The real title here should be Making Alice and a whole lot of other unrelated stuff. But, we all know that if I put that in the title, the header section will get too long & complex. Also, this page will take ages to load, might as well read the below introduction until you wait.
So, I hope the following artworks show you how “Alice Kittums” came to be. It’s not like I worked on building “Alice Kittums” all the time. It’s more like I used Alice to externalise the things I couldn’t explain in life. Trust me, the process of creating Alice was not as profound as it sounds. There was no proper process in the beginning. It was more like I was working towards some vague instinct with unsure goals and unsure outcomes. Simply, I was putting everything I found in life like the experiences, impressions left by the people I met, and anything else I found interesting in a pot and stirred it all together in some novel way.
This is the first time I could put forward the “making of Alice Kittums” in a way that others can understand (at least I hope you will understand). The explanations next to each group of illustrations will hopefully tell you how “Alice Kittums” progressively achieved her current form with four hands, semi-transparent clothes and all the other stuff. To me, Anjie, it now feels like I have almost always been drawing or creating Alice. Mind you, while you browse this collection, you will find some completely random things that look like they have no bearing on Alice, I try to explain to the best of my abilities how they have a bearing on Alice. But some explanations would only be the somewhat illogical rigmaroles inside an Artist’s mind. Hope you have fun browsing. Also, if you are someone who is already a part of my life, see if you can spot yourself, your belongings, or your tattoos in the illustrations.
CORE DEV.
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BY OTHER ART
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LINES-1
CORE DEV.
Core Development of Alice
17th August 2020 to 16th June 2024
16th June 2024 | Emotions – Unlike Kittums, humans seem to keep their emotions tightly bottled up. Imagine expressing frustration with a well-placed asteroid blast in space – that’s the Kittum way! But humans? They rarely raise their voices, let alone launch themselves into a celestial tantrum.
Their emotional displays are equally muted. They rarely even break a plate in anger or give a flower to express joy. And things like getting tattoos, piercings, or even a spontaneous haircut seem like radical acts of emotional expression for these creatures.
Alice, therefore, when she pretends to be a human, has to maintain her facade. Or a mini emotional earthquake erupts, revealing a galactic amount of emotions that humans are usually not accustomed to showing.
So, this is how the multi-dimensional insides of Alice’s head (most Ancient Kittums have a galactic amount of space within their heads, actually) are filled with oceans and oceans of well-guarded emotions while she’s among humans.
23rd April 2024 | Butterfly Effecting – Kittums use this thing humans call the “Butterfly effect” to make the desires of humans come true. “Butterfly effect” is not really some unfathomable serendipity thing, but rather a massive amount of intelligent information processing and gambling. Simply, method and madness. Probabilities against possibilities. “Butterfly Effecting” or now that I think of it “Effecting Butterflies” (with all puns intended) is quite fun. It gives you something like vertigo mixed with tea and cushions.
However, what if you do the almost impossible and slightly just cross the path of a random creature whose mind is like a Kaleidoscope with Alice’s “Butterfly Effecting”? Above, is an accurate representation of what will happen.
7th December 2023 | Re-creation for Rādhāvaṇī and 10th December 2023 Re-creation for Arrows – With this latest update, I have managed to explain all of Alice’s developmental journey up to now as best as I can. Maybe someday I will cringe reading these (that is good because if I can cringe over and be embarrassed about my previous work, it is somewhat of a sign that I have learnt more wonderful new things). As a final ending to this section, I have recreated two of my favourite representations of Alice with all the traits that Alice has accumulated over time.
Both the recreations have the two Rings, the updated tattoo and the four hands. And like CornerWitch would say, “Alice looks more divine now, she used to look like a helpless victim earlier”. I am using her quote here because it is the easiest way to explain a key improvement to Alice’s character. If you want to know who CornerWich is click here. From the next section onwards, I will update the versions of Alice as and when I create them.
If you read everything here, or at least most of it there is no doubt you are a kindred spirit or a Stalker, but I like to think good of everyone. Be what you may, Kindred spirit, Stalker or anything else, you have my most gracious thanks. Also, if you have something that you would like to tell me as well (hopefully regarding the “Making of Alice”), I would simply be delighted to hear from you. I am not the best at responding quickly, but I will read everything everyone sends my way and reply to everyone.
24th November 2023 – This is probably one of the most wholesome versions of Alice I have ever drawn in recent times after about a whole year or so of not drawing Alice, I ended up drawing that Ducky version of Alice and this illustration I would say is Alice’s perfectly normal state as of today (13th December 2023). I very sincerely believe that if Alice ever snuck out into earth these days she would definitely walk around in shirts and denim, visiting museums and doing awkward and mundane things like eating little snacks and carrying Cement bags (or Cemet Pillows as this very entertaining fellow human keeps calling them). Obviously, Alice would tuck in the extra pair of hands and make her eyes a bit more human-like before walking around random places on Earth.
However, this, illustration of Alice has all the consistent core traits like the long ears and the four arms. And of course, those Spectacles that I still can’t seem to logically explain. I drew Alice in the four-handed, long-ear version, for the simple reason that I believe it is easy for anyone who sees this illustration to imagine Alice’s two-handed disguises for the earth. However, I don’t think it is fair of me to expect others to be able to imagine the usual four-handed version of Alice when they see an illustration of what looks very much like a human woman. So, I tend to draw Alice without her disguise even when I am thinking of how Alice would look experiencing Earthly things. Also, as we see here Alice has managed to get herself rid of the “Duck-ness”, blip back into a new body and do all the accustomed adjustments to it.
There are a few new pieces of accessories on Alice. One of them is the Gold Ring. I expect to keep using this Gold Ring as a core trait in Alice in future versions of Alice as well. There is also a bracelet I sort of borrowed for the time being from the same fellow human whose subconscious brain believes that cement comes in pillows, not bags due to some sort of unidiomatic phrase about Cement coming in Pillows in Sinhala language.
There are two different versions of this illustration because I showed this illustration to the human who believes Cement comes in Pillows and was asking him if he could find all the little things off his person that Alice has “burrowed”. To successfully make him guess everything, I had to make those changes to the background and inadvertently created another new version of the illustration.
22nd July 2023 – I drew this illustration after a long pause. In other words for the time that I didn’t draw Alice, she’s basically been a “Sitting Duck”. During that time, the progress of Alice’s character didn’t take so many leaps and I didn’t add any new features or discover any new ways to present Alice. But “Sitting Ducks” do learn things while they sit and wait. This brief period where I did not work on drawing these series pieces of Alice is when I managed to with the help of some fellow humans actually put the Kittumsverse story lore together, which you can see by clicking the link here.
This illustration is also one where Alice is very unlike a Kittum or even a human. Yes, Kittums can change their appearance at will provided they have the power in them to do so. But, Kittums need to train themselves to change their appearance. For example, most Kittums who have the ability to change will practice swapping genders. Sprouting two additional hands is something Alice has practised and specialised in. Therefore to partially turn into a Duck and transform the two additional pairs of hands into wings is not an easy task even for an Ancient Kittum like Alice. So my logic was this, what would Alice feel if she let certain aspects of her life get stagnant and sat there like the proverbial Duck? I think the sudden realisation and grief of everything will cause her to mix this whole “Sitting Duck” phrase and slight disappointments and grief altogether and just mutate. So the Duck form you see in the above illustration is not something Alice intended, it’s a result of the manifestation of so many glitching emotions.
There is a bit of story after what we see in the illustration happened. Alice wanted to go back to her usual appearance but had no idea how she would go about removing this unsightly Duck-ness out of herself (no offence to any Ducks reading this, just that I believe Alice wouldn’t think that “Duck-ness” suits her). From here on I suggest you at least read the basic characteristics of a Kittum by clicking here before you read the rest because there is going to be a lot of killing and blipping and prying that will make absolutely no sense to you if you don’t know what a Kittum is, However, you can also just skim read and proceed to the next paragraph. Anyway, Alice’s only option to get rid of this Duck-ness was to do that one thing she was almost banned from doing, to kill off her body and blip back into its basic form again. Of course, she would have to pry the Rings, earrings and other jewellery out of the old dead body and put them back on her alive one, not to mention she would have to do the whole tattoo again on the new body. Ah, and secretly bury her old body as well.
All in all even this highly mutated version of Alice carries her consistent traits like the Silver Ring, the tattoo the newly added Ankh earring And the Spectacles (which I really haven’t figured out why the Unconscious Art Beast keeps adding)
18th July 2021 – Once another fellow human was explaining to me what Subdermal Scattering is. He’s a really inspiring 3D artist that I got to know during my time and I who barely knew the basics of Lighting in 3D at the time found this whole “Subdermal Scattering” thing quite impressive. I mean I had a vague idea that the said principle existed even within our current world, but to be aware of it is a whole other feeling.
If you have trouble understanding what “Subdermal Scattering” is I have included a page from my brain the way I understand it and I dearly hope this helps you to understand and not confuse you further. If it does confuse you Google it, Bling it or DuckDuckGo it or you can even completely ignore the jargon and continue reading and I can say that you won’t be missing much of the important facts if you simply don’t understand “Subsdermal Scattering”.
So, I went a bit overboard with “Subdermal Scattering” and was thinking if you were to shine a really really bright light on Alice could we possibly see her bone structure? I know that there is an easier and less painful method to achieve this, an X-ray, but that would not be the same as a bright light that almost goes through most of a fleshy body. “Almost goes through most of the body” being the important part here because if this said bright light went through Alice entirely, it would be invisible to any creature who can manage to look at such a bright light. Anyway, what I think would happen if you shine such a bright light on Alice is what I have illustrated above. It is obviously something that will last for a moment and would most likely kill Alice, which of course would not matter because she will blip back in again. If you want to know how that works, you have to click here and move to the Kittumsverse story lore page.
This illustration like all others has the consistent traits of Alice. However, the bone structure that I created in the first illustration is less anatomically accurate. And probably less feasible for a fleshy creature to maintain. Therefore I did some research and created a second probable way in which Alice’s fourhanded bone structure could exist (Seen in the Skeleton only illustration). This might also end up being wrong with further research, however, it is more accurate than the initial one.
1st May 2021 – This is not really Alice as a whole in terms of space, but it is Alice as a whole in terms of time. That requires further explanation. So, with my limited knowledge, I at least know that there exist the three space dimensions and the other fourth additional dimension of time (there might definitely be more dimensions but I am not an expert here). And if we really want to find something in the universe we have to at least know where in space the said thing exists along the three space dimensions and where in time it exists (or existed, or will exist… time grammar is rather confusing).
So given that this is not a complete physical representation of Alice, that means this illustration does not have all the attributes of Alice as it would exist in the three physical dimensions. And that one is obvious because all we see here is an amalgamated mush of arms and legs and a lot of other stuff. However, this illustration is comparatively complete along the time dimension, as in, I have tried to capture almost all the key moments of Alice throughout time. How successful I was while drawing along time and not along space is yet to be seen. At, least if you can look at the illustration and see a few references to some key moments that you know to have happened to Alice, I am somewhat successful.
Some of the moments that I have sort of unconsciously mushed into it are these, Alice’s realization that she is a complete individual character, Alice acquiring her Silver Ring and first tattoo, and Alice’s habit of continuously borrowing jewellery from other creatures. Alice’s fascination with Rainbows.Stories from the Bible to Buddhism and any other religion Alice is aware of.
It’s a million moments of Alice in past and the present, but maybe not the future because I am just not the type of creature that can see into the future. This illustration was mostly created by the Subconscious Art Beast so there are moments in which even I look at it now and go “Oh… that’s what it is”. So above would be the most accurate explanation I can provide as of the 12th of December 2023.
18th April 2021 – I’m genuinely trying my best to keep the explanations shot here, but that seems to be not working in any conceivable way. This illustration as you can see at first glance, stays true to and displays all the traits of Alice that I have been continuously drawing. but, there are some new things here.
The first of them is that the tattoo has grown a bit, there are now elements in Alice’s tattoo from the previous illustrations like Cuppies, Anthuriums and Bandaids. Another thing is the Ankh symbol, initially the ankh was just an indistinguishable part engraved on the Silver Ring that Alice wears. The Ankh was thought to be a somewhat popular motif in the Mesopotamian civilisation about 6000 years ago (today being the 12th of December 2023). Even though Alice had already lived a considerable 200,000 years or so by the time Mesopotamia came to be, I think this specific age of human creatures would have really intrigued Alice. So all in all I decided to give her an Earring that was in the shape of an Ankh. these earrings continue to make appearances in the later drawings of Alice as well.
The rest of the jewellery I would say is “burrowed”. These are just jewellery I see on fellow humans that I get all excited about the said jewellery and end up using to accessorise Alice. Sometimes I have interesting moments pass by in the company of certain fellow humans which make me instantly wonder what Alice would think about it. And those moments also just nudge me towards using accessories that I have seen around and about on my fellow humans. Considering that, Alice’s wardrobe is now full of random jewellery she keeps sweet-talking out of the hands of unsuspecting humans over the years.
20th February 2021 – This is Alice as we know her now, complete with all the traits, four arms, long ears, accessories and all that. I’ll take the liberty of taking you through each and every one of those traits. Starting first with the long ears, Silver Ring and tattoo. The existence of these things in this illustration again emphasises consistency and how some base traits have solidified their existence with Alice. Translucent clothes are also a similarly consistent trait that I’ve been experimenting with for ages.
I suppose I could say that the usual choice of weapons has changed a bit as well. The dagger is not so new but it is the first time that it became simplified (previous daggers were all Jewelled). And as of now, this is the first and the last time that an old-school pistol makes an appearance (now being 11th December 2023).
And…the most significant trait, is the four hands. The inspiration for all these artifact-looking items and the four hands all came from one place. The National Museum of Sri Lanka in Colombo. If you haven’t visited, you probably should. It is not organized or maintained well but it’s simply heaven (ironically a bit of a sweaty heaven, they have no air conditioning). From the bronze sculptures through the ages to everything from the VOC times is fascinating. And most of all, the National Museum houses my favourite artefact, the very solid and very bronze sculpture of Nataraja (or God Shiva, as some would call him). The visit that inspired this illustration might have been my third visit to the museum but it was the first after a long time, and for some reason helped me to appreciate everything in there. Now I can never get enough of this disorganized, dusty unkempt place.
So, this iconic statue of Nataraja is something one must see at least in a photo before one’s short life comes to an end (so get Googling if you haven’t seen it). Nataraja is a four-handed being, and Alice is a creature with the ability to sprout two extra pairs of hands at will and start looking very much like Nataraja. As one could guess, I got the idea of how useful an extra pair of hands would be because of Nataraja and eventually got that trait going for Alice. However, it should be mentioned that even while thinking of adding this trait to Alice, I always knew that Alice would have to have the ability to retract and sprout the hand as she sees fit, mostly because I wanted Alice to be able to walk around the human world unsuspiciously.
Based on that logic this illustration is where I actually settled on the idea that powerful Kittums can change their appearance at will. I thought that almost all Kittums that qualify beyond a certain benchmark should be able to retract the ears and make them look human-like (at least what the majority of humans look like for blending-in purposes) and do such menial adjustments to their appearance. But the more powerful a Kittum was, the more they gained abilities to maybe sprout new hands, change genders and become Thumbelina-sized at will. Of course, Alice would be able to do all this, and so would most of the Ancient Kittums who take care of a widespread human desire (if this sounds like jargon to you, it is probably high time you click the link here and get to know the Kittumsverse story lore because it is becoming increasingly difficult to explain some aspects of how Alice came to be without the support of background information). Also, as an artist, I found that the addition of two new hands-on Alice gave me the ability to express more.
Now, I have to take you through a significant realisation I had while drawing this. So the whole time I was trying to fit two more hands onto a perfectly proportionate body and tried to preserve the aesthetically pleasing physical structure of Alice. I wanted to somehow still persevere that smooth easy-on-the-eyes look that Alice always had and rather hated the fact that a fourhanded Alice would start looking more like a beast than the slender creature I aspired to make of Alice. Doing this was initially a bit of a struggle and while I kept at it, this so-called significant realisation hit me. I gradually became aware of why Alice always had different colour skin, it was for the same reason that she could alter her appearance to look more human-like. The different shades of skin helped Alice blend into her surroundings and the Subconscious Art Beast was once again making sense. And I had no other choice but to attribute the same logic to why Alice was changing her eye colours (something I grudgingly noticed during this illustration but was thankfully explained away with the realisation related to the changes in skin colour)
I suppose now is also a good point in time for me to explain what I term as the Subconscious Art Beast. I would say that it is a romanticised and rather fanciful way to explain how I allow my instincts and feelings to take over and determine important aspects of my illustrations. The art-beast is not illogical in the long run, just that in some moments I am unable to explain the impulsive and instinctive choices I make while creating. Honestly speaking, I like to live the rest of my short life without ever being able to explain my instinctive actions while creating. It helps me to continue to surprise myself.
One final thing I must explain here is the Anthuriums. Alice’s character is heavily associated with flowers as we have seen throughout but I’d say that Anthuriums trump it all. And, this is where that character trait began as well. I was inspired by this vase of Anthuriums I started keeping. As you can see, it got me rather interested in Anthuriums and where better to stash your obsessions than within your favourite character. Eventually, while I was drawing this I drew a mini anthurium which served as a make-do earring for Alice.
Oh, and this illustration was also the base for the Kittumsverse NFT collection, which was never launched due to various reasons. However, you can take a look at some of our most iconic would-have-been NFTs here. I am saying “our NFTs” here because I worked with two amazing people, Amith and Jude, who to this day are dear and cherished friends. If you are interested you can see what the two of them are up to on this domain – sevnstudios.com.
25th September 2020 – This is one of those moments that made me really trust the Subconscious Art Beast. When I put in that dialogue about the island I did it because of a vague concept in my head ( I am sure I was not thinking of Sri Lanka here, even though I sometimes refer to the country simply as “The island”). I didn’t have the story lore of Kittumsverse (which you check out by clicking here by the way). And I had no proper idea as to what or where Alice would live, except for a few wardrobe items and belongings settled on. So, all the credit goes to the Subconscious Art Beast for referring to an island here, which I can now very confidently say is the floating island of Thurium.
When I drew this I was just referring to how Alice was reacting to a vague concept that her universe was somewhat going through a crisis (now we know that the universe is Kittumsverse and the island is Thurium). Being a prominent and Ancient Kittum, if some disruption occurs in Kittumsverse it is more than justifiable for Alice to be upset. Whether it is appropriate for her to waste time crying about without springing into action is a whole other story.
Either way, in this illustration of Alice which is more or less like a frame out of a comic book I have consistently drawn the long ears and the Silver Ring, I would have drawn the tattoo except it is just out of the frame. Along with that I also managed to give some character to the bandaids that Alice will wear. From this point onwards I more or less “stick” to the same bandaid patterns.
Even here, I consistently keep with the very logically thought out character traits of long ears and the Silver Ring and the somewhat subconscious desire to change Alice’s skin to match the surroundings. To my dismay, this is when I also noticed that the impulsive, Subconscious Art Beast in me has also been consistently drawing spectacles on Alice in the past three illustrations. Back then when I drew this, my only choice was to sort of yield to the unknown and give in, simply because by this time I was beginning to somewhat understand why I kept changing the colour of Alice’s skin (not fully though), but I had some hope that I will explain the glasses phenomenon to myself very soon. A final point to make is that when I mecha-fied Alice a bit in this illustration my opportunity cost was not being able to draw Alice’s tattoo. However, if I re-drew this now (now being the 11th of December 2023) I would add the tattoo as some kind of label or print on the mecha-fied arm.
28th July 2020 and 24th September 2020 – Now this is a point in which I messed up the chronological order of art just to bunch similar concepts together. If you remember, I mentioned somewhere at the beginning of this page that Alice is where I directed all my trauma (nothing major obviously just life). Both these works represent that concept really well. It’s not that I am just externalizing my negative experiences onto Alice, it is more or less what I do every other time I draw Alice. I just started to wonder how Alice would respond to some of the experiences I was having. What I would like you to do here is not to look at the above illustrations and wonder what menial, little negative experiences I went through to exaggerate it to the point of scissors and knives. Rather what I want you to notice are these.
In the first illustration of this set, I haven’t really drawn all the usual traits of Alice, the tattoo is there but the Silver Ring and the long ears aren’t there. The Silver Ring is not with Alice though, I drew it for a reason that I do not care to explain but the important fact is that I constantly used the significant traits. However, the second illustration has it all and more. If you sort of go back to the “Lines1” section you will find out how sharp metal things, especially scissors have been a consistent weapon of choice. I am so proud of myself that I have stuck to these same motifs and patterns that I used way back when Alice was not so well formulated. One final thing, I started giving some significance to bandaids with the second illustration.
13th September 2020 – I think this was the first piece of work where I used almost all of the possible colours I could use to illustrate Alice. The Sinhala lettering in the background says “පොල්කිරි – Polkiri” or Cocunat milk, simply for the reason that I had a discussion with a fellow human as to what mix of Polkiri and Vodka would taste like. This fellow Human was a very quirky Artist as well and mostly drew things that I can only define as characters who somehow went through a reality glitch between some grunge mecha-fied world and a world where the glorious ancient culture of Sri Lanka prospered.
Anyway, after this discussion, I had to obviously draw what Alice would think about this rather quirky drink. I sort of went along the lines of how culturally appropriate it would be for us Sri Lankans to drink Polkiri with our spirits. I mean no other liquid could probably call to mind the balmy islanders here than Polkiri can. There is of course water, kerosine and tea that remind us of Sri Lanka but unless you mix them all together I believe it is difficult to capture the inherent innocent balminess of Sri Lankans as much as Polkiri can. So, Polkiri it is.
However other than drawing Coconuts, I sort of went along the lines of drawing the tropical, colourful feel that Alice would expect to feel after drinking a somewhat questionable mixture of Polkiri and vodka. The mecha style comes from the vibe of the fellow human that I initially had this discussion with.
Even here, I consistently keep with the very logically thought out character traits of long ears and the Silver Ring and the somewhat subconscious desire to change Alice’s skin to match the surroundings. To my dismay, this is when I also noticed that the impulsive, Subconscious Art Beast in me has also been consistently drawing spectacles on Alice in the past three illustrations. Back then when I drew this, my only choice was to sort of yield to the unknown and give in, simply because by this time I was beginning to somewhat understand why I kept changing the colour of Alice’s skin (not fully though), but I had some hope that I will explain the glasses phenomenon to myself very soon. A final point to make is that when I mecha-fied Alice a bit in this illustration my opportunity cost was not being able to draw Alice’s tattoo. However, if I re-drew this now (now being the 11th of December 2023) I would add the tattoo as some kind of label or print on the mecha-fied arm.
31st August 2020 – Teacup Alice!!!. This is definitely a fun iteration I thought up for Alice, however, it made the whole story lore for Kittumsverse and the nature of Kittums more complex. Some Kittums, I thought would have the ability to shrink in size, some being the ones with enough power to sustain their physical self in that form without being crushed by the forces of nature (Again, if you need more information you can see the Kittumsverse story lore here). Alice, obviously is one of the Ancient Kittums responsible for taking care of the widely spread desire “Love” can shrink herself to a tiny, Thumbelina-like self.
Apart from that, I realised I was changing the colour of Alice’s skin quite a bit. I had some random explanation for this in my head at the time that I quite couldn’t put together. Because of that, I fiddled with the hue controls until I could justify to myself why I subconsciously always wanted to change Alice’s skin colour. Fortunately or unfortunately, no matter how much I tried, I could not find any straightforward and reasonable reason as to why I changed the colours. So I simply decided to let the Subconscious Art Beast win and instinctively picked a colour that appealed to my illogical aesthetic senses. However, I still managed to keep consistent and draw in the long ears and Silver Ring.
17th August 2020 – This is a very very significant moment in the creation of Alice, the ears!!! This is when I started to draw Alice’s ears in the shape we generally call “elf ears”. Alice is a Kittum and Kittums are creatures that feel or rather hear the desires of humans. These ears are for that particular reason, however, according to the Kittumsverse story lore, which I can probably interest you to see by clicking the link here, the Kittums didn’t have these long ears when they lived on earth, it’s only after a few 500 years of moving away from Earth that Kittums started getting this long ears. Almost all Kittums have this trait and this Illustration is where I settled on it once and for all.
Initially, the artwork started off as something to keep myself busy while I stayed in a COVID quarantine centre. The centre was near the beach and I would spend full whole nights on the balcony listening to the sound of the sea. Being intentionally removed from fellow humans and having only my fellow quarantined mates to communicate with, really made me wonder what Alice would feel being away from the human creatures she loves being around.
Eventually, I ended up drawing a version of Alice that was almost blended into my circumstances at the time and ended up giving Alice those long ears in the hope of maybe hearing what goes on in the human world a little better. I continued to draw the Silver Ring on Alice that I had already settled on as a permanent character accessory and ended up adding two hoop earrings to one ear which later became permanent accessories as well. I would have drawn the Tattoo as well but it wasn’t something that was supposed to show when Alice has hands folded like that.
Also, while in quarantine, I would have killed for a nail trimmer to prevent my long nails from getting tangled on every piece of fabric I owned. So, I just ended up extrapolating my own momentary frustrations on Alice’s character and made it a point to draw her nails uncomfortably long. Waiting around for the quarantine period to end was not so bad, I had a very adorable and entertaining roommate, however, there were times we both just longed to go back to our respective homes. The necklace made of clock hands is another way in which I just piled my momentary frustration of waiting around on Alice. I think, if you somehow manage to put Alice in quarantine she is very much likely to take apart clocks and make jewellery out of the parts.
This illustration is one of the first and last times I have used this spotty, and sprinkled effect (last time as of 10th December 2023). However, I must say this is also the the first time I used any other colour than black for the outlines and from this point onwards I have continued to experiment with various colours for the outlines.
RANDOM2
The second Randoms that are not so distant from Alice
9th September 2019 to 15th October 2019
15th October 2019 – Another illustration as Alice would see. The liquid in this bottle behaves rather oddly, but if you check out Kittumsverse lore here you will know more. Either way, the gist of the idea is that some parts of the world Alice lives in have anti-gravity-like properties, which make liquids behave oddly even if someone smashes the glass around them.
24th September 2019 | Window – Alice is not here in the frame of this illustration, but this is Alice’s point of view if that makes sense. Technically, it is not directly visualising Alice as a character, but illustrations like this helped me make the things around Alice and give personality to the character by drawing things as Alice would see. Just like this window with a broken pane, many other illustrations I have drawn from this point onwards are drawn from the perspective of how Alice would see. Also, not to mention the awesome use of flowers here, the lines are jagged and so many things could improve here, but the flowers on the other side of that window still have an uncanny ability to draw me in.
15th October 2019 | Other Side of the Window – I drew this second one a little while after, but it makes more sense to present them side by side. After literally being drawn into my own art, I wanted to see how Alice would fair on the other side of the window. Things to note in this illustration (apart from some serious issues with line thickness) are that Alice has now acquired a piece of jewellery (a Ring) which I will continue to draw on almost all the illustrations of Alice that come after this. I mentioned earlier that the Penrose triangle will also be used as a tattoo; I believe this is also the first time I illustrated that tattoo on Alice. I continue to draw this tattoo even in the current four-handed version of Alice. The other hand with the cross tattoo belongs to a wonderful fellow human who helped me as an artist to externalise the character Alice. Before this Fellow human appeared in my life I was constantly struggling to contain or technically explain Alice as an individual character in her own right.
9th September 2019 – Colour. I am so glad I started using colours. And the flowers… Alice’s association with flowers started somewhere around here. It is definitely a simple start and somewhat an unrelated start to Alice. But this really got me thinking of flowers.
BY OTHER ART
By the inspiration of other Art
19th October 2019 to 7th September 2010
7th August 2020 – This artwork inspired by a song named Sakurā Malē is the point at which I added more tattoos to Alice’s Penrose triangle tattoo. I added elements inspired by the previous artworks, for example, the beaded tassels and sakura flowers (you can learn more about Alice’s tattoo by clicking here). When I say a whole song inspired this illustration of Alice, that isn’t quite accurate. To be honest it is just a few phrases that caught my attention. I’ve tried to take a screenshot of my brain below and I think this is a better way to explain how the few phrases relate to Alice.
Hopefully, the above doesn’t look as confusing as I think it does, either way, I have tried my best to explain for now (now being, 10th December 2023). Fortunately though if you understood the above, you will probably see that the tiny little cherry blossoms here that are all swishing in the wind and are blossoming by the millions, represent humans who desire some form of love.
Just like most of the recent work, translucent clothes are a character trait that continues to be. However, this version of Alice is more or less the disguised version of Alice from about 100 years ago. Hence the old-style clothes and the lack of Alice’s tattoos or precious Ring.
Here too, I have no intention of disrespecting either of the initial artworks. Original song credits for Sakurā Malē go to Charitha Attalage & Manasick ( and I believe there are tons more other artists that collaborated here, to whom my heartfelt regards extend, but obviously, cannot be listed here because the list is quite long. However, complete information on creators can be found on various places on the internet by searching for the song name)
15th October 2019 | Dhōlē x Golden Boy – Firstly, find a lonely place or something that limits hearing to you and unmute this audio calamity. So, the initial animation only consisted of the part with the swaying bum inspired by a song called Dhōlē. This song managed to appreciate a specific woman so well, with somewhat personal comments about her appearance, vibe and so on. Some of the comments directed at this woman are borderline offensive. What I mean is, “Yes, one can definitely think all these things but you probably shouldn’t be yelling these things at the top of your voice to the friends listening in around you while leering at her the whole time”. However, that is what happens in this song, and I was wondering how Alice would respond if it was her they were leering at. Especially, considering that Alice has a task that really requires her to understand the underlying desires of human creatures (And… like I would always say, click here and explore the whole story of Kittumsverse to know why Alice is bound by such a task). Anyway, this animation is based on how Alice would keep walking in rather a subtle and provocative way if she faced the same situation as created by the song.
Then the second part of the animation is inspired by this really cringy yet well-put-together anime called “Golden Boy”(I don’t suggest watching this unless you really have some time to kill). Though the song and the anime are fundamentally different creative works, I saw a small tiny mutual characteristic they share. That being both the song and the anime are very comfortable with passing borderline offensive, yet appreciative comments on women (if you take it in good humour, which I suppose I did). So the second part of the animation is based off a clip of the character Ayuko Hayami, who I thought would very much have the same reaction that Alice would have had when subjected to the same experience.
This is a frame-by-frame animation and I still love some of the movements I have captured here, but I see room for loads of improvements in some movements. Colouring could definitely be adjusted too I believe. All in all, though, it was a good way to explore Alice’s character and even with all the shortcomings, I am fond of this little clip.
As always, I must say, I have no intention of disrespecting either of the initial artworks. Original song credits for Dhōlē go to Charitha Attalage (maybe more humans should be mentioned here and I and quite sorry that I can’t find many details about other contributors to this song on the internet). Credits for the original anime “Golden Boy” goes to Tatsuya Egawa and the manga was originally serialized in “Shueisha’s Super Jump” magazine.
31st March 2020 – This is another song, Nævum Kaḷē, almost by the same group of people, I believe it made me wonder what Alice would think hearing this. This song does not take one as far back as Sigiriya, but I would say it takes one a few hundred years back in Sri Lankan history. This is like yesterday for Alice because Alice has lived for a long while. Maybe it would be a good idea to check out the Kittumsverse story lore here. Oh, what does it matter I will sum up things. So, this was when maybe societies were a little less complex and definitely dating was a little different. Alice’s job as a Kittum, even now, is to look after the “Desire for Love” among humans. One mischievous way Alice would proceed to do this job is to pretend to be some unsuspicious human girl to see how “love” worked during those times (these hands-on ways of working were not something appreciated by some of her colleagues).
Therefore, this song I fancy would remind Alice of some of the borderline unethical ways in which Alice would have carried out her job. I don’t personally like the choice of words in some of the verses in this song, but it is what it is and I believe will give Alice a moment of nostalgia.
Just like most of the recent work, translucent clothes are a character trait that continues to be. However, this version of Alice is more or less the disguised version of Alice from about 100 years ago. Hence the old-style clothes and the lack of Alice’s tattoos or precious Ring.
One last thing I almost forgot to mention is the Cuppies, those colourful swimming around. Cuppies as the name suggests are fantastic creatures that have both Catfish like and Guppy like characteristics. Cuppies are on the small side with a maximum length of say 10 cm, but most of them range between 2 to 5 cm. They are colourful like Guppies and have a chubby, chonky appearance like the Catfish. However, they don’t stick to surfaces like some Catfish do but have those funny long moustache-like things that Catfish have.
Again, I have no intention of disrespecting the initial artwork. Original song credits for Nævum Kaḷē are to go to Charitha Attalage, Chandrasena Thalangama, and Chamara Nirmal.
19th October 2019 – This section is about how Alice and her characteristics were inspired by the art made by other artists. I drew Alice inspired by this song and I first heard this at a venue called “Nadagama,” and there was so much wind I barely heard anything. However, for a moment, I heard it very well. That was enough for me to go home and put it on repeat and start thinking about what Alice would think of this song.
In terms of the illustration, this is a milestone for translucent clothes and appreciation for South Asian jewellery. While in the newer versions of Alice, translucent clothes are almost always a characteristic, I only use South Asian jewellery to convey a sense of that old culture or when I am trying to draw Alice in an ancient-Sri-Lanka-like context. However, while I was drawing this, I made up my mind to make the Silver Ring and the Penrose triangle tattoo consistent accessories on this character.
All in all, this song is what inspired me to really ground Alice’s character into the ancient, lost, and liberal cultures that Sri Lanka once used to have. I fancied that hearing this song would have reminded Alice of how Sigiriya was during its functional and prosperous days (477 to 495 AD). For those of you who still would not click the link here and visit the Kittumsverse story lore, here is a short explanation. Alice is a creature called a Kittum, and as a result of that, Alice has been living since the first humans ever appeared on Earth (almost). Therefore, when she snuck into the human world from time to time, she would definitely have seen Sigiriya in the good old days. I feel that this song Rādhāvaṇī would remind her of a prosperous, luscious, and liberal time of Sri Lankan culture, ponds full of sweet and earthy-smelling lotuses and jewellery that jingled with sounds one could hear for miles.
I have no intention of disrespecting the initial artwork. Original song credits for Rādhāvaṇī go to Charitha Attalage, Chandrasena Thalangama, and Supun Perera. A re-drawing of this artwork can now be seen in the “Core Dev.” section.
RANDOM1
Random and not so related to Alice
18th December 2018 to 7th February 2019 and from 7th March 2019 to 30th June 2019
For a little bit after and before that miraculous enlightenment about gender-fluid species, due to some reason and probable misadventures, my conscious mind forgot Alice existed at all. Then, I ended up drawing the following random things. Some of the things here, however, are things that I now associate with Alice. The bottle of Sweet Poison, the lemonade, and the “ෆ” shaped Faluda container (Why are they all drinks? I ask myself) are things that I would now use to furnish Alice’s room (or habitat as I like to call it) if I put her in an animated series or a game or anything like that. Oh, and a thing out of this random art that is now a permanent part of Alice is the Penrose triangle, which I now use as a tattoo on Alice. Alice’s tattoos have now grown, but the Penrose triangle is the first and it is during this un-directional floaty stage that I settled on it.
LINES-1
Mostly “Lines” that is
8th June 2018 to 1st March 2019
1st March 2019 – This is a funny one, and it is Alice… And this is also probably where I started giving the Kittums their gender-fluid nature. When I drew this, I had not even coined the term Kittum and recognized it as being a species. Instead, I just carried on calling Alice, Alice Kittums. If this “species” jargon is confusing you, I suggest you go to the page with Kittumsverse story lore and get that sorted by clicking here, or you can definitely just proceed without it; you are not missing much in terms of context. So, back to how this illustration is Alice. I didn’t initially think about it, just drew Alice, and scribbling led me to draw a guy (or a male of the Kittums species if there is anything like such). This was so much of a turning point for me, as I affirmed something I have always known, which is that whatever Alice is going to be, Alice will have to belong to a type of creature that can change their gender at will or even entirely look genderless at if need be.
7th December 2018 and 18th January 2019 – Explaining how these two illustrations mark the beginning of Alice is somewhat straightforward, yet explaining it without causing any bewilderment is the real challenge. So, here’s an attempt: This right here also represents one of the most foundational techniques I now use when drawing Alice. Which is, I draw naked people or creatures and then draw clothes on their bodies. I even colour those layers and draw in all the details, but later cover them up in whatever clothes I feel like and erase the unnecessary details. It didn’t make sense to do this at all back then because I used to draw on paper. Now, though, since I draw on Photoshop or Procreate, I can at least add layers on top without losing the details I draw first.
The black and white drawing here is also a new pose and a new composition for me. I used to shy away from drawing dynamic action and stuck to drawing still poses. I feel like this was a good start to making the illustrations look more alive. All in all, looking at some features like the hands and the nose in this drawing (in the black and white one) makes me wonder why I did not put the effort into maybe defining the bones and the nails a bit more (argh!!!)
20th September 2018 – This illustration, like many that I have taken the liberty to trust in your face, is not of Alice. Again, rather, this is where I learnt to show the semi-translucency of clothes with colours instead of line weight or fill. All in all, I have also managed to make all the layers of clothes translucent and show folds. However, I haven’t done a good job of contrasting between these different levels of translucency because I believe no one but me (and a careful observer) can see the folds.
20th September 2018 – In this drawing, Alice’s character takes another turn to become what she is today. I started blending a crucial technique I picked up from creating the “My Mermaids” series – drawing nude characters and expressing through that. Therefore, this drawing might be the first one of Alice with this characteristic.
However, as always, I still cringe looking at this. I can spot a million things that I find faults with—well, probably not a million, but a lot. Actually, the fact that I don’t have many details to talk about here is also a problem for me. Currently (that being the 27th of November 2023), I prefer details, not too much, but a bit more than what we see in this illustration. As always, I like the composition and pose that Alice is seen in here.
17th September 2018 – This illustration captures a time when I found a fondness for using unconventional elements like scissors, jewelled swords, and roses as the weaponry in my illustrations. As you’ll notice when you scroll further, “Scissors” have consistently been my weapon of choice, at least until very recently. Lately, I’ve been contemplating giving Alice a weaponized earring. (Today is the 22nd of November 2023).
15th September 2018 | My Mermaids – Not Alice, of course, but they really played a huge role in tempting me towards sketching nude creatures. Originally, this was drawn as a tattoo concept, but as with all my other artwork, it became way too personal way too quickly. Making it a little too intimate for a tattoo. So, they just ended up being “My Mermaids”. Ideally, I’d have preferred neater lines, but, as always, I love the compositions of my earlier illustrations.
15th September 2018 | My Mermaids – Not Alice, of course, but they really played a huge role in tempting me towards sketching nude creatures. Originally, this was drawn as a tattoo concept, but as with all my other artwork, it became way too personal way too quickly. Making it a little too intimate for a tattoo. So, they just ended up being “My Mermaids”.
11th June 2018 – This illustration is a bit of a stretch when it comes to capturing the essence of “Alice,” but it marks the beginning of one of my favourite features in her character, those semi-translucent clothes. Admittedly, I haven’t quite pulled it off successfully in this portrayal. A self-imposed challenge arose because I chose to draw this illustration using thick lines and a monochromatic palette, It made it difficult to show the distinction between what was covered by that sheer-like fabric and what was not. I had to resort to using solid lines for the uncovered pieces of clothing and a line with a sketchy fill for the parts concealed by the sheer fabric. It might not have worked, but that’s probably where I really started enjoying drawing semi-translucent clothes.
Oh, and these particular pieces of jewellery were a good start to exploring how various things can be communicated by how I accessorize my characters.
8th June 2018 – This sketch is from the early days of Alice, the first one I ever did. At that time, I hadn’t really decided what Alice’s character would be like. It kind of just came about as a way for me to express my feelings and ideas through a character. This is also when I started using the art style that Alice still somewhat has today – with bold lines and simple, flat colours. Looking back now, I cringe a bit. There are so many things I could improve in this drawing. One thing is how direct and intense the illustration is. It’s like I’m shouting a message, whereas these days, I prefer a more calm and composed approach. But there’s more. Another thing that makes me cringe is how I literally used words instead of incorporating symbols or motifs as I do now. And then there’s the issue of somewhat disproportionate features on the character.
However, despite these cringe-worthy aspects, I must admit that I still appreciate the composition of this artwork. The bold arrangement has a way of grabbing attention, and that’s something I like about it. Also, this was a wonderful beginning no matter how many points of improvement I see in it now (now being 11th November 2023).