New Release and a Sketch

I've been ill for the past few days.  My fever is almost gone and I feel maybe 70% normal, despite serious weakness issues in my hands and knees.  I think I overworked in the heat in the garden, trying to get everything done and in place, and my body just kept on aching worse and worse.  I knew I should have given myself a break, but family had things that needed to get done and I happen to be the one with the most flexible schedule, so I ended up doing a lot more than my fair share...  Funny how the body seems to shut down and tell me "Just give me two days' bed rest!".

The frustration, though, when you're involved in many things, even without meaning to be a micro-managing control freak, things just don't get done right when you're not the one doing it.  Gardens being underwatered... Chicken coop not correctly secured... Things not getting picked up... T_T  Yikes.  It didn't help that I had just started sunflower fence project 5 days ago and the seeds needed to stay moist.  This is trickier than it sounds - the business of "keep soil moist until seeds germinate".  LOL

Well, enough tangenting even before I get on the subject... ^^;
I've been itching to draw something new.  Heck, I've been itching to do any kind of drawing or painting for a while!  The spring planting required way too much clearing and weeding before I could get to the planting.  That was a big problem, which took time away from art-ing.

Finally got this little charming image inked and processed.  This is called "Elf with Baby Dragon".  I thought I should draw a male character more often... and a cute one at that.  And this is the result.  More may be coming later in the year...  He is available at my Etsy shop here.

And I finally got started doodling on Marie Antoinette!  This was an idea I've been mulling for a while, but she was always way back in the far end of the proverbial 'back burner', I thought I'd never get around to it, but once I sat down at the work area (first time in 3 days!), she appeared.

I know that the famous (infamous?) quote "Let them eat cake" didn't actually come from her, historically speaking, but it's so often used to illustrate just how clueless she was about the wide spread bread shortage in France among the peasants.  Anyhow, lots of artists do love drawing/painting her with the cake reference nonetheless.  It's just too iconic. LOL  Besides, the period hair and costumes are just so fun to draw - huge powdered hair, feathers, pearls, flowers, ribbons, gems, whatever you can pile on.  So here's the pencil scribble of my Marie Antoinette.  Last summer, I got to watch the anime "ベルサイユの薔薇" (The Rose of Versailles) from the beginning to the end in pretty much one weekend (Don't you love marathon-watching your favorite TV series?), and it was so fun.  It brought back memories of my childhood in Japan, but I also realized that I had stopped watching the series for whatever reason that I can't remember, and pretty much the last 2/3 of the series was brand new to me.  (Thank you, Crunchyroll!!  I love you.)  She wasn't the main character in the anime, and I would say she was more or less sympathetically depicted, but the main line of the story was of a fictitious character and her tumultuous life in the chaos of the French history's violent era. :)
It's funny how it felt as if I hadn't grown up since I was 6 or 7... well, not much, anyway ... while watching the series.  LOL  I hope to get her inked very soon. ;)