Calico's Crappy Balloons

Threeeeee crappy balloons go byyyy!

(You're supposed to hear that in your head to the tune of 99 Red Balloons, just incase you didn't know. LOL NOW I PROBABLY GOT THAT SONG IN YER HEAD RIGHT GUYZ? )

So this drawing had an interesting story-ish. So because of this, I will now waste 24 hours of your life telling you all about it's interestng story, because we all know I just love to babble on about crap that no one probably cares about.

I wanted to colour with markers since it's been a while since I've done that, and one of my favourite ways to colour with markers is to use watercolour paper. I just like the way the watercolour paper lets me blend the ink. It's kinda like using coloured pencils. Much more time consuming, mind you, but I still like how it works. It's been AGEEEESSSS since I've coloured with markers! So this was fun to do. The only thing about colouring with markers is that I can only really draw certain characters because I'm a wee bit limited in what colours I can use. I mean, theoretically speaking, I have all the colours of my characters however, sometimes the marker version of my Crayola coloured pencils tends to be...off colour. XD Like for example, Melanie peach (yes, I name my coloured pencils after my characters. XD) is...kinda pink. 0.0 So sometimes I'm a little restricted on who I can use markers for until I get more colours or dig up some of my other shades that I have hidden in the deep depths of my Jess Art Cavern. The good thing is that theres all kinds of shades of orange that I have, so I can usually do Calico with markers -

I took that the wrong way. Why do I have to be so freakin' perverted. Just..just no, Jess.

But anyway. Yes. I can usually colour drawings of Calico with markers since I have her colour scheme so thats handy.

Anyway, so nothing particularly exciting, I just wanted to draw Calico holding some balloons, for whatever reason, and...well that's it. Again, I just wanted to colour something with markers again since I'd been a while and I was feeling a bit rusty at it. I don't know why I wanted to draw balloons, for some reason I like to draw balloons altho I never really finish any of these said pictures that have balloons in them. Probably because I actually can't really draw balloons. Yes, something as simple as a balloon, Jess cannot draw.

Anyway, so there I was colouring this picture, and honestly, at the time, I thought it looked like complete and utter crap. I thought the colouring looked really choppy and gross, nothing was blending properly, and I pretty much just saw this as a big giant fail. I wasn't terribly upset, because I didn't like this picture THAT much to the point where it was a life or death situation for me, but it still annoyed me nonetheless.

Anyway, despite how the picture was turning out, I gave myself the benefit of a doubt and just finished it anyway. I did the background with watercolours and called it a day.

THEN SOMETHING REALLY MAGICAL HAPPENED. You see,when I do my backgrounds with watercolours, I shove the picture under a few hardcovered books, in an attempt to flatten the picture, because when you put watercolours to just regular paper, usually the paper crumples and stuff. It doesn't crumple as bad with watercolour paper like I did this picture on, but I shoved it under some books anyway just incase. I usually keep the pictures under there for a few days or whenever I get around to finishing up the picture. I took out this picture and like...for whatever reason, the picture... like...looked totally better.

Okay seriously, this never happens with my art. Usually my art looks worse over the course of time. I was pretty startled but happy nonetheless. I have no idea what happened, maybe the ink or something settled on the paper and...like...<insert science shit here Jess can't explain.> :iconmichiokakuplz: (WHAT? Michio Kaku doesn't have his own pls?? C'EST TRAVESTIIIIEE!!)

Yes. Science happened.

Science RULES!

So I was pretty pumped that the picture surprisingly looked better, so I happily did all of my finishing crap I do with my drawings (only to know that in the end, my scanner would pretty much just ruin the picture anyway.)

You might notice a slight change here that you may not have noticed in a few of my other drawings. And if you didn't notice it (because you probably didn't), I'll tell you about it. I've always been inclined to shade white with grey. In Jess logic, it just makes sense to shade white with gray. I've never been to an art school or anything, so everything I learn about arting is just pretty much done myself by experimenting (is that a good thing? I dunno.). Anyway, I read somewhere that you "should shade white with blue". I was a little skeptical, because in my Jessbrain that didn't make much sense. That, to me, was like a cat not liking cheezburgers, and didn't really click, but I thought for the sake of improvement I'd test it out to see how it would work. (When I read up about the whole shading white with blue thing, I actually started to obsessively look at objects and stuff that were white or off white to see if the shadows were blueish. I'm deranged like that. XD)

I wasn't really sure where to begin, so I just used gray and then added some light blue to it. (This picture is not the first one I tried this with; I first tried it out on another picture which, for the record, ended up looking MUCH BETTER than this.). Now with my markers, this is actually pretty difficult because my grey markers and my blue markers always end up being way too dark so...yeah.

I had to improvise with this and throw in some coloured pencils to help me out to try and blend everything together so it didn't look like crap. It looked really bad at first but after several attempts it ended up looking much better. I'm still not sure if I like the shading with blue thing. It still seems a little weird to me, but I dunno. I'm not an art expert so what do I know. XD I'm sure that this is just because I'm a creature of habit, and because I've done something for so long I find it really, really, really hard to do something a different way after so long. XD What do you guys think?

Anyway, as per usual, the scan of this looks pretty gross but not as bad as it could have turned out. My scanner fails to scan anything red because it's a shiteater, so Calico's shirt and hair look really crappy. Blurry lines and everything, all thanks to my scanner. I don't know why it makes my inking look "shiny" all the time. Those white parts all over the picture DON'T EXIST. My scanner likes to put it's own "artistic touch" to my pictures, and lets just say that my scanner is a shitstain on the art world. That's all I've got to say about that.

And I realize the balloons look really stupid. They don't even look like they are real. they just look like cardboard cut outs. BALLOONS DON'T WORK THIS WAY, JESS. I shouldn't have stacked them together like that. But I'm derp, and therefore I do derp things.

Anyway. I think this one came out okay in the end. Not my greatest work, but definately better than what I had thought originally. And why, yes, I DID completely forget her tail. I only realized that after I finished this one. Pretend it's there somewhere. In her pants or something.

My characters stuff tails in their pants. Or something.

So yes, just Cali done in markers, for some fun and practice, with her three bulbous things that we are supposed to believe are balloons. LOL JESSBALLOONS.

Calico here is © to Jess Ratte