You said no star was out of reach

DUDE and check out this present from Emi: Sierra from Dollhouse!!!!:

SO GREAT! xD <3 I got to see the actress who plays Sierra, Dichen Lachman, at a Comic-Con party this summer. She is gorgeous in person and seemed nice as well! Thanks, Emi!!

Ever just the same, ever a surprise

GUH just got back from Beauty & The Beast at the Newmark Theatre. Dad gave Mom tickets for Christmas, and she invited me. :DDD It was delightful! The play was fun and the cast and crew performed brilliantly. Lumiere, Cogsworth, and the Wardrobe were hysterical. It makes me sad that it is only performing for a few short weeks. I want to watch the animated movie so badly right now...!!

My gift to Mom:

Xmas Gift to Mom by ~Tallychyck on deviantART

You were right, there was never reason to worry

More Christmas art!

From Terry Blas, LOST characters Desmond and (my favorite character!!) Dan!!!!!:



From Ron Chan (the one last week was Emi's present that I sniped), Nausicaa!!!!!!!:

Best Christmas ever, seriously. Now I just need a couple hundred dollars to give this art the framing it deserves...!

Because the sky is blue, it makes me cry

Here's a little WIP for my dad's x-mas gift:

(Click on the second image to see full size on DeviantArt.)

Very thin ice, very thin ice

I've received some AMAZING art gifts this year, and just want to take a second to pimp them! (There will be more once I can get the physical art I've received scanned and uploaded)

First up, here's a birthday present Nico sent me on Tuesday!! ADORABLE. I smell a new profile picture~~ :)


Next, not actually for me, but for Emi. This one is by Ron Chan for Emi's comic Emitown! DAH. How sick is this??! LOVE IT. (I'm second from the right, with the gun!! GUN!!)

Everyone put on your jammies now!

Some more Christmas art for y'all:

Tally Nourigat's Gift
Originally uploaded by Erika Moen

Circle Skirt by ~Tallychyck on deviantART

Audrey Hepburn by ~Tallychyck on deviantART

Hun sier at den lyser enn

Me as Saint Lucia in the Bend, OR Sons of Norway pageant. I just walked in a circle around the room with the other children behind me, but apparently it made my grandparents really happy, so cool. It was fun playing dress-up and participating a bit in the Norwegian culture.


My herd.


With Grandma and my cousins Abby and Emily. Note the ad for Lutefisk!

I ain't wastin' no more time

Happy holidays!

I'm out in Sunriver, Oregon, with my family for the week. My mom's family lives out here, so we're celebrating Christmas early with them before going back to Portland for the actual date.

T-minus 4 hours until I play Lucia in the Bend Sons of Norway Lodge's Christmas pageant!

Lol. Kind of excited.

My birthday is in 3 days!!! AHAHAHAHA!

Is our secret safe tonight

Catwoman by ~Tallychyck on deviantART

I just haven't met you yet

New watercolor piece for sale!

My feet sprouted wings and I flew all the way home

Just had an awesome sketch group with Angie and Emi (and Terry dropped by, too!!) <3

I got to give them their Christmas presents~~~ 8DDDDD

Paprika + Harry Potter by ~Tallychyck on deviantART

Batgirl and Ocean Girl by ~Tallychyck on deviantART
Check-in for surgery tomorrow at 5:30 AM :( But home, tonsil-less, by 12! :D

A simple celebration, a place you've never been before

I have been trying to draw as much as possible while I am still in Eugene, but I also have to study for finals, clean the house, and pack, and that's been getting in the way. I really want to finish my projects before the tonsillectomy Friday--who knows how many days I'll be loopy or half-dead on the couch...??

In happier news: have some new haircut pics!


I love it. But I have to learn how to draw my hair again xD;

I don't claim to know my way, I still run in circles every day

I can't post any of the projects I worked on today, but I can give you thumbnails...

I smell roses

AAAAAAAAUGH DUCKS!!!!!!!

Civil war football game last night between the Ducks and Beavers was BEYOND AWESOME. I was hanging out with a friend, and decided to go to the bars and catch the end of the game there, and we walked into Rennie's for the last 2 minutes of play, which were FANTASTIC. The bar went CRAZY when the game ended. We had reruns playing all night on the TV screens, I Love My Ducks on repeat, and people drinking crazy amounts of alcohol and talking at crazy volumes. When the stadium crowd got back to campus, there were lines outside of bars that NEVER have lines. It was insane. I smell roooooosessssss!

Day and night

HAHAHAHA.

I am down with music video nudity when it's this funny:

You make the whole world wanna dance

Random sketch from last month:


From a derailed attempt to make a new self-portrait for various websites:


And more sketches from Sydney Starts a Riot:

Why do they congregate in groups of four?

I give my thesis prospectus presentation today in class, so last night was a scanning frenzy as I tried to get all of my sketches and thumbnails into my PowerPoint file. I thought I would share what I have so far for my thesis comic here as well:

The early stuff:





The male lead, Victor, went through SO MANY CHANGES. I tried looking for inspiration in actors from the 20s, 30s, and 40s, but I can't draw those slicked back hairstyles!! Now he looks like pop star Shaggy, but at least I can draw him consistently.





A side character. He's quite fun to draw.


And more...




This is random, but I like it.

Won't you pay attention please?

Here's a preview of the inked version of these pencils I posted last month:



AAAAH. More work to do!!

Without compassion, there can be no end to hate

On vacation, with my family, thinking about all of the things I'm thankful for. Right now, I'm really thankful that I'm not going to school tomorrow morning. :P

Freelance project editing and flatting all weekend, a little Between Gears tomorrow, and a Catwoman commission this weekend! So excited! And I made 2 Christmas gifts this week~ I love the plotting and planning of Christmas, haha. Being sneaky in order to put something nice together for your friends is fun. <3

I give my thesis prospectus presentation on Monday. The paper ended up being 23 pages, so I'm not sure how many people will read it beforehand! 0___0 Wish me luck! I have a PowerPoint presentation with maybe 20 words and 50 images. It should keep people awake? xD;

You just keep me hanging on

Wish me luck on inking and coloring these pages! For only then can there be Between Gears pages...

With your feet on the air and your head on the ground

Reading Peggy Orenstein's 2006 article What's Wrong With Cinderella?:

"On the other hand, there is evidence that young women who hold the most conventionally feminine beliefs — who avoid conflict and think they should be perpetually nice and pretty — are more likely to be depressed than others and less likely to use contraception."

HAHAHA. No, no, it's serious...I just like the way that it's phrased xD;

"I recall a headline-grabbing 2005 British study that revealed that girls enjoy torturing, decapitating and microwaving their Barbies nearly as much as they like to dress them up for dates."

Rofl. I'm going to keep updating this as I find quotes that I like.

"If nothing else, pink and Princess have resuscitated the fantasy of romance that that era of feminism threatened, the privileges that traditional femininity conferred on women despite its costs — doors magically opened, dinner checks picked up, Manolo Blahniks. Frippery. Fun. Why should we give up the perks of our sex until we’re sure of what we’ll get in exchange?"

Sad. I'm still conflicted over whether or not to let a guy pick up the tab. It's a nice gesture and I don't want to belittle it, but I think it sends the wrong message to accept that more often than you offer it.

You know how I respond to blond over blue

Really????? I thought for sure that 2008 image was from 2007 at least, but no. I looked up the first occurrence of Delilah in a Word document, and it was spring of 2008. I'm drawing in a pretty different style than I was a year ago, and I attribute it largely to working with brushes.

You must be swift as the coursing rain

My family was coming down to Eugene this weekend for the Duck game, but UO doesn't actually announce game times until the week before the game, and this one turned out to be too late for them to drive home afterward. Now there are 4 very expensive tickets under my name waiting at will call, and it's looking like I'm taking 3 friends with me to my first Duck football game ever. Exciting?

It should be. But there are reasons I haven't gone to a Duck football game in 4 years of college. I like football only marginally more than baseball, I hate the mob mentality at sporting events, and loud noises irritate me. Drinking, standing up for hours, and shouting in a mob of people does not appeal to me. But jeez, what kind of grouch would I be if I never gave it a chance? I'm dreading it right now a ridiculous amount for what it is. xD; Watch me have the best time ever and wish I'd been doing it all 4 years. xDDD;

Hana ya ki ya kotori no kotoba o anata ni mo oshiete agetai

Sketch duuuuuuuump.

Watercolors from the thesis comic:

Aaaaaand we have achieved male lead!!!!

He has an egg head.

Other sketches from the past couple of months:

Do you want them to go on and on and on?

A couple more pieces up on Deviant Art this week, both illustrations for children's book class:


Sydney Illustration 2 by ~Tallychyck on deviantART


Sydney Illustration 1 by ~Tallychyck on deviantART

You and me are the same

Some watercolor impressions of my own:



Ava watercolor by ~Tallychyck on deviantART
New character for thesis script. We'll see how it develops.


Character watercolor by ~Tallychyck on deviantART
Trying to decide whether I like ink or pencil better for this type of art. Sadly, I think I have ruled out watercoloring the thesis comic...it is too many new elements in an already short time period.

I won't deny it, I'm not trying to hide it

I stayed in again to read and write for my thesis. It's still vague, but taking shape every day. I have this sinking feeling that the only way I will be able to free my mind and make some new images for the story, though, is by finishing my other art projects first.

Tonight, I read The Art of Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind: Watercolor Impressions, which is deceptively named, as it contains ink work, preliminary sketches, quick art given as gifts, and a lot of valuable interview material from Miyazaki in addition to a host of watercolors. It would be really nice to own this book.
I felt a great sense of relief reading about Miyazaki's 3 year incubation period, where he read the work of others and created a library of motifs and sketches that would later become 4 of his films. He had so many changes of direction with Nausicaa, and times when it looked like it wouldn't turn out well, it was actually inspirational to see that he had doubts, too, and yet it turned out so well for him.


Though Miyazaki was humble throughout the book, he seemed genuinely upset by some of the covers he produced on Nausicaa. He particularly hated images of Nausicaa looking at the camera and smiling, since he thought those were so contrary to her character, that is, disconnected and hard to approach.

He also hated anything that screamed 'I AM A COVER!' :P


These were two of his favorite cover images: