Tag: faq

Survey~

I was tagged by @historyonice–made – thank you šŸ™‚

Rules: Answer these 20 questions and then tag some tumblr folks you wanna know better!

Name: Melissa
Nicknames: Gab, Gabapple, Gabbins, Gabs, Gabbers, etc. etc.. all of theĀ ā€˜Gabā€™ names you can think of, really. I am also often called Conan, Hakuba, Haru, Shu… Ā šŸ™‚ I suspect that I may end up adding Viktor or Phichit to this list eventually, but Sam was my official nickname in jr high.Ā 
Zodiac sign: Virgo
Height: 5ā€²6ā€³
Orientation: Demi like woah.Ā 
Ethnicity: White like wonder bread. šŸ˜ Though, rumor has it that there is a tiny sliver of Native American in the family tree. It just wasnā€™t exactly ~*~ kosher ~*~ so there arenā€™t detailed records.Ā 
Fruit: Blueberries, bananas, strawberries… I like to mix them all together! :9
Season: Autumn, definitely.
Flower: Tiger lilies and carnations.Ā 
Smell: Fresh rain on hot grass.Ā 
Colour: I suck at answering this question. Mediterranean blue? Sage green? Crimson? Grey????Ā 
Animal: Probably dogs, unless I can say Moomins…Ā 
Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?: Ā Iced tea, vanilla/caramel lattes (hot or iced), and hot cocoa with ice cream in it are all great. :9
Average sleep hours: 4-6 hours.Ā 
Cats or Dogs: I have three cats right now, but I love both!Ā 
Favourite fictional character: So hard. Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke, maybe? Or Ash from Pokemon. Ender from Enderā€™s Game…Ā 
Ideal Trip: I wanna go back to England. Or to Disneyland. Going to a writing conference somewhere exotic sounds ultra amazing. The Big Sur trip was SO GOOD.Ā 
Blog Created: February 2011… wow Iā€™ve had this account for a long time…Ā 

Iā€™m tagging: eVeryone????? Hazel and Lemurcat and Bear and Yuki and etc please fill this out I am falling asleep

stoled a meme

thanks to @amixedreality for encouraging anyone to steal

RULES: Tag 10 followers that you would like to get to know better. Ā NO RULES! Do this if you want!!!Ā 

NAME:Ā Melissa or Gab
NICKNAME[S!]:Ā Gabapple, Gabs, Gabbergabber, etc
STAR SIGN/ZODIAC:Ā Virgo
GENDER: Female. She/her. They/them.Ā 
HEIGHT: 5ā€²6ā€³ ~*~ so average ~*~
FAVORITE COLORS:Ā red (crimson), blue (mediterranean), green (sage, emerald), grey (cool range), brown (chocolatey), pink (very pale strawberry), orange (bright fruity)…Ā 
TIME RIGHT NOW: 10:39 PM MST
AVERAGE HOURS OF SLEEP:Ā 3-6. 7 on a really good day.
LUCKY NUMBERS: 2, 4, 6, 12, 16, 24, 144 Ā (I really like even numbers)
LAST THING YOU GOOGLED:Ā ā€œhow to fix arm fatā€ (I found nothing useful)
NUMBERS OF BLANKETS I SLEEP WITH: 2-4Ā 
FAVORITE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS:Ā Ender (Enderā€™s Game), Conan/Shinichi (Detective Conan), Haru (Free!), Indiana Jones, Kaneda (Akira), Shinji (Neon Genesis Evangelion), Ashitaka (Princess Mononoke), Raphael & Leonardo (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Ash (Pokemon), Marinette & Adrienne (Ladybug), Simba (The Lion King), Aladdin, Judy & Nick (Zootopia), Lupin (the 3rd), Hakuba (Magic Kaito), Ā Kotetsu (Tiger & Bunny), Light (Death Note), etc… I definitely have a type or two…

FAVORITE BOOKS:Ā Enderā€™s Game/Enderā€™s Shadow,Ā Black Beauty, The One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Ella Enchanted

FAVORITE BANDS/ARTISTS:Ā Muse… also the Beatles… I like way too much. Panic! At the Disco. Fallout Boy. Nickelcreek. Sixpence None the Richer. Taylor Swift (1989 was so good guys). Depeche Mode. Linkin Park.Ā 

DREAM JOB: Current job (graphic designer) + occasionally going on book tours and teaching at workshops/cons!
WHAT AM I WEARING RIGHT NOW: Baggy jeans, teal blouse thing, white tank top, fitbit
WHAT DO YOU POST ABOUT?Ā ā€œwah wah Iā€™m tiredā€Ā ā€œwah I hate writingā€Ā ā€œhere is a drawing of a catā€Ā 
DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER BLOGS?Ā Yeah, but I donā€™t really post much… I reblog stuff to @icklegab mostly.
WHEN DID YOUR BLOG REACH ITS ā€œPEAKā€? IDK. It hasnā€™t happened yet! I hope.Ā 
WHO IS YOU MOST ACTIVE FOLLOWER?Ā  Maybe @lemurcat ?? Or @mamodewberry

WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO GET A TUMBLR?Ā idk I think people on a MUSH were talking about it.Ā 

DO YOU GET ASKS ON A DAILY BASIS? LOL no way. I got asks when I was doing my Hakuba or Conan blog, but this account gets basically no asks.Ā 
WHY DID YOU CHOOSE YOUR URL? ‘Gabā€™ is taken everywhere andĀ ā€˜Gabppleā€™ is usually not.Ā 
RELATIONSHIP STATUS:Ā Married!Ā 
PETS:Ā 3 fat cats
WAKE UP:Ā w-what? Why??Ā 
CATS OR DOGS: Bothhh. Kitties are easier, though.
COKE OR PEPSI: That depends on what itā€™s for/with. Pepsi is sweeter than Coke, so I like it with really salty stuff (popcorn, potatoes)… BUT the biggest determination is if itā€™s cold or not. Cold = Pepsi. Room temperature = Coke.Ā 
DAY OR NIGHT:Ā Evening. Iā€™m crepuscular. Like a hamster.Ā 
TEXT OR CALL:Ā TEXT PLEASE. Unless youā€™re my mom. Then you can call.Ā 
CHAPSTICK OR LIPSTICK: Chapstick. I donā€™t even own any lipstick.Ā 
CITY OR COUNTRY?Ā Suburbia. City has restaurants and stores. Country has quiet and critters. I will be in the middle kthanks.Ā 
LAST SONG I LISTENED TO: An 8-bit remix of the Legend of Zelda theme.Ā 

Is there anything you’d like to learn?

YES. They are all possible, too! I just need to be brave enough to do it.

  • How to make puppets
  • How to do video editing
  • HOW TO USE FLASH
  • How to yodel (seriously!)
  • How to play the ukulele (I am making good progress, though)

And then the usual art stuff… composition, objects/buildings, drawing hands, drawing humans in an illustrative style… watercolor and ink.

šŸ˜€

Favorite color? Would you draw in this color for the rest of your life?

I have never been able to answer this question. I have no favorite, catch-all, 100% best for everything color.Ā 

Iā€™m finding more and more that I like the colors of the ninja turtles, though. Red, blue, purple, orange, and green… I think TMNT has influenced me even more than I thought!

If I had to pick 1 color to draw in for the rest of my life, though, I would use blue.Ā 

How long have you been arting (schooled/self-taught, etc)?

I have always been drawing, ever since I can remember. One of my earliest memories is being mad at age 3 because SOMEONE put CHALK in the crayon bucket and I bit it to test and BLECK.Ā 

In 2nd grade, my dad told me that I would need to learn to get really good at drawing circles, squares, and triangles if I wanted to do art seriously. Thatā€™s when I started reading art books and constructing drawings with shapes.

In 7th grade, I applied for an online art archive and was utterly rejected because my stuff was definitely not up to scratch. I was pointed to Tracy Butlerā€™s art and fell in love with art as a means of storytelling. I wanted to get good. Really good.

After that, I took every art class public school had to offer, and filled sketchbook after sketchbook on my own time. Art class was helpful because my teachers forced me to do stuff I didnā€™t want to do (cross-hatching, life study, learning art history), and it was all very beneficial. They also gave me access to free art supplies that I neverĀ would have been able to afford on my own– paint, pastels, illustration board, clay, kilns, etc.Ā 

I got accepted to a university in the Animation Major, learned that my arm and procrastination tendencies couldnā€™t handle it, and switched to Illustration. Color theory and observational drawing werenā€™t at all new to me, but it was GREAT to study side-by-side with people who actually CARED about it instead of being forced to. And I probably learned more through one semester of advanced figure drawing than I had in any other class.

None of the classwork were things that I couldnā€™t have learned on my own; art class is not a magical thing. People can take all of the art classes in the world and wonā€™t improve if they donā€™t consciously practice and observe. But they are great motivators and I am so glad that I took those classes. Even Art History, because man I have a much better appreciating and understanding for the master works now. Context really is everything.

Anyway, I still have a lot to learn, but to answer your question… if we consider 7th grade the starting point, I guess Iā€™ve been doing artĀ ā€œseriouslyā€ for… 17 years? OMG…Ā 

Now go look at Tracyā€™s art and be inspired:Ā @lackadaisycats

Are you taking commissions? ćƒ½(=^ļ½„Ļ‰ļ½„^=)äøæ

ALASā€¦ no, I am not at the moment. I have a very long post here explaining why, but the ā€œshort versionā€ is this:

  • I owe too many people art alreadyĀ 
  • Iā€™m very behind on my personal projects (DANGEROUS CUTE!!!)

Andā€¦ I canā€™t really work on either of those right now because I have lymphedema as a side effect of cancer treatments years ago, and have been unable to afford the stuff I need to manage it. Sitting at a desk to do digital art aggravates the condition and puts me more at risk for things like micro tears and blood clots, which could result in death. Itā€™s also really painful, especially after I work an office job for 8 hrs a day, 5 days a week, and usually have to stand for the 30min train ride home.Ā 

But hopefully I will be able to afford treatments in the next couple of months, and that will enable me to get back to work on these things, get caught up, start preparing for conventions again, livestream sessions, etc.Ā 

This is also why all of my art lately has been really crappy cell phone photos of sketches on paperā€¦ because I would have to sit at my desk to use my scanner. Whew.Ā 

Thank you for asking, though! When/if I am open for commissions in the future, I will be sure to post here and let you know! šŸ˜€Ā 

What are your preferred medias/programs?

Digital is much easier on my arm, so when I can get to my desk (not lately because I SERIOUSLY need to get those wraps before I spend any more time at a desk outside of my day job), I favor Paint Tool Sai for sketching/inking and water-color style painting, Autodesk Sketchbook Pro for sketching and markers, and Art Rage for crayon/chalky stuff. I kind of cycle through them in phases for whatever I feel like doing, so itā€™s all terribly inconsistent… but I DO process all of them through Adobe Photoshop CS6 (or CC if Iā€™m at work) at the end for level and color adjustment.Ā 

You can read more about my digital stuff here:Ā http://gabapple.tumblr.com/post/130978403621/hi-sorry-to-bother-you-but-i-was-wondering-whatĀ – it has pictures!

For traditional media, I love drawing with ball point pens. But sometimes I prefer 0.5 mechanical pencils. I used to color with prismacolor pencils, but it destroyed my already injured arm… so I tend to stick to markers (prismacolor) when Iā€™m doingĀ ā€œseriousā€ stuff, often blended with just a LITTLE bit of colored pencil (cheap crayolas).Ā 

Lately, Iā€™ve been experimenting with brush pens and highlighters and I am LOVING it. Theyā€™re way more portable than watercolors, and so much less messy. But once I can be at my art desk, Iā€™d like to do more watercolor and ink wash stuff.Ā 

Pens, though. I love messy sketching.Ā 

Why cats?

Cats are not my favorite animal. HOWEVER, they translate REALLY WELL into comic form because they are easy to draw, easily recognizable, and very easy to emote with because their entire body is made of a liquid-rubber substance. With fur.

image

They are also very entertaining to watch and get to know… Cats can act as cool and calm as they want, but they are such slaves to instinct and they need people way more than they pretend to. Really, theyā€™re a great analog for human life and relationships, which is perfect for a comic about my very human life portrayed by anthropomorphic animals.Ā 

image

Exaggerating expressions and reactions is helpful for cartoon art; itā€™s more believable than the very subtle expressions that real people generally use in normal situations. But since drawings are symbols, the opportunity to really sellĀ the emotion is there. Cats alternate between the extremes naturally already, so why not?!Ā 

Plus fuzzy things are great.Ā 

why the scar on gabkitty’s cheek?

THIS… is actually asked a lot. Itā€™s not a scar, itā€™s just a marking that would not normally occur in actual animals. At least, not asymmetrically like that.Ā 

image

It IS a reference, though, as most of the designs in Dangerous Cute are… and no, itā€™s not the Nike swoosh, itā€™s actually the scar on Ashitakaā€™s cheek from Princess Mononoke. Ashitaka is one of my favorite characters of all time… I wish I was as badass and as good a person as he is.Ā 

image

This is also not the first time that Iā€™ve used that scar as a symbol in character design, either… Back when I roleplayed on Pokemorph MUSH all the time, I had a character named Laura who was a reverse-morph Sandshrew, and had a similar scar.Ā 

image

She was fun to play and had, of course, a super angsty backstory… Iā€™ve since recycled her for use (as her original human self) in other stories; notably as one of Bunnyā€™s cabin mates in my current novel, The Champions of Summer.Ā She also shows up as a minor character in the garbage aLDfM project. She does not, incidentally, reflect the ideals and personality of Ashitaka. Alas!Ā 

So there you go!Ā