Lent, and what I'm giving up for it

I know I know, there are probably a million and one different posts like this popping up around the internet at the moment, and I know you're saying 'But Alice, you're not religious, why should you care about lent you hypocritical arsehole!'

Well for one, thank you for saying arsehole. It brightens up my day because the voice to my inner monologue simply cannot pronounce the word 'asshole' without sounding like a completely different entity has entered into my thoughts and is rudely jumping in on my normal mental narrator who speaks in a very distinguished and refined English accent which I attempt to channel into my everyday speech which has earned me the title of being 'very ladylike'

But I digress. Secondly, I believe that lent is a good thing (despite the fact that this is going to be the first time I observe it) because everybody needs a chance to let their bodies wind down, relax, and detox. Considering that exam season is coming up soon as well, I need to spend as much time as possible relaxing now before the stress induced binge that will come with frantically reciting my lines the night before I'm due to play Titania for Theatre Studies, or trying to overcome my resentment of the character Holden for English Literature.

So, what am I giving up for lent? Well, quite a lot of things actually, considering I'm also dieting (inb4 'so that's your real motivation!')

-Chocolate (obvious one)
-Sweets (still obvious)
-Sugar (as in adding extra sugar to things)
-Fast food (fast food that mum doesn't cook- Yay for oven bake!)
-Soda and diet soda
-White bread
-Pastry (I'll miss you pastry </3)
-Cake
-Alcohol

Well then, haven't I got a fun and highly enjoyable 40 days ahead of me

See! I can draw! Kind of...

I think I mentioned this in my opening blog post, but I do like to dabble in drawing every once in a while. Admittedly, I'm not the best at drawing, but its something I enjoy and I have improved on since I started. Well, I thought I'd take you through the process I go through to get a picture done. No, this isn't a tutorial, this is done through days worked on the picture. So, without further ado, I present to you the making of Beneath the Surface (obviously didn't take inspiration from the Dream Theater song ;P)

Day 1- Sketching and Line Art

I tend to chose a pose from Posemaniacs, a really great website recommended by art students and illustrators alike to make sure that you get your proportions as close to reality as possible. I tend to add  my own twists to the poses depending on the character. For example, Lila is a quite athletic character with small breasts in comparison to the model on the website, so you do have to adjust things accordingly. Then you clothe them and line them so that the scanner can pick up on every detail you want clear, and I tend to add little notes there and then on the picture, just to remember everything. Although, as you'll see towards the end, I will stray away from these notes. A lot.

Day 2- Basic colouring: Body and Clothes

I'm a very messy colourer. You know when you're told as a child to colour inside the lines? Well, I was always the one who coloured way too far over the lines then rubbed them out afterwards to make sure that I got the colour everywhere I wanted it and more. I also have a habit of colouring skin darker than it will be in the final picture. It just gives me a wider spectrum of colours to use for shading I guess. As you can see in comparison to the Day 1 sketch, I'm already playing around with the line art and adjusting it so that it looks better. Also, I always got for a background in a colour a world apart from the other colours I'll use in the picture. I know, I know, purple is quite close to pink...But they're still very different colours!

Day 3- Tidying up the lines, detail, and more skin.

You see, if I had started keeping the lines prim and perfect earlier, then I might have missed out little sections of colour. Believe me, it would be just my luck to miss something like that. I added a woolen texture to the cardigan by crisscrossing rapidly over the layer, different sections of crisscrossing for different sections of the cardigan. I think it's quite effective myself, but bare it in mind that this is the first time I've really attempted to add texture to clothing...Normally I have a habit of trying to pass off all fabric as silk or cotton. whoops :') Also, getting started on the neck, putting in the basic shadows and shapes.

Day 4- FACE.

Lets not focus on the hands for a moment. They're just there to be there at this point. But yes, the face! It isn't even finished in this stage, I adjusted it later on anyways. I always put the coloured features: eyes, lips, and blush, on a separate layer so that they wont be effected when I start adjusting the skin tone- lets face it, those eyes are light enough as it is. As for the other facial shading, I finally figured out how to do it properly (kind of) with this one. It's so glaringly obvious now that I think about it. All it is is putting highlights in the same manner as you would make up. So L shape on the cheek bones, a few lines on the forehead, chin, nose, and corners of the mouth. I feel so stupid now.

Day 5- Hands, Face, Skin and Hair

So first off I realised how unhappy I was with the nose of the last picture, it looked incredibly flat and, well, it just wasn't very well done. So I got the help of my friend who studied art to give me a lesson in nose drawing, and viola! Decent nose! Then comes the hands. No-one can help me with hands, and even now they look incredibly stupid, I'm definitely not happy with them, not one bit. It's getting the shape right that's the problem! But once I was (very loosely) satisfied with the hands, I could finally start adjusting the skin tone- See how the facial features stand out better now? After the skin tone comes the hair. Honestly, that's my favourite part of drawing people, doing the hair!

Day 6- Click here for the final piece :P

Yes, I'm doing a cheapskate 'go here for the rest of the story' thing. So shoot me :P

A Quick Overview

In the last post, you learnt about my ambitions when I was meant to be introducing myself as a whole. Now, I'm going to give you an overview of me as a person.

As mentioned before, I'm a fifteen year old. But what I didn't mention before is that I'm relatively short for my age. I stand at about 5'4" which, by itself means that people tend to think I'm younger than I really am. My hair is waist length and relatively unstyled, and I have to wear glasses...Glasses! I hate having to wear glasses, but apparently they make me look cute, yet another reason why people think I'm younger than I really am. Asides from the obvious height and hair issues, the rest of me suits my age. I'm a teenager, not a child from primary school, I have some kind of figure.

My favourite colour is black, or if we're getting technical then my favourite colour is red. No, that doesn't automatically make me a Goth or Emo as many people seem to assume, although I am a massive fan of the Gothic culture. The fashion and the literature are incredible, Dracula has made it's way onto my favourite books list, but I'm not a massive fan of the music. I like rock, metal and progressive metal, but if the lyrics hold meaning and carry a great message, then more often or not then I'll listen to it. I adore concept albums, which is probably why all of the Ayreon project and Scenes From a Memory are some of my most played albums. I also love Opeth, A Perfect Circle, and Pain of Salvation, though Dream Theater are undoubtedly my favourite band.

I think that's enough for this post. Bye guys!

A Brief Introduction

Hi there everyone! My name is Alice, and I'm a fifteen year old aspiring writer and actress from merry old England. I suppose I should be used to introducing myself by now, with the sheer amount of online accounts that I have scattered about the internet, but every introduction I write seems to be as mundane as the last. I used to think that I was simply bad at introducing myself to others, it's not something that I tend to get much practise at after all, however, over the past few months, I've realised something. I'm simply a mundane, average person. Some people may not want to know about the high flying achievements of the rich kids and celebrities, sometimes people want to know about real people. If that's the case, then you've come to the right place.

So, on with the introductions. As aforementioned, I'm an aspiring writer and actress. Of course, I would choose some of the most difficult career paths to get into, wouldn't I? I mean, writing fair enough, this is writing what I'm doing right now, but if I'm completely honest with you, this isn't my favourite kind of writing. What I do enjoy is creative writing, devising story lines and characters, twisting popular culture and forcing it to look at it's own reflection to show what it really is. The thing is, with my creative writing, it has to have a message that can be carried on into real life. Considering how much I enjoy the supernatural (vampires in particular), it could be seen as quite a challenge, but I enjoy challenging myself. How would an experience shape a person? How would they act because of that? Every character should be complex, and I say that every character should relate back to real life somehow. For example, one of my characters is adopted into a family after watching her mother die in front of her eyes in a brutal murder. Not exactly relatable, is it? But take the psychological aspects, the loss of a loved one, the mistrust of a new family, the feeling of not quite fitting in. Now, doesn't that seem a little more relatable?

Acting on the other hand has been a passion of mine for a number of years. If there's one thing I love more than writing, it's acting. I see it as a channel just as much as writing is. You can pour emotions into a character, anger, fear, hate, love, you can show the world your interpretation of them. But more importantly for me is the simple thrill of being up on the stage, being watched with eager eyes, telling a story through not only your language, your words alone. The performance that really got me hooked was David Tennant's interpretation of Hamlet. Probably one of the most powerfully displayed characters by one of the greatest actors of our time. I admit that I get emotional over a lot of performances, but considering that Hamlet was performed using Shakespearian English, and I still understood everything perfectly and shed tears over a lot of the performance, it really speaks volumes about the man. Because of that, I wanted to be a stage actress. There's a connection that's harder to convey between you and your audience when there's a panel of glass between you.

I said that this was going to be a 'Brief' introduction, and I haven't even gotten onto who I am as a person, what I look like, who my family are, or anything. Ah well, I suppose that will have to wait until another entry.