of which I had a snow day yesterday! Yay! Now my skin's just really dry. xO

(Dad's blasting Armenian music next door, and it's weird upbeatness is contrasting my superchill Copeland. I might go punch something. Too bad I can only turn it up so high before I get screamed at.)




These would happen to be the WIPs of something I've been working on on and off (simply because I realized too late how off the anatomy of it all is). It's a doodle of Haseo from .hack//GU, and instead of doing some cheery-ass sunny field, I went for the SUPERCOOL night field with the weird f-- FUCKDAMN DAD TURN YOUR MUSIC DOWN I NEVER BLAST MINE.

I can't wait until I move out. (:

ANYWAYS.
There's a muchmuch cooler one of him and Atoli in the works, and a cutie fanart of Haseo&Endrance for Sarah Phee because I promised her some. XD It's wrapped up with her other gift, so I can't really show you my b&w scan.

I'm just working on the fanart and a few christmas pictures, otherwise... that'll be all!

Really anticlimatic, isn't it?

i'm gonna put my hand in front of your head.

I'm in such a good mood, but I'm so tired. D: My day literally went like so:

~8-2:30 - School
~3 - Bus to Sarah's house.
4:30 - Freshman football game
6:30 - Choir
7:20ish with impeccable timing - Khaled Hosseini at UB
10 - HOME. D:
So, who the hell is Hosseini? He is the world-renowned author of The Kite Runner as well as One Thousand Splendid Suns, and we got to see him (forfree!) at the local university. He was so phenomenal, it's scary, but that's for later. You see, we get mandatory school credit for doing out-of-school things and doing writeups on them, but since I didn't have my sheet, I took notes!


Three and a half pages worth, thankyou. Complete with worthless doodles! Now I just gotta get my sheet, and I'm kinda inspired to write about some of the things he said. My shorthand's the worst, I know. :'D


Right, don't ask me what this is. I was bored in Earth Science and felt like adding detail, kayh? So I drew some random girlpersonthing and added beads wherever I could. :'D


This is a kind of thing that's been stuck in my head for ages. I always draw Ria as a passive looking character, but I kinda wanna draw her with her weapon(s) out. So this is just something I was playing with in English (inwhichIhaveatesttomorrowee!), annddd... yeah. >>



And this is Nye. Because... I don't really have accurate references for his dapper self, and he's terrible to describe. Pretty boy, right? 8D

&i know it seems like we're never coming back.

I've been in an incredibly sketchy mood as of late, so a blog entry seems... incredibly fitting. Before, I start though, I'd like to touch on three things that have bothered me MAJORLY as of late, and all of which are things my friends have said to me. The first, I remember distinctly, began with a conversation between my friend and I during art class. I was done with whatever project we were doing at the time, and I decided that, hey, maybe I should doodle for a little while, since nothing extra was assigned.

Can I just clear up, for those who think my art is just really bad realism, that I'm NOT AIMING FOR REALISM K? It's fun to have exaggerated features and limbs.

So anyways, my friend says to me, "Why do you draw those anime people? I hate them." Or something.

As much as I love said friend, and I'm not mentioning any names by any means, I got a little offended. One, not only did several people comment that my art has strayed far from anime and into a more cartoony semi-realism, but you don't just say something like that to someone. I'm like, afraid to draw around that person now in fear of making them say something else like that. Same person and I were having a discussion about our school art program and, since I might wanna have a double major in Literature and Art and a minor in Music, I said that I might have to transfer school simply because the school one of my friends goes to has a better program. And my friend says, "You'd want to transfer schools JUST for the art program?"

Well.
Yes. Since that's what I want to attempt to incorporate into the rest of my natural life. Yes.

The third thing was actually something from this morning and from a different friend, and all she asked was, "Do you ever draw real people?"
My question is, "Am I obligated to?"

I'm not sure if anyone else is bothered by stuff like that, but seriously, man. I doodle because I like to doodle, and I'm (usually) proud of my finished stuff. I really do not understand why in hell people who don't even want to do anything with art later on in their lives feel like it's necessary to criticize little things like that. And yes, I have drawn real people before, and it's hard, and I'm still working on it.

Fuck damn.

Hem.

WIP Halloween picture. Some witchy thing sitting on the edge of some cauldron, it's prolly gonna end up looking like crap anyways so I'm not even gonna talk about it.
After listening to the Decemberists (Mariner's Revenge Song), I felt like sketching something folky, and was in the mood to put Ria in different situations just because I wanted to. After much repetition, I came out with this piece of crap.Finished digital cover of my sketchbook, should do it in colored pencils on the real thing. Her claves are too long, thighs are too short, I see it, I know.

Now I'm in a crappy mood.

well, hello, hello.

Well, as you can see above, I had a little bit of fun with my digicam. I mean, come on. And I figured out some cool exposure settings on Photoshop. : > I'm kinda happy I got to play this weekend a little more than usual. Anyways!

Since I finished my sketchbook, I figure it's time to go back and figure out what I didn't upload. This is a sketch of Aline that I'm not sure I uploaded, but I think it captures her attire and general expression and stuff pretty well. She's... carefree, to say the least. What a goofer. I can't wait to play her.

And here is something I've been talking about doing for... kind of a while. Getting down into the nitty-gritty of Ria's design is something I kinda gotta do if I wanna start doing her justice in my sketches, youknow?

Anyways.
Everyone needs to wish a WELCOME BACK to Wolfie, who had left us due to unprecedented reasons and stuffs for a very long time, and I'm sure we ALL MISSED HER. D<>

Too sleepy to write much more, but gotta finish my homework.

&all you ever wanted, was someone to tuly look up to you.

... and six feet under water, I do.

I'm not gonna lie, guys. I'm in such a slump right now, it's crazy. I'm tired, I have no time to do anything any more, I'm almost always falling asleep in random places, and I have work up the hiznay to get done & handed in on time so my teachers don't bust caps in my ass.

There really is a bit more than this, but my brain is registering 10:14PM as late, therefore I must go to bed before my body implodes on itself. Here, have a Ziegte!Ria!Mermaid and be happy with it. 'Causeuh, I don't have anything better to offer. There's like, 10 pages of pose practice, a bunch of Ria faces and some Rosie concepts, but nothing thrilling and OMGAMAZING to post up on here. Maybe when I get my school art projects done...

Ha, wait, those are lame too. A newsprint collage of a contour line drawing of my face and a still-life that I'm not looking towards whatsoever because my art teacher thinks she's all that and can't actually teach worth a damn half the time, because she's too concerned on keeping the four obnoxious girls in my class on track and makes us do three sketches for one project against our will.

Is it that hard to let us get away with just drawing a fucking sunflower in a barrell and a rose in a wicker vase?

Go listen to some Anberlin or Hush Sound and appease me.
Birthday countdown starts next week.

the hush sound is phenomenal, end of story.

MAJOR EDIT AT THE BOTTOM!

I was too tired to blog about this last night, but now I'm awake and listening to some new music I acquired. From what band, you ask?
I'm getting there.

So, last night I had the pleasure of taking (read: forcefully dragging) Josh to a Hush Sound concert with opening bands that I've heard of before, but never really took the time to listen to. Here are the links to their pages because, quite frankly, they were all rather good in my eyes (and ears).

The Morning Light
The Steel Train
The Cab
The Hush Sound

In order of how they played, to my memory.

Anyways.
It was a small gig at a skate park during the Hush Sound's "Dance Across The Country" tour in a kinda crappy part of my small, generally safe city. Getting in was a little nerve-wrecking for me, because I can't get adjusted to crowds after being practically isolated for two months of my life, and because I had ordered my ticket and needed to show them my ID to get it (I selected the "Will Call" thing on tickets.com, so I had to pick mine up at the venue), and Josh needed to buy his at the door. Still, we got in (and not without a few kind of embarrassing moments along the way). The first thing I did was buy a Hush Sound tour tee, which fits really loosely, is of good quality, and looking awesome. :3 Tenacious D's 'Tribute'. I swear, I was like one of the maybe five or ten people in the audience who knew what the hell he was doing and singing along to the parts I knew. Alex came on stage and started talking about how they called Ian "Goldfish" because he couldn't keep his attention on one thing at a time, ever, but after they do that song he's focused for like, the entire day. :'D It was too bad Shauna wasn't there, since she wanted to see them live.

The Hush Sound came on next. Dear sweet Jesus. I somehow progressed to the front row about three inches for the MASSIVE SPEAKER TOWER OF BASS DOOM during the whole show, and oh my god. They were phenomenal, coming out with Intro and going STRAIGHT into another song ("Not Your Concern," I think). They were so amazing it almost made me cry, and I sang along to almost every song (I think the girl next to me -heard- me even though I couldn't hear -myself-, and got slightly annoyed. Sorry random girl!) and and oh god. Their last song was something where people from all the bands came out and helped them out on, with Ian on the harmonica and they even did a rap bit in there with one of the drummers. And then the audience demanded an encore after they left the stage, sooo...
The Hush Sound returned and performed Honey for us! :'D Brilliant.

Since it was a super small venue, the people were all kinda chill and I got to meet a bunch of the performers (read: High-fived them for a "beast performance" and said hi and stuff).

Harrison and Bobby from The Morning Light.
Alex from The Cab.
Greta from The Hush Sound.

(I think meeting Greta was the most awkward out of all of them, since I had to wait for her to finish talking to a few more people before talking to me, and I was overwhelmed and my throat was dry so I sounded like an idiot. She did say I had a pretty name, though! xDD)

So, all in all, I'm phenomenally satisfied with the whole thing, and it was -so -worth the 18$ I paid for the tickets, taxes, processing fees and all. <3

I FOUND SOME VIDEOS~

Ian covering Tenacious D's Tribute
The Hush Sound believes in Barrack Obama. :'D
Alex doing Vegas Skies with Rattlesnake on stage.
Alex and Ian doing some acoustic stuff.
The Hush Sound - We Intertwined
The Hush Sound - Molasses

equipment situation update.

So, we all know that I'm a little flawed in the equipment department at the moment.

Last night I called my mom up to tell her that I'm in a rut because a) I screwed up on installing our new Canon SD790 on my computer and b) If I were to sell my scanner on eBay, it'd be worth less that 10$. (That's how ancient my scanner is.)

Anyways.
I had told her about getting a tablet before (I've always been a bit scared of doing so because the Wacoms I want are so -damn- expensive), but I've never actually like, asked for one. Yesterday I got pestered about it, explained the concept to my dad, and pulled the page up for him for a Wacom Inutos3 8x6, costing a handy 329$. Ouch, right?

So Dad pulled me over today and told me to (put one of our bills in the mail box, but that's besides the point). He said that since I take art pretty seriously and I'm so interested in learning it, he'd love to buy me a Wacom, just not right at this moment. I'm supposed to be getting some absurd amount of school clothes for this year, and Field Hockey equipment, and then my actual school supplies (which are weighed down by my TI-83 graphing calculator, weighing in at some absurd 100$).

Quite basically, this is -lame-. I hate spending tons of money on school, and we have a trip coming up this year, oi. ._. I so wanna go, but I'm not sure if I can pay for it by fundraising alone (job time, ahoy!).

Dad and I agreed that he'd probably get me the Wacom as a Christmas present. I kinda feel bad, since this year I've been leeching -tons- of money from my parents. I appreciate it tons, too. ._.;; I feel so baaad.

ANYWAYS.
Basically, any art from me is gonna be in few and far-between sketch dumps because I don't have the equipment to do stuff. My available outlets are the new Canon (via Dad's computer, again), Tori's scanner (which is noisy and slow and does crappy scanning and takes a lot of effort to use, so I'd rather not bother her about that), Sarah's scanner (also noisy and we have to be very careful when scanning stuff, so I might pass stuff along to her for transfer), or Sarah's tablet (which I don't wanna ask her to use too often, because I've only been to her house once before).

I'll probably have a few things around Sunday, since I'm going to Sarah's house and from there we'll be going to the Hush Sound show (maybe with Shauna).
Alalala.
That would be it. ;D

animation project?

You heard me.

So, a while ago Jordyn and I were discussing animating Vlad (more accurate reference on the left) singing Jordan Knight's Give It To You (I think that's the most hyperlinking I've ever put in a single sentence), and I told her that I actually have all the necessary equipment to make an animation of my own. Which, I do. My trusty LightTracer II and I are the perfect simple animation team!

Now, Jordyn's promised to animate Vlad for me (I'll have to find some denying song to do Ria with xD), but since I have lots of time and no imaging software, I deceided on trying something short. Back when I was a wee little toddlekin, I watched a special about one of my favorite cartoons, and they said that in traditional animation, it takes 24 drawings per second to make the thing flow right. Jordyn and I did some calculations, and to animate something like Nara (which is about five minutes long), about seven thousand sketches are involved. A feature length Disney movie, say about two hours long? Something around 170,000 individual pictures.

No way am I doing something like that on my own, kay? ;D

So instead, I planned out a little 50-55 sketch animation of how regular peppy-o Ria goes into full-on Ziegte mode. It'd be a decently large file animated by hand, edited in Adobe Photoshop 7.0 and animated in Adobe ImageReady. A lengthy project, but if I do a little at a time, I ought to get it done.

(If I ever felt up to it, I'd complete it. But I'm estimating it'd be... 35-40 seconds long, meaning like 840-960 sketches.)

Yes, it'd be tons easier in Flash 'cause every line's a vector.
Yes, I'm set on doing it traditionally.
(It's just more dramatic the way I have it planned.)

INOTHERNEWS~
I'm gonna try to use our old Kodak cam to take pictures of my drawings and upload 'em that way. :3 I wonder if it'll work ~

Oh.
And as for background music, I'm thinking of composing my own. xD

Edit:
A quick, mouse-drawn plan of what this thing is gonna look like. Don't click if you don't want spoilers (if you can count this as spoiling anything...). I'm in the middle of doing the math to figure out just how much I'm gonna need. (I'm calculating over 100 drawings because of the short sequences at the beginning and at the end). Split into two parts 'cause Blogger hates big files. xD

Edit II:

So, I did the math, and came up with the scary-as-all-hell number of 734-753 frames. There's a cheap trick I can use to eliminate about 336 of them, so I think I'll do that instead and end up with 398-417 frames. It's prolly even less than that, now that I think about it. Mid to upper 300s, definitely.
It's gonna take a while, but I'm looking forward to it. : D

coloring practice!

It seems I'm beginning to ditch my German titles. ; ; Poop.

ANYWAYS.
I got bored and decided to color something. xDIt's obviously a scan of the Chapter 39 manga cover for Ouran Host Club, so I don't really own the image. xDD I just got bored and decided to practice a little bit, because the intricate hair just called to me. o_o
Happy 35th post!
I might actually have some arts on the 24th. xDD
(And pictures. Ohgod you won't ever stop seeing pictures, since I'll have gone to the Hush Sound concert with Sarahphay.) There's also this lovely lineart I found on deviantART.
I just had to color it. :'D Credit to PrincessElemmiriel for the lines, and I did the colors for practice. xD
Leave feedback if you're up to it. I'm off to bed. ; ; Annie's moving tomorrow.

tessa's art exchange!

So, I inconveniently signed up for Tessa's Art Exchange when my scanner decided to inconveniently DIE. So, basically, I had to do the exchange piece in Photoshop entirely, by mouse. =3= Here are some progress shots fo you!


So then, I fiddled with a background color and some [lame] gradient effects to get...
I really need to do more decent drawings for people. ; ;

that's it. i'm getting a tablet.

So, as I said I would be, I am currently at Sarahphee's house. I tried on her awesomekickass 8x6 wacom, and I NEVER WANT TO GO BACK TO MOUSE DRAWING AGAIN. D:

Look how preeetttyyy. &&This is also a PS7 demo for Sarah because she only uses OpenCanvas. :'D <3>

Ahem.

Sketchflood to come. >3

referential recordings - neu!

Hi guys!
I'm not really posting art, that'll be around Monday afternoon (Sarahphee is letting me use her scanner on Sunday, which means I won't be here all day. It's Gaia&&YouTube all Sunday with mah dork!twin.) I'm actually just here to inform you that I have made a second blog for the purpose of keeping my character profiles intact! The new one, referential recordings, is located at http://leyleykeepsherprofileshere.blogspot.com/ and will be kicked off as soon as I stop being lazy and start filling in skeletons.

Why am I even posting this?
To remind myself to stop being lazy and start filling in skeletons. :3 <3
And, if you'd like to know a bit more about the crazies I draw, click it. I don't promise much. :'D

[/shot for being crappy at writing and character development]