The celebration for my blog's anniversary will be longer this year, because the Q&A with Annabelle and Phoenix will be divided up into two posts like the Q&A about my novel I did lastNovember. (The reason is both the videos are long and I don't want to bombard you with two long videos in the same post and also because the characters are not from the same story).
A few posts ago I asked for questions. These are Annabelle's answers to your questions (and reactions to your impressions). In the next post, Phoenix will answer your questions, so stay tuned. Anyway here are Annabelle's answers:
It was really fun to answer in character. And it really helped me understand Annabelle better.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What powers would you like to have? And what magical creature would you like to be able to turn into?
So, these are drawings that didn't really fall into a category. They were ones that I didn't make with polls so couldn't include them in my Using Polls to Create Art series, and they weren't for Inktober so I couldn't post them there, so I ended up creating a new series. This is a series for art I don't quite I have a series for, called Miscellaneous Drawings.
Here they are:
I updated my header!
I felt it needed to be changed, since my drawing style has changed a bit.
I also decided to have lights surrounding Arcasia, (it's up to interpretation whether these lights are ghost orbs or fairies). Also, this follows a story from the last header, which you can look at here. That header showed her fighting a monster of some kind (which isn't visible to the viewers). But in the current header, the danger has passed, and she is exploring the calmer part of the forest where she sees the ghost orbs or fairies.
Anna (left) and Kitty (right) at the ball from Anna Karenina.
I am currently reading it, so I drew something based on that scene.
In a previous post, I mentioned that Riona used to be human before she could shape shift back and forth between a phoenix and a human. This is what she looked like when she was a normal human.
She used to have blondish/brownish hair before she turned into a phoenix. When she is able to turn back and forth between human and phoenix she has red hair with blue highlights in it (in order to mimic a flame).
A drawing of Tauriel. I did this artwork for an original song I wrote about Tauriel, which I plan to post in the future.
I drew this for the Bird Whisperer Project (if you scroll through their Facebook you will be able to see some of my drawings). However, since they moved to twitter and I didn't have a twitter account (I don't really want one actually), and couldn't send in this drawing and it didn't get posted.
So I thought I'd post it here instead.
Here are some eye drawings, I am currently learning how to draw eyes realistically.
I tried to put these realistic eyes into my current drawing style, and this was the end result.
I think I made the eyes a little bit too big, but other than that I actually do like the end result.
A drawing of a crossover between Brave and Tangled.
**warning this post contains spoilers for Disney's Frozen**
I have been thinking about the plot of Frozen, and why it failed as a story for me. I did really enjoy watching it when I was younger, but then I got older and started noticing plot holes in the story here and there. Admittedly, Frozen did inspire some things in my writing (e.g. evil prince characters). However, I feel as if some elements of the story telling failed. While from an animation stand point the animation is the highlight of the movie, there are some elements of the story that need improving.
I am also using this as an exercise in rewriting, given that with one of my novels that I am editing, The Mystery of the Body Thief has some elements that need changing and I was stuck on what to change to get across the point I wanted. Sometimes when you have that difficulty, it is much easier to rewrite someone else's writing than your own. This allows you to look at your writing challenges from a different perspective.
I am also probably going to turn this into a series called "my rewrite of [blank]" so if you know of any TV shows, movies, or books that you feel like need improving story-wise that you would like me to see rewrite in another installment, I'd love to hear it in the comments. (It has to be one I've seen though, so I may not be able to do every suggestion.)
Let's begin:
Hans would not be a villain. Instead, he would be misled-
The problem I had with Hans was that he suddenly (out of the blue) became a villain, wanting to rule the kingdom and tricking Anna into loving him. I could not find a way to make it so the twist made sense in the story. So, in my rewrite, he would instead be the person he was showing Anna he was: kind, generally trying not to hurt anyone, and slightly awkward.
(Image from wiki fandom, https://frozen.fandom.com/wiki/Hans_Westergaard?file=Hans_and_Elsa_in_the_dungeon.png)
Instead of wanting to claim the kingdom, he would believe Elsa was evil and was hurting Anna. And in doing that, his motivation would be to defend Anna from her sister. Because his kiss wouldn't work on Anna, he would think to go to extremes to have to kill Elsa in order to free Anna from the curse.
This would backfire, but instead of Hans getting punished for his actions (or Elsa getting punished for almost killing her sister), they would make up in the end and resolve to be friends. Also, they would resolve that they should communicate better in the future.
Elsa and Anna would not be fully separated from each other-
Anna has more scenes with her love interest than she does with Elsa. In my rewrite, Elsa and Anna would have several more scenes together. This would not just tell the audience, but show them that they love each other as sisters. And since the story is much like Cupid and Psyche, where someone has to fight to get the person back who they love, showing their sisterly love for each other would be necessary in making the story work.
The problem is, the scenes we do get of Elsa and Anna show how aloof Elsa is from Anna and that she is ignoring her. Instead, we need to see scenes where they actually talking to each other and interacting in a loving way, in order for the audience to believe they really love each other.
And while Anna wouldn't know Elsa has powers until later, there would be some comedic moments of Elsa going out of her way to hide her powers. This would also show how hard it is for her to lie to her sister.
There was actually a deleted scene from the original movie that I feel would fill the gap for this, which was "the dressing room scene":
We would see their bond, and because of that in the end it would confirm to the audience that the true love they saw was really sisterly love instead of needing to be told that by Elsa.
Kristoff would not bring Anna to Elsa's castle. Instead, he would be replaced by someone else-
The problem I had with Kristoff was that as a love interest he overshadowed the sisterly love of Elsa and Anna. So, he would be entirely cut out of the movie and instead be replaced with three different characters. Each of these characters would help Anna in getting to the castle, without one being more important than the others.
(Quick sketch of what she could look like)
The first character would be a thief girl, who would show up for part of the time and help Anna part of the way. But she would have to stop because she wouldn't be able to travel the entire way. This character was taken from the original story that Disney based the movie on, "The Snow Queen." I thought basing a character on one of the characters from it would be fitting as well as alluding to it.
The second person to help Anna would actually be Sven, and he would help her by leading her the second part of the way. This I took from Fairy Tales since in a lot of fairy tales, princesses or princes have animal helpers who help them or come in when they're needed.
The final person would be Olaf. Anna would get to see what Elsa is able to create with her powers, but also she would see that not everything that she creates is bad and that there is good in Elsa's magic.
These friends who helped her, would then come back to lead her back to the castle after she got hit in the heart with ice magic by her sister. But they wouldn't overshadow the relationship.
Anna would face some real dangers in finding her sister-
Instead of a simple journey to the ice castle, Anna would have to deal with real dangers throughout her journey that would propel her forward to helping her sister.
The wolves from the movie would remain, of course, but there would be more dangers than the wolves and the monster Elsa created. Anna would have to go through challenges presented by people along the way, each trying to steer her away from rescuing her sister but pushing her forward to doing so in the end.
(Image from wiki fandom, https://frozen.fandom.com/wiki/Oaken?file=Oaken.png)
The guy with the sauna, Oaken, who appears briefly in the movie, could serve as a challenge for her. He wouldn't be evil per se, but he would tempt her and try to stop her from continuing on her journey.
Because the sauna would be welcoming and warm, she would want to stay there instead of venturing out into the cold. So, she would have to fight to get back to the quest to save her sister. This would act as a challenge like the island of the lotus eaters in The Odyssey.
And given the addition of the thief girl, Anna may even get robbed by bandits (because she is a princess, the richest person in the kingdom, going alone on a journey). Eventually she would get the help of the thief girl who is part of the gang of bandits. The Thief girl would decide to help Anna eventually, after having to be convinced.
All these events would happen in an episodic way and then lead up to Anna's finding Elsa.
There would be scenes jumping back to Hans taking care of Arendelle-
Because there would be a lot of intense and stressful scenes of Anna fighting against the urge to turn back and go home instead of finding her sister. As relief scenes, we would see Hans trying and failing (and sometimes succeeding) in taking care of Arendelle, while the princess and queen are missing.
Since Hans is the youngest in line (with twelve older brothers), I doubt that he has much experience with taking care of a kingdom. He would know how to provide food and shelter for people (as we actually see in the movie), but we would see him failing at other things.
And that would provide comic relief from time to time. It would also serve to enhance the plot, because it would show what was going on in Arendelle and how eternal winter hurt it. But it also would show how unsuited Hans actually is at ruling a kingdom.
But despite all this, some of the citizens would make comments throughout (perhaps in song form) that he seems like a better ruler than either Elsa or Anna, who abandoned Arendelle when it was at its weakest and not sending someone else out to find Elsa. While Hans would be protesting that he's just taking care of the kingdom until Anna return, there would be some citizens questioning the whole situation.
While (if) there were to be a song within in the sequence (the sequence itself would appear much more than just once), I don't imagine it being exactly like the song "Prince Hans of the Southern Isles (Reprise)" that appears in the broadway musical version of Frozen:
Since that song takes a more serious tone than I imagine this subplot having, I could imagine taking some of the elements and just turning them around into being more like complaining from the citizens point of view.
Here's what I imagine the song being like (the chorus that is). Interestingly, I imagine it sounding a little like this song and having it be sung by the ensemble:
🎶 Our queen froze our kingdom,
Our princess left us to die,
Now all we can do is groan and sigh,
But the thirteenth in line,
Seems very fine,
Compared to our royalty who decided to resign. 🎶
Of course, but this not the whole song, but it is the gist of what I feel like it would be.
The trolls would be used briefly-
They would show up in the beginning to erase Anna's memory of Elsa's powers and make Elsa insecure about her identity and her abilities. And they would show up to tell the heroes what to do about Anna's frozen heart. But they would not have a musical number, because it feels like it drags on a little too much and because in this version of the film Kristoff is nonexistent.
They may, though, hint that Anna needs to find her true love. Of course, the characters would assume her true love was Hans. And in the end the audience and characters would find out it is in fact Elsa. This change has to happen, since with the original plot, the movie tells us that Elsa is Anna's true (sisterly) love. However, that version of the movie shows Kristoff as her romantic love more often, and that really confuses the audience.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------How would you rewrite Frozen? Would you watch my rewrite of Frozen?
As a reminder, you can still leave questions for or impressions about Annabelle or Phoenix (or both) here. Your ideas will help me create character interviews for my blog's sixth anniversary in March.
But back to this post, all the drawings are responses to majority votes, unless otherwise stated:
I made two polls, and the result was Ophelia at a masquerade. It was very fun to draw her mask,
because I decided to make it bird-like.
This drawing actually came first, before the picture of Ophelia at the masquerade.
I like how it turned out, and it was fun to give Annabelle two masks.
I made a poll about Elm and how I should draw her. The end result was that I should draw in her Middle Earth. I based her dress on Arwen's dress; I think Elm would be an elf if she lived in Middle Earth.
This drawing was inspired by this painting. I was trying to decide which characters should take the place of the characters in the painting, so I had the pollers vote on it, and Matilda and Felix won.
I ended up taking inspiration with the poses the characters are in and tried to copy the style of the painting a bit, while still keeping it in my style.
This is a drawing of Riona's father. I had a poll voting on which character I should redraw from this post, and Riona's father ended up winning, so I decided to redraw it, and I like how it turned out.
Riona herself is warrior who can shape shift back and forth between being a phoenix and a human, but she wasn't originally magical. She was an ordinary human like her father.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Which drawing is your favorite? And if your characters lived in any fictional world (other than the one they currently live in) where would they live?
For my blog's sixth anniversary which happens on the 9th of March, I decided that this year I will do a double character interview where my characters, Annabelle and Phoenix, will be answering your questions and reacting to your impressions. The characters are from two different stories, so they'll provide contrasting points of view. I plan to do more interviews in the future with other characters, but I thought I'd start with Phoenix and Annabelle.
The character interviews will be two separate videos. So you can get creative with your questions, and share all of your initial impressions of their characters with them. If you don't know much about Annabelle or Phoenix I suggest checking out their character sheets here and here.
To leave questions, comments, and wild guesses about their character to get included in the video, you can either leave them in the comments section down below, or fill out the form below. If you wish to be left anonymous, please either comment anonymously or fill out the "your name" section of the form as "anonymous" so Phoenix and Annabelle know what to call you.
I decided to do another response to Ginny Di's POV (Point of View) RP (Roleplay) videos. There are now more videos to choose from: such as bard, a prison guard, and a mage. This time I decided to respond to the prison guard . In my last responses, I had my characters talking to a villain.
For Gletta, this happens in the prequel before Eyes in the Night takes place. Note, that I could not find a wig that matched her hair in canon, but, this doesn't mean her hair suddenly became shorter...It just means I do not have a wig that looks like her hair.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What would your characters (or you) do if they got arrested? Have you ever dressed up as one of your characters?
-Quinley
P.S. My YouTube Channel just reached 3,000 views!!
Last year I mentioned in a post that I had a surgery, so I wanted to make a post to reflect on it.
Actually, I had two different surgies for different reasons. One was to put a bar in me (so the indent in my chest didn't affect my lungs), and one to get the bar out, which I've had now for four years. (Side note: I had the first surgery around the time my blog was just beginning). At that time I didn't really feel comfortable about talking about it (I did write a draft post about it, but I never posted it), but now I would like to talk about it, so that I have something to look back on years from now. And also to find others who have experienced something similar.
After I had the bar removed. the doctor asked if I wanted to keep it. I decided that I wouldn't like to keep it but would like a picture of it. This was partly because I had had it with me for four years (and it was pretty painful to have in my chest for four years), and I was not sure what would do with it. So here's the picture of my bar:
For this surgery thankfully I didn't have to stay in the hospital overnight, unlike my previous one. So, I went home afterwards and mostly lay down while I was in pain. For my previous one, I don't remember a whole lot from it (partly because it was a while ago and partly because of the medication).
But interestingly enough, I did end up taking a picture of my hospital room (in 2017, while I was in the hospital there). I can't comment much on what happened, but I briefly remember being so out of it the entire time. I watched The Hobbit. Lord of the Rings, and Burn Notice while lying in the hospital bed.
Watching The Hobbit
Also, during that time I brought a few of my dolls with me:
Tauriel, Legolas, and Dr. Crusher. And I also brought Sarah and Rebecca with me.
But the surgery that happened in 2021 was different.
Even after the second surgery was over, and my incisions healed, I was still recovering. There were still things that hurt to do, that I had to get myself back into doing. For example, for a while I found it hard to draw on paper. (I could draw digitally, but drawing on paper hurt because of the pressure.) And I found it hard to play piano. But it has gotten easier. Also, in 2021 after my surgery I started doing Tai Chi and hope to do it every day. It makes me feel better not only physically but emotionally. If I am stressed, I do it, and I feel better.
Stories that helped me through my surgeries:
"The Gift" (Star Trek: Voyager)- Seven of Nine in that episode, had a surgery to remove her Borg implants. I deeply related to this, partly because I had just had my surgery when I watched this episode, and what Seven was experiencing was something I deeply related to. Star Trek itself was something that I'd watch as a stress reliever before and after both surgeries. For example, before the surgery (the day before it), I couldn't really think to write and watching something was how I kept my mind off of it.
And while I only discovered this episode in 2021, it was a very happy moment for me, partly because Seven of Nine has been a character I relate to deeply because of how much pain she goes through due to her Borg implants.
Lord of the Rings (The book and the movie series)- I mentioned a while ago that this book reminded me of something that happened last summer, but I never specified what happened last summer that reminded me of this book (and movie) series. Frodo went through a lot of pain in the book and movie mostly due to the one ring, and to the fact that he **spoilers** was stabbed by a ring wraith.**end spoilers** The character was one I really related to (much like how I related to Seven of Nine).
Frankenstein- While I didn't discover it till after the first surgery, this book came up in a conversation around the second surgery which started with me saying "I can handle Frankenstein, but I can't handle anything medical." This led my sibling to comment that this sounded like something the monster would say about Victor Frankenstein. I also partly wondered how surgical the monster's creation was. (Shelley doesn't get into details of how Victor brought the monster to life, so it's really up to your imagination.) I have always related to both Victor and the monster (for different reasons). I suppose I can say that I relate to the monster as someone who has also had a surgery.
How my surgeries affected me creatively:
While I mentioned that I had difficulty drawing after my second surgery, my first surgery actually opened doors for my creativity. I couldn't sing before my first surgery. (I didn't have enough air to do so.) So, it opened the world of songwriting and singing for me. Had I had not had this surgery, I would not now be able to cover songs or write original songs as I do.
I also (unfortunately) had nightmares after my second surgery. However, I have decided to use them creatively in my writing. Because even though they were disturbing, they can make wonderful Gothic novels or even poems.
I have also decided I would like to write a story based on my surgery. One of my novels was actually inspired by my surgery (unintentionally, at the time like my other writing I didn't know I was writing about that). I plan to re-plot this story, given that I wrote a while ago. But it still holds importance to me even today.
I should say that during my first surgery, I was doing Camp NaNoWriMo, and I made sure that I got to the word count goal. Even though I was in pain, I was aware that writing helped me feel better. And in the end I got to the word count goal!
And after my second surgery, once I was feeling better, I felt empowered to re-film the three video projects I had been working on. At the moment I am still editing the last two videos. but I have posted the one I finished working on here.
So, even if things seem tough, you can get to your goals in the end.
