#this is actually a redraw from a drawing that i saw on a cookie box somewhere on twitter

[keitorinrose]

Was bored, drew some groppy

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Ok I’m glad I found the actual ask box instead of the EMBARASSING thing I did earlier, aside from that

How long does it usually take you to make a drawing? :3 I know it’s different depending on the caliber of the drawing but for an example let’s say just Barnaby and Wally doing whatever in a scene

I’m very curious about your process!! ^w^

i just saw what you mean and for your sake i'll Pretend I Did Not See lol. its ok tho it happens, Tumblr's a tough cookie to wrangle

hm. it Does vary wildly, both depending on quality, how used to scribbling a thing i am, and how well the art-mojo is flowing! on a bad night, a simple sketch could take an hour while the same sketch on a good night could take 15 minutes

and it's also hard to say since i don't really keep track! for example, The First One in this collage is a more involved sketch and i suspect it took thirty minutes maybe? i remember having some Difficulties so maybe longer? trying to get size differences between multiple characters in the same sketch adds a Lot of time, as does making sure they interact properly. while the last one in the collage (the Nom) probably took closer to ten minutes

i know the Laughingstock in Aziracrow's outfits i belted out in, oh... an hour or three? it's really hard to say! i think it was several bc i was watching gomens at the time, and i think it got through a couple of episodes... clothes add a lot of time! but certain things that i thought i did Quickly took hours in reality, and i only notice when i look up and see the clock has Changed Drastically! i have a very loose perception of time!

it really just depends on my motivation & how used to drawing something i am. like scribbling Eddie takes a while, lots of guidelines and erasing and redrawing. but scribbling Barnaby? easy. takes me seconds in comparison. way less guidelines - i know where everything is and where it goes! drawing dragons takes even less time - This One was done in a Blink, and the only guides i used were head circle / snout circle / jawline.

[everlarkchristmasgifts]

Something Suspiciously Like Hope

Written for Day 2 - Secret Santa Exchanges.

Unbeta’d. Rated T for language. Enjoy :)

Peeta takes the slip of paper from his pocket and stares at the name, written in her small, careful cursive. Again. As if the writing changed from the last time he read it.

Katniss Everdeen.

The gods of Random Name Drawing have a sick sense of humour, that’s for sure.

God, what if she drew his name, too? Then what would he do? He fights back a shudder — what are the odds of that happening? — and tosses the paper in a nearby bin. It’s not like he’s ever going to forget it, anyway.

He takes stock of his very limited options as he mixes up another batch of dough for the bakery’s famous Christmas shortbreads. He can’t get her anything too impersonal. That just seems… rude. Not to mention, a gigantic lie. They’ve never been friends — hell, the slip of paper with her name on it is about the entirety of their exchanges over the years — but they’ve been in the same classes since kindergarten, so that should count for something, shouldn’t it?

But on the other hand, he can’t get her anything too… not impersonal, either. Nothing that could out the feelings he’s carried around like a backpack full of bricks for over a decade. That would be… not a gigantic lie. But also, his absolute worst nightmare come true.

He should have asked to redraw his Secret Santa when he had the chance. Knowing Ms. Trinket, though, she never would have allowed it.

There’s a tiny sliver of grey area that he can work with here. What’s the happy middle between a five-dollar café gift-card and a dozen long-stemmed red roses? Is baking her a cake from scratch too heartfelt, or just the right amount of caring and not-caring?

I put together this cake just for you, but I also work in a bakery and make literally thousands of cakes just like this one in a week, so don’t feel too special.

“Why does this have to be so hard?” he mutters to himself.

“Surely not the dough, son? You could make those cookies blindfolded by now.”

Peeta jumps maybe three feet in the air. He’d almost forgotten his father was still in here, too.

“Not the dough,” he says, shaking his head.

“What, then?” his father prods.

Peeta sighs, but there’s never been any point lying. His crush on Katniss Everdeen has been his worst-kept secret since he was five and saw her for the first time, after which he declared to everyone in earshot that he would marry her someday. If Katniss ever heard, she’s been too polite to say anything.

“A Secret Santa exchange at school. I drew Katniss.”

His father goes quiet for a minute, then asks, “Why’s that so hard?”

“What do you mean, why’s that so hard?” Peeta exclaims. “What am I supposed to do?”

His father shrugs. “I guess that depends on the sort of impression you want to make.” He dusts off his flour-covered hands and crosses his arms. “Do you really want to go about your last year at school without ever having been honest with her? Could you live with that?”

“I think I could live with it,” Peeta whispers without hesitation. “But I think I’d regret it every day, too.”

His father smiles. “Then I guess that’s your answer.”

“So, what do I give her?”

The smile spreads into a grin. “Something unforgettable.”

Peeta says nothing. Just furrows his brows and turns back to his dough, rolls it out into a thin sheet.

He has an idea. More like a sapling of an idea, really. A weedy little sapling struggling to break up into the light. It’s a ridiculous idea given that they only have until the end of the week to exchange their gifts, but he thinks he can do it. He’s got everything he needs back home, so the twenty-dollar price limit isn’t going to be an issue (or does that just make him look cheap?) and what’s more… if he plays his cards right, it will be unforgettable.

Peeta finishes his shift with a smile on his face.

XXX

The canvas barely fits inside his beat-up Corolla.

Never mind ‘unforgettable’. She’ll be lucky to ever forget him after this. The guy who made her carry a massive canvas all through the halls with her. Less of a ‘something to remember me by’, and more of a gigantic ‘screw you.’

He parks in his usual spot at school and collapses against the steering wheel. He’s gotten a collective ten hours of sleep this past week working on the damn thing, recreating the woods which border District 12 in wrenching, painstaking detail, but it’s worth it. It has to be.

A fist raps against his window. Peeta jumps high enough to hit his head on the car’s felt ceiling.

“Hey! Is that it?”

Without waiting for a reply, Finnick swings to the other side and settles himself in the passenger seat. He twists towards the back and lets out a low whistle.

“Dude. It’s huge.”

“I couldn’t do it with anything smaller,” Peeta mutters.

“Sure isn’t going to be a secret now.”

Peeta shakes his head and gets out of the car. “I never said it was going to be.”

“So… you’re going for it?” Finnick jumps out and slams the door shut. “You’re actually gonna do it?”

Peeta sucks in a deep, sharply cold breath. “I think I… maybe?”

“Peeta!” Finnick punches his shoulder. “Seriously, man? That’s awesome.”

Peeta snorts. “Yeah. Two guesses how it’ll end, though.”

“You still reckon she’ll say no?”

“I just don’t see why she’d say yes.”

“You know, Annie says she’s real nice.”

“So? I’m not after a pity date, Finn. I just… I know she’ll like this. That’s all.”

“Yeah, she will. You wanna know what I got my Secret Santa? A box of sugar cubes.”

He almost laughs. “Seriously? Why?”

“Well under the twenty-buck limit, and ‘cause Clove Andersen could stand to be a whole lot sweeter, don’t you think?”

Peeta snorts. “When she decks you, and she absolutely will, don’t expect me to step in and save the day.”

“All you’d have to do is flash that smile and she’d be off me and all over you.”

“Yeah, not really the image I’m going for right now.” Peeta pulls in another deep breath, sets a hand on the car’s roof, and nods to himself. “So, you going to help me bring this thing in or what?”

XXX

His own Secret Santa gift — from Madge, mercifully, a pair of thick, silly, reindeer-print socks — had been front and centre at the top of the pile in Ms. Trinket’s room. At the end of class, he grabbed it and bolted, the tips of his ears burning as he caught Katniss out the corner of his eye, approaching her massive gift, propped up at the back and taking up damn near half the wall, with a frown on her face. He considered for all of a nanosecond staying and waiting for her to unwrap it, just to see her face when she saw it. But that same crippling self-doubt that always seemed to afflict him around Katniss squeezed at his chest and he just… couldn’t.

God, he’s such a loser.

He plops down on a damp bench right on the far edge of the school, far enough away that the chatter and laughter from everyone else is little more than a distant echo. The cold air dusting past his face brings his thoughts into more clarity. He should have seen this coming a mile off. It happens every single time. He’s never been able to string more than five words together in Katniss’ presence; why would today be any different? Combine that with a giant, what-the-fuck of a gift, and it’s a damn wonder he was able to walk through the school gates at all this morning.

The phone in his pocket vibrates with texts he’s not sure he wants to see. Probably just Finn asking how it all went. Maybe one from his dad, too. Peeta groans and fists his hair. His own damn fault for telling everybody.

“Peeta?” a soft, smoky voice whispers behind him.

He jumps about ten feet in the air and spins to face his assailant. Katniss Everdeen, her hands tucked into the pockets of her patchy coat, staring at him with eyes as grey as the storm clouds above. An omen or not, he’s not sure.

“Katniss,” he breathes.

She smiles, the barest quirk of her lips. “I wasn’t sure you knew my name. I guess… I guess that was wrong.”

His cheeks flush as he sets himself back down on the bench. “I’ve always known who you are.”

“I’m starting to get that, yeah.” She perches herself on the bench beside him, even though there’s not a whole lot of room for them to share. Even through his thick coat, the warmth Katniss radiates is enough to make him feel like his blood is boiling.

“It’s incredible,” she blurts out before he can say anything. “I mean, I knew you were good — I think you’ve got paintings hanging in every corridor in there — but that painting is… amazing, Peeta. Really.”

“I’m glad you like it,” he murmurs.

She sets a warm hand on his forearm. The contact is like lightning beneath his skin, but it anchors him, too; this moment is real. He’s not dreaming it. And it’s fucking amazing.

“I love it,” she tells him, low and deliberate. “Thank you, Peeta.”

He clears his throat. “You’re welcome.”

She lets her arm fall from his, and he misses the warmth all at once. “I kinda feel bad about what I got my Secret Santa now, though.”

“Who’d you have?” he asks.

“Delly.”

He barks out a laugh. “What did you get her?”

“A fluffy pom-pom keychain shaped like an owl. Prim picked it out. I had no idea what to get her.”

“I can tell you with absolute certainty that Delly loved it.”

She smirks. “Oh, I know she did. She jumped me right in the hallway as we were leaving and hugged me.”

Peeta smiles. “That sounds about right.”

A couple from the year below them walk by, hand-in-hand. As if by some unspoken agreement, Peeta and Katniss stay silent, their gazes trained on the ground, until the pair pass by.

When he looks up again, their faces are much closer together than they were before — or maybe they were always this close? Katniss’ cheeks are a bright, glowing pink, and she’s looking everywhere but his face.

“We should… uh, meet up, maybe?” she says, all fractured, and he thinks it fractures something in his head, too, because she cannot possibly be saying what he thinks she might be saying. “Some day during the break? I could, um… maybe show you the woods when it’s snowing, and you could paint or something? If that’s even something you wanted to see, I don’t even know if you —”

He cuts her off before she can ramble anymore, because even though it’s completely, utterly adorable, he’ll be damned if he lets her talk herself out of this now. “I’d love to come to the woods with you, Katniss,” he says, leaving no room for anything else.

“Good!” she says, a little too loudly, but Peeta’s not sure anything could beat the pounding of his heart for volume right now. She clears her throat and says, “That’s… good.”

“Yeah… good.” Damn, he’s eloquent.

“How’s Boxing Day for you?”

“Yeah… good,” he says again. Katniss lets out a tiny chuckle, one that he swears makes his heart skip a beat.

A bell goes off somewhere… the school, maybe? He’s got no way of knowing, or caring. All he gives a shit about right now is Katniss Everdeen, right in front of him, so close he could maybe kiss her if he didn’t think that would be kind of weird. Before he can move, Katniss is shouldering her bag and making her way back towards the building.

“Merry Christmas, Peeta,” she whispers, a real smile, however tiny, tipping her lips now as she walks away.

He grins what he’s sure is the dopiest, happiest grin the entire world and calls back, “Merry Christmas, Katniss.” For the first time in forever, the self-doubt doesn’t even enter his head.

In its place now is something suspiciously like hope.