Some art I did! // Sir Gawain and the Green Knight fan art!

A handsome headshot

 

I can't get the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight poem out of my head. King Bertilak is such a handsome fellow that I have to draw him.

Right now, I have drew his head, which I like a lot. It's my first time drawing a beard and it doesn't look too bad. I think it works this time.

Every time I try to draw facial hair, I'd always think to myself, "Eh... It looks weird" and erase it. It suits him proper now, especially if I draw more wrinkles around the cheeks.

Now, I wonder how he should look in the final drawing. Should he be sitting or lying down... I'm confused. I'll leave it here for now :) I have work to do so hopefully that should give me a new perspective.

Also, since I'm here, I want to show you a drawing I did not too long ago.

When I finish this, I think I'll be super proud of it! I like the shape of his hat, though I'll have to clean up the back flap there. I think his moustache is quite charming and I like his hair. He's handsome but in a less rough way. 

I'm envisioning a green foresty scene for this. While writing, I suddeny thought of making him a cowboy and somehow, that makes sense. I can't unsee it... 

Edit: 5:38 pm, 15 September 2025.

A potential sketch!

The anatomy is a little janky but I like the composition. I want him to sit on grass, with trees in the background. I'm tempted to make him a giant where there's villages in the foreground (that's what the rectangle-blobs are for). I want him to hold his axe too.

For the colours, I'm thinking highly saturated reds and blues like this:

Or something highly saturated like this.

Before I even think of colouring, I'll have to finish the lineart... Good luck to me! I love feeling inspired.

Edit: 12:24pm, 16 September 2025 

Something I'm finally happy with!

I feel I like drawing handsome men lying down too much... Yet, there's a reason why I keep doing this! I keep beating myself up for not switching it up, for always relying on this cliche. Still, I think this composition makes the most sense for the vibes. I'll challenge myself elsewhere LOL

At any rate, I've decided to have him be a giant lying down amidst a forest with trees and bushes. There's a little figure on his stomach. That's Sir Gawain. I'm going to draw him on his horse meeting this giant man.

If I do the lighting right, Gawain would be glowing with fuzzy sunlight.

I like that the colour palette immediately changed when I saw a new reference picture.

My ideal colour palette :)

I think following this colour palette will let me play with more greens. I can't wait to make his eyes red. This drawing will have so much green in it and I'm not complaining! I keep wanting to draw new poses and I beat myself up for not 'mixing it up'. That said, I think this is good enough. I can challenge myself in a different piece LOL

I bought Kong Guan Biscuits

A loose doodle of various Kong Guan biscuits. These loose drawings don't take much time to do, but they're a lot of fun to include. Perhaps I should draw more of these.

Yesterday, I bought some Kong Guan biscuits, the family bag kind with twenty-seven little packets, somewhat on a whim. I made my mom buy them the other day to treat my students after a very chaotic peer-review session. I didn't think much of it at the time. This isn't the sort of snack I'd gravitate towards.

I gave one to my fellow TA. He said he liked a specific one a lot, the one that (to me, quite frankly) looks like a knock-off Oreo, but has a slightly different taste (I think it tastes a bit better). Due to some unforeseen circumstances, we had to end class early, so I thought I'd loiter around to hang out with him.

There were six biscuit packets left in the big bag. He looked happy when he got to take the rest back, so that made me feel like I'd done a good deed. Also, it's incredibly fun to ragebait him. He's fully aware of this, but falls for the ragebait anyway.

Perhaps I was somewhat moved by this memory, and that's why I bought a pack of it for my snack stash. I felt oddly excited when I went home. It's not really because of a crush in hindsight. It's the excitement of making a new friend and hoping you'll see them again.

There were only 2 packets of this  at the grocery store, when there'd usually be a lot more. Glad to see that it's in hot demand and that I'm not too late to snag one of my own!

I was talking to my other TA-colleague and she asked me about my thesis. I talked about it. I was referencing nostalgia and she brought up the idea of food. She said this is why hawkers are a thing, for people to eat the food they used to eat and to therefore feel connected to a memory in a world where the places you used to go to as a kid are all gone.

Logically, I see where she's coming from and it's relevant for my thesis. That said, I only felt that way after I looked at these biscuits and really asked why in God's good earth did I buy this alongside all my bargain vegetables... When I was just supposed to get salmon, broccoli and Nutella...

I mentioned my students, my lovely students, and there's a memory the day before on Friday that made me very happy in hindsight.

After the tutorial, I hung around to answer some questions about the feedback I gave. Honestly, I was expecting more interrogations but I guess these kids are quite thick-skinned. Anyway, as I answered questions, a group of girls said goodbye to me, giving a finger-heart as they left. 

I think they're loyal to me, for some reason. Back in the day, I didn't have very many friends. To see this level of affection from students made me happy.

It's a confusing mess of memories, but I look at these biscuits and think, "Wow, isn't it nice to be surrounded by nice people who genuinely like you?" 

I get existential thoughts that tell me these feelings won't last. People will move on and forget me by the third month. Whatever I do here won't mean anything beyond that. I won't have that lasting impact I secretly craved for.

Yet, even knowing that, I look at these biscuits and I feel happy. It's okay to love people even when I know full well they'll leave one day. I'm trying to embrace that. Life is meant to be happy. Even something as solid as the earth, the ground I stand on, moves and changes.

More biscuits!

I got a haircut on Saturday, which was why I left my house. I'd never do so otherwise. Anyway, this is a scene of a little market of sorts in the mall where they sell street food. I was tempted by the tiramisus and big chunks of Taiwainese-style fried chicken but alas, I was locked in.

Some blurbs

Short blog post today :)

I wanted to share some creative writing blurbs I wrote last night. Also, what do we think of the new layout? I'm still adjusting to it visually, but I want to redo my whole social media presence lately. Who'd knew five weeks of being inactive would suddenly change things...

—

A sunny afternoon lying on the grass with green shadows. Sunlight makes wavy streaks of light on the ground, over the oranges that fell from the trees. They look like jewels buried in tall grass blades.

It's a cool day, and there's a man resting there. He looks up and smiles sleepily. His favourite flowers are the white hydrangeas blooming from the bushes.

—

Beneath the trees, behind the bushes, lies a big man with bulging muscles and a body covered in wild curly hair. His eyes are red against a blue sky. He's bigger than everything else here.

—

A prince finds a golden-skinned woman in a white dress, surrounded by grapes and statues of lions and lovers by a warm sunset.

—

I wrote these as blurbs as copy for the drawings that'll eventually come of this. I'll elaborate more in due course but I want to post these first!!