Designs 14 and 15 (End!) – 15 Lolita Designs in April Challenge

Somewhere in the world, it is still April 30th!

And that means it is... ehm...  time to post the very last two designs! 

For the last designs I wanted to make a king and a queen. But I wasn't quite enjoying the queen's look, so I archived her for later, and in her stead are a pair of shoes. (Poor queen!)

The layout for this is somewhat catalogue-ish, which I am very much enjoying. The Robe du Roy JSK has a faux ermine collar and trim, along with golden tassels for a belt. The King's Blouse is not too elaborate, with three tiers of sheer lace on the sleeves, and four-button cuffs.

The Crown & Käfig shoes have golden gothic buttresses at the heel, as well as a sheer, shimmery golden ribbon. The front is shaped like a bird cage, with a door-lock buckle.

I can't believe the challenge has come to an end! I have made more completed (albeit simple) drawings this month than any other. I also developed an addiction to cotton lace (and drawing it). I'm very glad I took part in it, and hope to take part in other possible future challenges as well! Thank you very much for keeping (or putting) up with me this month!

Design 13 – Lolita 15 Designs in April Challenge

Wake up and smell the...!

Smell the procrastination. Today has been a slow day, especially considering the fact that my brain keeps believing it is Saturday, instead of Friday. It does not help that I had no classes today. The month's last Friday is always a slow day. But no matter how slow a day, it is still a day until midnight hits! What does that mean? It means I am not late! So, without further ado...

Today's design is inspired by Tikki, of Miraculous Ladybug. 

Taking into account that she is a floating, red chibi insect, I had quite a large amount of creative space. I wanted to do a subtle ladybug representation on her dress. My first draft for this design involved an embroidered "Miraculeuse" with a heart ladybug appliqué. Needless to say, it was a little too straightforward, and I could not figure out where to place it. So, instead, I used the waist ties to mimic her strange tail, and made the shape of the collar and skirt opening to be like a ladybug's wings. The spots on her head became black bow clips, and her tights have red and black circles with "LB" drawn in them, in white. 

It would have been more bug-like for her bustle/tail to be black, but I felt like I had used the red-black duo combination too much (for Antibug and Marinette). The dress is velvet, and the lace for this design is hand-drawn. Her necklace has a ladybug pattern.

Design 12 – Lolita 15 Designs in April Challenge

Buona notte!

These last challenge days feel like a drum's beat. You know that one, at the chorus or end of a song, the one that gives an exciting and rushing feeling! Like I'm posting a design with every beat.

One thing that this challenge has really given me, is the pleasure (and addiction) of hand-drawing lace. I used to only make that simple scallop eyelet lace that you see in most cartoons, because it was fast and easy. For this design, I really wanted to go all out.

Well, actually, I wasn't planning on going all out, but once I started I just thought "It needs more lace! More lace!" –and here we are. The proportions are a little awkward, since I made this with a hurried mind. The lace, though, I am proud of!

The overall design and layout for this one are actually very simple. It is a black overdress with a simple white cotton underskirt.With summer just around the corner, I have been seeing many coords that break quite a few of Lolita's staple rules (non-cutsew t-shirt, no socks, open shoes, no head accessories, etc.) So I wanted to hop on and draw a rule-breaker, better even a rule-bender.

It was originally to be a white underdress with a blue overskirt with sea/wave patterns, and it would be called Umika. Since the way I drew the lace made it look grey from far away, I went and matched with black. Now you can absorb both all the compliments, and all of the sun's rays!

Design 11 – 15 Lolita Designs in April Challenge

Bonjour, mes filles et fils!

Today's design is a mix of a quickly out together illustration, and just as quickly put together poem. The poem was actually drafted in French, since I was inspired during French class by the word baladeur. It was not quite beautiful, since my French is sort of childishly limited, so I took quite a lot of liberties when translating.

I will repeat myself: I am nor a writer, nor a poet (I, hopefully, am a "painter"). I still do hope you can enjoy this just as I do. Think of cornflower, rain, and Paris mornings.

Le Problème des Promeneurs

The problem of passerby's:
I know not,
I know you know.

Lie down the lies:
Foot on leg, tie a knot,
Brain burnout, in a row.

Hands, hearts, brains, 
won't last.

Pass-by the remains
of the past.

They walk too fast,
They think too strong,

Feet, brains, aghast.
When was it wrong?

To know, I wish not.
You know I know.

A wanderer's problem
To remain alone.

Designs 9 and 10 - 15 Lolita Designs in April Challenge

I'm just fashionably late!

Well, as you may have noticed, I have not posted the designs I should have during the last week. That is due to...well... I actually have no excuse. 

So, to make up for this I bring to you...yet another set! It is a well known fact that I very much enjoy the Miraculous Ladybug cartoon. If you are not able to guess on your own, I will tell you: these designs are inspired by Antibug and Reflekta.

The designs are inspired by the villains and how I perceive them, not by the person who used to be the villain. In that case, Juleka would be the gothic one and Chloé would be the sweet Lolita.

I wanted Antibug's design to be opposite to the Ladybug design I made (Marinette Polkadot). Since Ladybug's was simple and sweet, Antibug's was to be ostentatious and impractical (much like her sword). I also gave it a touch of a Flamenco dancer, but that is really just incidental, and for aesthetics. She has a (sadly hard to see) venetian mask on her headdress). The wrist cuffs, choker and collar of the dress have black pearl details.

Reflekta's design is clownish and eye-catching. It's odd and cute and a little awkward looking. I wanted the hem ruffles to resemble the lifting of her plastic skirt. The pattern is made of chains of ellipse/eye shapes, and is a glitter print. Her shoes are those old-school gigantic Mana-like platforms (which are actually surprisingly easy to walk in). All the lace is cotton bobbin. Her purse's eyelashes are frays (I do not know the correct term...).

Design No.8 - 15 Lolita Designs in April Challenge

For no.8 I decided to see if I could make something in the style that is currently popular: OTT Classic. Excessive lace and longer, bigger skirts with princess sleeves and some variation of Marie Antoinette on the title. I love to look at them, given that I would probably never wear them since they are terribly expensive and Lolita is relatively casual wear for me, so I'd have no occasion for such a pompous thing.

The underskirt would be crepe chiffon, with a Maline lace overlay and maybe Venice lace scalloped trim. For the blue part, I was thinking maybe faille, since I want something different than cotton, but I feel like it would look off in sheen and texture and be a very poor overall choice, so cotton would be better. The ribbons would be the same chiffon as the underskirt, and the other lace trims would all be Maline as well.

Since I sometimes mock the names of dresses like this in my head with things like "Sugary Marie Antoinette" and "Princess Carrousel Daydream",  I've decided to name it just that: Marie Sucrée.

Design 6 and 7 – 15 Designs in April Challenge

Hey, Hey!

Oh dear, this challenge is proving to be a little more demanding than I expected. Well, it actually is more like I have decided to make it more demanding than it could be. I guess that is just a part of me, I always do things like this. Life is easy, yet we ourselves make it hard. Is that not right? I'm not too sure myself, but it seems to make sense. Et alors, shall we go on...?

This design set was inspired by the words "Heavy Metal Angel" and a jacket by MARBLE that I'm currently in love with. Of course I did not use MARBLE's design –that would not be very in the spirit of the challenge– but I did use it as inspiration. The second design of the set was very much me just going with the flow after creating Heavy Metal Angel and just making something out of leftover inspiration. Her outfit would be called Morgenkreuz. She's wearing some sort of bastard form of those strange Alice and the Pirates shoes.

Design 5 - Lolita 15 Designs Challenge

Bonjour!

In an attempt to maintain my wavering schedule, here I am with one more design. I have been watching the Miraculous Ladybug lately, and needless to say I enjoy it very much. It reminds me of the way cartoons on air were when I was an elementary schooler. Extremely cheesy, filled with puns, teenage superheroes with glitzy transformations and girly crushes, simple and fun, and I just can't help but love them.

So this design is (rather obviously) inspired by Marinette DuPain's Ladybug suit. I did not want to use ladybug spots, so I used small polkadots and black scallops. I wanted something simple and close to the body, since a heroine has to fight and move around quite a bit. Also, her yoyo is now a purse. It's a very simple and quick design, overall. I hope you may find it as cute as I do, and have a wonderful day!

15 Lolita Designs Challenge – Designs 3 and 4

Oh, the delay!

I have been more tired this first week of school than I would have expected. I wish my delay had not been so, however, I did not want my designs to be mere sketches in my cuadricule notebook. Thus, I have finally finished digitalising them. These two drawings come in a set, as well as the two to follow, which I will hopefully post on the 12th.

So, so, so... Let's get to it! My inspiration for this set were two songs: "Shotgun Lovers" and "My Baby Shot Me Down". Some difference, huh? 

For the first one, I wanted to take some vintage inspiration. I remembered once seeing someone post about "Gangster Lolita", sort of like a Lolita-fied Al Capone. It was very entertaining, and so I wanted to try doing it but keeping it cute and usual. For the second one, I actually wanted to make a Guro Lolita design, and she'd be carrying a red gun. After some tries, I scrapped the idea and went for shiro with red accents to keep the guro feeling. Maybe I'll try that other idea for another design? I didn't want to get too bloody today.

I wanted to make them sort of compliment each other, since the designs are so different. I thought that since one had no skin tone, eyes or eyebrows, and a fully coloured outfit, the other one would be the opposite.

And here is a very large picture of both designs connected.

Design 2 – 15 Designs Challenge

Hello, Hello!

Yesterday night I posted my very first design for this challenge. I actually hoped to do it on April 2nd, so that I could go 2-4-6-etc. and keep an even distribution, but I was very engrossed in watching Miraculous during the weekend and broke my schedule.

So, let's get to it! For today's design, I chose Amulet Heart. After consuming twelve episodes of the Miraculous Ladybug, and discovering myself to be unable to find any more that were not in Korean, I chose to put my dormant Play-Station to use and undust my old DVD's. 

I found my old Shugo Chara! collection, and was having a hard time with which of Amu's guardians to use. I went for something soft and pink.

The drawing is a little awkward, since I made it a little absent-mindedly and am not very experienced with water colour. I still hope that you can enjoy it, even with its faults!

15 Lolita Designs Challenge – Design 1

Bonjour, Bonjour!

For the first design, the theme I wanted to work with was bones! This design is worn by a girl who is actually the main character in my upcoming short story "The Space Between My Vertebrae". 

I was actually thinking of doing the dress she wears in the story as my first design, but it was very hard to consider that dress Lolita, so I took some elements from it and made it into something more acceptable! It is still a little strange, but I have been very into Mihara Mitsukazu, H.Naoto and MARBLE lately, so I wanted to try my hand at designing something that gave me a similar feeling to them.

Don't forget, you can click on images for better resolution!

*CHODEINN is my instagram and twitter account. I sign most of my drawings with that username.

15 Lolita Designs in April

Bonjour, Bonjour!

I would really like to start this off with a more rhythmical "as many of you might know"... but that would be terribly delirious of me. So, I'll have to settle for the more slightly out of tune.

So! In case any of you, my dear page-viewers, are active members of the EGL Livejournal page, you may have already seen bodici22's 15 Lolita Designs in April Challenge. 

Work, work, work....

Why am I telling you this? Well, of course, because I'll be participating! Since I have just barely begun my blog, I feel like participating in different challenges will definitely help me bring more content!

Basically, what this challenge entails, is to create around fifteen Lolita fashion designs during the course of April. The criteria for a design is rather liberal, and I feel this might be so that a larger variety of people can participate. (There's always the "I'd like to participate but I can't draw!" excuse, so now there's no reason to be fret anymore!)

If anyone dear human reads my rather greenhorn blog has not yet seen the post, and wishes to participate, here is the link for the challenge's blog.

*

NOTICE: Since I will be posting near-daily with the April Challenge, I have decided to move the review and short stories for until the end of the month. Otherwise, I feel like they would be drowned with all the designs I'll be posting. I also want to be able to work on the stories properly, so that they will be as beautiful as I imagine them. 

My planning follows as:
First week of May: WunderWelt Review (Monday) and Story "The Space Between my Vertebrae" (Saturday)
Second week: Story "Only I" (Saturday)
Third Week: Story "Wedding in a Water Bottle" (Saturday)

I hope that you will continue to support my blog. À bientôt!