So, remember that whole thing about me having Internet?

Obviously, I was lying because nothing works properly the first time around. Oh, now I have TV, yes, but no Internet. How does the TV work, yet no Internet? I don't know, you tell me. Or even better, let me wait for a technician to stop by my place at the most inconvenient time and who knows when that's going to be.

However, I did promise new drawings. These were supposed to be a big hurrah as I returned to the Internet, but it looks more like an apologetic thing now.

I mostly did pencil sketches in my free time. It was sort so I didn't feel pressured to make something "finished" then end up choking. Also, I hate my ink work. I don't know, it's very hit or miss most of the time so usually I'll be happy after I pencilled something but then be filled with dread trying to drum up the courage to go in with ink (probably why inkers exist in the world, as well as Wacom tablets).

Now, too much exposition is unnecessary, but before I go on I just wanted to talk briefly about why I usually draw people and very rarely scenes. If you'd rather not read my interpretation of my methodology you're more than welcome to ignore the text following the drawings.

I've always been more of a character designer. I like coming up with stories, but only in context to how they may frame a character I am thinking of. More importantly my stories are more like scenes from a certain charater's life than an actual scene. At the same time, many drawings start simply with me starting at a point and expanding. It may be a certain type of eye that I want to draw, hairstyle, clothing, anything that is an extension of the character will usually get me going. I start fleshing out what kind of character would wear this or act in this way or wear their hair in a certain way.

So, while I do think in scenes, backgrounds are usually secondary or only important to set up the character and I honestly rarely think about it. While it might be in my head, drawing it out is not as important. Now, if you wanted me to write it out, it'd be a different story. That's how a couple of short stories usually start out.



Anyhow, this sort of 60% done sketch isn't great, but it's here because it illustrates the point. I ran across an old sketch I did of a surprised eye and I though, "I want to draw someone surprised, but why would she be surprised..." and it turned into a noir type of thing. So this one sort of came out of nowhere, and that's how things work in my head. The problem is it makes it very hard for me to regularly come up with things because everything is so random. And this needs to be said while we’re on noir: rest in peace, Mickey Spillane.



This started entirely because I had a certain shirt in my head that I wanted to draw, then came the eyes (which turned out bad). The mandoline thing honestly, I don't know what I was thinking. Is she left-handed? Why's she playing the mandolin? Is that a plectrum? Wait, do you use a plectrum to play a mandolin?....Seriously, I don't know. think it was because I didn't know what to do with the right hand or something. It was highly arbitrary.



Now this is all about the eyes. I was disappointed with how the mandoline one turned out so I went ahead and just started on the eyes again. Eh, I thought I might draw a cat burglar, so this is what happened.



I'm not sure if I was on an instrument trip or something, but I wanted to draw something having to do with trees. Also, there was a sketch of a girl I did a long time ago that I ran across and I always liked the hair and dress on her (weird, yes, but like I said, that's how my head works). Anyhow, I kind of wanted to actually use it instead of keeping it as just a half-done doodle.



Now this here...this is what happens when I dwell too much on a character. Ok, here's how it happened. First...I knew I wanted to draw a striped sweater with holes in it. I just did, it came out of left field. Then I ran across a photo of Moon Geun-hyung I had back when I was debating whether or not I should get her haircut.

The sort of light knitted coat type thing she had on with a black turtleneck I really liked. Anyhow, I ended up going into this whole Kali thing so I needed a knife, severed heads, and some arms (hence the doll's heads and arms and makeshift spear/sword business). This ended up with me starting on a full-blown short story about a girl raised by a cult as their version of a kumari devi.

I won't go into it too much...if enough people are curious, I'll put it up...maybe. But I doubt anyone's *that* curious...but the story of this character is, she's raised since childbirth by some nutty cult that combines eastern religions together. A bunch of medical conditions she's born with (which her parents believe are cured by the Great Mother Kali through their prayers), coincide so that they choose her to be a kumari devi. So she's imprisoned and used by those controlling the cult throughout her life.

When the cult compound gets destroyed in a government raid, she escapes, but instead of turning against the beliefs she was raised on, she's an even more fervent believer because she believes she truly was protected by Kali and her incarnations and those who imprisoned her were merely heretics who were rightly punished. So she goes around as this vigilante protecting the young....yea....I know, I did put a little too much thought into this. But that's why she has things mostly recognized with childhood on her. For one thing, she was in charge of instructing the younger believers of the cult, on top of that she was put in a perpetual childhood (there are some other things about her, if you go into what qualifies a kumari and what can get you disqualified that'll help understanding the perpetual childhood thing). So while like Kali a lot about her hints at destruction, she's also a caring mother.

So here are the new drawings a promised. Now that it looks like I'll have another week of waiting until I get the real Internet in my house, I guess I have more time to work on stuff. I have some very half-finished things so maybe I can hop on those. I don't track who reads this and whatnot, so whoever does like to keep up with this, thanks for sticking through the technical issues.

**BONUS MATERIAL**

Well, these are old things, but while we're on pencils:



These two were done for a final art project in school. They ended up not looking like this because I had to mutilate them a bit for the art piece. First is with the original, second is at a better angle probably.



And this was done on a whim late one night while I had nothing better to do. Man, it's not a good then when most of the stuff I come up with is just because, is it?