Drawing: Then and Now

Over the years, my drawing style has changed and improved. I've learned how to draw clothing on after sketching the figure instead of drawing on the legs after drawing a skirt. I've shirked drawing hands by creatively hiding them and avoided feet by having the paper cut them off. I've drawn eyes just like some of my favorite mangas. I've drawn so many drawings that I never finished that I couldn't find ones that I had finished. Now, I'm changing my style and forcing myself to draw hands and feet as well as to make my drawings more realistic. What initiated this change? Mainly the fact that I was tired of my drawings having gigantic anime eyes and wanted to have a more realistic art style. How am I making this change? Well, I'm practicing. I'm taking the time to practice drawing hands in different positions without drawing the rest of the body. I'm adding nails to my hands and drawing more realistic placements of facial features. And I'm picking up drawing books that aren't in the anime/manga style.

While I still enjoy the simplicity of the anime/manga style, I've started to yearn for a more realistic style. Fpr the longest time, I've compared my figure to that of anime characters. They have such long, thin legs and mine are so thick in comparison. Their eyes are so big and elaborate, I wish my eyes could look like that. I've gotten tired of trying to fit my body image onto an anime character with seemingly "perfect" proportions and instead decided to change my art style to fit into more realistic standards. Girls with larger hips and proportionate busts (OK, maybe a bit big) have become more common in my drawings, and it's making me feel better as an artist and a person.

While I still enjoy the look of anime/manga artwork, I just don't feel it's what I want to be my go-to style for drawing anymore. In the long run, I feel that having a more realistic drawing style will bring me more happiness than an unrealistic anime/manga style.

And, yes, here are some of my drawings. (I apologize for the low quality image resolution on some of them. My camera isn't the greatest.)

When I was still fairly new to drawing.

One of my first drawings on a drawing tablet.

One of my more recent drawings. A redrawing of the above character.

Pet Bunnies: Pros and Cons

About a year ago, my sister decided she wanted a new pet, as she had greatly been missing having a cute, furry little hamster to play with. Originally she had been planning on getting another hamster, but later decided to get a bunny rabbit from a local bunny rescue. As I write this article, I have a sweet little bunny cuddled up on my lap enjoying head pets. We've enjoyed having him in our family greatly, but he can be a little brat at times. In this article, I'll be talking about my personal experience with having a pet bunny around.

So, why get a pet rabbit? For starters, they're small, aren't too hard to take care of, fluffy, and sweet little animals. Our bunny is a very adventurous and smart little guy, making him a lot of fun to be around, but also causing him to be a stinker at times. He adjusted to being around us all fairly quickly after we got him and he behaves differently for each of us. For example, he likes to push his luck with my sister, his mommy, to try and get her to pay more attention to him whereas he tends to be on much better behavior for the rest of the family. Bunnies need a cage that is big enough for necessities such as a box, food and water as well as some room for them to move around in and a higher section they can jump on to. Bunnies also need plenty of time to run around and "shake their sillies out" to keep them healthy and in good shape. My sister and I like to let our bunny run around our room at night before bed, or at an earlier time if we'll be tired at night. We have wire shelf pieces strung together to block off areas we don't want the bunny to get to, such as under our beds as he thinks it's a bunny cave and doesn't like coming out. We also have a harness and a leash so we can let him run around in our yard and nibble on the grass there.

Something to be aware of is that bunnies like chewing on cables. Both my laptop and cell phone chargers have little nibble marks on them from when I wasn't paying close enough attention to him. The worst damage he's done is ruin a charging cable for my sister's laptop by chewing through a decent portion of it. Things like this can be prevented by setting up blockades that prevent the bunny from getting within tasting distance of cables. Also, letting the bunny run around in a room with fewer cables will make it easier to prevent damaged cables. As mentioned above, we have a cage made out of wire shelves set up to keep him at a good distance from cables. We also have a small rug covering cables on the ground. Our bunny sometimes digs at the carpet (or our laps) to point out he's unhappy or just to get our attention. He's never caused any significant amount of damage to the rug, though he has pulled up a strand or two and decided it was grass.

Over all, bunnies are very sweet pets. One of my other friends has a pet rabbit that he spoils with lots of fresh veggies and he loves his little bunny rabbit. He mostly just lets his bunny run around her cage, which is a fairly large cage, so it's not as necessary for her to run outside of her cage as much. Just make sure you have resting pads for your bunny's cage as the wires can hurt their feet if they don't have anywhere else to sit.

Sulky Thread: A Sewing Nightmare

Recently I decided to turn some fancy fabric I had laying around into a dress, so I had to go get supplies and a pattern to use since I didn't have any fancy dress patterns lying around. Other than a few surprises about the dress pattern that I chose mainly for how pretty it looked ("Wait, this thing needs boning!?") things were going well with the dress making. Until I actually tried sewing it all together. I had bought a pretty, shiny thread to match the fabric I had, but regretted the decision almost instantly. I'd barely sewn three inches on my machine before the bobbin thread broke. Confused, I pulled out the bobbin and checked to make sure the thread hadn't tangled itself up like it so loves to do for me. Nope, thread had just snapped, so I reloaded the bobbin and started again. Three inches later, the bobbin thread had broken again. Frustrated, I pulled the bobbin out again to try to figure out what was going on and why the thread was breaking. Nothing seemed to be wrong, so I reloaded the thread into the bobbin holder. The thread broke as I tried to pull it into place in the metal bobbin holder. I then got very frustrated as I realized the flaw wasn't with the machine, but the overpriced, silky thread I'd bought. I'd been hesitant enough to buy the thread in the first place as I'd forgotten to bring a sample of the fabric to color match with, but now this was making me regret getting the thread at all. In the end, I got frustrated and put the dress aside for a later time when I'd be less frustrated with the whole thing.

Overall, I've found the thread I got, Sulky thread, has been a huge letdown. I've ended up just hand sewing the whole thing since I wanted to finish the dress and don't want to have wasted my time entirely. So let this be a warning to you: Don't buy Sulky thread unless your machine has a plastic bobbin. Which, to my knowledge, is not a real thing. It'll just be easier if you buy a cotton thread instead of wasting your time and money on the shiny Sulky threads.

Good luck with all of your sewing endeavors!

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