Happy art for a happier mind!

I've still been awfully sick, this is the worst flu I've had in many, many years :/ It's been hard to sleep at night, since I constantly wake up to cough and have breathing difficulties... Looks like I'll be healthy enough to go to work tomorrow and hopefully can pick up a package (Minami-sensei's L body) from the post office as well :)

Sarg's been trying to cheer me up with some funny drawings and short comic strips of our characters ♥ I thought that it'd be fun to share them here as well, since people have often asked me if it's possible to read our stories somewhere etc. :) Most of the time we just RP - sometimes we come up with some "real" events that deeply affect the story and the characters, but sometimes we also like to just talk about some random and funny stuff X'D All of these little comics go under the latter hahah...

Click the images to view them on bigger size!

First up is Deri, in her animal form as a flying squirrel, trying to find a good hiding place for some nuts... She ended up putting them inside a flower, where Esmerie happened to be taking a nap ^^;

Then we have a typical day schedule for Sarg's character, Umbra. She's a ghost, so she sleeps during the day and wakes up late in the evening when she should be sleeping XD

This is what happens when Shagrilah (Sarg's) and Zinnia (mine) are on a cruise and go shopping on the tax free stores... Zinnia loves shopping and has quite an expensive taste lol ^^; RIP Shagrilah's wallet...

Next we have a few comics about Sarg's Ronya and my mermaid character Undine, who doesn't have a doll form at home yet. Since they're both creatures from the sea (Ronya is a shark hahah), we've started thinking that what if these two were a couple X''D Undine is a bit of an airhead and clueless about love, relationships and stuff, so she's a hard one to catch... Ronya surely does try to show her affection though XD

"Charming a mermaid", attempt #1. Lol I have no words for this X'''D

Undine found out that Rony makes this cute dinosaur sound when someone scrubs her belly hahah XD

"Charming a mermaid", attempt #2. Rony has quite sharp nails, so when she tries to gently stroke Undine's hair... Her nails get tangled to the long hair XD

Lastly, a few random drawings with my and Sarg's stupid inside jokes X'D Let me teach you a word that me and Sarg have come up with! These have texts in Finnish, but I'll try to translate and explain them in a way that non-Finns could understand as well. Though this is just a random funny thing XD

This could be translated as "the bob wants to talk" or something XD 

Basically the word "potta" means children's pot in Finnish... It was first just a nickname for Ceci due to her bob-cut hair, but later on we started calling pretty much every bob-cut haired doll as "potta" X'D "Potta" can also be just the wig (like in the upper drawing lol) and a sort of a species of a girl with bob-cut hair and specific kind of personality (a bit shy, kind, cute - a bit cliché-ish anime girl personality). "Pottaisa" is the adjective for being something typical for a "potta", commonly any cute and pink stuff X'DD

"The bob on the run. A hair-raising adventure!" Don't even ask... XDD I guess it's good to end the post with this!

My spring 2015 anime menu

I've been sick for the past few days (feeling much better already though!) and spent a lot of time watching anime, which actually gave me the thought of making a post about which anime series I'm watching this spring! :3 This post will focus on the series that have just started airing this month, AKA the spring 2015 anime. I do still have some "leftovers" from the earlier seasons that are either still airing or I haven't been able to finish watching due to my incredible laziness... But I won't be talking about those now ^^;

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Bladeworks TV (2nd season)

Current progress: 1/13

If someone asks me what my favorite animes are, the Fate series is one of the first ones I always mention, so of course I'm watching this as well ♥ I could never get enough of Saber hahah, I love her sooo much XD This TV version has seemed a lot better than the Unlimited Bladeworks movie, which I didn't like that much. In general the Unlimited Bladeworks is probably my least favorite route, so I was quite positively surprised by the first season. Now I naturally have high hopes for the second one as well, but we'll see how this goes!

The opening song is really beautiful ;___; And I'm happy that the ending song is once again by Kalafina, I love their music so much and I think it fits this series perfectly ♥ All the background music is always so awesome as well~

Uta no Prince-sama Maji Love Revolutions / 3rd season

Current progress: 2/??

Fufufufu~ I looove this series and have been waiting for the start of the 3rd season ever since the 2nd ended XD ♥ I think this is one of those series that not necessarily has the greatest plot, but is filled with fun moments, nice music and has awesome characters~ I quite rarely hype over male characters in anime, but Jinguji Ren and Ichinose Tokiya definitely make an exception hahah XD Actually, I even have one of my BJDs, Rhyme, loosely based on Ren... And Tokiya's voice actor is one of my favorite seiyuus, Mamoru Miyano ♥

I love the opening and ending songs, though I can't stop laughing at how adorably dorky and stupid the dances always are, especially for the first episode's opening X'D I don't like the guys of Quartet Night (nor their singing) that much, so I'm glad that their silly dance wasn't the final opening song.

Overall, I'm really enjoying this season so far! ♥

Ghost in the Shell: Arise - Alternative Architecture

Current progress: 3/10

I've always been a huge GITS fan, so naturally I wanted to start watching this new series as well! To my disappointment it actually looks like these episodes are just re-caps of the Arise movies/OVAs, which I've already seen =.= Now that I looked at the info on the series more carefully, I did notice that they've marked it as an alternative version to the OVAs, but I'm still a bit disappointed as I was hoping for some new content. Apparently there's a chance that the last few episodes are completely new, but we'll see! I'm still gonna watch these episodes to refresh my memory, if nothing else XD

I love the look of Motoko in Stand Alone Complex, so it has taken a bit of time getting used to her totally different appearance in Arise. I've started to like it a bit more, but I still prefer the SAC version. I'm also not sure how I feel about Maaya Sakamoto as her voice actor... I guess it works since Motoko is younger in Arise, but I love Atsuko Tanaka's bad ass voice in SAC so this change was another thing that was hard to get used to XD Aaand another thing to mention is that I'm also forever a fan of Motoko/Batou shipping and there haven't been that many nice moments between them in Arise : <

Show By Rock!!

Current progress: 1/??

I've been looking forward to this anime ever since I read the news about it back in... September, I think? Being a fan of many similar cute, girly and cheerful music animes (such as Love Live and Pri Para), I was quite sure that I'd love this one as well and I was right! It was definitely quite different from what I was expecting, but I looove it! I think it even has the potential to become one of my favorite series ever ♥ I love the character designs, the plot and general idea behind the series sounds great and well... what can I say, I'm just such a sucker for series like this ^^;;

It was such a surprise to find out the this is the first voice acting role for Inagawa Eri, who is the seiyuu for the main character, Cyan! She seems so talented ♥ All the other main charas have experienced seiyuus, but you'd never notice the difference!

I really need some Nendoroids and other figures of the characters in my life, they're all so adorable! ♥ Especially the main character in her kitty form awwww~ And I actually thought that it'd be neat to make a cosplay outfit for one of my Iplehouse nYID girls ♥

Owari no Seraph

Current progress: 2/12

I only watched the trailer for this series recently, so it's currently the only series that I'm watching on a spur of the moment decision without any hype or high expectations.

I'm not familiar with the manga, so I don't really know much about the whole series...  The plot and setting seem interesting so far, but I'm not liking the main characters that much ^^; At this point the pink-haired vampire girl (apparently Krul Tepes?) that appears in the opening and ending themes, as well as briefly in the beginning of the first episode, is the only one that I'm excited about, though it seems that she might only be a supporting character and not appear that much in the episodes ;__; I felt like Owari no Seraph has some slight similarities with Attack on Titan, at least the setting of humans versus a superior race :D

There is potential for this to be a great series, so I guess I'll just need to watch more to find out!

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So, that was it for now, I hope you enjoyed this post! I try to pick up some new series every season, so I'm probably going to make a similar post once the summer animes start in July :)

Is anyone watching some of the same series? What do you think of them?
Or do you have some other suggestions from the spring anime? :)

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On another note, me and Sarg both managed to get tickets to Desucon, a summer anime convention in Lahti :) Those who visited another convention (Desucon Frostbite) earlier this year, got a chance to purchase their tickets before other people... And a friend of ours was able to purchase 3 tickets, but only needed one, so she kindly let us to buy the two ;___; Apparently the rest of the tickets were sold out in 6 minutes, so we were really lucky...

Hopefully we'll get to meet many of our friends there and have a great time~ I haven't been to an anime convention since 2008, so I'm quite excited and nervous as well :D I've been thinking of maybe even cosplaying, which I've never done before... But I don't know if I manage to come up with anything proper in time, knowing my laziness I'm not very optimistic X'D

A daily dose of cuteness

Here are some BJD photos I took on Tuesday~ I uploaded them on my Flickr and DeviantArt accounts already, but thought that I could put them here on my blog as well :) I wish I would've taken more photos, but the weather wasn't the best possible (so windy and a bit rainy..) and I was afraid to pose these two SD sized dolls all by myself, I don't want them to fall and break their noses or fingers ; . ; Maybe I'll get to take some more shots once Sarg comes for a visit again and can act as a bodyguard in case either of them decides to fall XD

On left we have Ceci (Iplehouse nYID Emilia) and on left is Jade (Iplehouse nYID Mari) ^^ These two are best friends in my and Sarg's RP story and they're also in the same class at school. By appearance they may look quite different, but they both have rather insecure and shy personalities and also share lots of same interests (like cats and Hello Kitty, lol).

Jade is probably explaining how to bid on Yahoo Japan's Hello Kitty auctions or something... X''D

I've previously shared pictures of Jade with a black wig and black/pink color themed outfit, which is what my original plans for her style were. I'm usually very precise about what kind of style and colors I want my dolls/characters to wear, but with Jade I guess she'll get to be a bit of a chameleon and change between these couple of different styles. Her natural hair color is black, but she likes wearing colorful/pastel wigs sometimes and dressing up in pastel goth or gothic lolita ^^

Jade's pastel goth outfit took quite a while to get 100% completed, I think I slowly worked on it for a couple of months... It did took time to gather all the materials and plan the designs, but mainly I'm just such a lazy bun and have zero skills at concentration that everything takes a long, long time ^^; It doesn't matter though, for I love all the planning, designing, sewing and crafting, even if it seems to take a forever ♥

I'm not sure if any of my dolls has ever worn this much self-made stuff at once X'D Basically everything except the bag and shoes is self-made... The wig was originally long and curly, but I was bored one day and gave it a radical haircut :D I really like the result! (Yup, I have a thing for bob-cut hair, it's sooo cute...)

The skirt is actually made of a children's skirt that I had to buy after seeing it on sale X'D I would've wanted it in my own size, but they only had sizes up to 122cm and there was no way I would've fitted in that... So I unleashed my disappointment by tearing it apart and using the fabric for a doll sized skirt hahaha XD

For the shirt, I wanted to create something simple, but with some nice little details (like the studs on the neckline). I browsed through a bunch of pastel goth shirt designs while trying to figure out what kind of print I'd want on the shirt... In the end I didn't want to go for an already existing design, but to create something fun of my own! The leggings have simple crosses that I painted as well.

Then there're all the million accessories; hairband, Hello Kitty bow hairpin, rose/leather choker, star-shaped earrings, cross necklace, pastel bracelets and black stud bracelet... Shortly, a lot of stuff ^^;

For last, here's a full-body shot of the outfit ^^

March loot from Amiami

My Amiami loot for March is quite small; just one Azone, one Nendoroid, a few clothes and some mini buttons ^^; Fortunately this also means that the package didn't weigh that much, so I could choose the Airmail/Small Packet option! This time the package arrived relatively fast as well, compared to the earlier months...

The whole loot

Some tiny buttons for sewing! I've been eyeing these for a while and finally decided to get some in different colors. These are 4mm, so just perfect size for doll clothing! I'm sure I'll buy more in the future too now that I know these are good size and all :)

This one is for Sarg's girls, but I still took a picture of it :) Such a cute outfit, we'll see if I end up getting one for my girls later too~

None of the March pre-orders caught my eye, but I got some of the older pieces. The pink checkered blouse is obviously for Shiori, while the shorts and black sleeveless blouse are for my incoming Punk Koron :3

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Then it's time to take a look at the Azone girl in the package, Classic Alice Tick-Tock Rabbit Himeno ! I chose the smiling "normal mouth" version :)

I missed the original pre-orders for her thinking that I don't want her, but after getting my Lamb Lipu I started to regret and realized that the pre-orders for her had already closed... Apparently Amiami had some extra dolls in the storage or some people cancelled their orders, since Himeno became available again once she was released in late February! I tactically ordered her just after the month changed to March, so I could combine her with this smaller order and wouldn't have to pay for her right away hahah XD

I already saw both the doll (though with a different mouth) and the outfit in person last weekend, so I knew what to expect :) This version of Himeno is super pretty and I'm so glad that I decided to get her while I still had the chance to get her straight from Amiami! I love the ginger hair and the detailed outfit~ It's actually hard to show in photos how gorgeous the outfit is, you'd have to see it in person! Definitely one of the prettiest Azone outfits that I've seen so far :)

I love the pretty leaflets that come with Azone dolls~ This page shows all the clothing pieces and accessories that are included with Himeno:)

And this page just has some pretty pictures of Himeno! ♥

Hellooo, meet Kirara-chan~ ♥

Yaay for adorable paws! ;3; ♥♥

I think I need to keep Kira in this default outfit for a while... I just love it too much X'D None of my other girls could wear this kind of outfit either (though Shiori would love the soft paws for sure...), so I don't want to change her out of it just yet! I might even need to change my clothing plans for Kira and make her a little gothic lolita ♥

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Then last (but not least) is the Nendoroid, Ayase Eli from surprise, surprise... Love Live! ♥

Backside of the box!

The natural light was almost gone at this point, but luckily I managed to get at least one photo of Eli outside the box XD I'm still not sure which face I like better on her, so I might change it later... But she's adorable nevertheless! ♥ Number 4 out of 9 Love Live Nendoroids~ Apparently the next one (Rin) has been released last week already, but some other items in my April order are still waiting for release =.=

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I took some quick BJD photos today that I'm too tired to go through today =3= I might make a separate post for those photos in the next few days or just upload them to Flickr and DeviantArt. I'm so glad that the weather is finally warm enough to go outside to take photos without fingers freezing! ♥ 

Visiting Pet Expo with some friends

I had a super fun Sunday with Sarg, Tiinyan and Elina! We visited Pet Expo, the largest pet event/fair in Finland that was held during Saturday and Sunday :3 With the same entry ticket we were also able to visit the other fairs that were held at the same time, including ones for crafting and miniature stuff! We went there right when the doors opened at 9am and there weren't that many people yet, but only an hour or so later the place was already quite crowded...

Beware for a huge photo spam ^^; I tried to select "just a few" photos, but there were still so many and I just couldn't leave out any of these, sniff...

We started our "tour" from the cats~ They had a some sort of cat show and also exhibitors to introduce many different breeds. It was fun to see how different sizes the cats were, some were so tiny and some were just huuuuge, like bigger than my dog! X'D 

That white one looks like a real life Hello Kitty!

Next there was the dog section. There were only a few exhibitors and sellers, I think the dog show for some breeds took the biggest space from the hall... ^^; I couldn't find any souvenirs for my dog and we didn't spend that much time browsing the dog stuff, but I did stop at one booth for a little moment...

Shetland Sheepdogs, the dog breed of my life ♥ These two were such cuties~

Then there were many reptiles, frogs, spiders (ugh...) and insects. I'm arachnophobic so I didn't enjoy being near this place at all, I was constantly fearing that a huge tarantula would jump on my head or something >___<;; I did see someone holding that thing on his hand and I was like two meters away... Snakes and lizards I do like and wish that there had been more of them, there were only a few of each :/

Some lovely birds! The one on right was born on the same year as me, I can't believe how old these birds can live! D: They seem so intelligent too, just gorgeous creatures~

They also had a funny example of what kind of destruction birds can do... It says "the result of cockatoos' door repair" XDD 

Moving on to some bunnies and some little rodents~

I think this one was my favorite from the bunnies, so cuuute and such beautiful coloring! ♥

There were also some hamsters, but they were naturally sleeping hidden since it was day time ^^; So I just took a photo of these "Cheek pouch" magazines on their booth. I really love hamsters, they're definitely my favorites from all these little critters~

Most of the rats were peacefully sleeping as well~ It's so funny how they can sleep in such weird positions X'D

I think we spent the most time hanging around the ferrets~ ♥ I've had this huge ferret fever for a couple of years now and I'm really interested in finding out more about them... I'm still not sure whether they're exactly the type of pets that would be the best for me especially, but I do love them and would love to have one (or two...) someday if possible ;___; We'll see... For now I'm just going to gather more information and torture myself with all the cute ferret photos and videos on the Internet XD

Ferret agility XD This guy wasn't in the mood for the exercise, it seemed to be more interested sniffing around its surroundings ...

This guy was sleeping very peacefully even though there was a huge crowd and loud noises everywhere...

Shirts with the text "I'm a ferret... What is your excuse?" XD These were so cute! (especially the pink one, surprise...) 

A cute shy hedgehog ;3;

Then we went to the arts & crafts fair. There were many crafting supplies, fabrics and also people selling self-made crafts, like jewelry, clothes/accessories and plushies. There was so much cute stuff, but somehow we managed to control ourselves and not buy anything! XD

I didn't really take photos since I felt like it would be a bit rude to just snag photos of everything and not buy anything... But I had to take this one photo of one of my favorite booths, they were selling all kinds of cute food-themed necklaces, earrings, etc. I was really, really tempted to buy one of their lollipop necklaces, but couldn't decide between a few colors, so I ended up not getting anything :(

There was this café with some Monster High dolls as decorations inside a glass wall?? X''D

We also went to Model Expo in hopes of finding some doll-sized stuff there, but all the miniature stuff seemed more like directed towards boys ^^;; There were guns, helicopters, boats, cars, trains... All kinds of stuff XD

They had built a huge scene with Legos...

A princess castle made of Legos! I think this was the only girly thing out there lol...

We spent around 4 hours walking around the exhibition halls and then decided to go outside to take a few photos of the dolls that we had with us :) The weather broadcasts had predicted some rain for the day, but luckily it was still a beautiful weather while we took the photos.

Group shot! Can you see the animal theme we had? ;3

Elina's Aika (+ "Pasi the Bunny" X'D), Sarg's Aika and Tiinyan's Lien ♥

On left: Tiinyan's Himeno ♥ It was great to see this cutie in person~ (My Rabbit Himeno is currently in our post office, I should go fetch the package later today!)

On right: Elina's Cheshire Aika wearing the outfit from Rabbit Himeno! It outfit was just so gorgeous in person wow! *3* And "Pasi" (sorry, looks like I named him...) was such an adorable little bunny~

Clara hold "Pasi the City Bunny from Pasila" for a moment! :3 Oh and she got this lovely butterfly wing hairband from Sarg~

Thank you for the lovely company, had so much fun again! ♥ Looks like the weather is getting warmer fast, so hopefully we can do that picnic meetup soon ;3; Hope Janina and Spica will be able to join us next time as well~

Hope you all enjoyed the photos :) Have a great week!