 oh yeah that's right it's a mid week video yeah i don't usually post mid week videos but i got a special package in the post and it's the most beautiful sketchbook that i've ever laid my eyes on okay and it's by laina j lana j she's just this awesome artist and she has these why is it hard to speak she has her artwork printed on these sketchbooks and she sells them personally in her shop and i just think they're amazing and last time i really wanted one but she sold out incredibly fast so this time that she said she had updated her store i was like there in an instant and it ordered one really quickly and it's actually really reasonably priced for what it is like a home well home printed a printed sketchbook and it's really nice quality and i was just going to test it out for you guys today because i was really thrilled to get it in the post and then use it because i have been waiting for it as you know well maybe you don't know i finished my other sketchbook quite quickly and then i thought i would wait for this one to arrive so i've been itching to get like a get my hands on a sketchbook again instead of just like drawing on bits of paper i really like to put all my thoughts down in a sketchbook i think it's really handy to have one around sometimes i do big full illustrations in a sketchbook or other times i just doodled it to use like sketch out thumbnails for other bigger pieces or jot down ideas or look at colors or swatch stuff i think a sketchbook is pretty much you can use it for whatever you want lots of people don't really like to have full illustrations in a sketchbook but i think i really like it i like to paint in sketchbooks so i wanted to see how well that this one could hold the gouache obviously i know this type of paper it's kind of a thick cardstock it's not really made for water i believe so i wanted to test out how the water would work and obviously it doesn't absorb it so great but i really like that when sketchbooks do that when they have a little bit of texture and you can see in portion of the pink brush where it's been and i don't know why but i really enjoy that kind of visual on my sketchbooks i think it's just has like a little bit of a roughness to it that i really like looking back at so if a sketchbook does this it kind of works for me you use watercolors or gouache or any kind of watery medium you do want a two-fear sketchbook and that's fine that's that's that's all you but this is kind of my jam so i enjoy it and yeah i think this sketchbook is really cool i do do a test at the end where i see if it has bled through and you can see it slightly but i think you can paint on both sides which is kind of new to me because the last couple sketchbooks i had you couldn't really do this so it's going to be interesting to do like full page spreads and i'm really excited to get going using this i wanted to do like a little bit of a concept piece again for the horror comic and i think i have a name for the horror comic it's either going to be the the coming of dawn or the coming of dawn i'm not sure i think it's going to be along the lines of something like that i want to have it sort of related to the name emily is burning in the sense that if you have them side by side you could tell that they're by the same author but they're not necessarily related i don't know if that's a bit silly but i kind of i like the idea of that because it's just it's concise and together and i like that and i also like the idea of having another female name in the title but could also mean something else i don't know i think it could work i still need to kind of brainstorm a little bit more on those ideas and jot down some more i was doing a lot of notes in my notebook this weekend about story ideas and where it could go and i was looking at scary imagery and trying to like think of more inspiration for that so i think there's going to be more hopefully more scary imagery than this coming soon if you like that kind of thing but yeah so far it's all been a little bit nice and pastily and pretty so hopefully in the future it might get a bit darker and we'll have a little bit more creepy creepy illustrations i don't know i'm not promising anything because it's still super early days so yeah i'm just researching like i said in the last video i'm just doing concepts and obviously i have my full-time job so it's a little bit difficult um to work on it at the same time because i am tired but also i have youtube so it's like loads of things while it wants but i'm really enjoying it so it's hard but enjoyable if that makes sense it it it works i'm gonna push through i'm gonna push through guys the drawing i did a little bit of mixed media i did some pencil work on the top and i really am bothered by her left eye and maybe you didn't notice that until i pointed it out but i think her left pupil or iris her left iris is slightly bigger than the right one but if you could just feel it in your hearts to um look past that and just enjoy the painting without looking at the eyes then maybe maybe we can be good okay good thanks and yeah i just had fun drawing this after work it was a bit of a stress reliever and i felt really good doing it and this sketchbook is phenomenal so if you guys like this kind of thing and you have a bit of dollar to spend i guess go check out her shop i'll link it down below obviously it's not sponsored or anything i just appreciate a fellow artist's designs and i've always followed her on instagram i think she's an incredible artist so i wanted to get it and i'm really glad that i did because it's much better than a boring plain sketchbook and i think because she's an artist she has that consideration for the paper being really thick and it as well the square size is a size that i really like but also it can lie flat and i think that really is such a cool feature i think it really helps me it really it just i don't know why i think obviously you can do like a whole page spread if it lies flat but i think it's just nicer it's just more aesthetically pleasing to lay papers down papers down flat i don't know what i'm saying i'm really tired i've been at work all day i'm sorry please forgive me yeah so i drew this image from a sort of inspired by a um image on contrast so i can't take credit for kind of the composition i was just going to take elements of it but as i progressed i thought i'm just gonna keep drawing this little beach scene because it's this girl and she's stood on a beach and she's looking up at the camera she changed like quite a few little bits to make it more what i pictured in my head but that's it and i think i really need to practice painting waves because i'm not sure if this comes out looking like it's waves but you know it's a sketchbook it's here for practice and i'm gonna practice and usually i think um in my last comic i had a lot of um ocean featuring i had a lot of ocean in the comic um a lot of ocean panels and stuff like that and so i don't know if i want to have her or this isn't making any sense why can't i have the ocean again um i don't know if i want scenes by the ocean or if i want her in like the middle of a desert would make more sense i'm still toying with the idea of moving away from motels and having it set in a place that i know a bit better because i've only been to like america once maybe you should write what you know but then also i really like that aesthetic i don't know what to do guys yeah and that's where i'm at at the moment with the stages of the comic just exploring thinking writing down stuff yep still at that stage and i think this process is going to be a lot slower than the last time i did a comic with it's last time i had time to work on it whereas now i don't have much time so it's gonna it's gonna be a difficult one but yeah like i said i'm enjoying it and i hope you guys are enjoying it too whilst i make this comic i'm also going to be making other fun videos so hope you stick around to check out the different array of things that i have planned because i have some wacky ideas in the future not super wacky but maybe hopefully enjoyable entertaining wacky yeah okay um that's my review on the sketchbook like i said it's really nice it holds the water quite well it gives a little bit of texture but that's something that i personally enjoy and it doesn't come through the page so much it kind of is completely fine so that's another bonus for me and also supporting other artists so tick tick tick and yeah 10 out of 10 for this sketchbook i'm really thrilled with it and i think it's beautiful that's it from me guys thanks again for watching and hopefully i will see you on saturday because i post every saturday just an fyi in case you want to follow me on the bell i'm going now