The Nutcracker Suite Chibis :D

Because as cheesy and relatively plotless as it is, the Nutcracker is just a bundle of fun! And the music is really amazing, even if they do overuse it shamelessly on Hallmark channel. So here, enjoy these illustrations based on The Nutcracker Suite!

 

So the Miniature Overture plays while the curtain is down, so it's not associated with any scene. I thought to myself, well hey! The beginning of the story is at a Christmas party, so why not have the Miniature Overture be Clara decorating the house for the party?

 

So this here is the Marche, where the kids dance around and enjoy their presents. The little fellow there is Fritz, and I hope you enjoy the owl-topped Grandfather Clock in the background!

 

The Dance of the Sugar-Plum Faerie. In a lot of productions, Clara takes on the role of the Sugar Plum Faerie and dances all her dances, so I drew Clara in a pimped out little tutu. I tried to draw her doing a step I remember from the ballet, where she taps one ankle with her other foot.

 

Here in one shot (because I'm lazy) we have the Trepak, Coffee, and Tea all together. I like the Trepak costumes the best (not so proud of the Coffee ones :P), but I like the Tea girl the best out of all the characters in this shot. She's got energy!

 

And the cutsey Dance of the Mirlitons, or Reed Pipes! I like this one because it was my first solo at orchestra, haha! Anyhoo, they're supposed to be shepherds. I don't know of the colors come through very well, but I made the main color for them be sunny yellow.

 

Waltz of the Flowers! From top left going onwards, we have a Rose, a Daisy, a Tulip, and a Morning Glory! Waltz of the Flowers is my favorite movement of the suite (though if 'Sugar Plum Faerie and her Cavalier' was in the suite, THAT would be my favorite movement), it's so pretty and bouncy!

 

Romeo and Juliet Chibis!

In honor of our concert (in which we performed the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture!), here is the cast of R+J rendered in Chibi form!
I know towards the end some of the color schemes get hideous, I was running out of ideas for how to color the outfits because I wanted them all to look different. But I was running out of them by the time I reached Paris, so that poor guy's got an ugly outfit.
But I'm really happy with how all the others look, so huzzah!

Classial Music Chibis!

I drew up the cast of Romeo and Juliet, but I figured that everyone was tired of the constant R+J stuff that I've been posting, so I thought I'd do this first!

So here are the three pieces that I illustrated, Sheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Paul Dukas, and Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens. These three pieces are Tone Poems, meaning they tell a story through the music. Hence, they are the easiest to draw!

Sheherazade

Sheherazade is about a sultan who is convinced all women are faithless, and marries one woman each night and has her executed the next morning. Then one night, his bride is the clever and imaginative Sheherazade, who saves her life by telling him one enthralling story every night, and timing it just right so that it ends on a cliffhanger so that he needs her one more night to hear the rest! This goes on for 1,001 nights, until he finally lets her live. The piece ends tranquilly, with Sheherazade finally getting a good night's sleep!

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

[snort] We all know the story of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, right? A mischievous young apprentice gets ahold of his master's book of spells and wreaks havoc. I had a LOT of fun drawing this one, from his overblown look of awe to the random color swirls that are supposed to represent the magic he's performing. :D

Danse Macabre

Danse Macabre is a song made of awesome. It tells the story of Death, who goes to the graveyard at midnight on Halloween (the stroke of Twelve is represented by a Harp playing twelve D's in a row). He plays his violin (there is a solo violin part, and get this! The soloist actually uses a special tuning to sound really devilish!!) and forces the bones of the dead to dance a mad waltz. It becomes more frenzied and insane until the sun rises (represented by an oboe playing a chipper little riff). It's really cool, and we're playing it in concert this very Sunday! AAAAHHH!

Still Life: Count Your Lucky Stars

So, you know, I was just skimming through The Brothers Karamazov (as I am wont to do), and decided that this would be fun to draw. Keep in mind, I've been sick and hopped up on medicine, so this might not be that funny, I dunno. XD

Anton Chekhov

So when I was taking Drama back in the Spring semester I thought about doing a monologue from Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, so I read some of his work in preparation for the role. Well, I ended up doing Antigone instead because I found it more interesting and easier to pull off (so hard to be the unrequited love girl without sounding whiny!), but the Chekhov plays were still pretty interesting.
But I couldn't make heads or tails of them, so to me, dumb American teenager, this is what the plays kind of felt like to me.
Also, me and a friend read a scene, and I swear, the dialogue was exactly like this.

Yeah. No makey sense to me.

Katerina Ivanova's Taste in Men

Hee hee, I'm proud of my little added character, Darya. Mostly because I like her color scheme, it's quite summer-y if I dare say so myself! :)

I might replace the picture, because it's... really blurry!

Storage Room: Office Volunteering

I've done a bit of volunteer work at my orchestra's offices, and it's fun! Yeah, got to lug some string instruments to storage, and did a TON of music filing (which was cool, actually). It's pretty righteous. Sometimes office work gets a little tedious, especially when you have like, 15 cellos you have to drag to storage, but all in all, I think it was good work experience! And I got a comic idea out of it. ;)

If you can't read the writing, here's the script.

Rene: Allright, I'm here! Marisol! I didn't know you volunteered at the orchestra office!
Marisol: Yah! It's a good way to rack up favoritism points! So we have to sort through all these papers.
Rene: Last concert's program...
Marisol: Page nine of the Rhapsody in Blue score... someone's apple tart recipe, I think I'll keep this!
Rene: Fyodor Kovalchuck's Enemies List?!
Mr. Kovalchuck: Ooh, I was looking for that!
Rene & Marisol: .......

:)

Still Life: Phones

Cell Phone sizes throughout the years!

 

I um... accidentally colored that guy's hair purple because I was coloring in low light. Which I shall never do again! :D

Still Life: The End of Orchestra Season

Heehee, I have been posting way too much about orchestra lately, n'est-ce pas?
But anyway, me and Libby are sad (in a relative sense, that is) because Orchestra season is over, and it won't be back until September, and orchestra sure has been awesome lately.
Then I remembered that the conductor probably needs us to go on break, to, y'know, preserve his sanity.
Hence, this comic.

By the by, that snapped in half object is not a banana. Or a breadstick. It's supposed to be a baton. XD

The Grand Inquisi-bore

95% of The Brothers Karamazov is near-flawless, brilliantly nightmarish reading. The 5% that isn't is the chapter The Grand Inquisitor. I get some parts of it, but when I first read it I didn't understand at all. I plan on reading it again, maybe I'll appreciate it then, but until now, have the product of my frustration!
I think that I just didn't like it because Ivan said it was a Poem, and that chapter was... not a poem.

Chibi Illustrations: Broskis Karamazov Edition

I couldn't help myself, so I drew more Brothers Karamazov chibis. :D
Because if there's a better way to show that I really liked a book, I'd like to hear it!
And by the by, SPOILERS!

 

So there's this bit in the book where Alyosha is at Katerina's house and her romantic rival, Grushenka is there! The two ladies get along well at first, but they eventually start to argue. I know the illustration makes it look like they're fighting over Alyosha, but he's supposed to look like he's caught in the middle of their crazy argument.

 

 

I'm uh, proud of this one. It's hard for me to draw chibis in more complicated poses because their heads are so big, you have to maneuver them right so their heads aren't in the way! But I pulled it off in a way I consider satisfactory, so yay! Ahem, this is an illustration of the scene in the book where Alyosha tries to help out a little boy who was being bullied, but the little boy seems to have some kind of grudge against poor, well-meaning Alyosha. So he bites him. On the finger. Kind of weird, but not the strangest thing to happen in the book. Not by a long shot! XD

 

This one is pretty nondescript. I just wanted to draw Dmitri. :P

 

Remember what I said earlier about really weird stuff? Yeah, Ivan's Satan hallucinations were a little odd. But dang, it was a good chapter. A... good, long chapter. Kind of creepy though, I remember sitting in the garage just glued to the recliner and soaking in every word.

 

 

 Scenery is not my forte. It's all brown! But the faces, I feel vaguely proud of. :D Especially Ivan, just lookit that mouth! He looks like he's singing the title song from the musical Oklahoma!.

 

Ah, the ending. I like how at the end of the book, things aren't all resolved, and you don't really know if most of the characters are going to be okay, and yet it still manages to be satisfying in some way!

 

Okay, so the next drawing (kind of a bonus) is pretty weird, but I couldn't help myself. So there's this Russo-Finnish fairy tale movie called Jack Frost, and in it there's a guy called Ivan, who is proud and boastful. While wandering around in the forest, he gets accosted by a little mushroom man (the aptly named Father Mushroom), who challenges him to sort of a game of hide and seek. Ivan wins, and Father Mushroom gives him a magic bow that will never miss it's mark. However. Ivan doesn't say 'Thank you' to him, so Father Mushroom curses him to have a bear's head until he does one genuinely good deed. As Bear-Ivan wanders the countryside, he gets haunted by Father Mushroom who constantly taunts him by yelling "Ivanushka!". It's a pretty goofy movie, but I like it despite it's silliness because it's just so charming in it's stupidity.

So while reading The Brothers Karamazov I immediately thought of Ivan and Father Mushroom. Especially at the part where Ivan is losing his mind and hallucinates that there's a petty devil harassing him. So I drew this. :)

 

 

Thanks for taking a look at my drawings! And if you read that entire description of Jack Frost, then kudos to you for your high weirdness-tolerance! Posts might get sparse from here until say, May 3rd, because stuff just got real at orchestra. I know you're all probably a little tired of hearing me go on and on about orchestra, but it's a big part of my life and I can't help ranting about it at every opportunity. :D

I also got a solo. Which is big news. [SQUEE!!!]

I WON'T LET YOU DOWN, SIR!!!



 





A Quick Chibi Picture

Wow, no posts for 20 days, that's gotta be a first! Truth be told, it's been maybe the tiniest bit crazy and distracting ever since the beginning of February and lots of exciting things have been happening. Like my friend getting her first job, the transmission on our car giving out but still being under warranty [yay!], another friend's baby brother getting baptized, composing music on the iPad, practicing flute like CRAZY for my scholarship audition, and I haven't really had enough creative juice to post anyway. But I did draw this little thingamabobamajig when I got home from me and Libby's orchestra concert. :)

Because after my concerts I'm so happy I feel like I could jump right off the face of the earth and into space!


The Count of Monte Cristo Chibis! + The Gargantaur Rosca!

I loved this book. Very easily one of my favorite books ever, and you know what that means! Chibi cast!

Voila! I hope you like them! Sorry the pictures are a bit small, this is as big as I could get it without blogger going all insane on me and making it so big it blots out the sun.
Oh, speaking of things that blot out the sun...

Check out this Rosca that we found at El Super! It's HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGEEEEEE!!!

Momo Chibis!

Hi guys! Yesterday was my Piano and French finals, and I so can't believe that it's over! I already miss my friend I was going to school with (even though we'll totally see each other again in January when school starts up again, at the very latest). But it was nice, I think I aced my Piano final (though at the end of my song, there were three notes to be played at once, and accidentally only played one. Derp!)
So anyway, I have some chibi comic ideas, but I forgot to write them down, what with my Finals and such. XD So here, enjoy these chibis of the cast of Momo! Momo is a wonderful German book (my Michael Ende) about a mysterious orphan girl who has the unique ability to help people just by listening to them talk about their problems. Once people listen to Momo, they are suddenly able to go and fix their problems. Then one day, strange and creepy gray men start appearing all over town and begin to steal people's time. It's a really good book, and I highly recommend it. :)

A Tale of Two Cities Chibis

I drew these guys a long time ago, but then I lost the sheet of paper they were on and never found it again. Very tragic. So I gave up looking and drew them again, with a few improvements. And dang! Late 1700's fashion is really hard to draw, especially those weird little stocking things that men wore.

Charles Darnay: I actually based his outfit off of what Sydney is wearing on the cover of my copy of the book, and since they swapped jackets at the drugging part, I figured that I should draw Charles in the blue jacket instead. And the yellow shirt... just because for whatever reason I really like light blue/pale yellow as a color combination. It looks kind of sunset-y. :)
Lucie Manette: I tried to make her outfit as accurate as possible. From what I've seen of 1700's fashion is that a lot of ladies dresses would have a v-shaped panel in the front made of some kind of lacy material. Not 100% sure though. But it's a chibi, so who cares if the fashion is accurate. At least she's not in jeans.
Sydney Carton: Sydney is sad because I drew him with a bottle of wine, thus enabling his alcoholism. Ahem, in every adaptation I've seen, Sydney traipses around in a heavy, black trenchcoat that's like his de facto outfit. So I kind of stole that. Hm. I'm not so good at designing outfits. Even Lucie's dress is inspired by the musical's album cover. :P
Monsieur Manette: [sigh] My siblings hate Monsieur Manette because he cursed the family of Evremonde, including little toddler Charles. Hence, they think that Monsieur Manette is evil.
Miss Pross: Miss Pross is awesome. She's one of the coolest old ladies in all fiction. Ahem, I'm not sure why I drew her in pink, but I think that the mob cap is accurate.
Mr. Lorry: I drew him with his little brown wig that the book keeps bringing up. Aside from that, I don't know how to draw the barrister outfit. :P
Madame Defarge: Howabout that crazy hat? It's so big! I also went overboard with her little accessories. But overall, I'm quite happy with this one. :D
Monsieur Defarge: Shoot! I knew I forgot something... those stains on his apron were supposed to be wine stains, but I used the wrong color.
The Marquis: "MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!" I tried to make him look a little bit like Charles (Family resemblance and all, y'know), but YIKES! That mouth.

Storage Room: Rene's Hat

Based on a graphic true story. Just kidding. About the graphic part that is. The incident itself actually did happen in real life. I wore my kicky hat to orchestra and my conductor told me to take it off. Hence, the beginnings of this comic were set. :)

Rene plays Viola because it's such an underrated instrument. I'd learn it, but I already play flute and a few others, and the last time I tried to learn a string instrument (violin) it was horrible. ._.

Chibi Illustrations Jane Austen Books

I was thinking that if I was able to draw realistic looking figures, I would draw illustrations for books. Then I figured I would just render my ideas in chibi form for fun. And well, I liked the way some of these turned out so I decided to post them. :)
Might do more of them as ideas come, but for now please enjoy Jane Austen illustrations.

I'm not sure about that squirrel. On one hand, detail! On the other hand... it doesn't look that great. That's why it's not colored in. XD

 

 

Unfortunately, I couldn't think of anything for Sense and Sensibility, but when I think of something I'll add it to the post. :)

The Brothers Karamazov Chibis

Enjoy this little cast sheet for everyone's favorite 900+ page existential* Russian novel, The Brothers Karamazov!
I'm only 342 pages into the book (if I had stuck to my schedule, I'd be 500 pages in, but I got lazy.), but I'm enjoying it a lot (except for that one chapter...) and when I really like a book or movie, I want to draw chibis of the characters. :)

Alexei 'Alyosha' Karamazov: The pure-hearted, 20 year old novice at the local monastery. Alyosha is a sweet character, even if he is a little too perfect maybe (I'm less than halfway through though, and he seems to be developing at bit). I drew him in his cassock, but I don't know if he's going to go through with the holy orders. Elder Zosima told him that maybe he was called to live outside the monastery, so I don't know where that plot thread is going...
Fyodor Karamazov: The drunken, deadbeat father. I guess I kind of exaggerated the whole ugly thing, but in all fairness, his description in the book isn't much better.
Ivan Karamazov: Whew. Enjolras, hand over your medal for Nuttiest Fictional Character and clear the way for Ivan Karamazov! Ahem, spoilers. Ivan is a rather interesting character. He's the second-oldest son, and an atheist intellectual. However, his philosophy is a little (okay, a lot) more complicated than that. I really wonder where his characters is going to go from here!
Dmitry Karamazov: The eldest Karamazov brother. I guess Dmitry takes after his dad a bit in the ways of drinking and being kind of a loser. Dmitry is relatively sympathetic, but I have to confess that I have a tendency to forget things that happened 100 pages ago, so I can't quite remember if I like Dmitry or not. :P
Lise: Let me just pause a sec to make a public apology for that poorly drawn wheel-chair. [shudders] Anyhoo, Lise is a teenage girl who likes to tease Alyosha. She actually wrote a dopey love letter to him just to play a silly prank and see what would happen. Except that Alyosha actually said that if he doesn't join the monastery he'd be happy to marry her. Because Lise is just that kind of girl, she takes it in stride and doesn't seem to care that her practical joke is now near reality.
Katerina: Dmitry's fiancée. But Ivan may or may not also be in love with her. Curse you bad memory! I drew her with kind of a mean face, but Katerina's not actually that bad. She's hot headed and likes to be a control freak, but she's pretty decent. And I like how her little babushka came out. :D
Elder Zosima: Elder Zosima is kind of like Bishop Myriel from Les Miserables, in that he's the saintly Religious man who's probably going to die. Poor guy, I like him!
Smerdyakov [Is he a Karamazov?] : If your name is Smerdyakov, aren't you legally obliged to be a sinister illegitimate child?
Grushenka: Ah yes, the beautiful and seductive temptress... Grushenka. Maybe it's just me, but that name more screams out 'old lady at your average Byzantine Catholic parish'. Anyway, I don't know where Grushenka's character is going (in fact, I probably should have waited to post these until after I finish the book!), but I put her down here all alone so that she doesn't tempt anyone away from their fiancées. Hear that, Dmitri?!

Storage Room: Whipped Cream

Creative titles aren't my forte.

This actually almost happened in real life. Mom got home from the store, and I thought I saw a can of whipped cream, that was actually shaving cream. I didn't eat any, though. :)

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy [1905]

They seek him here, they seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere!
Is he in heaven, is he in hell?
That demmed elusive Pimpernel!

Sometimes, You've just got to read a fun book. I think that's how I could classify this book. Don't get me wrong, it's not frivolous or shallow. But it's not particularly concerned with the how's or why's, and just gets right down to business. TSP is kind of a simplistic book, in that the good guys are the good guys and the bad guys are the bad guys. I usually don't like that kind of thing, especially when the villain is constantly rubbing his hands together and laughing evilly. But I didn't mind it too much here, because it fit just fine with the overall tone of the book.
I also thought that for the 'cleverest woman in Europe', Marguerite was a little dense. But in all fairness, if I was married to this poof, I wouldn't suspect a thing either.
And now, for the fangirly gushing.
First off, this books is very fast paced and holds your attention. At least, it held mine. Your mileage may vary!
The book is short, and it shouldn't take that long to read. Unless you're reading it on your laptop's kindle app, and that hurts your eyeses, precious.
Sir Percy is (you could see this coming, yeah? ;) a really cool character, and I always found myself cracking up when he was talking in his slurred fop voice. Ahem. He's a very admirable character (though I wonder what gave him the idea to go off saving people from the guillotine!), and just the kind of hero that is getting hard to find. He's gallant, has a great sense of humor, and doesn't expect anything in return for what he does.  Oh, and he dresses well. ;)
Now, I know I kind of dissed Marguerite up there, but she's actually fine. You know, aside from the whole cleverest woman in Europe thing. I admire her determination, and she's very romantic at heart, but not in a silly or sappy way.
I love the finale of this book. It's very exciting, and I like the little twists thrown in!

The Verdict: A-
I hear that there are a lot of sequels to this book (and that they're actually pretty good), so I might just see if I can acquire one of them and give it a read, because this book left me quite hungry for more of their adventures! :D

Oh, and here are The Scarlet Pimpernel chibis.

 

Hope you like them! And um, any resemblance between Sir Andrew and Timothy from my silly comics is completely coincidental. There are only so many hair dos I can think of. XD