Brash Ice

just a mom, trying to draw stuff so my kids will think I'm cool

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Once, I was clowning around with my Tweeps about what if Drizzt Do’Urden was a modern, misunderstood teen? In typical Drow = Opposite Day fashion, he’s actually very sweet and thoughtful and loves school. I am still obsessed with this idea. Anyway, tomorrow is the first day of fall, so please enjoy Teen Drizzt Enjoying a PSL.

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Whyyyy is this cursed website always putting *Scooby Doo* discourse on my dash, and for Christ's sake, why do I always *read it*????

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👏I👏am👏tired👏of👏working👏on👏this! Teenage beluga for MerMay.

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Iconic things in the new live-action Bleach trailers

- Kurosaki Ichigo, high school student, etc

- The stabbing/power transfer

- Ishida pushing up his glasses

- "Hoeru, Zabimaru!"

- The glove. THE GLOVE.

Missing:

- "What is this reiatsu?!?"

- "It's Sado."

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Not entirely pleased with it, but tired of working on it, the story of my life. I am pretty pleased with the background.

Based on this beautiful photo by Greg Schneider.

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If you like foxes, the @everythingfox account has a lot of really cute ones. They posted this cutie for Valentine’s Day, and I really wanted to draw her. She came out a little chubby looking, but I really like her anyway.

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Two-day fox. I am really not great at coloring and it takes me a long time. I discovered the smudge brush, though, which is good for shadows. Reference: http://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk/news/14637103.Fife_fox_hunt_saboteur_gets_community_payback_sentence/

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Sleepy time fox. I goofed around with the coloring and I kinda like this effect. I think I am going to shell out for the full version of Tayasui Sketches, it’s on $5 and I’m having a lot of fun with it. Reference image here: https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g1023408-d7388189-i120639235-Miyagi_Zao_Fox_Village-Shiroishi_Miyagi_Prefecture_Tohoku.html

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Fountain pen fox. Believe it or not, there’s a whole Sketch layer underneath and I actually spent quite a bit of time on this. I know a lot of these don’t look great, but these guys are actually really hardtop draw and I’m just trying to record my progress. :( Anyway, reference is a stock photo fox, the first one that comes up on google. I do try to cite my references, but it can be really hard to attribute things you find in Google image search. Bleh.

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Trying out get another new drawing app, Tayasui Sketches. Took a lot of getting used to, but it was kinda fun. Anyway, this Guy is Not Great, but I like his tail. Wikipedia reference.

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Same fox, slightly different style. (Traced again, today is the last day of tracing) Foxes are soooooo much faster than owls!

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Step 2: Tracing. I traced this. The original is from the NY State Dept. of Environmental Conservation (http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/9354.html) I normally like to do a nice watercolor swoosh as a background, but I liked the way this looked as is. I might try tracing the same picture next time, but with a more linear style. Back to Adobe Sketch, cuz Mommy needs her layers.

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Let’s talk about those Raven Boys

So, I said I was going to do some book reviews, and I lied, it’s not really book reviews, it’s more like “book ramblings.”

Let’s talk about those Raven Boys.

In early January, I *devoured* Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle (the Raven Boys/The Dream Thieves/Blue Lily, Lily Blue/The Raven King). So, to get it out of the way, these books are so, so enjoyable. It’s one of those worlds where you just want to live there and be with the characters and read about them going to, like, the grocery and stuff. These books got me through the social anxiety of a week-long work conference. They are *electric*.

But are they good? Well… it’s not great literature. It’s more like… extremely good fanfiction. And don’t get me wrong, that’s a good thing in its own right! It’s just different. Is this the next Earthsea? No. Should you read it? Absolutely. So we can talk about it. (My husband is in the middle of a different book series, and I can’t get him to read this and it is k i l l i n g  m e.)

Anyway, it’s about a spunky heroine who comes from a family of psychics, but is not herself a psychic. She finds herself mixed up with a found-family of private school boys looking for a sleeping king in the forests of Virginia. It’s teens, it’s ghosts, it’s NERDS, I love it.

Now I’m going to talk about the things I want to talk about, but it’s under the cut for spoilers.

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So, here are some of the things that bothered me:

- The books are really pretty white. The is one black character (who I didn’t realize was black until the second book) and a group of Koreans later on. They are enjoyable characters, but Calla isn’t given a big enough role for my tastes (especially compared to Maura and Persephone… I felt like the three of them should have had very balanced roles), and Henry never quite seems to penetrate the core group of characters.

- Adam’s resistance to taking “hand-outs” from Gansey and Ronan got real old, real quick for me. The two of them inherited wealth from their parents. Ronan’s dad *made money from his dreams*. They didn’t do anything to deserve their money any more than he deserved his poor circumstances, and if I were one of the richer boys, I would have felt extremely judged by that.

- Artemus was extremely disappointing. I wanted to know more about what Maura saw in him in the first place. To be honest, I was really, really hoping for a meaty flashback about everything that went down. His wishy-washiness sort of conveniently bypassed any tension vis a vis Maura and the Grey Man, too, and I felt that was a loss.

- Speaking of the Grey Man, his entire character and presence in the book should have been ridiculous and yet it -worked and I loved him. Likewise, Gansey’s willingness to talk about dead Welsh kings with like, the mailman. It was great. I loved it.

- Okay, with that out of the way, here is my biggest gripe. This is super-spoiler level, so if you haven’t read the books, go read them and come back.

I didn’t like the end. Sometimes ends of books really piss me off, and it wasn’t that bad. I just didn’t like it, and the longer I thought about it, the less satisfied I was. Gansey sacrificed himself to save Cabeswater, but then Cabeswater sacrificed itself for Gansey? Sacrifice endings are a Big Deal to me, and I hate when people get out of them. Sacrificing Cabeswater was a big deal, it was a sacrifice, so it wasn’t as disappointing as some other works of literature I will name, but… but what if Gansey had never looked for Glendower in the first place? None of this would have happened, right? What even was the point of all these? Did these boys just destroy a pocket of magic in the world because they couldn’t leave well enough alone? Also, so many other characters died. Why are we supposed to care about Gansey more than, say, Persephone or Ronan’s mom or any of the trees in Cabeswater? I love my preppy, anaphylactic nerd-boy son, make no mistake there, but I was basically ready for him to die, really die, at the end.

But here is the worst part, the thing I am maddest about: When we first “meet” Gansey, Blue asks him his name and he replies, “Gansey. That’s all there is.” This line is *haunting*. His affect as a ghost is SO unlike Gansey as a living person. As a ghost, he shows no recognition of Blue, despite the fact that he loved her and she killed him (also, I expected the prophecy to be more like… she kisses him and then he dies later, I did not expect her to kill him *by* kissing him. That was…something). I expected his death to be a Big Epic Deal full of Teen Emotions and Magic and Shit.  I expected him to lose part of himself, I expected “that’s all there is” to take on more meaning. And that didn’t happen. The ending was just… about what you would expect. I was ride or die for Gansey and Blue up to this point and honestly, I just feel let down.

It wouldn’t have been so disappointing if the book weren’t otherwise so enchanting, and I hadn’t been so utterly drawn into it. (Although it had that problem throughout. I got to end of the first book and said to myself, ‘Wow, what an amazing book! Except that basically nothing actually happened.’) Maybe people who are 36 shouldn’t read books for teens. Maybe.

Anyway, if you love Supernatural Teens as much as I do, you will have a good time reading these. Then let’s talk about them. I have opinions.

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As it is his birth month, my son has requested “Fox February.” Here’s my first go, no references. I tried out a new drawing app, Autodesk Sketchpad. I liked the brushes better than Adobe Sketch, but the free version limits you to 3 layers.

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Trying a new thing: Book reviews

I read a lot. I generally take reading Very Seriously and over the past few years I’ve read a lot of non-fiction and literary fiction which is great but also very *tiring*. I have decided for the foreseeable future to read fun, immersive books that bring me life, and I thought it might be kinda fun to talk about them here.

So first: Friends, I love books about #Teens. In my heart, I want to like books about moms and divorced people and older folks who have experience and skills and interesting lives, and I can’t help it, I just love books about #Teens. Preferably Supernatural Teens. This is why I was in the YA section of my local library, and came across The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco. Now, usually, I have to have seen a book reviewed and recommended a half dozen times before I will manage to read it, but this book was called The. Bone. Witch. That seemed Extremely My Jam, so I checked it out and took it home.

Gentle Reader, it was, in fact, Extremely My Jam. So, think of your favorite, really immersive fantasy book, where you just want to eat all the food and everyone’s armor and weapons are lovingly described and also, like beheadings and stuff, and then swap those descriptions for hairstyles and amazing clothes and also delicious food.

One of the interesting conceits of the book is that everyone carries their heart on a chain around their neck, for the world to see. Skilled witches are able to read Heartsglasses, diagnosing illness and discerning moods. Powerful magic users have silver Heartsglass-- women become Asha, or elegant, powerful witches. Men become Deathseekers. Most Asha are elemental, but the rarest power of all is the Dark Asha, or Bone Witches, who can raise the dead, and also put down huge monsters called Daeva that terrorize the countryside. The story centers around Tea, who has just accidentally raised her beloved dead brother, Fox. She is taken under the wing of a powerful Dark Asha, who brings her to a place where she will be trained, and of course, become entangled in various intrigues.

One thing that bothered me about the book is that it was not marked as the first book in a series, but it, in fact is. Therefore, I had terrible anxiety that it was not going to wrap up in time. When I realized there was going to be a sequel, I felt enormously relieved. Anyway, the book felt a little slow to me, but I think it was probably paced just fine for a 1-out-of-3. Also, as it happens, I loved the ending, *I called it* (no spoilers, bro).

Anyway, I liked this book a lot. It was full of women, magic women being powerful and cranky and making mistakes and eating amazing sounding food. I am reserving judgement on a few of the plot points until I see how they get handled in subsequent books, but overall, I give it high marks. Solid B+, which is very good for a First Book in a Series, and I will 100% read the sequel when it comes out later this year. There’s also sort of a framing story, where Tea has become extremely powerful and weird and has been exiled to a lonely beach. This is basically my life dream. Powerful, angry, beach witch. With great clothes.

Oh, final note! When will someone with some actual art skills draw some FAN ART for this book, I am dying. I NEEEEEED IT. I am NOT GOOD at drawing elaborate clothes, but if I have to, I WILL.

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My mom had a great idea to do an art project for Thanksgiving. She asked me to draw a turkey, sans tail, on a piece of poster board (my kids helped), and then everyone wrote what they were thankful for on a feather or leaf and added it to the poster. She, uh, didn't know I had been practicing drawing birds, and was expecting more like a hand turkey, but I think it turned out pretty good anyway.

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This is a Sri Lanka Bay Owl, suggested by my hubs. Look at at weirdo birb. I didn’t mean to fall off the Owltober wagon, but work got crazy and I had to work a bunch of overtime, plus Halloween costumes, plus a short-notice houseguest. I drew quite a few owls, tho, and some of them were even good.