bento #22: Farm bento left side
December 30, 2008
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - original Tags: animals
5 comments
This is the second part of my “Farm bento.” I’m going to write about the left side of the bento.
Bento#22: Farm bento left side
Created and eaten on: 11/09/2008
Click to continue reading "bento #22: Farm bento left side"
bento sketch book #1
December 28, 2008
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - bento sketches Tags: sketches
9 comments
It’s Sunday! but since it’s holiday season and all, no how-to today… Sorry!
But instead, I’m going to post some of the sketches I’ve done for my bento. If you compare the sketches and finished bento, you can see what I intended to do but couldn’t do.
Before I started doing sketches for bento, I kind of just filled the bento box as I made it, and it was so hard to do.
Half of the time, I didn’t know which food I’d be using until that morning. Also I’d often just throw food in to fill spaces. It was frustrating and the results didn’t please me at all… So I started drawing sketches for bento.
I gotta tell you, these sketches help a LOT. The rectangular shape is the same size as the bottom part of bento box, so I know how big the characters should be. (I still make characters a little too big though) I write down what color each character & decoration is, what kind of food I’ll be using, and what order I’ll put it together, etc… Unfortunately, almost all notes are in Japanese, but you get the idea.
I’ll post the sketches from bento “Spirited Away bento” up to “Bento #22 Farm bento” today. I’ll post more sketches in the future.
Sorry for a loooong post. I got a new laptop, and I haven’t installed photoshop yet, so I can’t do side-by-side comparison. (Click on any pictures to see bigger pictures on my flickr account.)
Bento #12: Spirited Away!
Originally, Kaonashi was supposed to be in the bento, but BouNezumi and Haedori got a little too big and my boyfriend wanted four meat balls, so I decided not to make him in the last minute.
Bento #13: God Warrior vs Ohmu Stampede from Nausicaa!
I was going to put the little Ohmu (which Nausicaa rescued) in front of God Warrior, but I made other Ohmu a little bigger than I had planned, so I ended up not putting him in.
Bento #14: Katamari Damacy!
Sorry this sketch doesn’t look exactly as exciting as the bento… but the long list on the left side is the list of the ideas of food I had planned to make. (in Japanese) I didn’t make all of them though. Also I was going to make “Katamari meter” (it tells you how big your katamari is) on the left upper corner, but it didn’t fit. 
Bento #15: Super Smash Bros. Brawl!
The sketch is pretty much like the final bento. I added more stars in in the end because the background looked a little lonely.
Bento #16: Sleeping Totoro!
After I drew Totoro, I decided to place Totoro diagonally in the bento box. Also I was going to put 2-D Mei on his stomach, but since I Totoro was very 3-D, I didn’t think it’d fit well in this bento. (Besides, I don’t like putting human characters in my bento too much.)
Non-bento #2: Shadow of the Colossus Cheese Toast!
This is a copy of the actual sketch. I traced the original sketch before I used it to cut seaweed, so I’d have a backup even if I messed it up. Scanner? Printer? No, I traced it with a pencil. I’m old-school like that. 
Bento #17: Laputa Robot with Fox Squirrel!
I actually did more detailed sketch of Laputa Robot on a different page on my sketchbook, but haven’t scanned it yet.
Bento #18: Jiji from Kiki’s Delivery Service!
I was going to put a broom on the left side of Jiji, but I ran out of time. T_T
Bento #19: Professor Layton!
I had to make sure you could actually do the puzzle in this bento. Each food got a slightly bigger in the actual bento, but it was still very solvable!
Bento #20: Portal Companion Cube & Cake!
Notice that Turrets have slits in the drawing?
Bento #21: Bioshock Big Daddy & Little sister!
The alphabet letters are for each color/food. A = gray (rice and black sesame seed), B = redish brown (hamburg), C = orangish brown (fried potato), D = gray (konnyaku). I was going to make the drill with different food (konnyaku) at first, but I ended up using rice w/ black sesame seed because it looked pretty good.
And as you can see in the drawing, I really wanted to put the flying security bot…
Bento #22: Farm bento!
No big difference between the sketch and the final bento. I didn’t realize that I had written down the recipe for Soboro (ground beef cooked with soy sauce, sake and sugar) on the right bottom corner.
For bigger pictures of my sketches, visit Bento Sketches! on my flickr page.
For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.
bento #22: Farm bento right side
December 27, 2008
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog - original Tags: animals
3 comments
Whenever I make bento for my boyfriend, he’d show it to his friends at work and upload the pictures of bento on his flickr account and show it to other friends. One day, a friend of my boyfriend told him about a lunch box contest. I wasn’t that interested in the prizes, since they were a heavy duty lunch box and a rice cooker (I only use the same take-out plastic container, and I’m happy with my rice cooker), but I thought it’d be a nice challenge to make an original kyaraben.
Bento#22 : Farm bento Right Side
Created and eaten on: 11/09/2008
Since this bento spanned two bento boxes, I’ll do two posts about this bento. And today’s post is about the right side of the bento.
Click to continue reading "bento #22: Farm bento right side"
bento #21: BioShock Big Daddy & Little Sister
December 25, 2008
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - video game Tags: Big Daddy, BioShock, Little Sister
4 comments
After my Portal bento, I wanted to get the game hype out of my system! While I was looking at my boyfriend’s and my game collection, I remembered that when I made my Jiji bento, I realized how bendy and strong gobo (burdock root) was. So I decided to try something very different for this bento.
Bento#21: BioShock Big Daddy & Little Sister
Created and eaten on: 11/07/2008
Click to continue reading "bento #21: BioShock Big Daddy & Little Sister"
bento #20: Portal
December 23, 2008
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - video game Tags: Companion Cube, Portal
12 comments
After Professor Layton, I was still in the mood for making game bento.
I had many ideas for game bento, but they weren’t “finalized” yet… But I couldn’t sit on them forever, so I decided to try what I’d been wanting to make for a very long time.
Bento #20: Portal
Created and eaten on: 11/06/2008
Click to continue reading "bento #20: Portal"
How to make a Wall-E sandwich
December 21, 2008
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - characters (Ghibli, video game, Wall-E) Tags: how-to (all), Wall-E
31 comments
EDIT: Before you read the How to make a Wall-E sandwich…
I’ve discovered that some people posted the entire page of How to make a Wall-E sandwich on their website/blog. I’m glad that they felt the urge to spread the joy of Wall-E sandwich to others, and I’m sure they didn’t mean any harm, but I spend a long time making & writing this how-to’s with my boyfriend. I don’t have problem anyone blogging about my bento using the pictures, but when you do, please make sure you properly credit it with a link to my site. I don’t like asking people to remove posts from their blog and I do not want to stop doing this either… Thank you.- Anna
After my Wall-E bento hit the internet, things got a little crazy. Now Wall-E’s view count on my boyfriend’s flickr is more than 85400! Seems like a lot of them have never seen kyaraben before, and I was happy that they got to know about it. Every time someone leaves a comment like “I want to make this for my kids/husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend!”, it makes me glad that I made it. At the same time it makes me want to teach them how, because I think making your loved one happy is what kyaraben is about. I’ve been wanting to do “how to make Wall-E bento”, but my original Wall-E bento had a lot of Asian ingredients, and I wasn’t sure if everyone could get all those ingredients. (such as seaweed, kamaboko, and konnyaku) So I decided to make Wall-E with a sandwich!
This one is super simple and easy. I’m sure you can add tons of details to it and make it more Wall-E like. But as long as he has the box body, treads and the sad eyes, he’ll be Wall-E enough! (Hopefully…)
[How to make a Wall-E sandwich]
- Four slices of whole wheat bread
- Turkey & mayonnaise (or ham, or peanut butter, whatever you want!)
- American cheese singles
- Blueberry
Click to continue reading "How to make a Wall-E sandwich"
How to dye eggs naturally
December 21, 2008
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - fundamentals Tags: dye, egg, how-to (all)
11 comments
I wrote in the Professor Layton bento post that the color blue is kind of a taboo color in the kyaraben world. In Japan, kyaraben are mostly for kids, and many moms try their best not to use food coloring in bento.
Any processed food contains food coloring, and I don’t freak out about it. I wanted to use minimal food coloring in my bento, so I looked for ways to dye food naturally.
[How to dye an egg naturally]
[Yellow]
- curry powder or turmeric
[Pink]
- purple cabbage
- vinegar
[Light blue]
- purple cabbage
Click to continue reading "How to dye eggs naturally"
How to dye rice naturally
December 21, 2008
Posted by AnnaTheRed in how-to (all), how-to - decorations Tags: dye rice, how-to (all)
6 comments
Well it’s not really “dyeing” rice, more like how to change the color of rice for your bento.
I use these methods a lot to make Totoro, or backgrounds with rice. It’s not much, but since rice is white, changing the color of rice can make a quite difference in your bento.
[How to dye rice gray-ish] (used in “Sleeping Totoro”, etc…)
- rice
- black sesame seed (with a sesame seed grinder or mortar and pestle)
- salt
Click to continue reading "How to dye rice naturally"
bento #19: Professor Layton
December 20, 2008
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - video game Tags: DS game, Professor Layton
4 comments
My boyfriend loves puzzle games. Simple one like Tetris, Picross, Meteos, Sudoku, etc… So there’s no surprise that he likes Professor Layton. I, on the other hand, am not that good at puzzle games. So I found out about Professor Layton (before the U.S. release) I just checked out the official Japanese site, and that was it. Even after it came out in the U.S., I wasn’t really going to buy it, because I’d rather play a puzzle game in Japanese than in English. But one day, my boyfriend lent me Professor Layton and I was hooked.
Bento#19: Professor Layton
Created and eaten on: 11/03/2008
"This reminds me of a puzzle..."
Click to continue reading "bento #19: Professor Layton"
bento #18: Jjij from Kiki’s Delivery Service
December 18, 2008
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - ghibli (totoro, etc...) Tags: jiji, kiki's delivery service, studio ghibli
4 comments
This was one of those Ghibli characters I always thought about making but I just never did. The one that looks so easy to make. Maybe it’s even too easy… And that was why I never thought it’d be a challenge.
Bento#18: Jiji from Kiki’s Delivery Service
Created and eaten on: 10/30/2008
Click to continue reading "bento #18: Jjij from Kiki’s Delivery Service"
