Climbing [Daily Photo #1146]

Last May thanks to my friend Xan I finally got to see what climbing looks like in real life. Now, I'm not planning to start climbing at all, being a couch potato and all ;p but I wanted to see the thing my friend loves so much. And it was fun*! Of course I took lots of photos, even though it was a bit challenging – I had zero experience photographing anything sporty.

*despite being threatened with planking! =D

The climbing gym.

Art: Nonbinary Demon Hunter for Lex

Dear Lex,

An embarrassingly long time ago you asked if I was going to post any drawings of metalheads. I didn't have any, so I decided to draw one for you and I did! I even scanned it! And then I forgot to post the drawing. >o<;;;;;

But better later than never, right? Allow me to introduce, a nonbinary demon hunter who is very, very metal.

Fanart: Tyri from I Heart Robot

I wasn't planning to draw anything today but this goth girl Tyri kept appearing in my mind's eye with her violin and corsets, and I am very weak and well, goth girls in corsets, you know?? So I sit down to draw her, totally intending to make a simple black-and-white drawing like these ones, but nooo, a voice in my head says “make it colourful, make it red, it will match the cover” and sometimes you gotta listen to those voices when art is concerned, right? So next thing I know, I'm armed with pencils and actually colouring!

...

Two hours later this was completed:

Friends [Daily Photo #348]

On the way to the train station to say a tearful goodbye. :O

Come back to Finland soon!

7 Babylon 5 Fanarts

An embarrassingly long time ago I asked folks for Babylon 5 characters fanart requests. And because it took me forever to draw them, I decided to add two bonus arts as compensation. :-)  I apologise for the delay! If you haven't watched Babylon 5, there will be a spoiler about one of the characters below.

Here they are!

Shadow Surgeon

for Henri 

Usually very ominous. So I decided to draw a Surgeon doing something mundane and not threatening. Not at all.

Daily Photo #32: Friends

Friendship. A portrait in shoes.

Happy Birthday, Lesik!

“Hallo, I'm Lynx Potter, I'm a Gryffindor cat. Nice to meet you!”

Art: Swimming Goddess

A mountain goddess who speaks with beasts

A goddess of beauty and fire

A precious gem of ancient east

Came swimming with those who admire her

Happy birthday, lovely Agnia! 

(@ ^ _ ^ @)ノ♥

Art: Quolls, Cats and Quokka!

I scanned tons of doodles some time ago and asked friends to choose what I should post first, cute animals or beautiful women. But the votes were 50/50! (With one more person challenging me to draw beautiful animals and cute women. ;p) So, because I'm a bit mischievous, I decided that my husband's vote had more weight. =D And he voted for cute animals!

I drew these quolls for my sweetheart. Eastern and western quolls. To show east and west I chose to draw rising and setting suns. ^^ It took 10 minutes to doodle!

Art: Animals For Everyone! Round 5

An aye-aye for Dasha in Russia

Art: Animals For Everyone! Round 3

Time for more animal friends!

A hedgehog and a cat for Mitya and Sasha in Russia

Art: Animals For Everyone! Round 2

If you missed the beginning, it's here.

More animal doodles! Yay artistic productivity! ^u^/

A cat for Olesya in Russia

Art: Animals For Everyone!

The other day I had a Sudden Artistic Urge to draw animals, and because I didn't feel like drawing same old same old, I asked others to choose critters instead! So far, I've drawn 11 animals and got a few more requests. Today I'll post the first four!

A lesser panda for Simo in Finland 

A little bit about my writing

Sometimes you don't know you need something till you get it.

Writing is a solitary process. You scribble in the middle of the night, you daydream figuring out all the plot points and character development, you draw your characters, you edit... all of that alone.

And then you get stuck. And you try to find solutions to your plot problems but nothing seems to work. Or you lose inspiration and get distracted with non-writing things. Sure, reading interviews with writers or articles on writing is inspiring, it feels good and I often get ideas! But... I rarely do any actual writing afterwards... ^^'

New Camera Test: Nikon D3200

This happy fan of photography finally saved enough money to buy a new friend! I've never used a DSLR camera before, so it's quite a change for me. (My old camera is a simple point-and-shoot buddy.) The other day I, my husband and our dear Nikon D3200 went for a walk to test the camera in the wild. Note: we didn't know the settings very well yet, so these are probably far from the best shots that could have been done with the camera on that day. ^^ Anyway, let's see what we captured!

Click to enlarge!

April reading: South Africa, birds and Japan

My April reading is introduced to you by The Bookend Horses. I read a few South African books because a certain person made me curious about that land. And reading the world is fun!

There will be LOTS of photos in this post. :)

• Suzanne van Rooyen “Obscura Burning” [South Africa] 
• Niki Daly “The Herd Boy” [South Africa] 
• Vuoden lintukuvat [Finland] 
• Deon Meyer “Devil's Peak” [South Africa] 
• Lauren Beukes “Zoo City” [South Africa]
• Aya Kanno “Otomen” ( オトメン / 乙男) vol. 1-5 [Japan] 

Obscura Burning

Art: The Goldfinch Girl

This one is for my friend Agnia Tikli. ^o^

Carduelis carduelis
(Click to enlarge)

Happy Birthday, Ira!

My mysterious and beautiful friend Ira, Happy Birthday! 

(((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o)))

This little doodle is for you!

Special guest star: the Nuclear Owl.

It's based on Ira's actual clothes (she's cool like that*). ^-^

But I didn't choose this outfit just as an excuse to draw more corsets, I swear!

A taste of Ukraine

This is a post for my friend Admiral July, an angry Ukrainian feminist who really loves puppies. ^-^ She ordered me to take a photo of a Finnish dog in the snow, which I failed to do so far (mostly because I'm an asocial creature who likes to stay home when it's too slippery outside). But! I did find something Ukrainian in Helsinki, in a grocery shop...

Червоний борщ!

Red borscht! 

Red Pandas For Dasha

You might know my friend Dasha from the drawing I made a year ago. She likes red pandas, and who doesn't? After all, they are fluffy balls of adorbs! ^^ There are red pandas in the Helsinki zoo, but lately they were hiding. I really wanted to show them to Dasha... Yesterday, finally, the elusive pandas showed up and even allowed me to take a few low-quality photos! :D