Day-to-Day: Back in my old bedroom

Missed last weekend's set of updates but I'll call that my after college break. I am back and here is my first little update...
It has been strange being back in WA. I keep thinking any moment I'll have to go back to Oregon for school any moment. Still I am back in my old bedroom which is odd since while I've been gone it has become Olivia's bedroom and now we're sharing it. She's in the process of moving out while I am moving in so there's boxes and piles of things all around. But I am enjoying being back home with the family while looking for a job.

Day-to-Day: Thank You Self Portrait

For my illustration class we had to do a little thank you. I decided I wanted to finally draw myself in my glasses and with my now short haircut. I hadn't drawn more than a doodle of this new hair. It's not perfect but I do love it! By the way happy May Day! And thank you my readers for keeping up with my musings!

Day-to-Day: Hair length

Something I surprisingly didn't mention with the wig post is the fact that I had to get a haircut preemptively. While I was working on the wig I discovered that my hair was too thick and almost like wearing a third wig underneath my skullcap. Soo here it is my before and after hair drawn!

I will say that I was a little sad about having to cut it earlier than I wanted. I have been getting tons of compliments over the new cut. One thing that's odd is I forget all the time that I got my haircut because it's still in my face a lot of the time. Hehe.
One thing I do miss is hair swooshing is harder to do. What I mean by that is flipping my hair in the wind, it doesn't weigh as much so it is harder to do and also doesn't look as dramatic when done.
Oh well onwards and upwards to my thesis! One benefit of this hair is that it does look awesome after being under two wigs for hours.

Day-to-Day: Portrait: Myself

These are some last semester portraits I did of myself that I love quite a bit. They were both drawn looking at my reflection on the Mac desktop computers at the school when they're turned off. I love the reflection on the black background of the blank screen.


Obviously this last one was drawn during the time I was putting together my Keynote (for non Mac friends the apple version of Powerpoint) for my proposal of my thesis. Boy has time flown by!

My Art: Non Portrait of Nicole Cuvin

Two weeks ago in my Illustration class we got the in class assignment of doing a non portrait. That is doing a portrait of someone without drawing their face to show who they are. My good friend Nicole and I decided to do each other and here are the results!


For her I drew the interior of her car a Prius. One time I joked about all the water bottles she had in there so I drew a bunch inside. There is also a bottle of Sweet Leaf Lemonade that she gets a drink during break time. Of course her PNCA portfolio which thankfully with use of the car and having a studio she doesn't have to tote around anymore. There are parking stickers on the window and parking slips for the REI parking near the school on the dash. Her I assume favorite though for certain most used bag that is always full is in the passenger seat. In the side and rear view mirrors are cute little monsters reflecting the topic of her thesis about the monstrous perceptions we have of ourselves when looking in the mirror. And last my favorite touch is the gear shift that shifts into PANIC!


I absolutely loove the portrait she did of me! Having the Diet Coke as the centerpiece. I am hopelessly addicted and in love with my Diet Coke. Of course behind me are the Elmers Paintastic brush pens that I love to use! And to top it off my Lady Blush wig on top of the Diet Coke the symbol of my thesis! So simple and so perfect! I love Nicole's art! It is now my background on my computer!

Cosplay Cards: Zombie Bridesmaid 2010

This is the last of the Cosplay Cards until I decide to make more in the future. I dressed up as a zombie for a friends psychology report in his class. I decided to reuse my bridesmaid dress from Sueanna and Philip's wedding I was in last summer. It was very fun re-purposing this dress for a fun silly costume. I couldn't help but draw it twice!

Cosplay Cards: You're A Good Man Charlie Brown 2007

This one wasn't for a convention but for the play You're A Good Man Charlie Brown we did back in the Fall of 2007. It was so fun to do. My mom directed as we realized we had the entire cast of characters with our group...with the addition of one of Tucker's friends for Schroeder.

This was my dream role! I had wanted to play Lucy since my mom and dad were involved in the same play when I was a kid. I always looked up to Lucy as my kid role model. Hehe explains why I was such a pest of a big sis back then!



Tobi had a crush on Linus back when my parents were involved as the show as a kid. So of course she wanted to play one of the first characters she had a crush on!





Chase was perfect for Sally since she was the young kid in the cast of high school and college age cast! She did so wonderfully with her song and monologue and had the cute natural blonde hair for the part!




Of course Hannah was Charlie Brown...no surprise. When the reviewer came she told my mother during intermission that the program was wrong. Hannah was a girl name. Of course my mother informed her that it was right Charlie Brown was played by a girl and so was Linus. The reviewer didn't believe her til my mom told her Tobi was her daughter.

Of course Snoopy had to be done by my brother Tucker who was amazing in the role! All the energy he puts into Suppertime! My dad did the role when we were kids but personally I like how Tucker did Snoopy more! I realize I should have made Woodstock cards for Tucker and I since we both shared the role in Snoopy back when we were kids...well and Chase and Tobi were mini Woodstocks in the show too.

And of course as a final bonus for this post here is a picture of the cast! And yes there is no Schroeder card since I only made cards for those I gifted the cards to.


Check back tomorrow for the last cosplay card!

Day-to-Day: Snowy Ride

Last weekend spur of the moment I ended up going home for the weekend again. This was wonderfully helpful to my own thesis work to visit again but the reason for going was different initially.

We knew there was going to be snow last weekend and that my dad was going to Yakima in a one day haul to work on a job out there. Mom and I didn't want him going over the pass in that weather so we tried to get him to agree to come get me for the weekend rather than go to Yakima. In my dad's language this translated to getting me on the way back up from Yakima. It isn't really on the way since it's practically an equilateral triangle between all three places.

He showed up at my place with bloodshot eyes and had been driving with his left leg for the last bit of the way there because his right was so tired. Ironically my mom's and my attempt to keep him safe lead to the worst driving conditions he had ever been in taking the pass over to Portland. There were at least three cars flipped and jackknifed semis.

I had to drive his big truck for the last leg back up to Washington. That was agreed upon earlier. I am not use to driving the truck so we hit snow and traffic that had us at pretty much a dead stop for two hours. It was very draining but I was glad to get home for that weekend and glad about all I got done up there.

Cosplay Cards: Kumori Con 2010 Day 3

This last day of the con we all got our costumes working as one huge group! The moogles! With a crossover cosplay of Beast Boy from Teen Titans.

I looove this outfit! It's soo adorable! Sickeningly so! We destroyed a wedding dress we got at Value Village to make this. I had way too much fun skipping around in this all day long!





Chase is an aviator moogle of course missing an airplane to drive. I put together the items at Value Village that made a sweet outfit. That is what fun about moogles you find stuff you modify to create these costumes.





Shawna created this lovely outfit adding some lace that is hard to see to make it a sweet little outfit! We did discover this time that everyone's heads are very different so the standard way of putting on moogle balls didn't work with everyone.




I love this outfit! And yes I did the art we put on the hat. We joked that my cute moogle was the girlfriend of Hannah's wanksta moogle. It was also way harder to hunt down a white puffy jacket than you would think.





We could not get the moogle ball to fit and stay on Michaele. Soo we joked that either the wanksta moogle or the moogle hunter had chopped it off. But we did have fun poofing out his hair for this outfit.





Tobi did her female version of Beast Boy but decided to take it a step further. We have Beastie Babe as we started calling her transformed into a moogle so she blends in. Of course we eventually discover something is off about this moogle...





And finally another brilliant silly costume by Olivia of being the moogle hunter that is trying to get us. This lead to a lot of fun pictures.

Cosplay Cards: Kumori Con 2010 Day 2

This was our main day and we did Batman characters for half our group and characters from the Mario games for the other half.

I decided to wear the Toad costume this year. I oddly had two weird bruises on my side so Tobi painted a one up in brown to cover it! It looked great and added that final touch to my more girly Toad. Shawna was Toadette again so if you want to look at that card look at older posts. Chase did her take on Princess Peach which involved her hair soaked in lemon juice quite a bit. Oh and I painted her lovely jewelery with acrylic and a gloss coat. When I showed them to her she told me, "Wow! I...I forgot you were in art school!" She was complaining about not having the perfect jems before I showed her the finished ones hehe.

Tobi and Hannah have always loved Batman Forever and its campy goodness. This was our first catsuit created for Tobi's female Riddler.







As for Hannah she couldn't even drink water without funneling it with that half face on. But I do have to say I am proud of catching this toss the coin shot! She loved adding all the details to this piece and it turned out fantastic!



Michaele of course had fun making his Joker and had a great time teasing the host of the Slightly Anime Dating Game. He kept calling the host skirt man (all the SADG guys wear kilts) which made the audience crack up. One of the best moments was him responding to his tease, "Well I can't tease you too much. I've been chasing guys in tights for over sixty years..."

And this by my friends vote who I gave all the cards to voted this their favorite card! I have to say this is one of my favorites too! It all came about Olivia taking some of the accessories and showing what a Gotham Citizen is!






And as a bonus here is the Batman villains stealing a burrito cart!

Cosplay Cards: Kumori Con 2010 Day 1A: Blush Corp

Finally here on my blog are my Blush Corp characters that lead me to my thesis. Of course since Kumori Con there have been significant changes to who will be playing each of these characters during my actual thesis performance.

This is my character Lady Blush. She is the leader of the Blush Corp crew and is 200 years old. She is the Queen and Father archetypes. Of course the wig came from Lucrezia as a starting point.





Subtlety is Blush's heir her great-great-etc granddaughter. She wears bells on her ankles and still think she is subtle and stealthy. She is played by my sister Tobi and her archetypes are the Innocent Prince and the Magical Child.



Retna Burn (misspelled on purpose) is the scientist of the group despite being easily distracted. She is normally played by my friend Olivia but for my thesis because of job constraints will be played by my little sister Chase. Of course Olivia is still coaching Chase and workshopping the role with her. Her archetypes are the Wizard and the Dummbling.


Corporal Conundrum was originally played by Michaele. This character has changed the most. His archetypes were the Avenger and the Orphan Child. Now my friend Hannah will play him still as a male character. And now Corporal has more of a Napoleon complex and is a little less complicated.

Day-to-Day: Traffic Games

While heading back to Portland last weekend with my sisters we got stuck in heavy traffic coming into Seattle. We started a game. First me drawing (yes I was the driver but the car was stopped in traffic when I quickly drew), then Tobi would draw next and finally my little sister Chase.


We loved the people in the car behind us. They were such quirky characters I just had to draw them! Soo this is where the game started. At the top is my drawing then Tobi, and finally Chase. I moved the rear view mirror so each one of us could use that to look back at them.













I next did a faaast sketch of the truck in front of us. Tobi is to the left and Chase's to the right...not sure if it's alright to have the license plate number on this but Chase did love the license plate number.








This is the Calgary Christian Assembly I believe...this one was harder cause after I drew traffic got moving more. Tobi and Chase ended up with different angles.















This last one was our attempts to each do the Seattle skyline as it finally came into view. These are most assuredly more impressionistic. Mine is on the top with the skyline, road sign, and roads leading into Seattle. Tobi's is the lighter one in the middle. And Chase got quite stressed as now we were moving too much as she tried to draw what she mostly remembered of the short view she got of the skyline. And yes that is an arrow pointing the Space Needle to it's proper side. She just ran out of space.

All in all this was a great game and made us miss the traffic when it was over!

Cosplay Cards: Kumori Con 2009 Day 3

This was our original characters day. We got much better at doing it this year.


This is Tobi and Hannah's character Chelsea who can form into a raccoon and is quite the pyro. I had fun making all the grenades out of styrofoam eggs, Jones bottle caps, and of course those rings. They looked surprisingly believable for simplistic supplies!

Shawna was my character Jade who is quite the serene sweetie. I love the little hat and broach and embellishments she made.

This trio of characters are Hannah and Tobi's. They are a little influenced by The Nightmare Before Christmas with each character having a variant on one of Lock, Shock, and Barrel's masks. They all also share shredded components of one tux on top of having mime face paint!

This was a funny joke we discovered that Hannah's eye makeup would make circle and square shapes when she made these different faces. By the end of the day we had to document them. These umbrellas they have took hours of work! We also got them all peace-bonded because they had little spikes on them and also the characters use them as weapons. Even if the con didn't consider them weapons we wanted the tags that declared them such!

Chase I think was the most creepy. She also could look like an emo kid! What was funny is the girls would forget that they had these mime faces on so when they smiled people would still keep their distance! Hehe it was so entertaining.

Cosplay Cards: Kumori Con 2009 Day 2

This day we did video game characets from Final Fantasy and the Mario games.


One thing I love at the con is the guy that plays saxophone music and will play your theme when you walk by. So I got chocobo music and got to dance to it in my costume. Tobi got this too the times she was the chocobo. I did love this random balloon I got from someone because they loved my cosplay! Hehe!

This year we had trouble with everyone taking the train down and packing up all the costumes to bring all the way to Portland. A lot of Chase's costume items got left behind. Still we got nice pics of her fighting the guy from Assassin's Creed.

This was the first time I got to ride the new MAX and I don't really like their odd interior except for this photo! I always think the yellow railings look a little more like pipes. Definitely fits the Mario motif.

We didn't know this guy but he played along well. His expression is priceless. Tobi always manages to show her tummy in one of her costumes. Though the shroom did make a great pillow to take naps in. She was a favorite of the Slightly Anime Dating Game being a "prize" both as a chocobo and Toad this year where her zombie accidentally was picked again. She didn't choose him accusing him of never calling! Hehe it was a wonderful in joke for those that went last year.

I love Shawna's Toadette she was soo cute in it. It was funny cause people would call Tobi's female variant on Toad Toadette unless Shawna was there. Hehe.

Cosplay Cards: Kumori Con 2009 Day 1

Tobi and I both went to Kumori Con in 2008 but it was only a repeat of our chocobo and moogle.

This first day was all Girl Genius Cosplay. A wonderful webcomic by Phil and Kaja Foglio that you can check out here...


I played around making a more flamboyant costume. This also was a beginning point for my thesis character Blush. You'll see this wig growing and changing when her card comes up later. It was fun flirting with her creator Phil hehe!

This is the man character but has a hilarious story behind it! Our Girl Genius OR cosplayers (we declare ourselves the WA group) did a dating skit afterward there was a major photo op. They put all the Agathas together with the girl cosplaying the love interest Gil. I have to give my sister props for coming up with doing that face! The little girl that thinks the boys icky.

Tobi was the first (that we know of) Jenka cosplay. One reason this character isn't done as much is because Phil kept changing her clothes from panel to panel not stuck on what she wears yet! It was quite the trial deciding what to do for this one and everyone loved having at Jenka there!
She even had a Fust.. the bear on her head that in the comic is big and she rides. Soo we said our Agatha accidentally shrunk Fust down with her shrink ray.

Hannah was part of Da Boyz that Jenka is in charge of. Oh and those teeth were an interesting thing. Hannah and Shawna got really good at speaking with them in. They tasted awful though so I've heard.

This was also the year that thankfully we got Final Seal for our body paint and it worked really well! I think my favorite part of Shawna's Oggie was the two toed feet.