If I watch a TV show enough times I'm going to start doing fan art // My Best Drawings from Nov. 2025 ~ Feb. 2026

Hello, my fellow creatives!

What is happening on Movies Meet Their Match today is I'm departing from my usual content of words and instead sharing how I've been swallowed by the multiverse of fan art. 

It all started with challenging myself to do Inktober in 2025 and after that...I just kept drawing? And my subjects continued to be from movies and TV shows, so I thought I'd see what you guys think! I've drawn a lot of bad drawings, but today I'm showing the best from the last four months.

I'm not trained as an artist in anyway, this is just a huge hobby for me and posting them here gives me a chance to analyze what I did right and wrong and how I can grow in the future. If there's something I'm even more under qualified for being than an artist, it's a photographer, so please excuse my poor attempts at photos. I edited the pictures to the best of my ability and discovered that it's much more complicated than taking photos of ink drawings to try to keep all of the shading visible.

These are in mostly chronological order so my progression can be shown, and there aren't spoilers as all of these shots are out of context. I hope you enjoy!

Robin Hood (2006-2009 BBC series)

It all started with me rewatching Robin Hood in November. You see, because this is my...9th rewatch? I've lost count. Because it's a little obsessive I only allowed myself to watch if I drew something from every episode. I've done 12 episodes, but here are some of my favorites.

(I can't show my drawings of Roy and Will because the eyes were off enough that it made the whole thing look wrong, and then my drawing of Djaq got smudgy. One of Little John was pretty fun, but it's my multiple drawings of Marian that show who's my favorite character).

The one in which I had a mental crisis about how to draw an arrow. I had to redo Marian's eyes so. many. times. but it was worth it because everything finally clicked into place. Robin looks a little like an old man...

Usually I'm trying to go for as realistic as possible, but this was fun to take a more cartoon-character approach for Much.

It was sooooooo satisfying to get Guy's smirk. I had to improvise with the arms a bit because they weren't included in my reference photo but I think they turned out okay despite my multitude of shading techniques.

Let It Snow (2019)

This is what launched me into doing characters from whatever I most recently watched; my sister had recently shown me Let It Snow, and while I didn't love it, I thought the Duke was adorable so I decided to draw her. The drawing looks more like me than Angie, but for a quick sketch it makes me happy.

The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017)

I did quite a few drawings with the bubble text, haha. Christopher Plummer is very photogenic and therefore...drawing-genic? Draw-able? I should also draw him when he's younger, a la The Sound of Music.

Wednesday (2022- )

I was coming down off the high from season 2 (was? I still am) and that got channelled into my drawings. If sharing my drawings turns into a regular blog series, expect to see many more from this show!

I started rewatching with my sister and we paused right on this scene when she left for a moment so I started drawing while I waited. As you do. Again, it has more of a cartoon/animated approach and I like how it turned out, even with the accentuated shadows.

The jacket was oodles of fun to do. I've found I love pencil drawings because my favorite part is smearing things.

True Beauty (2020)

Every once in a while I chicken out of drawing people's faces, especially if there are so many of them, but outlines are just as much fun to do. This is a reminder that I should do more from k-dramas...

The Sandlot (1993)

I couldn't get the baseball cap right, but I'm really happy with everything else. Benny has such intense looks when he's concentrating and I imagine I look about the same when I'm drawing.

K-Pop Demon Hunters (2025)

Guess who watched the animated phenomenon and is OBSESSED. There's a little color in this one because I was playing around with my colored pencils to make a Honmoon effect, but it didn't turn out in the photo. I usually don't like drawing animated characters because I compare it too much to how it "should" look, but this one was a BLAST. 

Meine teuflisch gute Freundin [How to Be Really Bad] (2018)

I drew not one, but TWO drawings from this movie. And both of them are of Lilith because I love her and her hair. While the other one is technically a better drawing, it doesn't look like her? Maybe it doesn't have her devilish attitude.

Only after I did all the editing of the photo did I realize the weird shadow in the corner, so please ignore it and "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

Sense & Sensibility (1995)

In which I learned that regency bonnets are delightful to draw.

For the majority of the time I was drawing this, it didn't look like Marianne and it was annoying me. Then I erased one line around her eye and like magic everything worked out. An eraser is just as important as a pencil!

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Hence my opening gif. I don't even like this movie, but Michelle Yeo is gorgeous so I wanted to draw her. I'm not quite satisfied with how I captured her, but I liked how I started shifting away from my reference photo by adding my own swirls, mirroring the crazy things that can happen in this film.

Merlin (2008-2012)

To finish out this time period, the last drawings are from my rewatch of Merlin. These are from season 4, and I did one of Arthur which was pretty cool with the exception of his eyes. Eyes can make or break an entire drawing. So I think I'm going to redo it a bit and maybe post it another time.

There's a weird tilt to his head which I didn't catch until I wrote the words, otherwise I would've maybe fixed it. The opening lines fit perfectly and that was really satisfying because I didn't plan it out that way at all, I was just inspired by "on the shoulders" line.

These two are barely in the show but are some of my favorite characters. I used two different reference photos to put them together and only halfway through doing Tristan (after Isolde was already complete) did I realize that the shadows for the two pictures were from different angles. I think I sort of made it work, but that's something to definitely watch for in the future if I do another collage-type drawing.

There you have it, those are my recent sketches! What do you guys think? Which ones are your favorites (I think mine is Tristan and Isolde or Benny or Huntrix or...I can't decide)? Do you love smearing things as much as I do when it comes to pencil shading? Any drawing tips? What should I draw next? Which TV show should become my new obsession?? 

Catch ya next time!

Chloe the MovieCritic

Chloe out.

[All drawings by Chloe 2025 and 2026, not to be reused anywhere except on Movies Meet Their Match]

The Oddly Specific Things I Love in Books Tag // ingredients, chess, and mishaps...what could possibly go wrong?

Hello, friends!

I wanted to get one more post in before the end of February and tags just so happen to be the perfect thing for that, and the lovely Sarah Seele has provided exactly what I needed!

Oddly Specific Things I Love in Books Tag:

The Rules:

1. Link back to the tagger: who for me was the delightful Sarah Seele! 
2. Share the graphic on your blog.
3. Share the outline on your post.
4. Share a detail you love about the season of summer into fall: below!
5. List at least 7 random/specific things YOU love to read about in books, big or small.
6. Tag 7 people! 

Seeing as how I was tagged for this in November, one would think that I'd have ample time to make observations about such specific things I love to read about. One would be correct, but I also did not write those things down...so they are lost in the abyss of my mind. So I've started over, documenting everything this time, which resulted in this post.

This year I've been in a very big reading slump and have so far not finished a single book, which grieves me deeply, but I hope this will get me back into it! I've tended recently to live in movies more than literature so let's break out of that!

Maybe I should hide what I'm reading in a magazine.

My Favorite Thing about Summer into Fall:

The month of September seems to last longer than any other month, filled with celebrations and cooling days and work which fills and fulfills the days.

The Oddly Specific Things:

1. First person, present tense 

This is my absolute favorite way to experience a story: to be inserted directly into what is happening to the character and ready for action! It feels so personal and intimate as we are experiencing things the moment that the character is and we get to see their immediate reactions.

We get to read their thoughts and ponderings and sense that the past is lurking under the surface as it slowly is revealed.

It's just solid. 'Nuff said.

2. A quest with a long list of ingredients

A cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow sorry, that's a movie.

My face when I see what the next step to take is.

While the quest for The One Thing is fun, I like when there are steps. Such as finding ingredients for a potion; this is what got me barreling through the first two Land of Stories books, The Wishing Spell and The Enchantress Returns. My younger sister thought they were boring/predictable, oh the horror! But I like making lists and then being able to check things off, so even if some of the items seem obvious then it's in a way that says "look, we know this one it will be easy!" (though it seldom is) that puts me at ease even if the end stakes are higher.

Or if it's not ingredients to get, I also love rules to follow (see below for me being the rule follower) and this can show how far off track the story has gotten, which is delicious. The Narnia book that I've read the most, The Silver Chair, does this excellently.

This doesn't have to be fantasy either, as The Q - by Beth Brower uses a list so well, and changes the stakes even more by not telling the reader what the list is. 

3. Chapters that are just a couple of sentences

A great way to highlight something notable happening.

All the Crooked Saints - by Maggie Stiefvater does this in chapter 5 and I remember that it's chapter 5 because it makes an IMPACT. I have read books with some terribly long chapters *glares at The Count of Monte Cristo* and usually I wish there could be a little break.

Because, you see, I'm a rule follower (lawful neutral for the win) and it feels like I'm breaking a rule if I just stop at a random spot on a page. I'll do it from time to time, but it always makes me feel like I've committed a faux pas. It also depends on how much I respect the book because on books that I don't like I don't really mind doing it.

I just quit reading a book (which I will return to one day) which in addition to having loooooong chapters, had loooooooooooooooooong paragraphs that would go on for PAGES and that also stressed me out, because worse than stopping in the middle of a chapter is stopping the middle of a PARAGRAPH. Unimaginable. But I had to do it many times.

This isn't to say long chapters don't work! North & South - by Elisabeth Gaskell has some long chapters and there was one that I read in a single sitting that to this day that was the most focused I've ever been in my life. I was locked in. I just really really like when a big thing is highlighted by having its own brief chapter. It makes me happy and also satisfied because I just read a whole chapter.

4. Characters with names that either speak to their personality and they are struggling to live up to

As a writer, every single one of my characters has a name for a reason, and while it can be an obvious ploy, I love it. If every one was like this that could be intense, but a couple of my favorites include:

• Hercules Beal from The Labors of Hercules Beal - by Gary D. Schmidt: the book is about Herc grappling with his namesake as he tries to do homework assignments that mimic the Greek legends. Herc is PRECIOUS and so much greater than the original Hercules in terms of heart.

• Wren from Wild Bird - by Wendelin Van Draanen: I just LOVE how this title is then directly referring to Wren. She hates the name and doesn't want to feel like a delicate little bird but is learning how to take flight herself. I looooooove this book (my computer is probably not loving my excessive use of the "o" key tonight so if words start to be missing it that means my computer has given up) and the challenges she goes through are inspiring.

• Stanley Yelnats III from Holes - by Louis Sachar: Our protagonist Stanley is always cursing his ancestor who got him into this mess (being unlucky due to being a no good pig stealer), which happened to be the first person who thought of naming a Yelnats child Stanley because Stanley is Yelnats backwards. The book is about him not just following in his family's footsteps as he breaks the mold while breaking ground. Literally.

• Ulysses from Flora and Ulysses - by Kate DiCamillo: Ulysses is a squirrel, but he feels that his name makes him invincible.

Then I have a couple whose names are spoilers which is also fun and brilliant, because all of a sudden they live up to their name and so it is revealed and ACK good times.

If you're my favorite character, you're not invisible to me!

5. Characters getting themselves into lighthearted mishaps

My sister and I were talking about morally grey characters yesterday on the phone and I've decided that I don't like the traditional literary examples of morally grey characters where they just mope around and find temporary people to fill the void before throwing them away like a used tissue.

What all these characters claim to be doing...

Instead, I love characters who are grappling with conflicts. Or I especially love characters who get in trouble from doing well meaning things...just not thought through. Characters who are trying their best but making bad decisions.

Anne Shirley, of Anne of Green Gables fame, is the QUEEN of this and one of the reasons I read those books again and again. Dying hair, falling through roofs, making questionable food and drink, she does it all. As it is, my moping looks a lot different than the literary works, and I'm instead more likely to get myself into ridiculous situations.

Just the other day I had this WHOLE thing with my boss's car and how her dog wouldn't get out but I needed to go pick up a lady and---

And you guys probably don't need to hear all of that. Just read some Anne of Green Gables or Hercules Beal for things right up this same alley. Some people might say that's what sitcoms are made out of, and that's true, but I don't need to see it on a screen, I can just read it on the pages of some of my favorite books.

Especially because I sympathize with these precious souls because I had (*cough* have) a fear of getting in trouble when I was little which usually led me to do crazy things and then--you guessed it--get in trouble. I love to see the way characters rely on their friends to help them get out of these situations, too!

6. Math and/or chess

What can I say, I'm a nerd at heart? Even in my studies of math I couldn't leave chess out of the picture. I'm addicted to Alice Through the Looking Glass. Including chess or math elements will make me remember a book when i would otherwise have forgotten it, as even though I didn't like Everything, Everything - by Nicola Yoon I still think of it by "life was explained through math!" It made me smile.

Then there's the precious Doug Swieteck in Okay For Now - by Gary D. Schmidt who lists out the stats for everything. Or Harriet Manners in Geek Girl - by Holly Smalle drifts into math tidbits every once in a while in the mix of her other adorably geeky knowledge base.

Math can be an element in movies, too, but it often feels like just the technical jargon that people use to wave their hands and just say that it works. Meanwhile, in books I've seen it used as more introspection and subtle commentary on how the word fits together. It just happened in the audiobook that I'm listening to and I was squealing for joy. Which the people who encouraged me to read this book, including Sarah Seele, should be happy to hear. Chess is more successful in movies, but when they had the ultimate opportunity to give Alice Through the Looking Glass justice they made it about time?? Time?? Where is my chess??

7. An ode to stories

This happens in movies, too (as mentioned in my last review), but it feels especially meta when you're reading a book talking about how books are life-changing and how stories are an essential part of our being.

This can happen if there's a story within a story, and some books that do that excellently are My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry - by Fredrik Backman and The Forgotten Magic of Zoey Turner - by Erin Stewart.

Likewise having a character who is a writer is a joy. Jane Penderwick from The Penderwicks - by Jeanie Birdsall made me want to be a writer, so that's the power words have.

Those are the oddly specific things I love! I'm curious about what these people love, so I'm tagging:

- Katie Hanna of I'm Charles Baker Harris (and I can read)

- Olivia of Meanwhile in Rivendell

- Sally of 18 Cinema Lane

- Heidi of Along the Brandywine

- Samanthawise Gamgee of Bookshire

- Sam the Library Mouse

- and YOU! If you're reading this, feel free to steal it!

Thanks for reading! When have you encountered these oddly specific things? Do you like them? Where can I find more chess? Do you think lists make a story predictable?

Chloe the MovieCritic

Inklings // January 2026

Hello, friends!

Today the Olympics are ending, which is super sad, but to console myself I'm participating in Heidi's monthly link-up, Inklings!

How it works:

1. At any time during the month, on your own blog post a scene from a book or film that matches the prompt, including a link back to Heidi's blog in your post.

2. Make sure to come back and leave a link to your entry in the box on that month's post: Heidi's post for January 2026.

This month's prompt is:

A scene with a horse in book or film

I struggled a lot with filling this prompt! That's because I've seen a lot of "horse movies"---which is a genre in and of itself---so would start thinking of a scene with a horse, but then it would devolve in me thinking about the entire movie.

I had to keep reminding myself that it doesn't have to be a movie, even though that tends to be my focus here at Movies Meet Their Match. 

AND THEN, just like for the October 2025 Inklings, the audiobook that I am currently listening to supplied the answer. 

The scene that I'm looking at is from Return of the Thief - by Megan Whalen Turner, the 6th book in the Queen's Thief series.

There are even a couple of horses on the cover!

Some of the fans would say one shouldn't say ANYTHING about any of the books to someone who hasn't read them. And that's fair! I just thought it was an amusing little episode that could be enjoyed both by those who have read it and those who haven't. I've made this as spoiler-free on my end as possible, but if you don't want to know a single scene beforehand, I get it! This scene is about 3 hours in to an 11 hour long audiobook and is kind of its own thing, not needing the context of the previous books.

Also, apologies for misspellings of names and odd paragraph formatting. I'm typing this up going off of what I can hear the audiobook saying and am doing my best to guess where one sentence/paragraph ends and a new one begins.

 

"The beautiful war horse...was as indolent as he was handsome...naming him Frist, after the Braile god of winter and Frist appeared determined not to live up to fierceness of his name. Built like a marble temple on legs, he was as placid as the king was excitable and preferred going around obstacles instead of over them. Or, better yet, not going at all. Given any opportunity to stand still, he did. 

'Faster, your Majesty!' called the stable master. 'Faster!'

Too late.

Frist balks at the fence the king wanted him to jump. When he stops dead, the king sailed over the fence into the dirt on the other side of it. The queen looked up briefly before returning to her embroidery.

Lying on the ground, the king shouted, "I think I've broken something!"

"Nothing important, I'm sure," she called back.

"My pride!"

She laughed.

He got very nimbly back to his feet to glare over the fence. When he leapt back onto Frist, the king drove him in a circle to try the jump again. This time, when the horse balked the king flew even higher into the air. Frist's head went down and the king went up, rotating in mid-air to land upright, flourishing his arms like an acrobat jumping a bull.

The queen clapped, the king bowed, and Frist flicked his ears, looking interested for the first time that day."

I just love the description of Frist as "built like a marble temple on legs!" 

Thanks to Heidi for hosting and thanks to all of you for reading! What are some of your favorite "horse movies?" Do you have a scene you can pinpoint as a favorite or do you just think of the whole film? Has an audiobook ever solved a problem for you? Have any of you read The Queen's Thief series? It's taken me almost 3 years to get through them all, but I'm so close!

Until next time, don't get thrown from any horses!

Chloe the MovieCritic

Movie Review: Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)

Fee-fi-fo-fum, the time to talk about tall tales has begun!

A trend for fantasy movies in the early 2010s was to embrace a darker and grittier version of well known fairy tales. Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) and Maleficent (2014) were two popular examples, but sandwiched between them was another entry in this sub-genre that had hopes for being killer. So let's see if, as folks say nowadays, it "slayed."

Spoiler warning: This movie follows the basic outline of the fairytales Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack the Giant Killer and as those are relatively well known in their outcomes, I'll reference those more than I usually do when talking about the endings of movies in my reviews. As for the unique elements of this film, I'll talk about some details but leave how it actually turns out a surprise for you!

Jack the Giant Slayer (2013):

Premise: Jack is a big dreamer, having developed a love of reading from a young age by the stories his father read to him. Unfortunately, dreaming doesn't create food for one to eat, so Jack's uncle sends him to market to start selling some of their belongings. However, the legends about giants may have an element of truth, and evil Lord Roderick is looking for the way to the skies, and that way falls right into Jack's hands: magic beans. Meanwhile, Princess Isabelle keeps trying to escape her arranged marriage, much to the chagrin of Elmont, the captain of the guard assigned to keeping her safe. Both Isabelle and Jack are thrown into a bigger adventure in the sky as they try to get home before a clash between the worlds is created.

Genre(s): Fantasy, Fairytale retelling, Adventure.

Length: approx. 114 minutes.

Age Range: It's rated PG-13 for some intense violence, usually in the form of CGI/fantasy brutality rather than one on one combat.

Crew: Directed by: Bryan Singer. Produced by: Neal H. Moritz, David Dobkin, Bryan Singer, Patrick McCormick, & Ori Marmur. Written by: Darren Lemke, Christopher McQuarrie, Dan Studney, & David Dobkin. Music by: John Ottman.

Starring: Nicholas Holt, Eleanor Tomlinson, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, Bill Nighy, Ewan McGregor, Eddie Marsan, Ralph Brown, John Kassir, and Cornell John, Andrew Brooke, Angus Barnet, and Ben Daniels (credited as giants with the names Fee, Fye, Foe, and Fumm, which I appreciate).

General Thoughts:

This movie is relatively unknown as compared to others in this sub-genre, and I think it suffers most from critics due to the quality of the CGI. The visuals were laughably bad, which makes the violence (which, warning, includes popping eyeballs and skewered tongues) all the more eyebrow raising because THIS is what they came up with? For me drags the movie down a little but to give it some credit, there is also motion capture involved not just computer simulations. Battle choices aside, what impacts the quality the most is in the design of the giants. All of the giants are purposefully made to be grotesque and unnatural, when I feel like it could very well have just been made with people and special effects or makeup.

Comparatively, Snoke is a masterpiece.

It makes me wonder if making the giants look as gruesome as possible is an attempt to compensate for the body counts later, because the viewers surely wouldn't care! It's their comeuppance! In a fantasy world it is typical to make an us vs. them (see the orcs in Tolkien's work), but here it lacks nuance. I would've liked to see the fairy tale element of one outside the norm, i.e. one of the giants helping the little people out. In fact, the original tale is marked by the compassion of the giant's wife who helps Jack hide but there is no such show of heart for these giants in the sky. It did feel like it was missing something (maybe the Bechdel test?); making everyone bad or good and not have any grey area feels a little lazy. Maybe I'm used to Big Friendly Giants, but it rubbed me a little wrong.

This isn't to say I don't like the movie! I'll talk about what I liked it a minute, and it will show how the rest of my nitpicks made me go "huh" but didn't really change my enjoyment of it. 

The script isn't anything spectacular, as it has some cliches, but those can also be seen as part of the fairy tale genre that starts ("Once upon a time...") and ends ("happily ever after") almost every story the same way. The film walks the line between being serious and being tongue-in-cheek so I think it would've been more successful if it had picked a lane? But success is overrated, as I vibed with the nonchalant yet adventurous attitude, which felt apropos of fairy tales, even if it was unconventional in the movie sphere.

I'm not sure if it would go as far as being called plot holes, but I definitely have questions about how the magic works in this land because it seems conditional; I counted the beans getting wet many more times than the plot counted them getting wet. That is, if this even is a different kingdom, as suddenly--with a jolt--we were England? I don't know if they ever considered a sequel, but there was some potential through some loose threads that didn't get wrapped up. If they had considered a continuation, it would've been fun to see even more classic fairy tales included!

Now to talk about what I liked, it's time to mention the blog party this is for!

For the blogathon: 

This review is my last contribution to Hamlette's We Love Fairy Tales Week!

My favorite part of this film is that it is an ode to storytelling and fairy tales themselves, as both our young protagonists grew up listening to and believing in fairy tales. While that is frowned upon at first by others as a foolish pastime, it is their creativity and ingenuity that was nurtured by these stories that helps them to solve problems and get out of sticky situations.

This is a combination of two fairy tales: Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack the Giant Killer.  For an adaptation, they did a good job of keeping enough of the elements so the story feels familiar and comfortable, but also adding in new plots and goals to keep the viewer wanting more. They introduced and developed characters to make it suitable for a 2 hour format, and I'll always be won over by in-depth characters.

I relate to Jack and his tendency to dream, as shown by my frequent daydreaming when I should've been writing this post that I said I would over a month ago...

Jack was sweet and I liked how he was clever and just distracted at times. The scene where Isabelle is blaming herself and Jack totally reshapes her perspective was darling. 

There's a bit of a romance, which makes my reviewing this on Valentine's Day appropriate. 

This film's biggest asset is the cast because you can tell they are all having so much fun. They take their roles seriously, but in a way that is also lighthearted? I can't really describe the attitude, but it's a fun time.

Evil Stanley Tucci played up the villain role to the max. I also really liked Eddie Marson as Crawe, the second in command for Elmont as well as Ewen Bremner as Wicke, the minion to Lord Roderick. I love a good sidekick and I thought they played their opposing archetypes with the right amounts of camp.

Warwick Davis has a cameo which was a delight but also not enough! I wanted more because it was great fun contrast for telling a story about giants.

The whole cast pulls its weight and at times I thought "why are we focusing on Jack!?" when I was equally intrigued by what was happening to the other characters and I had to remind myself that he is indeed the titular character, so it checks out.

Though, if it was up to me, this movie would be about my favorite, favorite, FAVORITE, character, Elmont. He had the exact right amount of snark, loyalty, and energy. He was brilliant and along for the ride. As a bonus, Ewan McGregor just looks like he's having the time of his life. So I can count this a Valentine's Day movie for me watching him.

Thanks to Hamlette for hosting this blog party! Check out the wrap-up post for the blog party to make sure you didn't miss out on any of the entries.

What do you guys think of this sub-genre of gritty fantasy fairy tales? Do you have a favorite "ode to storytelling"? Who are some of your favorite characters who are not the main character? Do you think there should be some nuance for fairy tale creatures? What fairy tales could you see connected to this one in a sequel?

Thank you for reading and happy Valentine's Day!

Chloe the MovieCritic