Here’s a picture I drew for dee Juusan’s birthday last month!

The characters, Black and White, are from her manga Grey Is…, which you can read on the Grey Is website and on Ink Blazers!

It’s hard to describe how much I love her comic and how much I look up to her.
In my eyes, her comic is the definition of high quality art and storytelling, and it just keeps getting better and better!
I definitely recommend reading her manga, it’s one of my favourites (I’d even say it’s up there with Fullmetal Alchemist). *_*

Even though I was really busy with exams and such (you can read about that here), I’m glad that I finally got a chance to draw her some well deserved fan art… though I’m sure it’s the first of many. x3

I am SO thrilled that you liked the gift dee, and keep up the amazing work!! <3 And to everybody else, thanks for looking!! –

Artwork © 2014 Sloan | http://designsbysloan.com | http://artigirl.deviantart.com
Characters (Black and White from Grey Is…) © dee Juusan | http://www.deejuusan.com/ | http://deejuusan.deviantart.com
Do not use without permission.

Hey everyone! I just wanted to give a shout out to everybody who stopped by our art tables this weekend, whether they bought something from us, gave words of support, or just looked at our artwork.

The amount of support we receive never ceases to amaze me, so… THANK YOU!
You have no idea how much it means to us!!

If you would like to contact me, my mom, or my sister?
You can email us through sloan@designsbysloan.com.
If you have any questions for me or my sister, want updates on my mom’s crochet items, want to request a commission/custom artwork (or quote), would like to buy something you didn’t last weekend, or just want to chit-chat, feel free to email us there! Just keep in mind that mom reads those emails first~

For the YouTube video I mentioned: for those who are interested recording of my artwork, you can find links to my videos here. I would link to my YouTube channel, but unfortunately it seems to be glitching and saying I have uploaded no videos… -_-
Hopefully I can update my YouTube once I have a bit more time!

Also, here is my DeviantART account and here is my sister Shevi’s DeviantART account! Feel free to send us notes too~

Otherwise, feel free to poke around the site and check out the rest of my artwork.
Hopefully we can return to our table next year, too. :)

I hope everybody had a great weekend, and thanks again for the support!!

~Sloan

“Dear Winter”… get it? ‘Cause she’s a deer?
orz

Something I drew in December I believe? I’m not too sure, but it’s slightly more recent than some of my sketches lol. And yes, the branches were drawn on one side and copied/pasted to the other side. I had drawn them properly on both sides, but it became really dark and blurry in the scan, so I figured “meh, it’s just a sketch, I’ll just do a quick fix…”

Also, I thought we’d be free of hawks in the winter for some odd reason, but yesterday I saw a red tailed hawk in our backyard. Got a picture to help identify it/prove it was here but it’s not really good enough to upload. Hopefully this hawk doesn’t stick around long. :I

Edit 5/31/2014: I should have updated this description sooner, but on May 24th this received a Daily Deviation on DeviantART! You can view the Daily Deviation here and my dA journal about it here. Thank you for the support!!

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For a while now, I’ve found owls not only intriguing, but a bit terrifying too (which for some odd reason, just makes me more intrigued >_>)
There’s so much culture and so many myths surrounding them. They look so unique, and there’s a lot of variations in their appearance, from small and cute to huge and scary. It’s neat in the summer when we’re sitting outside and can hear some sort of owl. Sometimes they look like they’re more like mammals than birds, mainly because they’re so expressive. Their expressions seem so… human… compared to other birds.
The cute cartoony owls we see today are adorable, but somehow they just don’t compare to the real thing.

Somehow this led to me drawing Slade with a Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus). There’s very little reasoning as to why the snowy owl in particular, other than they’re both white with yellow/orange eyes (though I temporarily changed Slade’s eyes to match the owl’s even more). In some of Slade’s first incarnations, she was a majestic predator that lived in darkness. So I dunno, it just seemed to fit.

I kind of imagine that in the picture, they’re not friends or enemies; they simply relate to and respect each other, and that’s why they’re so close? Lol idk. ;_;

I probably drew some things wrong. I should have picked one photo or so to reference for the owl, but I didn’t. Instead I mostly eyeballed bits and pieces (“the eyes are this shape…” “the body looks a little like this, but I’ll draw from another angle…”, etc) of many photos. Its legs in particular are probably incorrect, but I’m not sure.

Overall, I’m happy with the result, and I think this will be a nice last upload of 2013. ^^
Here’s hoping 2014 is an awesome year for everybody, full of good health, happiness, and inspiration~!! <3 Thanks for looking!

Time lapse videos: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
You can view this image on DeviantART here.

Started doodling a random mori girl one night and then this came about. (Can you tell I’m a little mori obsessed? :P) I took a little bit of inspiration from art nouveau, though it’s probably far from perfect in that aspect. I struggled a lot with the girl’s face, and there’s something about it now that kind of bugs me… but oh well.

The bird featured in the painting is one of my favourites, the red breasted nuthatch. I love how shy they are when I go outside to fill the feeder (or when other bigger birds are at the feeder), but manage to gather enough courage to land on the feeder with others present. There’s been times where I wondered if they were going to land on me instead of the feeder. Plus, they sound so cute! <333 I just love them a lot. ;U; Anyways, as well as really wanting to draw my favourite bird, this is also kind of a tribute to autumn... my favourite season, despite how cruel it feels to me sometimes. Oh, and I got to include more than colouring in my video this time (such as the line art stage) so please feel free to check it out~ Thanks for looking, and have a good week! : D

Mom and I just rescued a whopping three sparrows that came down the chimney and got stuck in our fireplace. Mom trapped them in a box and tried to carry the box over to the door but we only got one out safely that way. The other two managed to escape from the box and have fun flying around the house (they did get out of the house safely as well).
In the title I said that it’s enough excitement for one day, but that combined with a bat we had to get out of the house shortly after Ai-kon, is probably enough for the season. Or rest of the year…

Sorry about not posting for a week or so. I haven’t even been doing much on deviantART.
I have a deadline coming up for school related stuff, so I’ve been focusing on that. In most of my spare time, I’ve either been working on a new picture (anybody remember the Mori WIP/teaser I posted before?) or playing AC:NL (because I need actual breaks too…)

I’m almost done with the deadline so I should be able to start posting soon. My current picture is mostly almost done (once I post it, I should have an extra surprise!! 8D), and another original picture lined up to work on after that.

Thank you for reading, and have a great week!

I want to give a shout out to everybody who stopped by my table and/or my sister’s table to chat, buy, trade, etc. You have no idea how much we appreciate the support, no matter how small, so THANK YOU!!
Like always, it was great seeing all the familiar faces, and meeting some of the new ones. :) To me, that’s one of the best parts of the weekend.
I hope you all had an amazing weekend full of lots of Ai-kon fun!! <3 Personally, we had some struggles before the convention, but everything worked out for the best in the end. We learned some new things, experienced new things, and had a lot of fun. My sister had her first Ai-kon art table, and my cousin came to Ai-kon for the first time! (Thank you Jonathan for coming and helping out so much, you're such an awesome cousin!!) We all had an amazing time, and I look forward to going again, whenever that will be. ^w^ We took even less pictures than last year, but I will be posting a (password protected) blog post with the cosplayers we DID take pictures of. The password will be posted on the Ai-kon forum, though if you think we might have a picture of you, feel free to send an email or note to me for the password. Or, if you were interested in a commission of any kind, just shoot me an email at sloan@designsbysloan.com or note me (artigirl @ deviantart) with what you'd like, and I'll give you a price quote. I am also willing to mail out anything that was (or wasn't) sold out. (Next time I'll work harder to prevent running out, and I think we have a plan, I promise!!) And to those who didn't get to come to Ai-kon, I'll start posting my Ai-kon prints and products tomorrow. I'll post most of the stuff on deviantART every once in a while, but I'll post on my blog everyday, with more sketches, photography, etc as well as my products for Ai-kon 2012-2013. I have more art to finish too (one original, one gift I won't post, another gift I might post, plus I'll probably go on my copic-colouring-kick soon. |D). I'll try and go for as long as I can with the everyday posting, so please look forward to it! <3 But yes, thank you SO much for the support, and I hope you have a great summer! ~Sloan

A button set I drew and sold last year. :3 I believe it was inspired by a girl who requested a bookmark of Yoru, so I made a bookmark with Yoru and Amu’s charas as well.
You might be asking why am I posting a button set with them if I made a bookmark to begin with. It’s because I feel weird posting a single bookmark, I’d rather post a set of something. ._.
But anyway, the bookmark and buttons turned out really cute I think! c:

Miki is the blue one, Su is the green one, Dia is the yellow one, Ran is the pink one, and Yoru is the purple/dark blue one~ <3 In other news, last night I found out The Material came out with an album last April, I'm just finally getting a chance to listen to it. It's awesome like the rest of their music. *___* Shugo Chara!, Ran, Miki, Su, Dia, Yoru © PEACH-PIT
Artwork © 2012 Sloan | designsbysloan.com
Do not use without permission

It’s not finished..
I’ve gotten sort of bored with it. I wanted to try and spruce it up so I wasn’t bored anymore, but it’s like a vicious circle haha. I might update it in the future, but until then, it’s finished!! OTL
Hopefully now I can get the motivation/inspiration to work on another picture.

Anyways!! I started working on this picture of my character Slade earlier this week, because we had three days that just had gorgeous sunsets and I wanted to paint them! I know I draw sunsets and sunrises a lot, but I really love them, and felt so inspired to do another. ;-;
I also tried to use the same technique that I used on my most recent picture of Aldora, but it’s not quite the same. :c

Thank for looking!

I had a local event I sold my work at earlier this month, and I figured since it wasn’t going to be anime-oriented as Ai-kon, “Kiwi Faerie” would be a good print to bring… except, it was messy before because I hadn’t intended to sell it originally. So instead of selling it in the state it was in, I repainted on top of it, so it’s pretty clean looking now. I tried really hard to keep her personality, though~
You can see the old version here! Can you spot the differences? XD

I like it a lot better now, even though I liked it before.. I’m a little more proud of it this time around.

And thank you everyone who stopped by my booth, I really appreciate it!! <33 I had a lot of fun at the event, made new friends, learned some new things, saw plenty of old friends, and gained some local exposure for my artwork. It was awesome. In other news, spring has finally come. For the past few days it's been amazingly warm. The snow is almost all gone (it was just a few days ago that it was way more than a couple feet high), and we're starting to see butterflies, rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks are coming to my bird feeder again (which.. I like. 8D), and more birds are coming too. Just this morning we saw our first robin of the year!! I'm so happy! ;w; Thanks for looking! <33