Not sure when the last time I unboxed one of these was but the absence of these boxes has made only me only more excited to dig into this one. So let's open it up, check out
what fun Japanese stationery supplies are inside and then we'll try to make some kind of fun artsy something with it. We'll see. ♪ So this is the menu and it lists all of the items that are going to be in the box Oh, they tried in blue, that's new Okay I don't wanna look too closely, 'cause its spoilers. Some more literature. Now the goodies I've been really liking the color blue lately, so, this speaks to me! Staple-less stapler, oh is this that thing where it like folds the paper in? That's 20% new. There's instructions on the back. Kind of shows how it works. It looks like it kind of folds the paper over. That's the only way I can imagine it working. It looks like a little whale. Let's see if this will work straight on this. Wait a minute. Oh wait, I forgot that with staples, you need multiple sheets of paper, right? Try this again. this is what it wants. Whey hey! Got four little sheets. Stick it in there. [Gasps] What a satisfying crunch and look at that, I hope there's like things we can use it for in here. Maybe. Maybe I'm jumping the gun. Alright the next thing I see. 0.5 millimeter. Oh it's a pencil!? [Gasps] You know I love mechanical pencils. I'm not sure what it's trying to say about a chisel end Maybe the lead is a chisel. I don't see. Let's open it up. It just looks pretty normal to me. [clicks] [Slam] So apparently it is kind of special, It actually rotates the lead as you're using it, So that you don't get any dull points. I don't know if it's anything you'll actually physically be able to see So basically as you use it it never gets dull That's kind of one of the things I just like about mechanical pencils in general, is that they don't really get dull but I guess for some people, that's still not sharp enough for them and that's where this pencil supposed to come in handy. I dunno, I can't really tell you it feels all that different. Maybe people who really like to keep their pencils sharp would notice. I'm not usually that picky. For me, I like to have a sharp pencil but I'm also like really lazy about sharpening pencils so, a mechanical pencil is just like the best of both worlds for me so this is apparently like even a step up from that I like the thickness of the lead it's 0.5, my favorite. It's right up my alley and I like it [Giggles] Now that I've started drawing. I can't stop! Okay where were we? Oh, great, oh okay. so the next thing I see are this 30 piece set of flake seals for sealing envelopes and they're shaped like kitties. I'm personally a dog person but if I lived in an apartment and the cats were the only pet I was allowed, I would have a cat. Hey we're in! got 'um! Show me da kitties! It's a little disconcerting that it comes with a fishbowl Lady in the Tramp flashbacks, anyone? Walking kitty, sitting kitty and lying kitty. Well, and in the fishbowl of varying sizes. My biggest issue with these is always that they're like die-cut so it takes a little finagling and then they're washi tape consistency, so they're very thin. Kitty, kitty [Hums "What's New Pussycat' - Tom Jones] So cute! Oh wait., wait there's one more pattern. There's standing kitty! Oh these poor note cards, they always get jammed into something else. If anything needed to be shipped in plastic it's these Are they strawberry pants? Look at the little sumikko Gurashi's I think that's how you say it but there they are! Wearing little strawberry pants. I like the little ghosties. Is there another pattern? Oh , here's the other pattern. Aw that one's cute, too! I never know what to do with these things but they're adorable. You know what it kind of looks like? It looks like a little restaurant menu that you'd have outside the door of the restaurant. Ignore the perspective, see what I mean? Those like handwritten signs, usually made in like chalk or something and with little doodles. That's my first thought at least. Oh wait I don't think it reaches that far. Nooo! Boom baby. Alright, why don't we do back into the box? I feel like I'm taking forever to do
this but I'm enjoying myself, I don't know about you. What are these? Apparently, these are envelopes. Let's take a look. I like the pattern. Blue they're like a little circular shaped envelopes So you stick your little notes in here. Very small, you're not gonna fit a lot of literature in there. Then this folds down and then it's still like a circle. I really like that pattern. That would look really cute on like a shirt or a skirt. So there's three of those. They're very sturdy too. [Smacking them together] Now this guy. I have some experience with these. This is a Wink of Luna brush. I think I've had a green one and a purple one. And, um, I just always seemed to break them I don't - I don't know if I'm just doing it wrong. I'm super careful every time Double-checked instructions. I don't know if it's a flaw in the design or if it's not really that big a deal. Just be nice and careful. Oh wait a minute, no this is where the issue is. It comes out here, you see that? I got a little too excited there. See the ink's coming out the top of the nib instead of the bottom. See right here, watch.. When I squeeze it, it bubbles. I dunno, maybe that's just the way it works. Let's see how metallic, how beautiful. It's a very blue jean-y color. Here we have a sticker sheet of some more Sumikko Gurashi's, those little characters. Oh the theme is Strawberry Fair and it matches our note cards or notes I'm like hmm. They actually have a little menu sign! Look at that! We're on the same wavelength. Alright, next up, these! Oh they match our little stickers or envelope seals. Four envelopes, eight letter papers and four stickers but they're not the same stickers these are circular Cir-cu-lar. There's the stickers. Then the envelopes are this pretty pink color and they have the fishy on the back and then the cat on the front and then the actual letters. Oh I thought they were folded, no, this is the size of them So on the back, there's lined paper with a little bit of yarn and a mouse toy, and on the front you have the kitties. What's this? This doesn't really match anything. "Starting a new life is always full of worries but fun adventures awaits you" Oops, "Hope that there are many many happy every days" So the front, there's like a little side pocket. Okay so it's a pocket clear holder. "Life is full of wonderful surprises." Separate your little items and stick them in the little separations. I'm not sure what you'd use this for. Take a little bit of pondering but I like it. I like what it says. [Laughs] One last thing, Boo-de-de-boo! The washi tape. Every box always has some kind of washi tape and this one is yellow! Digging into it. [Packaging rustles] I love washi tape, it feels like fruit roll-ups to me but it's like twice as cute. [Laughs] Look at them! Yeah, those are cats. There's quite a few before the pattern repeats. It looks like they're eating a bunch of those rice balls. I grew up watching Pokemon so, my brain always says DONUT! "These donuts are great!" No thank you for kids entertainment/ I kinda like the color yellow, too. I like all colors Alright,
so we definitely have to include cats in our illustration I love this pattern. I don't know if I would - I don't want to cut these because they seem really nice I'd rather use them for their intended purpose. So I might just copy the pattern into the illustration somehow, it seems simple enough. We'll see if we need cats and maybe this coral color. Look how nice those look next to each other. This is how I brainstorm Then we're obviously gonna be drawing some kitty cats I should probably look up some references but first I'm just gonna draw it like a dog. We'll see how far that gets me. Okay what are with the Komodo dragon legs? What happened? [Laughs] For some reason, I thought they had kind of long necks but maybe they don't. If I had a cat I'd be able to draw them better! Just have to settle with photo references. I can just draw cats like this. There we go , there's a cat! Maybe my knowledge of dogs is not helping. I feel
like they have similar skeletal structures, don't they? I like to just try without a reference just to kind of see where I'm at but I think the struggle is real and I need to go get myself a reference. [Mumbles in adorable speak] Mmm I like animals a lot. Okay so yeah they're just very very squishy. So cats are kind of like fuzzy dogs but they kind of carry the fuzz in different places. That's what I'm getting, just looking at this. So which is kind of the idea I was going for but their necks aren't that long. [Laugh] That's more of a dog thing. So let me just try to draw on a few cats. They're very circley with the ears and then their necks kind of like come in 'Cause they squish down, almost like a peacock. Eyes are about here. Nose a little lower. and then a little mouth. Then from there they have the body back this way and from here this is their torso. that's where their legs come out. Just need to be a little bit rounder and then this back leg. It's very squishy, you don't really see anything. Is there an eraser on this? Yas! Faces are kind of this shape, like a flying saucer. These eyes were not necessary! A little too human looking but it does fit the alien theme. Maybe need to find a different reference. Can't really see feet in this picture Kind of trying to find the shapes in it, so that the redraw ability will increase. I'm gonna try to draw that like same thing but reversed then that makes my brain click a little more We'll speed up, why not? let's really play with this. I'm really gonna exaggerate the shapes. If that has any effect on like what I'm seeing 'cause when I'm trying to find the shapes, that's how I build up a character and you can add detail from there, so by exaggerating them, really thinking of shapes when you draw it. It helps me. I don't know if anyone else
feels that way. Actually cats are kind of similar to the way I draw people's faces. I dunno if that's creepy at all. That's kind of how I like find my style while drawing something that I've never drawn before. Basically fluctuating between using heavy reference and then trying to draw without using reference, using whenever I obtained knowledge from while using reference, rinse and repeat. It's
this back leg that I have the trouble with the dogs, too. but like, eurgh! How do you even - It's so confusing 'cause it just scrunches up and becomes one solid shape but then what happens with the feets? This is where having the actual cat in front of me might be really handy. It's definitely improvement! Look at these. [Laughs] Basically cats are small a squishy. Even the big ones. Let me run some ideas past yo. So I want to use this color scheme, right, remember? but I'm drawing a cat So the idea could be, 1. Use these fun patterns on the cat, go for like sort of an abstract geometrical cat or ... give it some accessories that use the color
scheme or draw a character holding the cat and the character uses the color scheme, that is kind of what I would normally do but
I just feel like that's just not what I want to do right now I want to do something different. So maybe that's not the route I'll go this time because I know that's what I would have normally done and I don't want to do what I normally do. Normally do-dilly-do. Try and draw one from the profile. I think that'll show me some more shapes. You got like the head, you've got like
the neck. I've got the body area and the curly section. Booty. Here's where the legs come out. I think they just need to be more rounded. that's that knee again! What does one even do. I think it comes like this. I cannot really see in any of these references 'cause the cats are so squishy. This is an extra squishy cat. I'm just - I'm not entirely sure where this line goes, is it like higher? Oh wait, that looks better. Maybe from there it kind of juts out. Then you don't see any of these lines. Alright, welcome today's episode, we're teaching ourselves how to draw cats . [Laughs] Think I'm pullin' this together here. Basically this knee needs to just be really high. Oh yeah, that does make a difference! Basically this lines gotta be way up here. I think that does make a difference. Looks like an Evie. There we go! Now there is some progress. I gotta keep in mind not all cats have this little pouch I guess it's more of a mane isn't it because it kind of starts up here. I need to settle on my idea! with the colors. Now do I just give the cat some accessories or actually try to draw the cat with fun weird colors? I think what I'll do is erase this one. Then I can try my pattern idea on it I can actually just draw on top of it. Attempt number two! See if I've learned anything. ♪ Still this section here is still giving me grief. I just don't understand it! So my plan is just either color the cat in pink or blue, with the white pattern. What might be interesting is either a pink background, flat with the patterned cat or a pattern background with a flat cat which might give me more room to actually draw the features. so let's try it that way. So we'll color in the cat with these three colors. Oh, it's just an orange cat, nothing strange to see here. We'll see if we get the same color, sometimes it looks good in a swatch and it doesn't quite translate. Right now it's looking very pink. Warm grey, save it, save it! Need to see some lifting action. Hmm. It is becoming more subdued. Basically this color is lighter than the other two, so it lifts it a little bit. It's exactly what I want. There I could put like some line-art on top. ♪ I think these will work perfectly for this. Cute. Okay. There we have a cat. Nothing too extraordinary but then what I want to do on the background, We'll just do a small section for now. Like that. So make sure there's no pencil in there. Then in here, I gotta draw all these patterns. Basically it looks like they're diamonds with a circle in the middle So we're going to avoid - actually what I could do is one of these. ♪ Color in this area, the blue and then we could just put a little dots, Where did I put the blue? Oh, that's right I gotta layer some of these. I think it's just these two. it's easier than the pink. The blue first and then the cool gray is a little bit
lighter, so again we'll get that lifting, which brings in that like less saturated
look. We're just gonna like... ♪ Try to stay inside the square, too. I totally forgot they drew the square shape. Hopefully these will all lineup in the end and everything will be beautiful. ♪ I kind of like this is more rounded, 'cause it gives me a little freedom. Something got mixed up down here. We won't look in that area. Okay then layer that with gray. Oh wait, wait, wait. We need the dots! Almost could have made these smaller. Anyway let's go over all of that with the gray. It should be a little easier, I don't have to think. I just have to trace. ♪ Oh, I should have made it a circle! Well, this isn't the final. [Laughs] I also want to make little triangles... Oh what, diamonds? - Smaller. Go ahead and just add a border though I think it needs it. It's almost got like a bit of a 70s vibe to
it I think it's the pattern. [Markers clatter] Probably do with color matching. Mine's a little bit bolder still. Oh wait that's just the outside edge, wait. Some of this. It's crazy having one little area of saturation makes the whole thing with more
saturated. Closer. Can I use maybe some more of the pink to give some tone and I used a good fineliner for this so it won't blend out or anything. Let's give it like a Siamese cat coloring. I think those are so beautiful. I'm almost tempted to go over it with the cool gray. To really bring some depth into this cat. Oh this is- this is the thumbnailing! This is the time to experiment. Let's try it. ♪ Bring the cool gray in. Ooh, I don't hate this at all and it fits in the color scheme because its colors we used already. It looks like she's wearing socks! This is the fun part about markers is just layering them up and seeing what happens. Wait they have dark ears too, Wait, wait, wait. Not done yet. I think I like it. Hope it looks good on camera 'cause I like it. Should I try the other option, which was the pattern cat with the pink background? Just draw another quick cat. I need the experience anyway. So basically their bodies are very squishy. I've kind of limited everything to just drawing sitting cats till we figure it out, right? ♪ This one has a poufier tail. All the cats look different, right? Give it a smiley face. [Laughs] That looks so funny. Alright, good enough for now Wanna try my color idea. Although this cat, the silhouette might not work. 'Cause if I'm gonna have a super detailed pattern or I guess busy pattern would be the right word. You want to have a very distinguishable silhouette or you might not be able to tell what the heck it is because it's not a naturally occurring pattern on a cat so, we'll find out though, shall we? I guess we just kind of cookie cutter it/ Oof this isn't quite working anyway. [Laughs] Made them too small this time. I might still get a vague idea of what it would look like. I won't give up yet! oh gosh. Eurghh! Alright so that's essentially that. [Laughs] I will use some like line-art on it though. So we still see the cat. Something dark and hopefully that'll show up yeah this kind of look would definitely require a lot of bold line-art, probably a decent amount of detail in the line-art is what I mean. More so than this, there. [Chuckles] Because it's got to kind of compete with that pattern. Anyway and then the background, layer it with the pink! Warm gray Sometimes you gotta just wait a second and watch it lift don't play with it too much and wait for the color to get lighter. 'Cause it's definitely does not the same as
that. So there's the other option. That just seems like a mess. I did draw it really small, so it's not really doing the idea quite as much justice as maybe doing it properly would. But it does kind of just illustrate it. We visualize it IRL and I do think I like this better Even if we like Siamese it up. Wrong kind of tail but oops. I think I want to go over this route, maybe on a bigger piece of paper, so I can do the pattern this same size but it'll look smaller. I think the hardest part is just doing - layering the two markers in like a pattern, you know. While leaving white space. Yeah not this one, we'll go with this one. Now the only thing I do need to figure out is like the actual layout of it. Like if there's a piece of paper and we want to do like this sort of shape, that's like a circle but it's flat on the bottom then the cats inside, do you want to go maybe this silhouette? Maybe can come outside of the pattern. Then I can't do my Siamese 'cause that's not the shape of a Siamese! Pattern, backdrop. This is kind of fun. My dog does this one all the time. Hmm-hmm Maybe make the background pattern a little bit bigger that's an option. Oh there's this beautiful Siamese! Oooh! I think I'm just gonna rip that out and draw it. So we have a little background. We have our Siamese looking this way. Ear. Ear. What I'm gonna try to do is use the reference really heavily right now and then maybe when I draw it full size, I will try to stylize it a bit more but I'll have that knowledge and the reference if I need to look at
it for emergencies! It's like a bowling pin. Cute. I might pull the tail up though, Just to fit it into this shape of it better bring out the silhouette and it'll look something like this but you know, with the patterns and everything. Boom baby! I like that shape, it's so squishy lookin' I'm glad I didn't try to include a person, I think that would have been too distracting and I wouldn't have learned how to draw cats! At least to this extent. I'll use this guy, it's just it's nothin' fancy, it's just a card stock. I probably have some marker paper around here but I am not that organized so we're gonna be using this! Scootch this guy over a bit. Grab our paper all by itself. I probably should change the battery on my camera so you can see what's going on, otherwise it's just gonna be a podcast and then I guess we just start to sketch it. Okay now I just realized my paper is like this, so I'm thinking I'm gonna shrink down the pattern to like that size so we have a longer illustration, So like a circle thing, as big as I can make it. That's where our pattern will go and then the cat can kind of like stick out of it you know, So like the head maybe can kind of intersect with this line Just draw the cat I guess. I drew the head too small. Oh no it's not gonna make it down this far, well let me just draw it as far as it should go,m we'll figure it out from there. I just want the cat to be bigger though. it's early enough but I really like the way it's turning out and it's difficult to make that call. Bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. Needs to make it to here. That better? Looks like a panda. Um, ears Think the neck's still too long maybe bring these up. Then these are their little paws and we also need the back of the cat. it looks so like sack a flour-y and it may be not accurate but I kinda like it. But we'll seem we'll see. Well that's probably better, there we go. Just needed that like little harsh edge up here. Alright we didn't quite make it down here but I'll just bring it up to meet it We have a pencil, we have that power. I'm almost thinking about bringing the tail down this way but I also want to do this. ♪ I still think this sections too long, it makes you wanna bring the head down, yeah I think the head needs to be like here, goodbye head, it's for the greater good. Oh I like this one better anyway, ooh, good. That looks sad. [Laughs] Oh no, what's wrong with being sad? That was a good call, good call with my little guidelines for the shoulders. Alright are we good? Is this it? Now it looks mischievous! I think this will be fine. Just something kind of simple, Not too distracting I think I prefer it when it went underneath the legs, too So maybe just pull it down a little further. ♪ and still give it that flat edge 'cause that's what this has, Although actually the floating kind of looks weird 'Cause it's hanging out the top but there's just space on the bottom. I suppose the other option would be just fill the whole background with the pattern and not use this cutout shape. Figure
out where the patterns supposed to go on their face I don't think it's just a circle in the front, there's a bit more to it Alright, [Gasps] Am I ready for color? I think I'll do line-art afterwards, kind of like I did it there because I'm gonna be blending the colors a lot and the more you blend, the more chances there are for the line-art to just kind of dissipate and blend out, just like the markers do Lightly erase this. Give it one line so know exactly where it is. If you notice I haven't snapped the lead on this once! Either that's good lead or it's a good pencil. One or both! There we go, I'm happy with this so far. So I'm gonna take my kneaded eraser, lightly erase. This is gonna be kind of a pastel color, so I noticed the lead was kind of getting in the way, so I want to erase as much as possible here. So that should be good enough, So we just start layering the pink colors. Starting with Salmon pink So I guess I just color the whole thing. anywhere there's cat. I color. we stay inside the lines, so we don't lose any of that shape that we've created. Now
we don't have to be too careful about avoiding strokes because we're gonna be layering so many different colors on top of each other looks like he's wearing a mask! Catman! Alright, next step! Oh wait, the tail. Hmm it's the gray, So this is what's gonna tone it down a lot. Can't get rid of - and get rid of a lot of the streaks ♪ The more we go over it, the more it should lift, too. Let's go ahead and add some line-art then. Let me try with a pastel first, since I've never drawn the eyes open., see if that's actually something I wanna do. Yeah, not in love with that. ♪ I feel like this failing real quick. [Laughs] Oh no! Maybe I should have done the line-art before adding all that color 'cause I can't see anything under there! The eyes are too close together I think. I'm gonna let that dry though. I can't put any line-art on it because it's wet and it's blending out. So I gotta make sure it's properly dry. Still kind of close together but better. Could be worse! Oh and I'm gonna be putting on the Siamese markings. When we get there. There we go. Some legs, some legs. There's our line-art. Now let's add a cool gray to the face I need to blend this out, I don't know what I was doing before. Let's try this color. ♪ Leave the caps off so I can switch between them faster Just go ham on it, Slowly blending it out, then these little guys are dark too and the tail, Not sure why I even bothered coloring in the tail that well Just going over it with the darker color. Okay, Now the pattern on the face looks like it's kind of like... This So I'll do the same thing. ♪ There we go, there we go. it's very dark, that's what I wanted. Alright now the ears are the last thing. [Marker clatters on desk] The almost have like a little bit of texture here, A little bit of white highlight might go a long way on this. My little pink Siamese! Oops that's the wrong color. I was going to use this color for that. [Nervous inhale] We gotta add the fun pattern in the background. I'm like excited and really nervous about this one and just - It's gonna be tricky. In a crisscross formation, Might have made them too square, Gotta remember they're supposed to be diamond. I'm gonna try and use the chisel side, see if that gives me a little bit more precision for these straight lines. I just have to draw them in Ooh, that felt really good. Round it off. Ta-da! How's that lookin'? Should we draw this in? Stay inside of it. The chisel is not giving me so much precision. I keep going over the cat but it is allowing me to do straighter lines I think it's a little easier which is why I haven't stopped and I have to go over that the cool gray. Might try using the brush side for this to get a little more precision that way. since I don't have to be perfect, I just have to kind of fill in and blend. I don't have to make new lines. Oh, that was way faster. [Giggles] That didn't take too long at all! It's not as light as that one. Do I have to go over it again? Or do I just have to wait for it to dry and it will look lighter I do know what I don't like about it, I've made the pattern bigger and I wish I hadn't 'Cause I like this size better, but it ended up blowing it up when I blew up when I blew up the cat Don't blow up the cat! Moral of the story, How's it lookin'? Kinda just adding little highlights and accents with this not highlights, lowlights but basically just accents which will hopefully be very metallic when we're done. There we go. [Laughs] I cut 20/20 in half because that was not happening. Oh I didn't see the metallic. Ooh! Alright so I feel like I implemented it better in the thumbnail. Whoa. Meh, but that result doesn't matter all that much to me this was a lot of fun. I need to thank Zen Pop for sending this box my way If you're
interested in getting your own Zen Pop subscription, I will have a link in the description. This was really fun. Anyway I want to thank you guys for watching. I hope you enjoyed coming along with me, sitting down with me as I drew and I hope you maybe drew along too, thank you guys for watching I'll see you guys all next week and hope you have a delicious evening full of waffles Bye! ♪
