Second try designing a Cookie Run character--this time it's Strawberry Cookie! Strawberry is another one of my favorite Cookie Run characters; her shyness and love of video games are very relatable.

 I intentionally made sure her hands could fit in the pocket of her hoodie. For this design, I was able to drastically scale things down from Wizard Cookie by using only 2 strands of 4-ply yarn for the eyes. I'm still not super satisfied with how the eyes turned out because the brown sides of the eyes peek out from behind the white borders too much. So next time, I think I'll crochet the white border on the back loops only of the irises(?). Hammering out the details!

Still, I think she turned out pretty cute. :)

 It's very important to give epic quests the right-of-way. You don't want to be on the wrong end of a wizard's staff.

 I may not actually play Neopets anymore, but I still love my cast. (I actually started writing another fanfic that will never get submitted to the Neopian Times, about Blynn becoming a Defender of Neopia and battling the dark forces of legal advisors. I'll post it here one of these days.) This idea for Blynn popped into my head and I just had to draw it, because I couldn't think of a story to fit it into.

Before anyone asks, no, I'm not submitting this to the Neopian Times. I'm feeling very done with the website and the way the franchise is going, and the last few times I got something published in the Times, nobody seemed to care. At any rate, here it is on my blog for everyone to enjoy.

 So, one day, I just started coming up with ideas for road signs one might see around Middle-earth. I came up with a whole list of ideas and I've finally got the time to draw them, starting with this one.

Pretty self-explanatory.

I just had way too much fun with the ridiculous juxtaposition of the Great American Road Trip and Very British Fantasy. 

More coming!

 I thought it would be fun (and keep me from getting bored in between visits to my table) to offer free dino doodles to folks at Fossil Fest, so of course I had to go all-out and draw this adorbsies Giraffatitan advertising for me. 

Also playing around with lettering. Lettering skills are one of those lost arts that few people except professional calligraphers seem to pay attention to anymore, but are such a cool and enriching thing to know.

Remember when everybody was into hand-lettering things for a while?

And now it's the 2020s and we just ask AI to make something look fancy.

I'm concerned.

Shadow Play, Chapter 17

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7
Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14
Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 17

Zoltan glowered at the mages who had trapped them, his mane bristling and magic coursing through his fur. “You dare test zhe Lord of Shadows?!” he snarled, and they cowered.

“I didn’t know we was dealin’ wit’ him!” an Eyrie said, dropping his wand. “I hear this guy took out like twenty mages wit’ one spell!”

“I hear he’s in cahoots with Hubrid Nox!” said a Kacheek as she backed away from the fearsome Halloween Kyrii. “We picked the wrong guy to mess with!”

Vile turned to run—and bumped into Mammoth, who frowned down at the comparatively tiny Skeith. The Elephante clamped his hands on Vile’s shoulders. “So, about those negotiations,” the furry Defender said.

 

I've been wanting to try to crochet some Cookie Run characters because they just have such strong and great designs (and are so loveable). First up is Wizard Cookie! He's one of my favorite Cookie Run: Kingdom characters. His English voice actor does such a hilarious job with him, and his personality reminds me so much of myself.

The shape of the hat definitely needs improvement, but overall I think this wasn't bad for a first try. This was also my experiment with designing elements of a base "Cookie" template I could use for further Cookie Run characters, and I think I got it mostly right... but it turned out way too big! Wizard Cookie here clocks in at about 11cm, and considering he's one of the "fun size" Cookies, a taller Cookie like Hollyberry or Bamboo Blade would be nearly twice his height. And while jumbo plushes can be fun, they also take a lot more time (and more yarn) than smaller projects, and kind of lose some of their cuteness factor.

Mostly the reason this happened was because I tried to determine the minimum possible size I could make the eyes and then scaled the rest of the design from there, but the eyes still turned out too large. So for my next Cookie Run amigurumi, I made the eyes using two strands of four-ply yarn instead of the entire thickness of the yarn, and the scaling was much better. #YouThoughtThisWasADrawingAndWritingBlogButActuallyIt'sAnAmigurumiBlog

As for who the subject of my next project was, I'll save that for later. :) For now, enjoy Wizard Cookie! Wingardium... Jelliosa?