Inspired by Percy Jackson

There are some books that I wish so badly that I could send back to little me... and the Percy Jackson series is one of them.

When I was in 5th grade I was obsessed with Greco-Roman myths. I remember our school library had a few books on the subject but there was nothing like Percy Jackson and the Olympians.  *sigh*

That being said, I still really enjoyed the books as an adult. 
I got so many ideas & images that popped in my head as I read them.
Here are the first two that I've managed to get out onto paper. :) 

A gorgeously grisly gorgon....

and a sad Cyclops.

 (I have an affinity for alliterations lol)

13 Days of Inktober

I got tired of drawing people pretty quickly lol As you can tell... But I loved drawing creepy-cute critters.

Poor little Xerxes got cut off in the scan a bit..
Bonus points if you get the reference ;) 

I also got a fair bit of reading done with month! Which puts me right on track for meeting my Goodreads goal (without having to do any end of the year "adjustting" to it...heh)

They Did the Monster Mash!

(Why is it so hard to find time for the things you LIKE to do? Reading, writing, drawing, blogging... UGH.)

IT'S  OCTOBER! :) Which means there are skeletons, monsters, spiders, bats, zombies and all the morbid, creepy things I love everywhere :)

It also means INKtober. Which, if you aren't familiar with it, is a challenge to do an ink drawing for every day in the month of October.

I accomplished it ONCE. And then every year I say I'm going to do it again... or do every other day. Or do "13 days of Inktober".. and then I fail spectacularly every year.  

This is just my disclaimer. I'm being upfront about my prior record with this challenge before I say: 

                              I'm going to try to do 13 days of Inktober this year! :D

And in honor of my favourite month, and to inspire me to get doodling,  I present the Parade of Fabulous Ghouls.Some of my favourite monster girls..

Beetlejuice has some competition.. there's a new ghost in town

Bride of Frankenstein

Queen of Vampire Bats

Just a Siren, waking the dead..

Morticia

Her Royal Lowness: the Princess of Pestilence

Zombie Vixen

Books are Better Than People

lol This drawing has been in my head for awhile.
Does anybody else have this problem?
People see you reading and think that you're not doing anything.
That you must be bored and you need them to come save you from this boredom.

It's one thing when it's your friends and family.
If I really love you, yes I might put down my book to talk to you lol
But when I don't even know you...
I'm sorry.
 I will try to be polite.
If you need to know the time, or the bus schedule I'll tell you.
But really- I'd rather read my book.

I know I just did a post about calendar pages last week.. and I DO try to switch things up a bit. However, I just loved these pages so much! 

These are my happy colours so that's probably part of why I love it so much. (Neither my scanner nor my camera picked up the green very well tho.. *sad*)



This little guy was inspired by a copy of The Hungry Thing Returns that I found when I was looking for a lost book. (💔)

I also finished  reading Cartoon Faces and decided to try drawing one of my characters using some of the things that Christopher Hart talks about.

I liked it so much I decided to cut it out (and do a little wardrobe change) and add it to my calender page.

I sketched it in pen so the light green guidelines and corrections are still visible... but I think it gives it some character. ;)

Shout out to Christopher Hart for FINALLY convincing me to use guidelines at all.

I currently have another of his  books on hold thru my library... (I've been waiting so long! give me the book! aaah!)



P.S.
This is the same character, drawn before I read the book

June Calendar Pages

(or well... a bit of May & 3/4 of June... My calendar pages are free spirits lol)

This page I made soon after Chris Cornell passed away :(
He was one of my favourite singer. I always thought he had a beautiful voice... 

So there's some of his song lyrics sprinkled throughout this page.
I'll usually just put the title of whatever song or playlist I'm listening to on that particular date, but this time I made a side-bar with all the Chris Cornell songs I was listening during those weeks.

 *Note: I don't have the same associations with the colour grey that a lot of people do. I think it's lovely & soothing (like the sky after it rains) which is why I used it... 



My next page was inspired by the packaging that came with the ARC I received of a book called The Space Between the Stars.   



The bit on bottom right page is from the packaging. I thought it was pretty and made me want to do a space theme. 

*geeky squeal*

I was also reading Armada during this time, so it seemed doubly appropriate to doodle stars & planets. :)







I got the idea for the orbit around the month from AmandaRachLee's April bullet journal pages. 

 "Le soleil est une etoile" is from a passage in an old French Reader I've been working my way through.

Splintered, Unhinged and #notMYmorpheus

So a few things you should know before we start:
1) I love most things Wonderland related
2) Romance in books tends to (in general) just annoy the heck out of me
3) I haven't read the 3rd book yet. 

Okay, first, 
     Splintered.
I really liked Splintered!
I liked the cover.
I liked the twists on the Wonderland story &  imagery and the theme of madness vs. reality.  I thought the author made Wonderland seem both creepy & yet somewhat charming at the same time (which is kind of my thing... cute + creepy = ❤ )  I was drawn into the story and the world.

I liked that the main character was a skater girl who made morbid artwork (altho I like bugs so I felt sorry for them..). 

And Morpheus was a great character- beautiful and interesting. Jeb was kinda eh... I had some issues with him and the love triangle annoyed me (remember I tend to get annoyed by romance anyway) but I didn't mind him too much... most of the time.




Now, 
      Unhinged. 
Okay first, dude on the cover, you are NOT my Morpheus. Sorry but no. 

#notmymorpheus

He's pretty and everything... but Morpheus is complicated, seductive, badass, powerful, arrogant & provocative...  And the cover guy just comes across as a simpering pretty boy who'd never challenge you. Like he just really wants to carry your books and he might cry if you say no. 

The German version at least has some attitude soldering underneath..


Moving on from the Not Morpheus issue...

Everyone in this book had all their obnoxious qualities turned up full volume.
Alyssa seemed kind of dense, annoying, juvenile and way too twitterpatted with Jeb.
Her mother's obsession with Alyssa being "normal" and wearing jeans made me want to scream (maybe cuz I'm a girl who doesn't wear jeans & hears this nonsense? hmm insight..)
Jeb became more flat, barely a character and left with all his most aggravating qualities.. Ugh.
The love triangle got even more ridiculous.
(I seriously thing this whole series be better without Jeb. Just Alyssa coming to grips with her Netherling side.. deciding which world she wants to live in, whether she should trust Morpheus etc.)

And WE NEVER GO TO WONDERLAND! For the ENTIRE book.  Lots of high school and no Wonderland. *pouts*

I'm still planning to read the last book. I'm hoping it is just a case of Middle Book Ennui...
Morpheus is still a great character. (and he gets a car! which is just cooooool...) And we get some interesting back-story about Morpheus's and Alyssa's mother and some of the other characters.
The ending gets more interesting and leaves me hopeful that the 3rd book is better. 

a drawing I did while reading Splintered and Alice in Wonderland

So have you read this series? What''d you think? Is the last book better than Unhinged? (please say yes..)