Toasty Sings & Does Art Sometimes

[Burnt Toast]

Hey all! Toasty here.


It's been a long while, and I've missed ye olde Cottage. (Thanks, Narv for updating the name).
I was inspired to open a thread again by all the amazing work I'm seeing go up-- and by this goofy lyrics thread.

I'll post my lyrics below; I'm thinking about recording me singing the song.
In the meantime, here's a painting of Spock I did way back in high school; one of my favourites.

[Zôrzimril]

YAY! I remember this picture well. And can't wait to hear your songs. You hath inspired me to create my own thread at some point, too...

[Burnt Toast]

AHH! It feels like old times. Is that a Tara I spy? Yes! Make a thread!

Well, here's the song from that silly brilliant Fangorn lyric contest-- my song base Hallelujah. Because of course it is.


I heard there was a lone dark lord
Whose heart grew dark and rings he forged
Men's hearts were fooled and they were all deceiv-ed
The lands grew dark
the shadows grew
Sauron sent out his Nazgûl
The baffled King wondering where his ring was
Broken lembas, broken lembas, broken lembas, broken leeeembas

So time went on and it was lost
Until a birthday with high cost
Its beauty in the river, yes it tempts us
We choked him with our own bare hands
Our friend is dead, (for Deagol stan)
And after all, why shouldn't we keep it
Broken lembas, broken lembas, broken lembas, broken leeeembas

You say there was a secret quest
The nine took on at Elrond’s behest
And home and hearth, Frodo, he left them
He's carried the Ring across middle earth
He's fallen down, He's proved his worth
And Pippin's still missing second breakfast
Broken lembas, broken lembas, broken lembas, broken leeeembas

New riddle in the dark, a hook
Watch that bloody Fool of a Took
And Gandalf told the Balrog, “You shall not pass!”
He died and then came back to life
For some reason he’s now dressed in white
Thought for certain that old man had left us
Broken lembas, broken lembas, broken lembas, broken leeeembas

Wasn’t sure if he’d take the ring, or-
OW! He did; there goes my finger
Looks like my counting skills are now one less
I guess Smeagol saved the land
But I could at least lend a hand
It’s a cold and it’s a broken piece of lembas
Broken lembas, broken lembas, broken lembas, broken leeeembas

Well maybe Manwë’s got our back
An eagle could get us on track
Could have done it sooner, saved some duress
Now we’re on ships sailing West
But some of us are left bereft
And no one ever got their second breakfast
Broken lembas, broken lembas, broken lembas, broken leeeembas


(Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen)

[Finduilas Faelivrin]

@Mor Toast aw, that's great! It's sad and funny all at the same time. I think I like this better than the original. Ah, I love Spock - the green makes it feel like he's standing in the shadows. This poem reminds me of some crazy Christmas lyric-come-Tolkien-lyrics contest we did a long time ago - it might have been in Mordor for the Olympics or something equally non-sensical. Maybe that thread is still floating around in the Archives. I couldn't even tell you what year that was - early years, I think? Have fun!

[Oro]

@Mor Toast What a great job transferring the Hallelujah lyrics! I Love it.

And that Spock is very green! I like his hand a lot, the lines through it really enhance the look of the overall hand.

[Thalionwen Hunigfolm]

I just...I don't think I'm ever going to be able to hear Hallelujah in quite the same way again

[Burnt Toast]

Thanks all for the comments! Glad the lyrics worked out for y'all. I'm getting set up in the new space and planning to do a recording of them soon.

Here's some slightly more recent art (from like, the last year or two). I honestly haven't been drawing much in years, my main focus has always needed to be on theatre, music practice, etc. for work. But I hope to start doing a bit of drawing again as life has shifted.


Here's a self-portrait:




And keeping with theme:


Unsure what happened to that back leg...

[Zôrzimril]

I remember this Loki drawing! I love the lines in it - sweeping yet also spiky and angular. I don't think that makes any sense now that I typed it out. But anyway, somehow they contribute to the sense of the character really nicely.

The raven is awesome. I love the minimal use of color to give it some dimension. And yeah to your point about the back leg - maybe it only does leg day on one side.

[Almarëa Mordollwen]

I really like Loki! :smiley8: (And I don't think I've seen much of your artwork before - really looking forward to seeing more!) Captures the mischievous nature of the character really well - and the dramatic flair!

I would not want to get on the wrong side of that raven though...

[Burnt Toast]

Tarawen - I getchu. HAHA and that bird totally just does leg day on one side.
Alma - Thanks! I do enjoy me some Loki. XD Hopefully I'll pull out the pencils again soon as we get settled into the house. Drawing is something I don't do much, it happens in spurts and then not for like.. a year. But-- perhaps now is the time!


Here's a bit of sketching-- I do dearly love me some foxes.

[Zôrzimril]

Toasty - I love this! An app I work on at work is called Fox so any mention of foxes these days makes me happy. It looks like these two are dancing and having a great time together. (Also PS on Twitter there is an account called @hourlyfox that is literally just pictures of foxes every hour; it is great. )

[Burnt Toast]

Haha, that's amazing! And thanks for the Twitter recommendation; I'm going to have to follow them. Maybe it can be more drawing inspiration!

[Nia]

You’ve captured Loki absolutely perfectly - the facial expression and cocky stance, brilliant! I also love the fox sketches; I'm a big fox fan. I get to see them fairly frequently as we've got some thriving urban foxes around where I live, but I still always get a little thrill of delight each time one runs across my path.

@Tarawen I am now also following hourly fox on twitter!

[Zôrzimril]

@Nia and @Lucifer - yay for filling twitter feeds with foxes! Some of them are just too cute.

[Burnt Toast]

Thanks, Nia!

All right, this was a doodle I did on an RPG character sheet of a mischievous fella I was playing.
Honestly, pretty good likeness for Toasty prolly. XD

[Zôrzimril]

This excellent and chaotic in all the right ways. I love his expression - you've really captured the joyful trickster here. Nice work, friend!

[Tari]

Loving these sketches! I did a lot of hands on drawing and painting back in high school and college, but I also don't have as much time for it anymore as I'd like. Share more toast!

[Burnt Toast]

Thanks Birdface & Tari!

So the next thing is something completely different, I've been studying coding, and I'm currently taking cs50 through edx. Last week, they introduced the program Scratch to us, which is a nice way to introduce the concept of coding and thinking like a programmer-- you can create mini games / interactive stories, etc. by putting together simple instructions / bits of code that come in the form of clearly labelled and sorted 'puzzle pieces'.

It's the first project I've done on my coding journey, so simple as it is (and it still took me enough time), I thought I'd share this silly little story for your entertainment.

I'll note-- it doesn't seem to work well on mobile, so if you're on mobile, try it on a laptop/desktop later!

The Lonely Bear

[Zôrzimril]

Yay the bear! The bowtie! Such fun. Hope you continue to share coding projects we can play with!

[Burnt Toast]

Thanks, Birdface!

So, I did name this thread Toasty sings or something, so I figure I'll share a bit of singing-- this one's from Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, which is a pretty nerdy short musical that you should watch if you haven't.

This is from some goofing around I did right at the top of quarantine as the cabin fever set in. They're all imperfect little buggers, but the goal was fun, not auditioning or work. Which, as a working (well, minus the pandemic/current times) artist, I miss that a lot sometimes.

My Freeze Ray

[Nia]

Ahh nice, @Burnt Toast ! I've not seen seen or heard of the musical but I am now incredibly intrigued to see it. You've got a really lovely voice - I was looking forward to some singing being shared! :smiley8: Also really enjoying the story you're telling through body language. Great job all round! (also the jacket is awesome)

[Burnt Toast]

Thanks! It's a fun one, with a quite the star-studded cast, including Neil Patrick Harris and a bunch of others. It's also short and goofy, about a 'evil scientist', who also happens to be the protagonist (the song I sang is one of his.

For something a bit better known, though no less goofy-- here's toward the end of that particular day of recording, and you can see I lost it (in the best way possible) more and more as the goof off session went on. This is what happens when you sing songs with no prep. Lots of fun mistakes.

So here's Toasty, in all my glory, playing not one, but both princes from Into the Woods.

Agony

[Zôrzimril]

@Burnt Toast - OMG DR HORRIBLE! It's been so long since I watched it, but I LOVED it and LOVE THIS.

I love the goofiness in "Agony" - so wacky and so Toasty! I especially enjoyed your frantic hair fixing, most particularly when you bump into the camera.

[Burnt Toast]

Thanks, le Birdface!

Here's a few more foxes for y'all :) I'm working on some piano / other music, so some of that soon!

[Eorlana Corvys]

Thanks for the earworm! I'm never going to hear Hallelujah the same way again. Broken Lembaaas...

[Zôrzimril]

Ah such cute floofies! I especially love the one that's chewing its tail!

Also, I have no idea how I missed this update for so long. I hope you share more arts with us soon! <3

[Aerlinn]

Dr. Horrible!!! I haven't seen that mentioned in ages, I LOVED it! You have an amazing voice and Agony was hilarious.

Floofy foxes also A+.

[Burnt Toast]

@Eorlana Corvys - XD I have the same problem, now. Thanks for stopping by!
@Silmarë - Wouldn't you chew your tail if you had one? Haha yes. And moar arts soon, methinks.
@Aerlinn - RIght? Dr. Horrible delights me. And thank you!

My voice has started to drop a teensy bit, and I've been working on slowly recording a multi voice part choir piece. I might share the first take here shortly-- bearing in mind it's definitely a work in progress, and something I'm mainly doing for myself to hear my voice on different voice parts as time goes on. Just have to find the best way to share since it's just an audio file at this point.

[Zôrzimril]

It'll be a privilege to hear what you have been cooking up, @Burnt Toast! The recording will be such an amazing artifact of your journey. <3

And yes, I would definitely chew my tail if I had one.