trulyhopelessromantic

[trulyhopelessromantic]

The first drawing in 2023... I drew it while watching the cartoon, to beautiful songs.

[trulyhopelessromantic]

Lawyer: How would you like to handle the custody agreement?

Parent: I want my wife to take one of my infant daughters to the UK and I’ll take the other one and we will never see each other again.

Lawyer: You want to fucking what?

[trulyhopelessromantic]

here’s to all of the people whose names have been lost to time. the unmarked graves, the forgotten memories, the writers of anonymous scribbles on the walls, the ordinary people who made great men great, the people who perhaps did not impact as many lives but who nonetheless made a difference. your stories may never be told, but despite all that, you too are history.

[trulyhopelessromantic]

diversity win!

[trulyhopelessromantic]

Howl truly is the man of all time. He’s a playboy. He’s a malewife. He fell in love with a ninety year old woman. He’s a rugby player. He smells like hyacinths. He’s not a natural blond. When dying his hair went slightly wrong, he filled his home with slime. He has a PhD. He’s a wizard. He found a way to another universe and he told absolutely nobody about it. He makes video games about the magical universe for his nephews. He can’t play the guitar. He always takes a guitar with him when he’s trying to seduce a woman. He’s a self-proclaimed coward. He got drunk to trick himself into doing something dangerous. He overcharges for his services to rich people. He undercharges for his services to poor people. A woman invaded his home and declared herself his cleaning lady and he just let her stay. He loves spiders. He lies about his surname to everyone, including royalty. The true spelling of his first name is Howell, but we don’t find out until halfway through the book because the POV character thinks it’s spelled Howl. He’s even Welsh.

[trulyhopelessromantic]

I sort of forgot how to color so I’m just doing a bunch of line art, hoping I’ll figure it out again at some point in the future. Anyway, here’s a WIP of fortunes favor.

[trulyhopelessromantic]

wow that post sure was a hit (got two likes from my mutuals)

[trulyhopelessromantic]

my fucking squire died so I’m stuck in this stupid armor

[trulyhopelessromantic]

the worlds most shy animal has just built up enough courage to sniff you

[trulyhopelessromantic]

Next two of Henry VIII's wives: Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves!

Putting a little explanation for these designs under the break:

Both of these women were painted by Hans Holbien, and their portraits by that artist played a pretty vital role in how I wanted to depict these women. For Jane, I decided to stick as close as I could, because I think Jane gets the most artistic interpretation than any of the other wives. She's a blank slate to a lot of directors in Tudor adaptations. This is brought on by the very scant records we have of what she was really like in life. We do know she loved quail while she was pregnant, and encouraged Henry to treat his daughter Mary better, which ultimately ended in her being welcomed back at court. Her family has kept samples of her embroidery through history, so it's fun to imagine her working on something in between breaks for her portrait.

For Anne, I went the complete opposite. Her Holbien portrait is extremely famous, but I feel like it creates the misconception that Anne never changed during the rest of her life in England. The portrait also has been used to cast doubts on her appearance (and whether or not her looks are exagerrated). In reality, Anne was dressed in typical English court digs when she arrived in England, and was noted to be very pretty. It wasn't until after Henry cast doubts on her appearrance, and even her chastity, in order to get out of the marriage as quickly as possible. I wanted to give these back to her, as white symbolised purity and chastity in this period. Anne lived a good life as Henry's sister, and outlived all the other of Henry's wives. She was known for being kind to her staff, and loving to pair cards with a good drink.

[trulyhopelessromantic]

HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE (2004) dir. Hayao Miyazaki

Sophie and Howl in the beginning and in the end.

[trulyhopelessromantic]

Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn for my Six Wives of Henry VIII project. These portraits have taken a lot of research to get them to look as accurate as I can get them without access to a lot of academic texts in America. Both portraits are based on contemporary, or near-contemporary copies of lost originals, especially in the case of Anne.

For Catherine’s portrait, I intended to illustrate a younger queen about a decade before Henry started looking into annulling their marriage. For Anne, I wanted to portray her life as a courtier and musician, since she excelled at both. Her instrument is called a rebec, which was kind of like a premodern violin.

This project is part of a broader theoretical series into archeologic illustration. I’ve uploaded the process of painting Catherine over on tiktok with a bit of history of her life. Anne’s vid to come soon!

[trulyhopelessromantic]

[trulyhopelessromantic]

this video is putting me in a daze i swear

[trulyhopelessromantic]

EMMA. (2020)

[trulyhopelessromantic]

EMMA 2020 | Autumn de Wilde

[trulyhopelessromantic]

Yesterday was a bad writing day. I spent a lot of time staring at a screen. Lots of Tumblr replies. Lots of Twitter (the Netflix Sandman trailer going out didn’t help). Lots of being grumpy at myself and convinced I couldn’t do it any more. The script was a mess. I was doomed. This morning I printed out what I had to fix, picked up a pen, made a few notes and started typing. It was fun and easy and straightforward. I finished it and sent it to the people who needed to see it, and just got an amazed call from our script editor saying she was laughing while crying and couldn’t work out how I’d done everything in a day.

And I hadn’t done it all in a day. All of the being miserable yesterday was necessary for it to fly today. All of the knowing it was insoluble and awful made the work today relatively easy. I had to get out of my own way, and had to read it freshly, without being attached to anything. And then I just did the notes. And to make the thing that worked today, a lot of stuff that didn’t quite work or sort of worked had to be written too. It’s always easier to fix stuff that exists.

Anyway. Yesterday = bad writing day. Today = good writing day. I thought it was worth telling people, in case there was anyone else out there who was having a bad writing day too.