And it should be noted my parents were always very careful to get ONLY decaffeinated instant tea.
So I am pretty sure it was the sugar I got hooked on. And hooked I was. I could easily down three to five glasses in a three hour study or drawing session. That stuff got me through both high school and collage, especially after we discovered I was hyper sensitive to caffeine and could not drink to much of it either in soda, coffee or tea form without getting sick. I have a tolerance now but still have a dislike for coffee flavor unless drowned in a latte or mocha. Sadly most energy drinks just the smell alone of one will make me want to vomit. I’m cool with AMP and Kickstarts though. Yeah Mt. Dew company! Oh and Root Beer. But Root Beer is a story for another time.
Honestly, I never thought much about tea beyond how cool my mom’s fancy tea kettle collection was and ‘British’ Tea was my drink of choice for study and art. A friend in collage, trying to help out, introduced me to herbal teas and since I was learning spices at the time to better my cooking (its amazing how the right spices can turn ordinary instant macaroni or canned mushroom soup into something amazing and don’t judge, I was a collage student! At least I didn’t live only off roman and pizza) I took the time to learn the different flavors, lore, and supposed benefits of different herbal teas as well. This led to an interest in flowers and plants and an entire sketch book studying them. I still have a fondness for drawing flowers and used that skill and knowledge when I designed the logo for the up and coming visual novel Suitors years later.
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| An Alaskan made Visual Novel https://www.suitorsvisualnovel.com |
The first time I stepped foot in a real tea shop, I had no real clue what I was doing. This was not herbal. There was blends but it all had one type of real tea in it or another. I had no clue what any of the names and labels meant. I went purely by what smelled and tasted good. It did not help it was sample day and it all tasted amazing. I blew almost $100 on a mint blend tea and raspberry citrus blend tea and still have half a jar of mint tea today. I thought I was going to be in so much trouble for spending that much but my then boyfriend now hubby just took it in stride and brought home some super high quality Taiwanese Gunpowder Tea from from one of his trips and started teaching me what he knew about brew times, water temperatures, tea history, how elevation makes a difference and how flavors change when you multi brew or as I came to call it, a tea’s redrew value. At the time, I was content to know what he taught me simply so I didn’t go nuts and over spend again. I was a good girl and became very frugal about my tea.
About four years ago my still boyfriend later hubby found out I use to be a Pre-Tau Tyrannid player in college. For those not in the know, Tyranids are a race of hive minded half xenomorph (from the Aliens franchise), quarter crustacean, quarter bug aliens (and what Zerg from Starcraft were supposedly modeled after) from the futuristic grim dark table top strategy game Warhammer 40K. My boyfriend was involved with an online RP chat room themed after the game. He decided to coax me into joining the RP with him. Now since I quiet Warhammer 40K, they had introduced a new army, the Tau. Think a weird mix of anime mechas, traditional gray aliens, space commies, drones, and a few other races including humans tossed in the mix because all are welcome as long as they serve ‘The Greater Good’. Boyfriend thought it would be cool if I played a Human Tau. Not a Gue’vesa (Human Helper) which is a human that willingly joined the Tau but doesn’t necessarily have all the same rights as a true Tau, but a human bred and raised by Tau to be Tau. And being the type to research the crap out of something before I create a character or start a new art project, I spent three weeks pouring over Warhammer 40K rule books and fluff before Shas'La Fi'Rios Ko'vash Tsua’m, Striver for short, was born. I had little hopes the character would last though. But I found myself drawing her more and more. Her character started to flesh out and develop. I got sucked back into the Warhammer 40K world… but my tendency to toss my own brand of whimsy in followed. Striver’s quirk was her fascination with tea and all things tea related.
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| Early Sketches of Striver http://fav.me/da3lxd6 |
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| Pinup Sketch of Striver http://fav.me/dal1jnt |
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| Early Sketches of Striver, her hair kept changing http://fav.me/dak9rqc |
It was a random decision.
Now I had to seriously research tea and all things tea related to play it right. Even in my sketches of the character the tea cups and kettles started to pop up ever where. It didn’t help that another close friend of mine, and an amazing local author, decided to have an Alice in Wonderland bachelorette party and asked me to come as the White Rabbit. Yeah, a new character to create! Yeah, more research into the story of Alice and tea parties and Steampunk and… it spiraled out of control. Hatta Twisp, the White Rabbit, is still a work in progress but she has made an appearance at every Steamposium, the local Steampunk convention, since. From there I revived my fascination with corsets which lead to unearthing my Time Warp Trio drawings. Just a year later my boyfriend finally husband convinced me to become serious about art and my art business. This resulted in the reinventing of White Noise Graphics, and its new Steampunk inspired logo and theme based on the old Time Warp Trio drawings.
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| The first version of Hatta Twisp, the White Rabbit |
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| The Time Warp Trio http://fav.me/d9ynj3c |
Its been a grueling three years working two jobs plus White Noise, totaling three jobs at once. But my art has improved in leaps and bounds and my Warhammer 40K art work, especially my Harlequins (masquerade themed space elves that treat life like one big play) and Striver herself have become my second most popular works to date (my hentai works are most popular but that and how sex sells is, again, another story). I am currently working on illustrations for several RP rule books and my visual novel Suitors in between commissions. White Noise has even expanded into providing print services to local artists. Its hard work and the hardest parts are still ahead of me. But I can honestly say it all started with a little Human Tau and tea.
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| White Noise Graphics http://www.j-ink.net |
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| Tea Time - Striver from Warhammer 40K Month 2017 http://fav.me/dbnjp2r |
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| Harlequin Dancers - Warhammer 40K Month 2017 http://fav.me/dbozf0u |
And the research into tea goes on.
I’m taking full blown tea classes at Summit Spice and Tea to get some socialization in. The teacher knows his history well though his pronunciations are horrible sometimes (mine are WAY WAY worse so I really have no room to talk) and the people that attend are great inspiration for sketches and character studies. Not to mention all the different kinds of free tea I get to taste and drink! And though I have switched my drink of choice for arting to Assam Banaspaty Black Tea, I still occasionally mix a glass of ‘British’ Tea to remember what started it all.
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