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.