thepotatopixie

[thepotatopixie]

Let's look through some weird-ass fairytales.

Hi, I'm the Potato Pixie, and I like fairytales. One day, I'd like to make comic adaptations of some of the weirder ones, or some well-known ones but the original versions, cause those get weird as hell.

I'm specifically going off from this book, a Barnes and Noble exclusive edition that I got for Christmas in 2015, but the inside specifically lists this as the Margaret Hunts translation from 1884.

So, I'm going to tell you all the broad strokes of the story, any important details, provide my shitty commentary, and how it could possibly be adjusted to a short comic.

My goal is to, when I can, make the characters more human, or give them more character. When I do character designs, and I'll post those as well, give traits and characteristics that aren't conventionally attractive.

Anyways, we're starting with the Frog King!

It's the first one in the book, and I'm interested in adapting it, so we'll go with that!

So it starts with the unnamed Princess tossing a gold ball, which is her favorite plaything, by a well.

Eventually, she tosses it and it falls in the well, and it's so deep she can't see the bottom or her ball.

She cries so much that the stones would show pity, (or maybe she thinks they would, this version very much has spoiled brat vibes) that soon a talking frog comes out of the well and asks her what's wrong. The princess though disgusted at the talking Frog, tells him about the ball, and he offers to get it for her, if she agrees to take the Frog back to her castle, and let the Frog eat with her, play with her and sleep in her bed with her.

The Princess fully intending to ditch the Frog agrees, and as she gets her ball she runs off, and frog croaking and yelling for her

At the castle, the Princess and the King are eating until they hear a knock at the door, and the king questions whoever it could be as the princess is freaked out knowing it's the Frog, and after said Frog asks her if she doesn't remember the agreement they had, the King tells the Princess that she has to keep her promise, and she begrudgingly picks thr Frog up and takes him to the table, to which he seemingly eats off her plate with ease, and she choking down every bite. (Like man that'd gross me out too, the princess is kinda a bitch but like, same)

Eventually, the Frog decides he's full and wants to go to sleep, and the Princess carries the Frog with two fingers by his leg up the stairs. When the Frog insists upon being carried up onto her bed, she gets so angry she takes the Frog and THROWS HIM AGAINST THE WALL.

Nah, no romance, no character development of like a spoiled brat learning to be nice, fucking YEETS the slimy bitch to the wall.

The weirdest part is, THATS WHAT TURNS HIM BACK INTO A PRINCE??? I have the whole scene planned in my head, bitch goes splat, slides down, the bottom half of the shot is like covered by the bed in the foreground and there's like a delayed POOF and then his gets up as a human holding his head.

Anyways, the Frog King (we're still gonna call him Frog) tells the Princess that a witch had cast a spell onto him and no one but her had taken him from the well (So I guess it was the well that was keeping him a frog?? But the Princess didn't do shit, she ran off!! So idk)

And then in the morning as mentioned, a carriage of white horses rolls up, and weirdly the only Named character, the servant Faithful Henry is said that he was so unhappy that his master was turned into a Frog, that three iron bands were laid upon his heart, lest it should burst from sadness.

They get in the carriage, and the Kings son (so like, it's not mentioned at all before that the Frog King has a son, neither the princesses father, and only the princess and the Frog King are described to get in the carriage. They mention that because the Princess agrees to be the Frogs companion and playmate, and that by her fathers will is now her husband, so where did the son come from? They go to the kingdom the next morning, so idk)

The Son thinks the carriage is breaking, but Faithful Henry says it's only the bands upon his heart bursting with joy and happiness that his master has returned.

The End

And that's it!! It's so weird, but I kinda like the lack of romance. And the Princess fucking Yeeting the Frog is great lmao

Also the servant Henry is giving Forbidden Lover vibes? Like how the hell is this dude THAT HAPPY that King is back? And what's up with the random Kings Son??

How do we Adapt this?

So keeping as much elements from the original tale as possible, here's what I got.

The Princess is spoiled, maybe she's got texture issues so she hates slimy things? Eh maybe not, but I am getting "POV The Girl You Think Is Mean Is Really Just A Girls Girl kinda vibes? Maybe I've just been watching thise too much.

Anyways, I'm thinking, take out the Kings son at the end, cause he serves no purpose and only shows up at the tail end, and Princess becomes the Fake Wife of the Frog King so he can be with his servant lover and the Princess can live on splendor or some shit.

[thepotatopixie]

I present to thee, Unnamed Rat King Painting!!

It took me a bit, I had to wait till I was back at my partners place cause I forgot my ink there, it works surprisingly well on top of acrylic paint! I've really been liking how it looks, I'm excited to do more!

My only thing is I recently learned more about value in my graphic design class, and part was making sure different elements in your piece doesn't blend together when you apply a greyscale filter, and I realized one of the rats and the tails kind of do that, but it's a lesson learned for the next project!

In my class, I'm attempting to work ahead and blast through the last two illustration chapters so I won't have to worry about it later, and the subjects are Illusion of Motion and Value, and I have to take notes that answers certain questions and make a sketch based off of the subject that has to do with our portfolio stuff, which more me is Character Design, Comics and Surrealist pieces, so I'll be posting those as well!!

Anyways rambling over (for now)

[thepotatopixie]

Man I was thinking of making an 'about me' thing to pin to the blog with like a doodle portrait and facts and shit so I looked it up on here and first thing I see is a dude in his undies like dUDE IM AT WORK AND I WORK AT A SEWING PLACE WITH OLD LADIES I DONT NEED THIS SHIT

Anyways rant over

[thepotatopixie]

Current wip! I've had this wood star thing from the dollar store for a year or two and could never decide what to paint on it, I wanted to do a weird thing, and for a while I had a barely started painting of a lady with a sparkle shaped scar on her forehead and big ol' eyes and cloud hair, but I wasn't vibing with it.

Then after I made my Kingfisher painting I really liked the usage of black ink for the wobbly line art and wanted to do another thing with it, and remembered Rat Kings existed and though 'well, it has 5 points, I can paint 5 Rats!

And then we'll I gotta make it funky, and decided to keep the pastel background the other painting had and added Peonies, but mostly cause they're my favorite lol

Now I'm deciding what else to add, I want to add stuff that's seemingly unrelated to the overall aesthetic that's cute with the pastel and gross with the rats, maybe something academic looking? I'm thinking of adding thorny vines looping around the rats, for an inescapable kinda thing. I also thought of bones or teeth, but idk if that would be too leaning to the gross/creepy side. Idk,I'll finish the flowers and decide later

[thepotatopixie]

So I think I've decided I'll be using this page for a general blog, I think it'd probably be good for me to get back into social media gradually and not push it, and having a page that's maybe not just for art but myself and other junk I like, maybe it'll help find my tint corner of the internet

Anyways rant over and whoever follows can deal with my nonsensical ranting and yammering

[thepotatopixie]

I got hyperfixated on kingfisher birds for a bit cause the colors are cool and I was in a 'oh god I need to draw something or do something productive cause I didn't do enough today' kinda mindset and spent the past 4ish hours painting!

I don't normally name my paintings cause they don't have specific meanings behind them, but I think I'd call this one 'Strain of Hunger' or something pretentious like that lmao,

I added the squiggly lines in the back after I realized it had been 4 hours and I was super hungry but I take Vyvanse for my adhd and idk if anyone else has this but I think because it's also an appetite suppressant I get MORE focused when I'm hungry so I procrastinated eating more, so I kinda took that out on the painting, and I think it kinda fits!

[thepotatopixie]

I has a confession, I finished the bag the other night cause I wanted to use it for class, and forgot to take pictures 😭😭😭 I think sometime I'll make a comic about it instead, I'm debating deleting the posts lol

[thepotatopixie]

Welcome back to Potato's "How To Bullshit Sewing"

First I showed my concept, now we're going to measure and cut out the pieces!

So I'm going to vocational college for graphic design, so I need a bag to hold a lot of books and papers. My largest paper pad I've used so far is this Bristol Board, so that's what were going go use to measure about how big to make it!

First you take your largest item and lay it on the fabric, and draw the shape of the bag around it, remembering to have extra material for seam allowance, and "opps I fucked up and now the edges are all frazzled"

(I forgot to mention that the canvas and other materials I have is doubled, from when they cut it off the bolt, so you only need the cut out the outer material once if that's the case for you.)

It's likely I'll trim this down a bit later, but its better to have more than you need, then less that you have to go back and get.

Next, stack the stuff you need in it and either take a leftover piece of material or paper and mark how wide the sides need to be. I had some leftover canvas that was about the width of the stuff I had, so I used it as a starting point.

From the bottom of the material I marked where the top of the lenght was, pretty much just made a line where I the top corner was.

Here I marked the width of the bag, but unfortunately I didn't have enough material to have one continuous line for the whole bag. But, since this material is folded, I can just mark about the middle of the bottom and have two halves.

Next, the Tazer Pocket I want to add to throw side.

The one on my messenger bag was fine, that one I top sewed the folded edges closer together so it wouldn't be completely flat on the side, if that makes sense.

But this time we're making side seams so it doesn't go inside the bag a bit, if that makes sense also.

Repeat the steps like with the Bristol board, giving plenty of seam allowance and trimming room. This scrap price was perfect to use, and I had enough to also use it for the side seam.

I folded that material hotdog style and that looked to be enough for the side seam, so it's good enough for me! If it messes up later it can be a snack pocket lol.

Next, I want to make a drawstring bag on the opposite side for trinkets or chapstick or whatever the hell, so I cut out a piece that was a little bigger than the side of the bag, which looking now I'll likely trim a bit of the lenght off later.

Sooooo, I forgot to take a picture of makeing the front flap for the bag. Since I used up the 10 image limit of the post, I'll make a drawing of how I made that later.

Thank you for reading! I know it's not a very comprehensive tutorial, but it's fun so oh well! Maybe in the future I'll make a better post about it.

[thepotatopixie]

Welcome to Potato's (the name for my pixie characters still a wild, lol) How to Bullshit Sewing!

So far I've made 2 messenger bags, both of which have served me well and the latter one I made for when I start vocational school, but admittedly made it a bit too wide so it's a little awkward to hold my books in and the pockets weren't quite as functional as I'd like, it being my first time makeing outside pockets in a while.

Anyways! Going off from my mistakes, I'm making an updated bag and taking YOU with me! Come see my floundering and bullshitery to make a weird but functional bag!

(Btw I hate the galaxy watermark, but tumblrs only letting me use my google photos, rip)

Here's the concept! Now I'm weird with my bags, I put the pretty patterned fabric on the inside; it's a weird 'don't judge a book by the cover, the magics on the inside' kinda thing, it's like "ooo people think it's a plain ole silly bag but on the INSIDE it's MAGICAL" idk. Anyways.

Atm as I'm typing it's late for my granny ass so I'll post this and tomorrow I'll post my measuring process (or lack thereof, I have antique kids sewing machines and darning stuff and weird shaped needles, but no ruler)

And my weird little shortcuts I do for projects for stuff I'm making myself, it doesn't need to be perfect, just as functional as you need it to be.

I also need to reread my witchy sewing book so I can at witchy shit to it

Stay tuned!!

[thepotatopixie]

Ya know what, I need to make a new book bag, I think I'll make a How To Bullshit Sewing post cause I am the queen of taking shortcuts to make stuff for myself, stay tuned!

[thepotatopixie]

Figured I'd post this! We had a section in class over scale and proportion, taking 5 items and messing with the proportions to make a surrealism piece.

I picked a Hare, Egg, Moon, Venus Fly trap and a Slug

And I used a dip pen and ink, and accidently got a blob of ink on the moon, and realized too late that the Bristol board was NOT made for water lmao

[thepotatopixie]

Inktober!!! Thought I'd kick off my new account with what I have so far! I'm having to do the official prompts in my graphic design class, but I'm trying my best!

Admittedly Trek and Passport were rushed over the weekend as I had stuff going on, but at least it's finished!