Savy Leiser's Blog, page 2

Drawing Tutorial: How I Drew Wrigley's Eyes

When I illustrated Just Me, Wrigley, a lot of people told me that Wrigley's eyes were their favorite part of my illustrations. I LOVE drawing eyes. I love making eyes as detailed as possible.

So, I decided to create a tutorial of how I drew Wrigley's eyes, so that you guys could follow the process!

Check out the video below to watch the drawing process.



Please let me know if you'd like me to make other drawing tutorials in the future!

Love,
Savy

I'm Joining BookTube!

Hey, friends!

While I'm on winter break from grad school, I'm putting a ton of time into growing my YouTube channel. A big part of that has been making videos for BookTube and AuthorTube. If you're interested in videos with book reviews, writing tips, etc., consider subscribing!

Here are my intro videos for BookTube and AuthorTube! Hope you enjoy!




Love,
Savy

BOOK RELEASE DAY!

It's release day! I have now written a new-adult novel! This is amazing!!

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who helped me along the way in creating this novel-- my friends who talked about it with me back when I was trying to write it as a short story in college, my critique group partners who read over my initial drafts, all the wonderful people who participated in the countdown by sharing their perspectives on body image on this blog, and everyone who preordered back in October!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

Right now, Sculpt Yourself is currently ranked at #26 in Amazon's LGBT sci-fi genre. I hope it gets to #1-- then I can say I was a #1 bestselling author, or something like that! LOL.

If you're interested in reading Sculpt Yourself, you can get a copy of it here! It's available in both paperback and ebook. 

Let me know if you have any questions! Details about the launch party (which is going to be in January) will be coming soon!

Love,
Savy

Body Image in the LGBT+ Community: Aimee's Perspective

"Body image and sexuality/gender expression are very closely tied for me. When I entered the “questioning” phase in my senior year of high school, I channeled a lot of the distress I was feeling about my identity into my body. I struggled with binge eating disorder and had a hard time being able to feel positively about my body. I finally accepted that I was not straight as I graduated high school. Consequently, this was also a turning point in my relationship with my body; I was determined to lose weight before college because I had internalized that I couldn’t be accepted into the LGBTQ community if I was overweight. I unfortunately traded one set of unhealthy eating habits for another and restricted myself to 500 calories per day that entire summer and spent at least an hour per day on the treadmill, working out to the recently released “Born this Way” album, feeling like if I wasn’t going to be straight, I needed to lose weight and fit into perceived traditional feminine beauty ideals to “make up” for it.

While I have a healthier relationship with my gender expression and body image now, I do still struggle to manage disordered eating and keep from letting fluctuations in my weight dictate my mood and outlook on life. After being out for seven years, I have seen how inclusive the LGBTQ community can be and how one does not need to fit into a single body type or mode of expression to fit in. However, to say there are few members of the LGBTQ community who deal with discrimination due to their body type, gender identity, or gender expression is untrue. As much as people can be built up by expressing themselves honestly and fully, they can also be torn down by both those outside the LGBTQ umbrella and within it. There are several people within the LGBTQ community who don’t have the safety to present in a way that is affirming without being targeted by others.

Within the LGBTQ community, there have also historically been many words to identify people based on their body type/expression (femme, butch, androgynous, etc.). When I first came out, I felt as though I needed to cling to the “femme” label to fit in, but as I’ve grown, I’ve learned that it’s perfectly okay to not identify within any of these groupings too.  The picture I’ve chosen here also embodies a bit of my relationship with beauty standards and how I present to the world. I have a neck scar from thyroidectomy surgery two years ago, but if you try to find the scar in this photo, you won’t. While I’ve gotten used to the scar and now see it as a part of myself and my experience, at the time this photo was taken last year, I was still embarrassed about it, and I wound up photoshopping it out of the image. In the modern era, there’s a lot of ways that beauty standards can be achieved and controlled through science and technology, and I’m excited to see these topics explored more in-depth, along with their relation to queerness, within Sculpt Yourself."

- Aimee Hechler


PRIDE 2014I chose to end on this post because Aimee is one of the people I dedicated Sculpt Yourself to. Aimee is one of my best friends, and throughout the eight years we've known each other, we've bonded over sharing a lot of the same struggles with body image and how that ties to gender identity and presentation. 

Thank you so much to Aimee for sharing her perspective on this topic, and for delving into some deeper and more difficult experiences that I'm sure a lot of people can relate to.

If you are reading this post, that means that it has JUST BECOME November 2, meaning that Sculpt Yourself is now available! I'll be posting much more about it once I've gotten some sleep, but in the meantime, if you want to check it out on Amazon, you can see it here in paperback and here in ebook!

Happy Thursday night/Friday morning, depending on your time zone!

Love,
Savy

Body Image in the LGBT+ Community: Carly's Perspective

"I always thought of myself as fat. And it used to be a given for me that "fat" had a negative connotation. As an adolescent I had a severely unhealthy view of my body-- no doubt contributed to by my mother's own negative body image and, you know, society in general. Looking at old pics, it's so weird to think of how much I hated my body; I may not have been "skinny," but I was by no means as large as I felt, and certainly not enough to warrant all diets I miserable-d my way through. I always judged myself harsher than I did others (don't we all?), and I never seemed to limit my concept of beauty to the "norm" where others were concerned, so why did I box myself in so much? Now, I am far, far larger than I ever was as a kid, but I feel so much more beautiful than I ever did before. I've started appreciating my body for what it can do and how it can feel and how soft and luscious I look to myself. Now when I take pictures I don't worry about whether you can see my double chin or if that angle doesn't flatter my arms; I've decided that as long as I look happy, it's a good pic. I am beautiful. And I am fat. The two are not mutually exclusive."

-Carly Maria Hubbard
Thank you so much to Carly for this incredibly relatable post, and for contributing to the countdown for Sculpt Yourself, which explores these themes regarding body positivity and what it means to different people.

Speaking of a countdown... this book comes out TOMORROW! I am so excited to share this novel with all of you! If you're an ebook reader, you can preorder the Kindle copy here, and it will download to your device tomorrow! If you prefer physical books, you can order starting tomorrow-- I'll keep you posted!

Happy November!
Love,
Savy

Body Image in the LGBT+ Community: Chris's Perspective

"As a gay man I don't think I thought of body image or beauty until I was in my 20's because growing up I was in the closet and I didn't want to see beauty in myself or other men.

Now, after having accepted myself, and finding a man who sees beauty in me, I can see it most clearly in a man's smile and his face first. I was always attracted to faces but never realized it was because I found it to be a part of body image that maybe I was trying to hide growing up. Never looking or smiling too long at other guys."

- Christopher Smith
Chris is a fellow author; his first book, Is Choosing a Goat Like Choosing a Dog? is coming out this winter. This is a wonderful poetry collection, and I encourage everyone to check it out! You can find Chris online on his website here.

Thank you so much to Chris for sharing his perspective and for participating in the countdown to Sculpt Yourself! We've got TWO DAYS until the big release! If you want to preorder an ebook copy, you can do that here!

Happy Wednesday!

Love,
Savy

Body Image in the LGBT+ Community: Jordan's Perspective

"I think that beauty standards in the queer community are a mixed bag. On the one hand, within the queer community the standards of conventional beauty and far less narrow (in terms of fashion and gender presentation). On the other hand, there’s the added pressure to appear conventional enough for the straight world (for safety) while also appearing visibly queer enough to be accepted by the queer community. This is especially hard for bisexual people, who face stigma from both communities.

I’ve also noticed that most of the queer people I know have body image issues. Whether it’s body dysmorphia for trans/non-conforming individuals or the more common poor body image among cis people, I think the pressures of cis-straight conventional beauty are especially felt by members of the queer community who already feel like they aren’t “normal” enough to fit in. The need to be perfect in every other way in order to compensate for the supposed flaw that is my sexuality is something I’ve struggled with a lot. I’d be remiss not to mention that within the queer community there is a lot of blatant fat-shaming, racism, transphobia, and ageism, all of which is more freely expressed since people who feel that they are oppressed don’t see themselves as potential oppressors.

As a queer woman with a conventional feminine appearance and an incredibly supportive girlfriend, I still struggle with my own body image. Growing up chubby and then “blossoming” in late high school and early college (not necessarily by healthy means), I saw very clearly how differently I was treated when I was slimmer. The message I had gotten (often directly told to me by people I looked up to) that my life would be easier if I were thinner, was confirmed. Now, whenever my life feels like it’s falling apart, there’s the nagging thought that if I lose some weight everything will get better. Which is definitely not healthy, but here we are."

- Jordan Scherer
Thank you so much to Jordan for sharing her perspective on this, and for taking part in the countdown to Sculpt Yourself. This novel explores the perspectives of multiple different women, both straight women and those in the LGBT+ community, in terms of what beauty standards mean to them.
Sculpt Yourself will be available in both paperback and ebook on Friday, November 2!
Love,Savy 

Body Image in the LGBT+ Community & Sculpt Yourself Countdown

We have now entered BOOK RELEASE WEEK for me! How exciting! Sculpt Yourself  is coming out THIS FRIDAY, November 2! To celebrate the upcoming release, I thought I'd do a set of posts on this blog that deal with two of the book's major themes: body image and LGBT+ identities.

Beauty standards affect a lot of different people in many different ways-- but in some ways, they have the same effect: placing pressure on all of us to be perfect.

This week, I'm featuring different people who have been kind enough to share their perspectives on what body image has meant to them as a queer identifying person!

If you would like to be featured in this series, please comment below & we will be in touch right away!

Happy Monday!
Love,
Savy

BOOK TRAILER: Sculpt Yourself!

The trailer for Sculpt Yourself is now live!
Check it out here: 

This trailer was SO FUN for me to film! I'll probably do another post in the upcoming weeks about my filming process for this... but basically, it involved me buying 3 inexpensive dolls from Target, modifying them with paint, chalk, and tattoos, and then taking hundreds of photos of them to animate them!
Sculpt Yourself is now available for preorder on Represent Publishing's website! (representpublishing.bigcartel.com) Preorder before this Sunday if you'd like a signed copy, which I promise to write tons of cute messages in!
Hope you enjoy it!
Love,Savy

PREORDERS Start Today!

I'm so excited! My new novel is now available for preorder!

If you are interested in getting a signed copy (with a personalized message-- I like to have fun with these!), you can preorder Sculpt Yourself today on Represent Publishing's website! Books will be released officially on November 2.

If you don't know about Sculpt Yourself, it's a novel about body image, LGBT+ topics, and what it means to be a feminist in the 21st century. You can check it out on Goodreads here to see a full synopsis!

Let me know if you have any questions! Book trailer releases on Friday!

Happy Tuesday!

Love,
Savy