zhou shen official Youtube + Spotify (+ separate, hazily official Spotify)
drawings: chryso.PNG
animations: chryso.MOV
gifs: chryso.GIF
translations: chryso.TL
collages: chryso.collage
miscellaneous stuff: chryso.MISC
misc textposts/thoughts: chryso.TXT
sewing projects: chryso.stitch
random zhou shen posts: 生米大嘴 ('shengmi blabbermouth')
the others' art and 'zhou shen event calendar' (additional variants being 'zhou shen event calendar: special edition' and zhou shen event calendar: concert edition') tags are self-explanatory. i use the 央视频/CCTV app, Weibo or WeChat to watch most events.
我染上了拼豆 is a xhs hashtag and also uhhh my life currently. i didn't have any interest until i saw this exact piece (and another similar one!) and then it was allll over for me ahdhahs however i told myself that i should try it out before making the financial commitment, so i roped a friend into going to a 拼豆 place last week!!
notes under the cut:
firstly hahaha ok this was literally just two 留子 running a 拼豆 parlour out of their dorm room. i had to add one of the laoshis on wx to book a date n time but otherwise the most mafan thing was finding the place 😅 however they had enough space for the both of us + lots of supplies + most importantly. very affordable rates. so it all worked out!!
the beads my friend and i used were 2.6mm. i didn't realise how easy it was to knock them over; in the videos they always look solidly slotted into the 拼豆版...
definitely harder than i thought ahdhah but also wayy more fun!! no show commentary today because i was too locked in to watch anything
4. i didn't wait to get a hang of the bead pen 😔 i think you can see it in p1? maybe i should've, but i found the tweezers more intuitive. they're long and thin so that you can stack beads onto the prongs and drop them onto the board in long rows/sections!! it was pretty neat using all these 拼豆道具 after drooling over them online ^^
5. my favourite parts were placing in the beads that made up his eyes/his hairline because there were a lot of individual colours alfjaks i thought it was much more interesting than filling in the larger swathes of his skin. i'm v glad that i got to go to a 拼豆 place for this particular piece because omfg there are sooo many random one-off colours
6. i'm planning to stick this one onto one of my bedroom walls (altho i love doing elaborate wall collages with posters and such so i'm lowk running out of wall space rn ahaha) however there were a lot of keychain rings to choose from which tempted me greatly
7. feel free to dm if you want the design!! i just don't want to repost it here
the laoshis were very nice ❤️ i learned that one was from Chengdu and the other was from Shandong hahah we talked a bit towards the end while one of them helped us iron our pieces. although i don't see myself going again, this did strengthen my resolve to buy a set for myself!!!! super super super excited to do so
