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(This turned out to be a monster of RAMBLINGS I'm SO SORRY)
Yes, hello! I've totally forgotten DA's birthday and I thought I'd celebrate it in a way of my own.
I've been meaning to do this meme for quite sometime, but never got around to it. Even with all the work I have to do as of late I thought now that it's DA's birthday and it seems to center around the growth of an artist so to speak, I'd put together something that reflects that!

This is my influence map. Now this contain only about 2+ hours of thought put into it, so there's a lot of things I've left out, but the things that inspired me the most throughout sticks the best in my memory, so it wasn't too hard. And in the end I think that the very most influencial stuff is needed the most so...
Here we go! (BY THE WAY IF ANY OF THE ARTISTS DO NOT WISH TO HAVE THEIR ART UP HERE, I'LL GLADLY REMOVE IT PLEASE LET ME KNOW...CEPT ALPHONSE MUCHA...REST IN PEACE, SIR.)

1. Kingdom Hearts - Kingdom Hearts is neither the first, nor most recent influence, but it's the one I thought of first before all the others. Kingdom Hearts has an aesthetic that I will always cherish. For me it combined some of the timeless, whimsical elements that is Disney and a lot of the cool, modern, slightly darker elements that comes with anime (and everything square enix-y tbh, but I'm unfortunately not as familiar with their other titles such as FF) When I first picked up a Kingdom Hearts 2 manga at the book fair in fifth grade my tiny little kid brain was blown away by this combination. It's cheesy and it's cliche and it's confusing/awkward at times, but I adore it. I adore the 'friends are my power!!!' themes, I adore the overused 'dark vs. light' analogies, and I adore the heartwarming and soothing atmosphere these games bring. I've also adopted like eight children from these games, I feel TOO HARD for these characters.
I'm rambling, but I do that a lot with KH. The art, the atmosphere, the whimsy, the character relationships and plot themes all contribute with what my art is today. *head bangs to utada hikaru*

2. Alexandra Douglass (Lexxcercise) - Lexxy is one of my absolute favorite artists. I adore her style and I'm in love with the way she world builds in her new comic The Cloud Factory. I first heard about her through her work with Homestuck ( her art in the 'Cascade' segment) and followed her work ever since. I love how rich and beautifully textured her work is, as well has her character design and art style.

3. Ulvar - I found Ulvar through their beautiful Welcome to Nightvale fan works, finding their version of the characters my favorite. They do such marvoulous things with color and lighting and small details, I just can't get enough of it. I love the flow of their lines and the gesture they add to their characters' poses. Even their anatomy studies are just beautiful.

4. Makani - I will never, ever grow bored of looking at Makani's work. The expressions she uses in the characters she draws are some of the best I've ever seen. Her work is so expressive and has so much movement, sometimes I get lost in just scrolling through her tumblr blog looking at her sketches and comics she's done (most prominently the Legend of Korra fandom, as well as her Mass Effect works) Imagine my utter delight when I heard she worked on the Team Fortress 2 comic holy moly.

5. Claire Hummel (Shoomlah) - K, so Claire has a gorgeous style. I found her through her popular "Historically Accurate Disney Princess" series and I continue to follow her work. I love her the flow to her linework as well has the intricate detail on clothing and faces. She has an amazing eye for design and creates amazing interest to her work.

6. Sailor Moon - Sailor Moon is probably my first area of influence when it comes to drawing. I started watching it at age six when it was on cartoon network and fell in love with the beautiful transformation sequences (all magic, ribbons and haiiiir) I fell so in love with it, it inspired me to start doodling random, curvy, flowy lines in my little kindergarten journal to mimic the lines of the hair and magic and such. Aside from PPG I didn't have a lot of female superheros around me at the time that were very feminine or used femininity as a strength, not weakness. (hadn't heard of wonderwoman or other similar heroines at the time) Sailor Moon was a inspiration and a major childhood hero.

7. Alphonese Mucha - I learned about Mucha's work in my drawing and painting class in highschool. I was so inspired by the beautiful curvy shapes and elegant themes in his usual works. It spoke to me so much, and I fell in love instantly. I found the entire Art Nouveau style gorgeous and studied a lot from it. It also got me to draw other things besides people, what with his elegant drawings of furniture and other little accessories.

8. Nightwish - So nightwish is a band, but I thought it'd be cool to add a different kind of artist on here. So as a kid I was kind of into metal music. No specific bands, but my dad would play it in his car sometimes and I thought it was neat. As a kid I ALSO thought classical/symphony music was pretty neat. So when I heard symphonic metal existed I was pretty stoked. My first nightwish song was FantasMic (a disney tribute song) and I was so taken with it. There's a lot of music that inspires my art, but a lot of it comes from music like nightwish. Some of my favorite personal works were done listening to their music. It just kind of takes me to a whole other fantastical, whimsical world full of adventure, sword fighting, dragon slaying and star traveling, populated by gods and heroes.

9. David Christiana - I found David's illustrations through the Disney Fairies book series (Rani and the Mermaid Lagoon being my first one) His drawings are so soft and beautiful and capture the perfect look for a fairy book series. I used him as an inspiration for a water color art final and, while a little outdated, was something I was very proud of. He made the world of Pixie Hollow so absolutely gorgeous it made me want to live there.

10. The Legend of Zelda - A few years after my major Sailor Moon phase, I started playing video games. SSB: Melee was something I played with my brother and cousin whenever I got the chance. I played as almost all the characters at least once, but Princess Zelda most often because I loved looking at her. The first Zelda game I fell in love with was Wind Waker, being to young to be able to play the games before it. The open world-ness of it along with it's bright colors and sense of adventure had me hooked at Outset Island. The game was bright and cheery up front, but had an underlying deep, ancient feel to it. Which is something I LOVE. I

11. Disney - So DISNEY. I feel like a lot of artists are influenced by disney at some point. I'm no different. As you know by now, I was (and still AM) weak for pretty animated girls with long flowing hair, so I can still picture myself at three belting out The Little Mermaid soundtrack in the bathtub. I used to take the VHS covers of disney movies and copy them. A lot of my other influences have touches of disney in them too (*looks at kingdom hearts*) I love everything whimsical and timelessly heartwarming and that is what disney is meant to be. I used Mother Nature from Fantasia 2000 because, as you can imagine, she was a character that inspired me too. (her hAAAIRRr)

12. Neopets: The Darkest Faerie - So this one ties in a lot with LOZ. An openworld game having a great sense of adventure with a lot of magic tied into it. I was young when I started playing, so that was all magnified. It was the first game that gave me a bit of fear knowing I was alone exploring out there, even once we join up with Roberta. I mostly enjoyed the look of the faeries. We didn't get to see a lot of them, sadly, but that kind of made them a little more mysterious. I went on the neopets website and looked up all the How-To-Draw tutorials on the characters.

13. CLAMP - So in the middle of my major weeb phase, Clamp (an all female japanese manga artist group) was something I took huge inspiration from. During the very early stages of said weeb phase, I was really into the Magical Girl genre. My first introduction to Clamp was the Card Captor Sakura series, and afterwards the Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles spin-off/kind of alternate universe sequal (?) series to it. Clamp's style is is pretty and elegant, as most shoujo styles are, but something about CCS and TRS brought something a little more memorable to me, a lot more than the other magical girl shows/mangas I watched. They also had some very open minded themes on gender and sexuality that really got me thinking about those things at a young age. It was subtle, but it was obvious enough enough for an oblivious 10 year old me to pick up on. *stares loudly at fai and kurgane up there*

14. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy - So I love ancient/magical technology, and a lot of that came from this here game. I loved the little magical Eco system that was thought up here. I loved going to all the differently themed worlds that went with the Eco the different Sages represented. I loved the character designs so much! Especially the outfits. The googles and the sandles and the ears and aAAhh. I owe a lot to this game because it was the first one that made me want to *jazz hands* world build; Develop a magic system, create different dwellings with different themes, ancient sites and temples, all that good stuff.

15. NiGHTS (Sega) - NiGHTS shouldn't come as a big surprise as they (or He? I know they don't conform to gender because they're a fairy of sorts, but I know they refer to them as 'he' at some point but that could also be a japanese to english language barrier because gender neutral pronouns aren't rEALLY A THING HERE SO *TAKES BIG BREATH*) is the big package of all the whimsy! They fly around through dreams lookin' all pretty and magical like so you can bet I probably have like 20+ pages of sketches of just THIS CHARACTER. I also add 'Sega' in general because even though my Sonic the Hedgehog fanart/fancharacters (omG) didn't really contribute to my style nowadays, there was a lot of growth for me in this period specifically on creating characters. What makes a character original and not one-dimensional cookie cutter characters yadda yadda

16. Gigantic - My most recent one! Gigantic hasn't really even come out yet (still in beta, I believe) but gosh DARN!! I learnt about this game through Alexandra actually, as she works on the promo/2D art for this game. The character designs are fantastic, and all cater towards looking how the character plays! You could look at a character and easily guess what they do (without looking at the weapons) because they LOOK THE PART. I've taken so much from the character design panels and hope to learn more from Motiga in the future. Also the colors for this game HOT DAMN.

How long have you been on DeviantArt?
I believe it was five or six years. 13-14ish
What does your username mean?
Since just "Canary" is easily taken I popped the word into a username generater and one of the results was just "ko" added to it. I thought it was simple and cute, so I went with it
Describe yourself in three words.
unorganized, awkward, gay (can you tell I'm REALLY bad at these kind of questions?)
Are you left or right handed?
Right
What was your first deviation?
July 27th 2009... *stares of into middle distance and shudders*
What is your favourite type of art to create?
Conceptual or Illustrations. Most of them are just doodles. My style is kind of combined with stylized semi-realism and anime.
If you could instantly master a different art style, what would it be?
Landscapes maybe. Yeah. I'd also REALLY like to get better at having a more dynamic style. I guess that means I just need to practice more anatomy and gesture studies.
What was your first favourite?
had to do a bit of hunting on my old account...I don't wanna go back there anYOMORE

What type of art do you tend to favourite the most?
Art of any kind! Art that inspires me, art by my favorite artists, refs, art made by fellow artists!
Who is your all-time favourite deviant artist?
Man that's tough! If not one of my influences above, then some of the artists on my 'friends' catagory
If you could meet anyone on DeviantArt in person, who would it be?
Oh gosh!! Any of my lovely watchers, really. I don't think I have anyone in mind at the moment.
How has a fellow deviant impacted your life?
MANY deviant friends throughout the years have helped me in amazing ways.
What are your preferred tools to create art?
My tablet and pens and pencils!
What is the most inspirational place for you to create art?
My room! Even more so when I can get this place to get decorative.
What is your favourite DeviantArt memory?
I believe being part of one of those community groups where you make a character and you all live in a little town. It was a little halloween themed one, and it was so much fun.

Description
(This turned out to be a monster of RAMBLINGS I'm SO SORRY)
Yes, hello! I've totally forgotten DA's birthday and I thought I'd celebrate it in a way of my own.
I've been meaning to do this meme for quite sometime, but never got around to it. Even with all the work I have to do as of late I thought now that it's DA's birthday and it seems to center around the growth of an artist so to speak, I'd put together something that reflects that!

This is my influence map. Now this contain only about 2+ hours of thought put into it, so there's a lot of things I've left out, but the things that inspired me the most throughout sticks the best in my memory, so it wasn't too hard. And in the end I think that the very most influencial stuff is needed the most so...
Here we go! (BY THE WAY IF ANY OF THE ARTISTS DO NOT WISH TO HAVE THEIR ART UP HERE, I'LL GLADLY REMOVE IT PLEASE LET ME KNOW...CEPT ALPHONSE MUCHA...REST IN PEACE, SIR.)

1. Kingdom Hearts - Kingdom Hearts is neither the first, nor most recent influence, but it's the one I thought of first before all the others. Kingdom Hearts has an aesthetic that I will always cherish. For me it combined some of the timeless, whimsical elements that is Disney and a lot of the cool, modern, slightly darker elements that comes with anime (and everything square enix-y tbh, but I'm unfortunately not as familiar with their other titles such as FF) When I first picked up a Kingdom Hearts 2 manga at the book fair in fifth grade my tiny little kid brain was blown away by this combination. It's cheesy and it's cliche and it's confusing/awkward at times, but I adore it. I adore the 'friends are my power!!!' themes, I adore the overused 'dark vs. light' analogies, and I adore the heartwarming and soothing atmosphere these games bring. I've also adopted like eight children from these games, I feel TOO HARD for these characters.
I'm rambling, but I do that a lot with KH. The art, the atmosphere, the whimsy, the character relationships and plot themes all contribute with what my art is today. *head bangs to utada hikaru*

2. Alexandra Douglass (Lexxcercise) - Lexxy is one of my absolute favorite artists. I adore her style and I'm in love with the way she world builds in her new comic The Cloud Factory. I first heard about her through her work with Homestuck ( her art in the 'Cascade' segment) and followed her work ever since. I love how rich and beautifully textured her work is, as well has her character design and art style.

3. Ulvar - I found Ulvar through their beautiful Welcome to Nightvale fan works, finding their version of the characters my favorite. They do such marvoulous things with color and lighting and small details, I just can't get enough of it. I love the flow of their lines and the gesture they add to their characters' poses. Even their anatomy studies are just beautiful.

4. Makani - I will never, ever grow bored of looking at Makani's work. The expressions she uses in the characters she draws are some of the best I've ever seen. Her work is so expressive and has so much movement, sometimes I get lost in just scrolling through her tumblr blog looking at her sketches and comics she's done (most prominently the Legend of Korra fandom, as well as her Mass Effect works) Imagine my utter delight when I heard she worked on the Team Fortress 2 comic holy moly.

5. Claire Hummel (Shoomlah) - K, so Claire has a gorgeous style. I found her through her popular "Historically Accurate Disney Princess" series and I continue to follow her work. I love her the flow to her linework as well has the intricate detail on clothing and faces. She has an amazing eye for design and creates amazing interest to her work.

6. Sailor Moon - Sailor Moon is probably my first area of influence when it comes to drawing. I started watching it at age six when it was on cartoon network and fell in love with the beautiful transformation sequences (all magic, ribbons and haiiiir) I fell so in love with it, it inspired me to start doodling random, curvy, flowy lines in my little kindergarten journal to mimic the lines of the hair and magic and such. Aside from PPG I didn't have a lot of female superheros around me at the time that were very feminine or used femininity as a strength, not weakness. (hadn't heard of wonderwoman or other similar heroines at the time) Sailor Moon was a inspiration and a major childhood hero.

7. Alphonese Mucha - I learned about Mucha's work in my drawing and painting class in highschool. I was so inspired by the beautiful curvy shapes and elegant themes in his usual works. It spoke to me so much, and I fell in love instantly. I found the entire Art Nouveau style gorgeous and studied a lot from it. It also got me to draw other things besides people, what with his elegant drawings of furniture and other little accessories.

8. Nightwish - So nightwish is a band, but I thought it'd be cool to add a different kind of artist on here. So as a kid I was kind of into metal music. No specific bands, but my dad would play it in his car sometimes and I thought it was neat. As a kid I ALSO thought classical/symphony music was pretty neat. So when I heard symphonic metal existed I was pretty stoked. My first nightwish song was FantasMic (a disney tribute song) and I was so taken with it. There's a lot of music that inspires my art, but a lot of it comes from music like nightwish. Some of my favorite personal works were done listening to their music. It just kind of takes me to a whole other fantastical, whimsical world full of adventure, sword fighting, dragon slaying and star traveling, populated by gods and heroes.

9. David Christiana - I found David's illustrations through the Disney Fairies book series (Rani and the Mermaid Lagoon being my first one) His drawings are so soft and beautiful and capture the perfect look for a fairy book series. I used him as an inspiration for a water color art final and, while a little outdated, was something I was very proud of. He made the world of Pixie Hollow so absolutely gorgeous it made me want to live there.

10. The Legend of Zelda - A few years after my major Sailor Moon phase, I started playing video games. SSB: Melee was something I played with my brother and cousin whenever I got the chance. I played as almost all the characters at least once, but Princess Zelda most often because I loved looking at her. The first Zelda game I fell in love with was Wind Waker, being to young to be able to play the games before it. The open world-ness of it along with it's bright colors and sense of adventure had me hooked at Outset Island. The game was bright and cheery up front, but had an underlying deep, ancient feel to it. Which is something I LOVE. I

11. Disney - So DISNEY. I feel like a lot of artists are influenced by disney at some point. I'm no different. As you know by now, I was (and still AM) weak for pretty animated girls with long flowing hair, so I can still picture myself at three belting out The Little Mermaid soundtrack in the bathtub. I used to take the VHS covers of disney movies and copy them. A lot of my other influences have touches of disney in them too (*looks at kingdom hearts*) I love everything whimsical and timelessly heartwarming and that is what disney is meant to be. I used Mother Nature from Fantasia 2000 because, as you can imagine, she was a character that inspired me too. (her hAAAIRRr)

12. Neopets: The Darkest Faerie - So this one ties in a lot with LOZ. An openworld game having a great sense of adventure with a lot of magic tied into it. I was young when I started playing, so that was all magnified. It was the first game that gave me a bit of fear knowing I was alone exploring out there, even once we join up with Roberta. I mostly enjoyed the look of the faeries. We didn't get to see a lot of them, sadly, but that kind of made them a little more mysterious. I went on the neopets website and looked up all the How-To-Draw tutorials on the characters.

13. CLAMP - So in the middle of my major weeb phase, Clamp (an all female japanese manga artist group) was something I took huge inspiration from. During the very early stages of said weeb phase, I was really into the Magical Girl genre. My first introduction to Clamp was the Card Captor Sakura series, and afterwards the Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles spin-off/kind of alternate universe sequal (?) series to it. Clamp's style is is pretty and elegant, as most shoujo styles are, but something about CCS and TRS brought something a little more memorable to me, a lot more than the other magical girl shows/mangas I watched. They also had some very open minded themes on gender and sexuality that really got me thinking about those things at a young age. It was subtle, but it was obvious enough enough for an oblivious 10 year old me to pick up on. *stares loudly at fai and kurgane up there*

14. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy - So I love ancient/magical technology, and a lot of that came from this here game. I loved the little magical Eco system that was thought up here. I loved going to all the differently themed worlds that went with the Eco the different Sages represented. I loved the character designs so much! Especially the outfits. The googles and the sandles and the ears and aAAhh. I owe a lot to this game because it was the first one that made me want to *jazz hands* world build; Develop a magic system, create different dwellings with different themes, ancient sites and temples, all that good stuff.

15. NiGHTS (Sega) - NiGHTS shouldn't come as a big surprise as they (or He? I know they don't conform to gender because they're a fairy of sorts, but I know they refer to them as 'he' at some point but that could also be a japanese to english language barrier because gender neutral pronouns aren't rEALLY A THING HERE SO *TAKES BIG BREATH*) is the big package of all the whimsy! They fly around through dreams lookin' all pretty and magical like so you can bet I probably have like 20+ pages of sketches of just THIS CHARACTER. I also add 'Sega' in general because even though my Sonic the Hedgehog fanart/fancharacters (omG) didn't really contribute to my style nowadays, there was a lot of growth for me in this period specifically on creating characters. What makes a character original and not one-dimensional cookie cutter characters yadda yadda

16. Gigantic - My most recent one! Gigantic hasn't really even come out yet (still in beta, I believe) but gosh DARN!! I learnt about this game through Alexandra actually, as she works on the promo/2D art for this game. The character designs are fantastic, and all cater towards looking how the character plays! You could look at a character and easily guess what they do (without looking at the weapons) because they LOOK THE PART. I've taken so much from the character design panels and hope to learn more from Motiga in the future. Also the colors for this game HOT DAMN.

How long have you been on DeviantArt?
I believe it was five or six years. 13-14ish
What does your username mean?
Since just "Canary" is easily taken I popped the word into a username generater and one of the results was just "ko" added to it. I thought it was simple and cute, so I went with it
Describe yourself in three words.
unorganized, awkward, gay (can you tell I'm REALLY bad at these kind of questions?)
Are you left or right handed?
Right
What was your first deviation?
July 27th 2009... *stares of into middle distance and shudders*
What is your favourite type of art to create?
Conceptual or Illustrations. Most of them are just doodles. My style is kind of combined with stylized semi-realism and anime.
If you could instantly master a different art style, what would it be?
Landscapes maybe. Yeah. I'd also REALLY like to get better at having a more dynamic style. I guess that means I just need to practice more anatomy and gesture studies.
What was your first favourite?
had to do a bit of hunting on my old account...I don't wanna go back there anYOMORE

What type of art do you tend to favourite the most?
Art of any kind! Art that inspires me, art by my favorite artists, refs, art made by fellow artists!
Who is your all-time favourite deviant artist?
Man that's tough! If not one of my influences above, then some of the artists on my 'friends' catagory
If you could meet anyone on DeviantArt in person, who would it be?
Oh gosh!! Any of my lovely watchers, really. I don't think I have anyone in mind at the moment.
How has a fellow deviant impacted your life?
MANY deviant friends throughout the years have helped me in amazing ways.
What are your preferred tools to create art?
My tablet and pens and pencils!
What is the most inspirational place for you to create art?
My room! Even more so when I can get this place to get decorative.
What is your favourite DeviantArt memory?
I believe being part of one of those community groups where you make a character and you all live in a little town. It was a little halloween themed one, and it was so much fun.