Trying for more of a cartoony style this time, in light of yesterday's visit to the uncanny valley. More than one person, too, though I'll leave it to you to decide on the narrative I'm trying to create.

Not sure why the coffee theme keeps reappearing, especially since I don't drink at all. I think it's because I idealize coffee drinkers, which may be a reason why I find myself in coffee shops all the time (ordering a venti iced green tea, mind you). This may also be the reason I own a coffee maker that's never been used.

Creeeeeeeeeeeeepy.

Not sure what happened to make the image go from hard-edged and cool to something out of the glamor pages, and I'm not especially happy about it, but I did let my pencils do their own thing so I think it suits the spirit of the project. And it's just possible that the mood kind of survived, despite the changes in proportion, pose and viewpoint. Please let me know what you think.

Speaking of the rules from last time and "owning my mistakes," this is a good example. My first take resulted a horrible Escher-esque contortion that was just painful to look at, and so ugly that I almost considered not posting it. Still, I had to fix it, and without an eraser. Here's the before and after, side by side, so you can see what happened:

What happened to day 9? Disaster. As promised, I tried to draw a non-Potterish man, and only managed to produce a portrait of someone I could only call "Mr. Dooouuuuche":

But there you go. Happy? Happy.

Mutant child alert! Mutant everything alert.

Tomorrow I'm definitely going to try and draw another man, because the last one ended up looking like Harry Potter & I don't want that to be my legacy.

Why am I doing this again? I'm the biggest slacker ever, so without some kind of motivation I'd probably draw one thing every three years. But I want to get better, desperately so, and that won't happen without practice.

It's easy to get discouraged though.

The basic rules of my little project are: one sketch / cartoon / doodle per day for an entire month. Personally, I'm also applying the following rules, just to eliminate a few crutches: no drawing from life, no reference images for people (props, clothes are okay), and no eraser! That last one is killing me, but it's also forcing me to own my mistakes. And whenever possible, I'm going to draw people, because, well, I want to do that comic someday. Someday soon, I hope!

Am once again not feeling any desire to clean this up at all -- finding the sloppy details fit my mood. Hands and feet are getting better each day, though they still need a lot of work. Not happy at all with what I was trying to do with the lower leg; something to work on for next time.

After scanning this, I was suddenly struck by the similarity to this piece. Feeling much the same sense of melancholy. I hope the long weekend brings renewal.

This is about when I throw up my hands, realize I'm not an artist, and go back to writing about KitKats, you know?

On the other hand, lettering is fun and I'm obviously out of practice. Be warned, you may be seeing twenty-four days straight of nothing but "Mrs. Edward Fairfax Rochester" over and over again.

Link-dumping in this entry, because for once I feel like I'm actually posting too much:

• Read the late anime director Satoshi Kon's moving final words at Makiko Itoh: Not a Nameless Cat.
• Haunting color film footage from 1922 at Kodak: A Thousand Words.
• The Prokudin-Gorskii collection, which I wrote about in 2004, seems to be making the rounds again thanks to boston.com's always-interesting The Big Picture.

As if there should have been any doubt. At all.

To my UPS driver: three hours later doesn't get you a kiss, mister -- but I'll still admit I squealed a little when I heard your footsteps outside.

This seems like a fine time to share one of my favorite webcomics, with an appropriate strip: Kate Beaton's Hark, a vagrant!

An actual idea bouncing around in my head for the next one. Hopefully it won't feel as much like a cop-out.

Idea this time was stylize, stylize, stylize. Started with the concept of ancient Egyptian art, but maybe depicting a Starbucks or something. From that I dialed back a bit, kept the pose and the coffee shop but went back to more of a magazine glossy cartoon vibe.

Tried to go outside my comfort zone a bit more, playing with darker skin & full-page colors. I started out super-stylized which is why her forearm is too long, which I totally regret now, and her outfit is unfortunately influenced by people sharing links to the Cami Secret parody video (nsfw!!) all day. But fauxhawks & studs -- well, I love them, and I've never drawn either before.

Aside from her arm, I kind of like it! Probably wouldn't choose these markers again for skin, since they don't handle overdrawing very well and her face looks a bit scarred because of it. And I so wish I'd scanned in the pencil version this time to compare. Cutting corners!

If you have any ideas for upcoming attempts, I'm taking suggestions!

Pretty much exactly what it says it is -- darker & more distinct than the easier-to-find dark chocolate flavor, with a bittersweetness reminiscent of 70% cacao bars. Liked it v. much, but felt it was something to be enjoyed at a measured pace, by a fireside, a glass of port nearby. But something tells me you're not going to do that.

These came in two different boxes, brown and pink, with a design that makes me think of Valentine's Day (similar to last year's lemon variety). Like most Japanese KitKats, the box has a place for you to write little To: and From: labels, but let's face it, unless you're dating me, KitKats are not a very good Valentine's Day gift. So! Let's talk flavor.

The bars themselves are coated in dark chocolate (sweeter than the semisweet, but still fairly intense). I'm really not a fan of passionfruit, and these KitKats didn't change my mind. The bitterness of the chocolate and the astringency of the passionfruit combined in a really unappealing way for me -- almost exactly like cheap, dark chocolate cherry cordials, especially the unpleasant oozy pink stuff inside. Yuck!

On the other hand:

Similar concept, but so much better! Milk chocolate and a lack of icky passionfruit result in a much more balanced, sweet flavor. The box seems to indicate that this is supposed to taste like raspberry cheesecake, but I didn't really get that -- certainly not to the extent of the blueberry and strawberry cheesecake KitKats from last year (to be reviewed, maybe?). I certainly didn't miss it, though.

Verdict? Would eat again. And possibly again after that.

There you go -- #3. How long can I string together KitKat entries? Any guesses?