Calico Goes Hmmm...

I need to apologize ahead of time, everyone.

Because my scans of 2013 are just ATROCIOUS beyond all belief, seriously. I know you were all hopeful that my scanner wasn't going to be a complete shitfaced douchebag in 2013, like it would have turned a new leaf, and maybe had a New Years resolution to actually, you know, not crap all over me diarrheastically like it has been for the last few years.

But no. It decided that it just doesn't really care, and in fact, wants to make 2013 even MORE horrific.


Well, now that I've gotten that through, the scan of this isn't nearly AS bad as some of the other ones you'll eventually see (so bad that before I post most of the said pictures, I'll probably try and rescan them...), but...Damn. Seriously.

Anyway. So this year, I'd like to try and be more exciting with pictures, and experiment a lot. Since I wanna start doing comics, I want to practice at doing many things - facial expressions, posing, backgrounds... all that fun stuff. I suppose that I could do the comic, and then work on these things as I do them, but honestly, I just feel like I want to work on them first before I do comics.. I dunno. That and I haven't finished writing my 'script' yet for Welcome to Everglades for the first "season" so... I figured I'd work on these things in the meantime.

I feel like the bulk of my art is...happy. What do I mean by that? I mean...my characters are always freakin' smiling all the time. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I also want to show you all that they have other expressions too, and they aren't always on, like, Prozac or something. I really enjoy drawing expressions, to be honest.

So, me babbling for four paragraphs lead us to...This picture! Okay, so it's not the most exciting expression, but dammit...IT'S NOT SMILING. I wanted to draw Calico, I haven't really drawn her too much recently, and thought she'd be fun to draw with a fun expression and be my new sacrificial lamb. So...here she is...and she goes Hmmmm.... Okay, so it's not the most exciting picture you've seen in my gallery, but it was really fun to draw! Dunno what she's thinking about, really, maybe thinking about what part of Noah's wardrobe she's going to steal from him or something, I dunno. But it was fun to draw anyway.

I think it turned out well, altho I realize it kinda looks like she's holding her head because there appears to be no neck to be seen. Honestly tho, her hand is covering her neck, right? When I sketched out the drawing, she had a neck but the hand/arm/whatever just ended up covering it so...yeah. I'd hope that you all just assume that she actually does have a neck and that her head is attached to it....

She can be a bit challenging to draw sometimes. Over the years, I've started to give her more of a short, stalky shape instead of really skinny and stuff like previous pictures. If you look her up in my gallery, you'll see her change a little bit physically. I think giving her this shape gives her a more young, youthful look (since she's supposed to be only 16) so...yeah. I like to think of her as cute... She's pretty, but more cute. I think I'm going to start giving her freckles; my sister drew her as a human, and put freckles on her, and I thought that was a cute touch Gawsh, I even think her hair's gotten shorter as well too over the years (which has happened to Melanie and a few other girl characters of mine).

Fun fact: Calico's hair is red, and her eyes are green, because when I was growing up I always wanted natural red hair and green eyes, since she originally started as my "fursona". I no longer use a 'fursona', just back in my younger days, but her name just kinda stuck so that's why I always use 'calicokatt' everywhere I go.

IMMA GONNA START PUTTING FUN FACTS IN MY DESCRIPTIONS, GUYZ. Or something.

Anyway. So...yes. I originally wanted to put stripes on her shirt, I remember. But I scanned the picture before I added the stripes, and only realized AFTER that I forgot the stripes (I'm not too bright, you see.) I still like it being just white tho, altho it's strange that she's not wearing read because she's always wearing red. She has red shoes tho! (For the record, the stripes were supposed to be red.) I kinda think the shadow looks like crap. I really hate my shadows lately. Why the feck can't I do shadows anymore? Have they always been shitty and I'm only just realizing this now? Huh? What's going on 0.0 Anyway.

The background was done with my Crayola watercolour palette. I really like how it came out! I don't think I originally wanted to do these little balls (LOL I SAID BALLS. /immaturity Jess.) , and I was just going to paint the background randomly, but when I started the background, I started off using colours that wouldn't blend right, and they ended up being circle-y. Soooooo.... I liked how it looked so I just went with that. Okay, I guess they aren't really circle-y, more...err.. blob-like in nature. A lot of things in my life are blob-like in nature. *pokes her ass...* Yes, a lot of things. But I like how it came out anyway. Just something kinda different from our usual crap I spew out from my left hand.

Fun fact: Jess is left handed.

And... of course. Even tho I already mentioned my scanner being a douche, I need to reiterate that... MY SCANNER IS A DOUCHE. The scan of this isn't nearly as terrible as a lot of my other 2013 drawings, but UGH... Calico, as you probably all know by now, NEVER scans in properly, so her orange just looks disgusting. I don't know why orange scans in so NASTY. It's just so bright and makes my eyeballs bleed. There are various parts of Calico that are blurry, but seriously tho. This could have turned out worse. I might try and rescan this one as well too, but I'm pretty sure it'll just turn out the same or worse, because Calico never scans in right. Ironically the background didn't scan that terrible. I've been fooling around with my scanning program and have fixed some of my scanners douchery. Although, my scanner has figured this out, you see, so now it just scans new things in terrible. My scanner is a terrible, wretched thing. The background, actually, kinda scanned in shitty now that I think about it. Those random grey things you see there? Yeah, not even part of the picture. I think it's because my paper sometimes are "crumply" when I put them in the scanner because of the watercolours that I use for the backgrounds, even tho I leave my pictures shoved under heavy books for a good few days before scanning it. So because of this, this gives my scanner an excuse to explode and ruin my life. So yes, yet ANOTHER scan that I'll have to kindly ask you all to ignore.

Fun fact: You probably already ignore more of my scans already, because you already know they are terrible.

Well, anyway, I still like this picture regardless. The scan is terrible, and made her shadow look awful...But I still like this picture tho. Again, as per usual, the original is much, much, MUCH more tolerable.

So yes, just Calico doing a fun expression. I realize it's not overly complicated, but dammit she's not smiling, and that's all that matters.

Calico here is © to Jess Ratte