Project Remake - The Crew of Moonlight

As a continuum to the series of self portraits I decided to start Project Remake. I will re-draw some pictures I have drawn when I was younger. This will give you an image of my developement as a drawer. This project will either be short or then there will be huge gaps between the updates because the pictures I consider old enough for this project are all at my parent's home and I live in a different city. However, whenever I visit my parents I try to continue this new project of mine. This can be concidered as one of the side projects I will probably end up having too many. Oh well.

To get this project going I decided to re-draw the crew of Moonlight. Moonlight is a ship in a fictional story me and my friends wrote when we were about 12 years old. This picture is almost as old as the story, perhaps only few months younger. The story was inspired by the movie Pirates of the Caribbean - The Curse of the Black Pearl and the original idea of it was not mine. It was a crew consisting of mainly women (Well, what do you expect from a bunch of girls?) and we all had characters of our own. This is the story in which May, a character I have mentioned in some of my older posts, can be found. I hope that someone still has the notebooks we wrote together.

As you can see, my skills as a drawer have developed quite a bit. Mind you, it has been a very long time since I drew the first one, so I guess that the change in my style of drawing is acceptable. Oh, and I took some liberties with some details, as you may have noticed. I thought they would brighten up the picture.

Before...

...and after.

Merry Christmas

Here we go again. Through the whole December I have been extremely busy with my essays and exams and therefore have had no time to update this blog. However, now, on Christmas eve, I found the time to draw a little picture for you. This is Ketunpentu, aka fox pup, wishing everyone Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I am not good at drawing animals. Still, practice makes perfect.

Series of Self Portraits - Part III

Who am I? Where would I start... I am a girl who thinks the world is a big place just for a little girl. However, the same world feels a lot smaller when there are other people in it so, as you may guess, I have a lot of people in my life. I am qurious and love to explore the world and yet I'm such a homie that I could just stay home all day, watch tv, and drink tea. I'm an auditory learner and especially love the sounds of the world. I love music and often sing in the shower. I have a vivid imagination and drawing is my way of illustrating, what is in my mind. Very often my skills as a drawer are not good enough to express the image inside of my head but still I try to draw it because I can always use the practice. And, as a random continuum of these facts, I would really like to have a cat but unfortunately I am allergic.

I decided to draw a realistic portrait of myself to show you, who I truly am. I decided to use just pencils because before this blog I used to draw just with pencils. They are a part of my history and a pencil is the first thing I ever drew with when I started actively drawing. I really found drawing when I was eleven and I had broken my leg. My friend came to see me and drew me a get-well card while I was watching. I was so inspired by her drawing that I wished to be as good a drawer as she was.

I got some comments from my friends saying that my forehead is not big enough in this picture. I quite agree with them but aren't our flaws the things that make us perfect? Even when drawing?

The Face Behind the Mask - pencil

Jenny Joki

Jenny Joki - coloured pencil and ink

This next charachter of mine I played in a game that was held in a town. Of course most of the people in the town were not larping and our group of twenty must have been quite a sight, especially during the night when about ten of us were  walking around a graveyard. The game was based in the World of Darkness role playing books and there were changelings (people, like Jenny, who had escaped Arcadia), vampires, witch hunters, mages, and normal people. Naturally my charachter hanged around with the changellings but we encountered the other groups too. Because the game was a town larp, our props, the clothes we had on and the equipment we carried around, had to fit to the town surroundings. Normal people can't see changelings for what they really are but they see just normal people when looking at them. This ment that we looked pretty normal when walking around the town. The game also lasted for two days so the clothes we wore were quite comfortable... at least mine were.

Jenny Joki is a 15-year-old-girl who was captured by a true fae twenty years ago. She got away from the fae few months before the game but unfortunately a part of her soul was torned away during her stay in Arcadia, the fairy land, the fae had molded her into a daughter of the river. The fae was actually the lord of  the river and when Jenny got out of Arcadia, she came out the same way she had gone there, from the river. She is a typical teenager, who suffers from low self-esteem and a bit of a jet lag: she was under water for 20 years and she's supposed to be 35 years old. In her former life she was a drug addict, so she was a quite unstable girl.

In the game the greatest part was in the morning of the second day when my charachter had had a dream where the lord of the river called her and said she should go to an island my charachter knew too well because there would be something for her. I went to the island and found a new changeling with an ocarina which belonged to the lord of the river and which he had played also to Jenny when she was very sad and had no other friends. When I was going to the island the only thing I could think was that the lord of the river was angry at me and wanted me dead. Another very fun thing was when Jenny and the posse were out eating pizza and discussing a mysterious baby killer. Me and my friends had very fun when looking at people's faces. Oh yes, and the ending was quite epic and ironic when my charachter played the ocarina the lord of the river had used to, in a way, enchant Jenny and to get her to work for him.

In the picture I used coloured pencils and ink. It is quite unrealistic, because I honestly couldn't make water to circle around my face. Neither could I make my hair flow like the river nor could I add bubbles in the mixture. The water was done by make-up and the bubbles by little gemstones. And I wasn't wearing the make-up all the time, just in the last two hours of the game. This was because only changelings could see eachother the way they truly were unless we decided to show others how we looked. In the last two hours we all were in the place where magic let everyone to see how we truly looked so I put some make-up on. It was quite interesting to draw water on my face and add some scales in between. I tried to draw a watery back ground to the picture, but I'm not completely happy with it. Oh well, that'll have to do...

Oh my, what a long text I have written... Oh well... Oh, and if you wonder, how could a water elemental have red hair: the people have dumped to the river so much litter that there must be something wrong with the water.

Korina

Korina - pencil, coloured pencil, and ink

Korina was my charachter in the second larp of the U-series. In the first one I played Joanna Reecks, the leader of a group of scientists. In that game I played a proper human being but in this game, however, I got a part of a mutant. In a way the charachter and its description were not very deep but desining the outfit for the charachter and the actual playing was marvellous. For instance, the gray vest like thing Korina wears has a little letter U in it. No-one will ever know but she may have once been a U-soldier, a human from space.

As I said in the previous post, this was one of the most fysical I have ever played. Not just because of the pose in the picture that was actually meant to be a confusing chasing tactic, but also because of the voice I used. Because Korina in English means something like wheezing I spoke only with a sound that resembled the sound which the woman in the movie Grudge makes. I had already lost my voice the week before the game, so I really didn't need to alter my voice very much. I also had this little habit in the game to go and stalk the ones playing humans and when in a dark enough shadow, I sang Don't Worry, Be Happy. The look on their faces when they were searching the source of the song was priceless. Nevertheless, I wanted to do the voice and so I did. My voice was gone for the next week but it was totally worth it. I also moved in a crouched positions which was fysically quite hard.

Also the make-up for this game was one of the most radical ones I have ever done. I used coloured contact lenses, I covered my eye brows for the game (mind you, it was bloody difficult to cover them because I've got pretty dark eye brows), I used liquid latex to create boils on my face, etc. The other mutant players said I looked pretty creepy. You should have seen the faces of the ones playing humans when they first saw me watching them through a window. I'm pretty sure they got pretty jumpy after that.

I used ink, pencil, and coloured pencils in this picture. It is a shame that one can't play these kinds of charachters very often. I would love to sing once more the song of finger tip soup with the other mutants. Oh, and by the way, before the game we had a small mutant rave: We got out of the car with which we had driven to the place the game was held, turned the volume of the car radio up, started to listen to the soundtrack of Tron Legacy and started dancing around the car. I'm not much of a dancer when thinking of modern music but at that moment it was awesome. And yeah, it was winter during the game, hence the warm clothes.

Strike a pose!

I actually posed like this for a foto.

Sneak peak time! I will not be able to finish this drawing of mine today for I shall be role playing later in the evening. The fate of Madeline and co. shall be determined tonight! This, however, has nothing to do with the picture I have decided to show you today. It is about yet another charachter of mine and I must say, this charachter has been fysically one of the most challenging charachters I have ever larped. You can take a wild guess of what her pose might be. Mind you, the picture is not upside down. Why on earth keep I trying to draw these kind of poses?

Joanna Reecks

Joanna Reecks (I'm not sure how her last name is spelled because it has been quite a while since I played this charachter.) was the leader of a group of scientists. They were trying to discover a cure for a sickness that was killing people on the surface of the planet. The group had come from a spaceship because years before the events of the larp, Earth was found to be uninhabitable and people fleed to space. However, this group of scientists was sent back to Earth to research the sickness which started to kill "subhumans" (aka the ones still living on Earth). The group had to escape a mutant invasion to a small station which hadn't been senting a signal back to space in quite a while.

Joanna Reecks - pencil, coloured pencil, and ink

I spent the whole game in one room just leading the research and standing over a operating table on which my group studied three two subhumans and one mutant. About half of the game I was wearing a gas mask because the "subhumans" were so dirty, sick, and dangerous. Of course during the game there came an inspector to check the station because of the lack of signal it was supposed to send back to space. Our group wasn't too happy about this because they had just arrived there and had to work in this poor laboratory. In the end, we were forced to flee that station too because of another invasion. At least me and one of my colleagues managed to escape with the inspector and his assistant.

A little detail I came up with in the beginning of the game was that I wanted to speak with a russian accent. I got some compliments because of it. I have always been fascinated by accents and I simply loved speaking with a different accent, even though it was challenging. Speaking of little details, the glasses I wore in the game were quite a nice touch to the charachter if I may say so. Naturally I had a slight problem with them because I don't need glasses and I had bought these from a second hand store which meant that when I put them on my eyesight was very poor indeed. Nevertheless I heard after the game I was quite convincing as a scientist even though I couldn't see a thing.

I used ink, pencil, and coloured pencils in this picture. I was very frustrated with the hand holding the glasses. I used my own hand as a model but still I had to redraw it several times. However, it is now finished and I won't give a second thought for it. Although I could do a few things to improve it...

Series of Self Portraits - part II

The Doll - pencil, coloured pencil, and ink

How do I feel? Well, there are a bunch of things I could draw and I guess I will update this post eventually with another picture some day. However, this picture has a story behind it and I would like to share it with you.

Couple of years ago a very dear friend of mine said, as a joke, to another friend of his, that I was a puppet who would do everything one said to me. That was one of the few times I actually was offended and mind you, I do not get offended often. I was very upset, because I realized what he said, was actually true. I was always trying to please everybody, make them happy with small favours, and I had never actually learned how to say no. It was that moment that opened my eyes. I realized I didn't have to please everyone, I realized I could be myself and say 'no' once in a while. I'm still not an expert in using 'no' but I have learned to use it to some extent.

In the picture there is no puppet but a porcelain doll. Porcelain dolls are the perfect girls, the normal and the pretty ones. I used to be like that even though I was the one with strange hobbies and weird and loud laughter. Nowadays I believe there is not much left of the doll.

I used ink, pencils, and coloured pencils in this picture. I had real trouble with the colourful part but I got it right, eventually.

Vanamo & Varpunen

Vanamo and Varpunen - pencil and ink

This is one of the most interesting charachters I have ever larped. My charachter was the other half of twins and what was the most curious thing was that they shared a soul. This basically meant that when, for instance, one would get hurt, other would feel the pain too. They also constantle spoke of 'we' and 'us' and never used the word 'I'. Actually me and my friend chose the names of the charachters and came up with all kinds of little manoeuvres our charachters would do. By the way, their names in English would be Twinflower and Sparrow but they don't have the alliteration which was the basis of their names. Their soul's name was Miranda, if my memory serves me right.

Vanamo and Varpunen were... well, I wouldn't call them assassins or anything, but at the time of the larp they at least posed as a circus. Who knows what had happened before the larp began. They worshipped the Owl god and that is one  of the reasons they went out for a walk during the night (the game lasted for two days). Perhaps the funniest thing in the game was making other people confused. For instance, we clearly stated that Varpunen could read and Vanamo could write but we weren't able to learn the other's ability. We also sang this song of a crow gettin killed and we called one charachter a crow during the whole game.

As we pretended to be a circus, we of course held a show in which we actually juggled and did acrobatic tricks. I have a background of apparatus gymnastics, so I was glad to show a few tricks as well as how to make a split. Also the situation in the picture actually happened, because we had honestly practiced this pose. My charachter is the bottom one. I used ink and pencils in this picture and it took quite a while to figure out, how I was going to draw this pose.

Expressions

Happy Madeline - pencil sketch

And now for something completely different. The Call of Cthulhu campaign I'm playing is coming to its end, so I just happened to draw a picture of Madeline in a wedding dress. The only reason I'm putting this picture up here is the bigger face of hers: the expression on them is so genuinely happy. I have never succeeded to picture so well a feeling on a face so I simply had to put it up here. I'm pretty sure I'll grow to hate it but at the moment I love it.

Maria

It has, yet again, been far too long since my last update. I have had a ton of work to do both at and for the university. I have also been writing a larp, so basically I haven't had as much time as I used to have to draw. Nevertheless I'm updating this blog.

Maria - pencil

Maria is my first larp charachter ever. She was a fisher who was quite a loner. Half of the game she sat on a bench beside the campfire. She didn't talk much which suited me quite well, as I was new to the whole larping stuff. It was a basic vampire larp, aka there were three vampires whose goal was to kill everyone and I am quite proud of the fact that Maria did not die. If I remember right, she had a nephew of some sort... or was it a son... I don't remember. Nevertheless, she tried to take care of him. Neither she nore the young man got killed. When the game ended, one of the vampire players actually came to me and said he would have killed me if I hadn't all the time been surrounded by people. Then I told him that I was surrounded by people only when he came to the campfire. Oh, the irony. I must say it sounded quite cool when somewhere in the darkness I heard a scream: 'ANOTHER CORPSE!' It was a great feeling.

I used just pencils in the picture and tried to focus a bit more on the folds of the clothes, especially the coat. It's quite sketch like but so it's supposed to be.

Damiana Vespa

Damiana was my second ever larping charachter. Before her I had only played the role of a lonesome fisher. I wanted to do something completely different and therefore asked to play the role of Damiana. She worked as a prostitute in a club. It was owned by a mafia boss and yes, all of the charachters were italians or at least had something to do with the mafia. In the game she managed to get herself a little money (Her employer usually kept all the money.) and get a fiancé. The game was situated in the USA even though every charachter was italian. At the end of the game most of the charachters decided to return to Italy, as did my charachter and her fiancé, Giacamo Zini. He was the second in command in the mafia that ran the club in the states. Damiana worked for this mafia as well as for another one in Italy. These two were, however, united due to the marriage of the two mob bosses, Camilla and Carmelo.

I played Damiana the second time in the sequal of the game. I was the assisting GM in the game and was quite determined on playing her yet again. Fortunately our official GM was almost insisting me to play the charachter. It was my first game as a GM but, as I mentioned in the update of Gerda, I didn't come up with the consept of this charachter.

I used ink and coloured pencils in this picture. And the smudged areas in the picture were made by me when I actually tried to smudge the colour. It wasn't very succesful so I decided not to go through with it. The picture represents Damiana in the first game. In the second game she was already the second in command female of the united mafia. Giacamo, for some odd reason, was the second in command male. By the way, I only got three clients in the first game, which was kind of disappointing. And no worries, my "office" in the first game worked with closed doors and the only thing we had to do was to make suspicious sounds.

Life Is Worth Role Playing

A random Madeline update. I know this is not a part of any project but at last I have succeeded in a relationship in an RPG. Our beloved Madeline, of whom I've made so many updates has finally found her knight in shiny armour. Barney the Bartender actually confessed his feelings to Madeline and they are both very happy. They'll only have to defeat a horde of cultists so that they can live happily ever after. Luckily Barney has a large family with likeminded relatives. Clanwars and so forth.

The Lovers - pencil, coloured pencil, and ink

The picture captures the moment just before their first kiss. Well, technically it's not their first kiss, but Madeline doesn't remember anything about it, because she was so drunk at the time. I tried to picture the romantic atmosphere of the 1920's London in december at 3.30 AM but I find the picture still a bit lacking. However, I'm mightly proud of the shadowing I used in the picture. I've never tried to do such strong shadows in colours before. There's still a lot of work to be done with it, but I'll keep on practicing. I used pencils, coloured pencils, and ink in this picture.

Gerda Úldurfsdottir

Gerda - coloured pencil, pencil, and ink

Gerda was a charachter that I thought up all by myself for a larp. Usually that doesn't happen in a larp but I was one of the GMs of the game. It was a vampire larp, the setting came from Vampire the Masquerade, so the vampire clans and sects are the same as in Vampire the Masquerade RPG. It was not the first larp I "hosted" but it was the first larp I could invent my very own charachter and be a GM. The first time I was a GM was actually a part two in a series of larps so I played the charachter I had in the first game.

Gerda is quite a typical clan Malkavian vampire. Malkavians are the lunatics of the vampires. They are honestly crazy and their craziness can from one malkavian to another: one can have two personalities while another might see huge and slimy talking slugs in random places. Gerda's speciality was talking with objects. If you have the chance, do play a pc-game called Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, it shows the difference between vampire clans. For instance if you play the game through with a malkavian you can argue with a stop sign.  However, the malkavian madness isn't necessarily just a bad thing: they can see things from a different point pf view and come up with surprising solutions for difficult situations.

I used ink, pencil, and coloured pencils in this picture. I actually startet drawing this picture in a train and you should have seen the look on the conductor's face when he saw the picture. The larp was held during the winter and thank god it was situated indoors because otherwise I would have frozen with those clothes.

General Kita

Kita - coloured pencil, pencil, and ink

General Kita is not my first larp charachter but one of the most important ones to me. It was my fifth larp and I didn't have much experience as a larper. Yet, the GM decided to give me quite an important charachter as a general. She was in charge of the safety of the people and her role was crucial because there were evil  and strong creatures on the lose. They looked like humans but could enchant one to obey. My charachter thought their only goal was to kill everybody. She hired some guards to keep the tavern they were in safe but nevertheless we ended up having an epic fight in the end.

She is a hot tempered woman who believes that fights should be settled with a fight. Once she was fighting one of her hired guards she beated him quite bad and they ended up in a situation where he was lying on a ground and she was standing over him holding his foot above his crotch. He said to her that she wouldn't do it. When she asked why, he said "Because you're a woman". She had always been bullied because she was female and you can guess that  she wasn't very pleased of the guards comment. You may guess that she landed her foot with quite a lot of force on his crotch. I kind of feel sorry for poor Horatio.

I tried to copy the outfit of Kita here but I noticed that the hand armour was in the wrong hand. Otherwise the picture is quite accurate when speaking of my clother during the game. I used ink, coloured pencil, pencil in this picture.

What on earth is she talking about?

It has yet again been a little while since my last update. I thought that before I showed you some of my larping charachters, I might give you a little info package of the terms I'm using.

Larp - Live action role play. Basically an improvised play without an audience. I often refer to a larp as a game. The game master invents charachters and their relationships and gives them to the larpers/players. There is no plot in a larp just the setting and the charachters are pre-determined. Larp can be a noun or a verb. If you larp, you are playing a live action role play. The players get costumes for their charachters. More information about larping.

Game master - The one organising a larp or a role play. Offten refered as the GM. More information about Game masters.

Role playing game - Often refered to as RPG. Could mean both a certain system of role playing or a game in which players invent their own charachters and throw dice every now and then. The main difference between role playing and larping is that the larpers actually dress up as their charachters and act out the things they charachters do, where as role players merely listen to the game master's story of what's happening and then tell to the GM what their charachters do next. Role players throw dice but larpers do not. Why? Because no-one would throw dice in real life to see if they get their asses kicked in a fight or not. Information about RPGs.

Props - Props are the clothes and accessories the player in a larp wears or has with him or her during the game. If one props someting, one gets the props for him or her self and wears them. One can also prop surroundings of the game: for instance, if one props a little cabbin in the woods to look like a pirate hq, one makes it look like a pirate hq by little things such as empty bottles on the table and a map on a wall.

I'll add more things to this list when I remember them.

UPDATE 1: I added the word 'props' to the list.

Series of Self Portraits - Part I

Even though Project Imagination is still unfinished I start a new project. I'm not going to drop Project Imagination but because there are going to be more and more charachters to add to the project as I get new larping and role playing charachters, this project is going to take forever. Therefore I now launch a series of self portraits to tell you more about myself. I must thank Mesore for brining up this idea for a project.

How do you see me? - coloured pencil, pencil, and ink

The first picture of this project is quite simple and totally lacks imagination. This is the way I wish people to see me. There's me, typically dressed, with a huge grin on my face, as usual. I'm a tomboy in my own way: I really like to dress myself in jackets and wear a fedora. I also wear these unisex shoes which make my every-day wear look a bit gentlemanlike. I would also love to own a tailcoat and sometimes dress up like Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Also my sence of humour is very masculine and I tend to make jokes only guys would understand. However, the shadow on the wall is quite feminine. This is the side of me that is there in the background but I don't usually wish to bring it out. I am a dreamer and I sometimes wish for some very girly things.

I used pencil, coloured pencil and ink in this picture. And by the way, I actually own an umbrella just like the one the shadow has.

Catherine Burdett

Silly me, I still have a few role playing charachters. I guess I have too many of them.

Catherine Burdett is a 90-year-old woman. Wouldn't believe it? Neither would I because she looks like a 26-year-old. As you may have guessed, she is not an ordinary woman. She is a vampire and when comparing her to the other player charachters in the game, she was actually quite old. One doesn't necessarily have to be hundreds of years old to be influental. Me and my friends were playing Vampire the Masquerade rpg and my charachter was part of a vampire clan called Ventrue. The Ventrue are the self-proclaimed leaders of the Vampires and they tend to have power over the society during both day and night.

In the picture Catherine has just arrived to the head quarters of Vaughn Industries. Mr. Vaughn, Catherine's sire (the one who made her into a vampire), informs her that someone had broken into the vault of the company and had stolen something. Just before she came to the hq, a young female vampire, Eleonor came to her appartment saying that her sire had just been killed. So, Catherine became her mentor and she was the one who was supposed to teach Eleonor, how to be a vampire.

By the way, this is perhaps the only occasion when she wears her hair down. Usually she wears a bun. She actually didn't have the time to tie her up after a party in which Eleanor and another newcomer were welcomed into the vampire society. I guess it's good to let your hair down once in a while.

I used coloured pencil, pencil and ink in this picture. It's kind of grey, but aren't all buildings.

Catherine - coloured pencil, pencil, and ink

Dr. Fitzwilliam Fitzwilliam-Snout

Doctor Fitzwilliam Fitzwilliam-Snout has probably the most ridiculous name in the history of (at least my) role playing charachters. I'm a huge fan of the series Jeeves and Wooster and the is inspired by this series. There are a couple of very silly brittish names mentioned in the series and that's why Dr. Fitzwilliam-Snout has such a silly name. His best friend is a private detective Gregory Potter-Purbridge (nothing what so ever to do with Holmes and Watson...), who actually is encluded in the picture. At least the light of his lantern is. You see, in the picture both of them are climbing down a small hole that seems to last forever. Greg is holding a lantern while he climbs and Fitz just tries to climb down after him. When they finish climbing down, they find a monster and Fitz, like Madeline, does not even see it. Greg on the other hand loses a bit of his sanity when meeting this human-rat-spider creature.

I used ink and pencil in creation of this picture. I'm running out of role playing charachters so I will move on to my live action role playing charachters.

Fitzwilliam - pencil and ink

What did I say about little details...

Yet another sneak peak before I post the whole picture here. Stripes can be a real pain in the... Well, let's just say it takes time to ink the outlines of the stripes. I'll post the picture later today.

Stripes but, alas, no stars.

A bit more Madeline

And now for something completely different. It's a bad habbit of mine that I simply have to draw something when I get an inspiration. I happened to be role playing last night and Madeline, of whom I have told in my last post, went out with Barney the bartender and they both ended up quite drunk. Nothing bad happened. They just shared their first kiss when Madeline was getting out of the car of another bartender, who promised them to take them home. She was so drunk that she decided to kiss him and he blushed as hard as one can blush. Unfortunately, she doesn't remember that. However, Barney does.

Barney & Madeline - pencil sketch

I quickly sketched this during a lecture. (Yes, I know I'm a bad girl because I didn't pay attention to the lecture.) The only reason why I decided to update my blog with this is Madelines expression. She looks totally drunk and exactly how she should look like after a sherry and an absinthe. Not that Barney wouldn't be drunk.

I shall now continue the Project Imagination, but I simply had to post this.

Madeline Smithers-Sheffield

Madeline - coloured pencil and ink

I don't do this usually but today I simply have to double post. Me and my friends were playing Call of Cthulhu yesterday and I got a huge inspiration for drawing. My charachter's situation is namely quite exceptional. Madeline Smithers-Sheffield, a 1920's dance girl from London, has had incredible luck with the "evil spirit" that is chasing our charachters. She has completely avoided the dementating attacks of the spirit (which I cannot name even though I off-game know who it is, for my friends read my blog and don't wish to be spoiled). However, she has got a dilemma of her own: there are three men who are interested in her at some level and she doesn't know what to do.

In the picture one of the men, a sweet scottish bartender Barney Sweetham has given her the best whiskey he has and she didn't take it as strongly as I had hoped. She was totally drunk and even kissed Barney on his cheek. After that Barney carried her upstairs to a sofa on which she passed out and had the most freudian dream about all of the three men: one against a minibar, one on the deck of a yacht, and one on a pool table. That's why she is blushed. It's a shame that I couldn't draw the blue garter she accidentially showed when she was moaning in her sleep. You can guess that Barney was quite red when he saw her.

I (surprisingly) used ink and coloured pencil in the picture. Notice the pale pink background, which is hardly visible. It is supposed to reflect the feelings going through her head at that very moment.

Ri’dzaeln Wehlagharlyn

Yet again, another little pause has passed and I have drawn yet another charachter of mine. Ri’dzaeln Wehlagharlyn is my first Dungeons and Dragons charachter. Some say one should always start role playing with D'n'D but I'm a horrible player and I didn't. It's a fun rpg nevertheless. Ri'dzaeln is a drow, a dark elf for those who don't know what a drow is, who has left the drow society and become a druid. And yeah, drows tend to have long names with a lot of consonants. Those, who know anything about drows, know that it is extremely weird for a drow to leave his or her society. And no, this charachter actually wasn't inspired by Drizzt Do'Urden, perhaps the most famous drow of all time. She just happened to got caught by humans and then she became an outcast, even though she had a drow fiancé.

In the picture she is just leaning against an old tree and thinking what on earth was she doing with a halfling, an eldar, an elf, a human, and a thiefling in a forest on an epic quest (halflings are like hobbits, eldars are elfs who can teleport, and thieflings are kind of half demons). In few seconds from the moment in this picture she reveals to the others that she is a drow. Drows aren't really accepted in the world on the ground where as under ground they have a very high stand in the hierarchy of different races. However, the others were surprisingly okay with her race.

Ri'dzaeln - coloured pencil, pencil, and ink

I used coloured pencils, ink, and pencil with Ri'dzaeln, but I left the background black and white just to create contrast.

Natalie von Adler

Natalie - coloured pencil, pencil, and ink

The first time I ever played the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay I was actually asked to play a noble woman. Thus, Natalie was born. She was just an ordinary noble woman with a younger admirer until she allowed him to take her home in his carriage. After that she ended up having an adventure she is glad she has survived. I have also played this charachter in two larps and after this I can say that not many women in the nobility have killed undead and demons, be cursed, and live after this. I'm mighty proud of her because she has survived, even though she should not have any sort of surviving abilities.

In the picture she is sitting in the carriage of Henrik, the young man who adores her. Some moments after this they both black out and an epic adventure begins. I used coloured pencils, ink and pencils in this and I'm quite proud of the colouring of her hair.

Oh my, I just realized that those trees aren't growing up straight. Oh well.

Merenwen Telrúnya

Merenwen - coloured pencil, pencil, and ink

Merenwen is an elf woman, who is a typical redhead. She has fire in her heart and she totally shows it. She actually wasn't an original charachter in the role play she is from, but the game master was kind enough to include her in his game. Merenwen used to have a very long hair but she cut it in order to look a bit different, because she and the rest of the group were pronounced outlaws. This scene is from quite the end of the game campaign, when she discovered she could not live without Elwin, the blonde elf in the picture (who also happened to be a general of the army). At first she could not stand him because he tried to hit on her way too much. In the end, however, they end up getting married and having two children.

I tried to use some bolder colours in this one but I guess I still have a long way to go before I have truly mastered the use of colour.

Anna-Freyja Tammilehto

Anna-Freyja - pencil

Anna-Freyja is a young woman who was abducted by a fairy. She lived twenty years in the fairy world, Arcadia, before she managed to escape. By that time part of her soul was replaced by fae magic and she had turn to a living porcelain doll. Of course a normal person could see her just as a normal person but every fairy and anyone who had ever visited Arcadia saw her true form. In this picture she and her friends have just made a narrow escape back to Arcadia and she finds a little girl, who's apparently lost. The girl looks quite normal and that arouses the suspicions of Anna-Freyja's friends. She, however, insists that they take the girl with them back to the real world. Perhaps it's better if I won't tell, what happened to the little girl.

I used just one pencil with this picture and added the butterflies to add some magic to the picture.

Mariam

Here's a charachter originally from a story me and my friends thought up, but after that she became my role playing charachter. Her hair changed a bit for the game, but the personality still is quite the same. May I present: Mariam. Mariam is a young woman who knows that guys like him and she can take advantage of that information. Sounds cruel, but that's how she rolls. The young man in the picture is a kind of a friend of hers, Theon. He was played by my friend. They are in their favourite spot in their home village, the rosegarden. This picture is basically from the day before a bunch of nasty shadows attack the village and after that they attacked every night and killed people. Unfortunately they were hiding in Mariam during the day, for she was half fae (she found that out during the game), and that almost got her killed. As the elders of the village told: never go to the forrest, it's full of fae and other evil things, like shadows.

Mariam - coloured pencil, pencil, and ink

I used coloured pencil, pencil, and ink in this picture and as I said in my last update, I will never draw as many roses as I did for this picture.

Roses, roses...

It's bee a while since my last update. I was visiting my parents, yet again, and had a larp to attend to. It was great fun to cry my heart out, because my husband had drowned. Okay, that sounds pretty creepy, but live action role playing is actually quite fun.

I'll never draw this much roses again.

Here you have a sneak peak of my next work. The flowers are supposed to be roses and there are quite a lot of them, so it's taking time to draw them.

May June July

May June July - pencil and ink

I'm seriously starting to worry about the amount of sleep I'm getting, because I keep updating my blog in the middle of the night. As I promised, I will present you the one that started my "obsession" for creating backgrounds to characters. May, the lookout of the pirate ship Moonlight, was my first character I started developing. When I was a child, if my memory serves me right, my friend presented me with a notebook and told me that she and our mutual friend were writing a story about a pirate ship and it's crew. In a way I forced them to take me "on board" and even though I was a crappy writer I enjoyed it very much. We came up with the name May June July when I discovered that they all could be used as female names. July was originally supposed to be the second middle name (I've absolutely no idea if the term is even correct, but you get the point.), but when I couldn't think of a last name for her, it was decided, that July would be her last name. May also has a cat, Kitty, who is a very efficient rat hunter.

I used pencils and ink in this picture. Because May is not a role playing character, I didn't add a scene to this picture, but just simply an every day routine of hers.

Oliver Shadow

Oliver Shadow - coloured pencil, pencil, and ink

My next role playing character is Oliver Shadow. Oliver is a ten-year-old little boy, who has run away from home. His favourite food is meatballs and fortunately he found great friends along his journey. The only thing he grabbed from home was a little music box that reminds him from his mother. In this scene his friends have just saved him from the evil duo, Ares and Ring, but unfortunately they killed his mother. He's mourning for his late mother and listening to the music box. This was the clean version of the happenings which concluded with his mother's dead, lot's of other staff happened as well, but I guess for the mental health of everyone except for Oliver himself I shall leave it unsaid.

The picture itself was made with ink and coloured pencils. The grays are made with a pencil, because I don't have a proper gray-coloured pencil. And yeah, I took a foto of it because the skanner has something against colours.

A New Project

After Project Element I had to think for a new project. At first I thought that I would draw some random things but then I remembered that there are lot of things I could draw. And all of these could be cathegorized under a lable. They are characters from my past, some of whom I have portrayed in a live action role-play, others who I have invented for a normal role-play. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you: Project Imagination! This first picture is quite sketch-like, but it is quite the style I wanted for this picture. The only thing I used was pencils. Meet Seréne (never mind the accent, I was young when I invented the name), a dorwinrim human from Middle Earth...or a place quite like it. She was the first actual role-playing character of mine, though not the first character I invented as a playable character. Perhaps I'll present her to you later. Anyhow, in the picture, Seréne has just dropped herself into a well which she discovered was actually a lake in a cave. What a lovely place for a well...

Seréne - pencil

Project Element, Part IV

Wind - coloured pencil, pencil, and ink

Howcome I always have to update at night? Might be because of the inspirations I get only during the hours I'm supposed to sleep. Here we have it, the last peace of the Project Element; wind. I just hate skanners but I'm visiting my parents and they do not seem to have a proper camera to bring out the colours in this one. It might have also something to do with my very bad skills with cameras. The hair is quite big but I'm growing rather fond of it. Besides, who says elementals should look natural.

Project Element, Part III

It's almost 2 AM, but I had to write a new entry. I just finished the third element. I must say that my friend was my inspiration when I colored this piece. He suggested that I should do a sunset in the background, so I did my own version of it. I actually had to use an orange crayon, because I didn't have an orange coloured  pencil. I wanted to make this picture look peaceful but still powerful and I hope I have achieved it. Not the most common view of fire, eh?

Fire - coloured pencil, ink, and crayon

Sketching fire

What-ho! I started to draw the third part of my project element: fire. A little sneak peak for you guys. I'm not quite sure yet how to colour this, but I'll think of something.

Sketching, sketching...

Project Elment, Part II

Earth - coloured pencil and ink

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new element: earth. With the first element I used only different shades of blue but now I decided to add a bit of brown to the greens. Unfortunately you can't very well see the brown I added to the eyes of the character because that's the thing I'm most proud of in this picture. I tend to scan my works and play with the contrast, so it would bring up the colours more. Unfortunately it's never perfect. Perhaps I should learn to edit my pictures with a computer.

Project Element

Some time ago I started a new drawing project, and yes, I do have projects like these quite a lot. My project is to draw the four basic elements of the western culture: water, earth, wind, and fire. Here's the first one of the elements: water. It is my first drawing with coloured pencils, so I'm quite happy about the way it turned out.

Please do not copy my pictures.

Water - coloured pencil and ink