Here's My Version Of The OCs Vs Artist Meme!

Here's my version of the OCs vs Artist meme! ✍💖

🔸Favorite OC: My poor freckled daughter with self-esteem issues whose life I love to mess up with memory issues and vampiric apocalypses, Furukawa Chie (Hakuouki OC) and her mischievous Shiba Inu stray dog, Yokai.

🔸First OC: April Saito (Digimon OC), who I created when I was only 10 years old! April will grow up to become a Digimon rights activist, so I thought it'd be fun to draw her protesting with a "✅Yes to Digital Intelligence / ❌No to Artificial Intelligence" sign along with Gigimon, who has a matching anti-AI bandana.

🔸Fans' Favorite OC: Rice Ritz, head of the "Kame Warriors" (my troop of Time Patroller OCs from Dragon Ball Xenoverse), who used to be wildly popular back in 2018 when we ran amazing "OC vs OC" tournaments on DeviantArt.

🔸Easiest to Draw OC: Furukawa Kohana (Hakuouki OC), which caused my sister to go "What do you mean Kohana is the easiest one for you to draw?!". 😂 Maiko/Geiko are one of my special interests, so she's one of the few OCs I can draw from memory without having to consult a character sheet, lol.

🔸Hardest to Draw OC: Tani Sanjuro (Hakuouki OC), the arrogant yet skillful captain of the 7th Division of the Shinsengumi that both me and my fic's readers love to hate… and who has features as difficult to draw as his whole wardrobe!

🔸The Artist: Lady Yomi herself! 👀 Referenced from a real photo so that's why I'm wearing my noise cancelling headphones, haha.

I thought of drawing a retro anime style rendition of Vincent Van Gogh's (my favorite artist ever! 🎨🌻) painting titled "Portrait of a Woman with Red Ribbon" (1885) as a warm up, and I liked the result so much that I decided to step out of my comfort zone and color it in a painterly style different from my usual cel shading one! 👀✨ It's awesome when these kind of experimental artworks turn out the way you want them to, haha.

Bringing more old Hakuouki art! ⚔️🌸 I drew this traditional portrait of Souji with a couple of pens in 2017 as a gift for my sister Shimoduck and I still love how it turned out! 💖

It's been almost 1 month since I posted my RuPaul realistic portrait so (in case you're curious about what I've been cooking for the last month 👩🏻‍🍳🍳), here's a sneak peek of the 2 artworks I'm currently working on! 👍

The first one is an art meme (one of my favorite things to fill when I need a break from such ambitious projects as my realistic portraits 😂) featuring "The Artist VS Their OCs" (now halfway through the lineart stage).

And the second is a sketch of my take on a young Toriel (Undertale) as seen through the eyes of surface humans, who would regard her as the fearsome "Witch Queen" of monsters. 👹🔥 (I'm not drawing Toriel in PS but in Paint Tool SAI, I just opened the file in PS so the WIPs would look different, lol!).

I'm so glad this artwork has surpassed 1000 notes! 🥰 As a thank you, I'll explain the symbolic meaning behind some of the elements in this piece:

🌠The child version of Cloud (and, therefore, "The Real Cloud") represents his shared childhood with Tifa.

⚔️The translucent sword made of ghostly mako glow represents Zack's heroic legacy.

🌻 The yellow flowers he's standing on represent his connection to Aerith and the planet.

☄️🦅And the combo of the meteorite plus the eagle flying high through the flaming sky represents Sephiroth!

Cloud has been one of my favorite JRPG heroes since ages ago! He's such a complex, deep, and relatable character, so I went out of my way to portray his powerful spirit in a single image! 👏💖

This is the entry I drew for DeviantArt's "The Holi Mandala Contest". 🏵️✨ I was inspired by the three following things to draw this mandala:

👉My indigenous heritage: My great-great-grandmother, Petrona, was a descendant of indigenous people. She wore her hair in an ankle-length braid and used to tie it over her head to smuggle things across the border, lol. She liked to smoke chala leaf tobacco and her great-grandchildren say she was extremely serious, silent, and that I'm very much like her in appearance. 😊

👉Some of my favorite tarot cards: My paternal grandmother used to read them when I was little and I continue the family tradition since then. 🔮 The cards featured in this mandala are: The World, The Wheel of Fortune, The Sun, The Moon, The Devil, The Magician, The Star, and Death.

👉My meditative practices: I've been meditating for about 20 years and the color palette I picked for this mandala corresponds to the colors of the human Chakra/Energy Centers. 🌈 The Hindu prayer mala beads that appear on it were also inspired by my own set of mala beads, which first belonged to a tibetan monk, and that I was gifted by a kind Tumblr user many years ago. 📿

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I've been drawing mandalas since I was a teenager because I've always been fascinated by Hindu culture (the best meditative techniques I've learned come from Hindu and Tibetan cultures) and mandalas are also super relaxing to create and decorate. 🌼

Mandalas are used as a tool for contemplation and meditation, so here's a little explanation of the meaning behind each symbol drawn in the different "gates" (circles/sections) of this one:

🕉️1st Gate (center): The World Card. The Universe. The third eye chakra. The eye that perceives the universe so it can exist. Throat chakra. The power of speech and thought. I think, therefore I am. The chakra at the top of the head. The connection to the whole. The separate individual. Identity. The Self.

🕉️2nd Gate: The Wheel of Fortune Card. Time. Seasons. Inevitable changes. Growth. Movement. The solar system. The Gods of my ancestors. Emotions. Luck. Opposites coexisting as part of a whole.

🕉️3rd Gate: The cards waiting to be turned over. Destiny. The future. What is hidden.

🕉️4th Gate: The flames of Spirit. Creativity. Inspiration. Creation. Destruction. Purification. The sparkle of life.

🕉️5th Gate: My ancestors. The Devil Card. Protection. Strength. Support. Slaves who break their chains and raise their hands from the abyss, setting fire to the darkness. Survival instinct. Determination. The will to carry on.

🕉️6th Gate: The Magician card. The Star card. As above, so below. Manifestation. The morning star appearing in the sky at sunrise and sunset. Liminal spaces. Healing. Miracles. Achieving the impossible. Guides pointing the right way.

🕉️7th Gate: Feathers symbolizing freedom (flying high like a bird) of the mind and spirit (indigo and blue) and feathers symbolizing freedom of the body (red and orange).

🕉️8th Gate: Death Card. Material world/physical plane. Inevitability of change. Transformation. Humanity. The planet earth. Unity. Equality. Connection. We're different, yet we're all the same.

🕉️9th Gate: The laws of nature. Balance. Nothing can exist in the absence of its opposite. Cosmic protection and order. Containment. Harmony between instinct and reason. The Hindu prayer mala beads start the universe in the tassel section and end it when it completes its turn. Ouroboros, the snake that bites its own tail. The cycle of reincarnation. The beyond.

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🎨Materials used: Sheet of plain paper, black needlepoint rollerball pen, and "Caran d'Ache" + "Faber-Castell" watercolor coloring pencils.

⏳Drawing & coloring time: 28 hours.