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New Year, New Resolutions: Making a Game Plan

Hello! 

Welcome to the first monthly mindfulness of the year! I’m kinda psyched about sharing mindful thoughts and experiences with you as a way to get some insights going. 

Disclaimer: I am in NO WAY a mental health professional or any kind of medical professional! Nor am I giving any kind of medical advice here! I’m just doing a thought dump here and sharing my experience. Please, please seek professional medical aid if you know you need it! 

Here are some helplines to call for assistance: 

US National Suicide Prevention Helpline: 1-800-273-8255 (24×7) 

India AASRA Suicide Prevention: +91-9820466726 (24×7)

New Years and January of practically every year are resolution setting times. And if you are anything like me, I hate resolutions ever since I found out that everyone hypes you up to do it…but not how to do it. 

Writing down big ideas and goals are cool but how are you gonna achieve it, bruh? Like, what’s the game plan detail? 

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By Radha-Sakhi, ago

First Lunar Eclipse of 2020 (January)

Hello, friend!

It’s eclipse time! Lunar eclipses don’t get as much attention as solar eclipses but I think both are just as awesome and amazing! Anything celestial fascinates me.

Here is a small homage to the first lunar eclipse of the year (that is also visible here in Asia!):

I drew inspiration for the design from Japanese kitsunes since this moon is also called the Wolf Moon by Native Americans. I love wolves and drawing wolf ears so it all worked out 😀

I’m really happy with myself on how the lighting turned out since I wanted to include the whole “moon gets shadowed by Earth” element in this piece. I’ve never really been adventurous with my lighting and its something I really want to work on this year. And this is my first step with it!

Hope you enjoy this and, if the eclipse is visible where you live, tonight’s celestial happening!

Peace ^.^

Link to this post’s Twitter feed (here)!

By Radha-Sakhi, ago

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2020! – New Year, New Blog…

Happy New Year 2020 – ft. my original characters Akka (center back), Kana (left) and Sakhi (right)!

Woot woot! It’s a new year and the start of a new decade!

And…it also means the ultimate major changes for this blog!

Here’s what to expect from me and my lil’ blog this year:

  1. First and foremost is our little community name: The Dragon Bean Squad! Just a little sense of community I wanted to give to you for being part of my artistic and life journey 🙂
  2. Blog Has A Newsletter! — that’s right! I finally have a newsletter all set up and ready to go for the blog. It will be a monthly released newsletter that contains info on: past month’s highlighted posts, on-going and upcoming art + project updates, art tutorials, store and commission info, and more! You can find the subscription link on the right side-bar at the top/ bottom of the page or post if on mobile….or maybe you were greeted by the pop-up sign-up form! Join in to be in the loop of things!
  3. Down-Time Doodle Sundays on IG — on the first and third weekends of every month, I’ll be taking art requests over on my Instagram stories on Saturday and will post my doodles of your requests on Sunday evening! (It’s a super fun way of interacting with the rest of the Dragon Beans!)

I’ll also be trying my very, very best to be a lot more consistent about posting new articles and artworks here on the blog! I’ve got it all scheduled out and ready to go! Now just to do it…. ^__^

I hope the best for this blog and for you on achieving the new year, new decade goals!

Best of luck, friend, and I’ll see you back here soon!

Peace ^.^

By Radha-Sakhi, ago

Shri Ramanuja Acharya – My First Artwork Using Clip Studio Paint EX!

Hello!

I recently got myself (or rather treated myself) Clip Studio Paint EX during their Black Friday/ Winter sale to help with my digital art and comics workflow.

Usually, my cultural custom is that you start anything new by offering it to your spiritual Guru.

And so, here is my humble offering of a portrait of Swami Ramanuja Acharya:

Gurorangri padme manaschenna lagnam | Thatha kim thatha kim thatha kim thatha kim — Adi Shankara (Guru Ashtakam)

(Translation: If your heart does not bow down to and hold dear the holy feet of your Guru, then what is the use (of fame, fortune, wisdom, etc.)?)

Peace ^.^

By Radha-Sakhi, ago

Conquering Same Face Syndrome ft. BTS (K-pop)

Ah, yes, same face syndrome. The bane of any artist’s art life. It’s when all your characters end up looking the same regarding facial features and emotions. It’s annoying and really frustrating to work around in my opinion.

To combat this, I looked up how other artists deal with this and one tip I saw was to practice drawing different people within the same ethnicity. Makes sense because not all people, despite their shared race, look the same. Plus, it helps in breaking stereotypes when drawing people of a certain ethnicity as well (for example, as an asian myself, lemme tell you: not all asians look the same). It’s a win-win on multiple dimensions, isn’t it?

For my first round of practice, I chose the ever popular K-pop idol group, BTS! I chose them also because a lot of my friends follow them and I can play “Guess Who” with them to see if I can capture each singer’s features clearly and if I’m breaking the same face syndrome.

Here is the portraits I did below: (Can you tell who’s who?)

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By Radha-Sakhi, ago