Frostivities

Let the frositivities begin!

Regina’s first winter festival, Frost, lights up the night

rose brito contributor

During the cold months in Regina, I’m sure most people would rather be shut in, wrapped in blankets, and sipping on a warm cup of cocoa. However, during this past week, Regina has been encouraging many to take advantage of the cold for some winter festivities. Frost is the first festival of its kind in Regina and ran from February 4-13. It took place in four different locations across the city, including Evraz, Wascana, the Warehouse District, and downtown. The main attraction, however, took place in the Evraz location. Tickets were available to purchase, but there were also plenty of other free activities to visit in the other locations.

Unfortunately, I could only experience a bit of the event. Regardless, it was worth freezing my toes off for. As soon as you pass the entryway, you’re greeted with a flurry of… sparkling rods? At first, I didn’t think it was that enchanting, but that would soon change when I came back later at night, when the park truly came to life.

But before it came to that, the ice sculptures came to view. The amount of work the artists put in to make that much detail on the sculptures truly paid off. Some honourable mentions were a fiery dragon (ironic for a winter festival), an eagle, a giant photo frame, a king’s throne and a viking. Not only were there sculptures to gawk at, but there was also a giant snow maze (which held a bunch of kiddos sitting at the edges) and a giant ice slide (with an equal number of children lining up).

Along the road, you eventually stumble upon the Prismatica section. There were 25 structures with a special film that reflected light to make a million colours seemingly on its own. They were fun to twist and turn and all, but

the spotlight was definitely taken by the ice sculptures.

There were a couple of presentations to look forward to as the day set. The first I attended was presented in the Indigenous Village, where Terrance Littletent and his family presented the audience with various traditional dances. The audience was eager to learn the various stories that these dances would teach. One of them, if I can recall correctly, was the story of an eagle hatching and entering its new world. This story was not told with words, but instead with a beating drum that represented the heartbeat of mother nature, and the hoops that Littletent swung around his body to represent each stage of growth. At the end of the dance, he encouraged the audience to hold hands with each other and tap around in a circle to represent unity among all people. I’m sure everyone who attended the event left with a new seed of knowledge

and a happy heart.

My family decided to take a break from the cold and entered the Viterra International Trade Centre to see what was inside. We were looking for something, but to our surprise, we forgot about the Glow exhibit. Once we stumbled upon it, we were mesmerized. Something tells me that the building will have a huge electrical bill to pay for displaying the billions of little lights that were structured into many famous buildings from around the world. The activity encouraged guests to grab a little passport to stamp as they “travelled” through the trail of glittering lights.

The United Kingdom had a sparkling Big Ben and a London Bridge you could walk right under. The Netherlands displayed a pathway of flowers, eventually leading towards a giant windmill. China held lilypads and a giant dragon, similar to the ice sculpture from outside. These were

only a few of the many places you could visit, and at the end of your trip, there were plenty of other glowing structures you could walk through and take pictures in – or be hypnotized by the intricate patterns of the lights. Whichever came first.

After getting some dinner, my family and I rushed back to make it to the last shows of the evening. It was night by the time we arrived, and that’s when the real magic happened. Now was the opportunity to really glow, and a bunch of lights radiated from the sculptures, the Prismatics, the ice slide, and the snow maze. The mystical music that played in the background really made it feel like you’d suddenly entered a fantastical world.

But besides that, there were two more presentations to visit: the fire show and the glow show. Both were conducted by Daniel Tamagi and Amanda ‘Panda’ Syryda from Transflowmation. With their wands and hoops, the dark night was quickly illuminated by the intense fires and hypnotizing colours. They sure took advantage of the nighttime, and many people came trickling in to see what’s up, like moths to a lamp.

There were many other activities that occurred throughout the week, such as a skating performance from both Olympic medalist Elvis Stojko and skaters from the Canada Ice Dance Theatre, two live performances featuring Big Wreck and Dean Brody, and a curling game. Though, for me, one day was enough to experience what the festival provided.

Judging on the many people that came by and the positive feedback that came tumbling in, there’s no doubt that the next festival will be bigger and better than the first. I know I’ll sure be there next year for another round of cold cheeks and chilly extravaganzas.

“Something tells me that the building will have a huge electrical bill to pay for displaying the billions of little lights that were structured into many famous buildings from around the world.”

– Rose Brito

Rooky Jegede These dancers are probably freezing their bells off.

On Drag Race fatigue

It’s just so much racing...

jorah bright a&c writer

RuPaul’s Drag Race is an important piece of pop culture, especially in recent years. It’s been instrumental in bringing queer people and queer culture to the limelight. Drag Race is often seen as the Superbowl of 2SLGBTQIA+ people; people go to bars to watch episodes as they premiere.

The show has won several Emmys as well as other prestigious media awards and is generally a big deal. It has shaped drag as an art form in a major way. Those who go on Drag Race and succeed set trends for other drag artists. Social media following can skyrocket for drag artists after their time on the show.

But there’s a lot of Drag Race. Almost too much Drag Race. The main series, which focuses on American drag artists, is currently in its 14th season. The spin-off for that, RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars has seven seasons currently. All-Stars features contestants from the main show who didn’t win and who compete again for the All-Stars crown. Beyond that, each episode of Drag Race and of All-Stars has companion episodes for four different series.

Fashion Photo RuView is a web series that is based on rating the outfits worn during the runway challenge. Untucked, which is the most prominent companion show, documents the contestants backstage while the judges discuss the main challenge and the runway. The Pit Stop is a general after show, featuring various hosts by season who discuss the main episode. Whatcha Packin’ features whoever was last eliminated as they discuss their time on the show and the outfits they had, but never wore. Whatcha Packin’ and Fashion Photo RuView are only around 10-15 minutes each, the Pit Stop is currently around 30 minutes, and episodes of Untucked are 30-45 minutes each. But wait! There’s more Drag Race.

The international versions of the franchise have really taken off. Drag Race Thailand premiered in 2018 and is still airing. Drag Race UK first premiered in 2019, and recently finished its third season. Canada’s Drag Race premiered in 2020 and completed its second season in December of 2021. Drag Race Holland first premiered in 2020. In 2021, RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under, Drag Race España, and Drag Race Italia premiered. In 2022, Drag Race Philippines and Drag Race France are set to premiere.

It’s a lot of Drag Race, to say the least. As of writing this article, RuPaul’s Drag Race season 14 is premiering at the same time as RuPaul’s Drag Race: UK Versus the World, which features previous contestants from several different Drag Race series.

All of this has led to something called Drag Race fatigue. Viewers are getting tired and need a break from Drag Race. Whereas most other shows have a several month period in between seasons, as soon as one season of Drag Race ends, another one begins somewhere else in the world. It’s an incredibly rapid pace and the contestants on the previous season barely have any time to enjoy the aftermath of their run before a new batch is on your screens. Drag Race has started to feel more like homework than enjoying an important piece of queer culture.

Michelle Visage, one of the main judges on RuPaul’s Drag Race, recently spoke to UK website Digital Spy, where she responded to the comments about Drag Race fatigue. Visage focused more on the importance of queer-produced television and how Drag Race has been an important piece in getting more queer people on TV. She said, “If you don’t have time to watch them all, then record them. Watch them on WOW Presents Plus.” It appears as if Visage wants people to ignore their fatigue and instead be “grateful” that we have Drag Race at all.

While Drag Race has been instrumental in bringing queer culture to the forefront of news and teaching people about the queer community, it’s exhausting to try and keep up with so many different iterations. Fans shouldn’t be expected to watch everything Drag Race or risk seeming out of touch.

Carlos César C. Jr via Wikimedia They’re basically unidentifiable because there’s just been so damn many

Exploring the Tinder Swindler

How the catfish extraordinaire extorted $10 million on the popular dating app

amina salah staff writer

If a man is telling you his enemies have it out for him, those enemies are probably law enforcement.

The Tinder Swindler is a Netflix documentary directed by Felicity Morriss, the producer who brought us the hit documentary Don’t F**k with Cats. The documentary tells the story of women who were duped by a con artist who uses the pseudonym Simon Leviev. He made his money by essentially love bombing women on the dating app Tinder. He would then fake an image of old money wealth, telling women that he was the son of a diamond business owner. Simon scammed $250K out of one of the women, Cecilie Fjellhoy. Another named Pernilla Sjoholm was also lied to, believing that he was the son of a wealthy business mogul named Lev Leviev.

Simon Leviev, born as Shimon Hayut, managed to swindle around $10 million from victims all over the world from 2017-2019. In 2015, he was sentenced to two years in prison in Finland. By 2019, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison in his home country of Israel. Hayut’s con was able to go on for that long because he would take advantage of people’s need for love and acceptance and genuine, honest human connection. He saw this and jumped at the chance to win the hearts of his victims.

Hayut essentially tricked them into loaning him money with the false premise that he would repay them more than what they had loaned out to him. He would take them to expensive restaurants and fly on private jets using money he had borrowed from other victims he had scammed. Hayut would take advantage of his victim’s empathy by letting them know that he had enemies who were looking for him. These enemies were dangerous people who were out to get him, out to harm him and all of his loved ones. He would then send pictures showing that he and his bodyguard Peter had been attacked by said enemies. He claimed that he was unable to use his bank cards because his enemies might track him.

As a response to the so-called security breach and threats, he would ask his victims to help him out by either loaning him cash or using their credit cards. Some of Hayut’s victims even took out loans to help finance him. He would circle this money retrieved from victims onto potential future victims. Basically, it was all just one massive Ponzi scheme.

When he saw that his victims were worried or getting anxious, Hayut would send them forged cheques and bank transfers. By the end of the documentary, Hayut had been in prison for five months. His victims are still paying off their debts to this day. Out of curiosity, I decided to snoop on his Instagram and what I saw was astounding. It was almost as if he had never been in prison at all. He’s now out, living his best scammer life, posing in private jets, decked out in world-class designer couture. Even though the law seems unable to properly charge someone like him, I feel that people like Shimon Hayut will eventually be punished by divine intervention.

In some ways, Hayut is a reflection of society. Appearance matters; image is extremely important. It doesn’t matter if beneath that image there is falsehood. What matters is that the image appeals to people. The takeaway from this? If a man is telling you his enemies are after him, those enemies are probably the feds. If a man is telling you his enemies are after him, those enemies are probably the CIA. If a man is asking you to take out loans for him, tell him to kick rocks or ask his wealthy father. You aren’t the one.

Digital art tips & tricks

Some ways to step up your portrait game

jorah bright a&c writer

Digital art has become more and more popular in recent years as more and more people switch their mediums from traditional to digital. Artists are sharing their work on social media and gaining a following from it. With this rise, more and more people are getting involved in art and learning how to draw.

I was one of those people. I started drawing in late 2019 and switched to digital during the initial lockdown of 2020. Since then, I’ve learned a lot about digital art and picked up a few tips and tricks that I am here now to share with you. I use Clip Studio Pro for my art, but these tips should be universal for any program!

References

One of the most important pieces of drawing is using references. If someone tries to tell you that using references is wrong or cheating, they’re lying to you. Using references is more than okay –

and is standard practice for almost every professional artist. Using references will help you with your drawing. When looking for references, I recommend AdorkaStock. They have a huge gallery of pose references meant for artists. You can likely find what you’re looking for, or something similar, if you’re looking for a pose reference.

Additionally: Frankenstein your references. Combine them. It’s a lot easier to put a face reference onto a body reference and make it one than having them separate and trying to make them work together. That being said: use more than one reference. Use as many as you need. Not sure if one thing looks right? Find a reference. Use yourself as a reference if you need. Lots of artists use their own hands as references when drawing hands.

Practice

I know, I know. When you ask an artist what you can do to make your art better, they always say to practice. But they’re right! My art from a year ago is so different from my art right now. The more you draw, the more you learn. Keep practising.

A good way to practice is to do individual studies. Find a few references for something you want to practice and focus on that. Want to do a nose study? Grab a few pictures of different noses and draw them. See how the lines and the planes can be different. You can do these studies for almost anything: anatomy, eyes, hair, portraits – and the more you study, the more you learn.

Texture

One of the biggest things that I’ve learned in the past few months is to add texture to your drawings. Adding textures makes drawings feel more realistic. For clothing textures, grab a noise brush, add a clipping mask onto your clothing layer, change the blend mode on the clipping mask to multiply, set your brush to the colour of the clothes, and draw. Once you’re done that, lower the opacity to your liking. I tend to stick around 25% to 40%. Then, do it again on a new clipping mask layer but with the blend mode set to screen. Then, lower the opacity, I recommend 10% to 18%, but it’s up to you. For skin texture, the premise is the same, but I recommend looking up a skin texture brush for whatever drawing program you use.

Lighting and Shadows

Adding lighting and shadows to your drawing can be incredibly important. It adds a great deal of depth. The easy way to do this is to apply a clipping mask to your base

layer and use multiply for shadows and screen for highlights with the colour of your base layer as what you’re using. This will give you the basics of darker and lighter than your original colour. But don’t stop there. As much as your drawing has more depth to it now, leaving it here can make it look muddy and less visually interesting. After that, play around with complementary colours. A complementary colour is whichever colour is opposite on the colour wheel. Using complementary colours allow your shadows to stand out more and your art to look more distinct in its colours.

Watch Other Artists

Watch other artists. Find videos of other artists, whether they be simple tutorials, speed draws, or process videos. Watch the way other artists do things and see if it can be applied to your art. My personal favourite Youtube channel to watch is Drawfee. Each episode has three to four people drawing in their own unique styles. By watching so many different styles, there’s a lot you can pick up on. And each video has a different drawing challenge, so there’s a lot of different things they draw that you can learn from.

Planes of the Face

Learning the planes of the face – the ways that the skin lays on the face above muscle and bone – can be really important in anatomy practice. But a simpler way of learning face anatomy and proportions is by using your own face. The bottom of your ear will usually line up with the bottom of your nose and the top of your ear will usually line up with the bottom of the eyebrow. The corners of your mouth will line up with the centre of your eye. And to extend past the face, your hand is normally the size of your head, your feet are the same size as your forearm, and your elbows are at the same point as your bellybutton. Remember: these are very, very general rules of proportions. Not everyone’s face and body will be like this, and it’s okay if it’s not. These art rules are often taken from old European artists who used themselves or other European models for their art. Keep that in mind when you research art techniques. If you don’t line up with their rules, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.

Eyebrows

Eyebrows can make or break a portrait drawing. They are key to expression. Furrowed brows can mean anger while raised brows mean surprise, all while the eyes never change in shape. When you work with portraits, pay attention to how the eyebrows are placed

and curved.

Warm-up Drawings

I cannot stress this enough: warm-up drawings are one of the most important things in art. If you are about to draw a big piece that will take you a long time, warm up first. Sketch something small, anything you want. Doing warm-ups will prepare your muscles for drawing and can prevent small injuries in your hands and shoulders. Warm-up drawings can help with linework and get you in the right frame of mind to work on a drawing.

Hand Stretches

If you are an artist, please take care of your hands. If your hand starts hurting, stop drawing. Many artists wreck their hands by ignoring aching hands and continuing to draw. Stretch your hands before you work on a drawing. Add this to part of your warm-up drawing. If you are someone who draws a lot, consider buying a hand brace for carpal tunnel prevention.

Have Fun!

Even if you feel like your art is terrible, you just made art. You took something that didn’t exist before and then created it. It’s a great feat. All art is good art. Keep drawing, keep practising. Draw because you love it and you have fun doing it, not because it may be good or bad.

And those are my tips and tricks! I hope they are helpful to you, and I wish you happy drawing.

“If someone tries to tell you that using references is wrong or cheating, they’re lying to you. Using references is more than okay – and is standard practice for almost every professional artist.

– Jorah Bright

Jorah Bright

What does she ask her nail tech to get that look?