Elena Castillo Flores - Blog Posts

I felt like this was relatable

When the world comes crashing down at your feet

It’s okay to let others help pick up the pieces

If we’re present to take part in your happiness

When your circumstances are great

We are more than capable

Of sharing your pain

~Rupi Kaur

I think that one moment in "Now's Our Chance" where their foreheads touch is really sweet.

Soooo I saw you're taking requests for mini fanfics 👀 Could I request something with Elena and Skylar? I really love their friendship :>

  “¡Hola Reina!”

 Elena knew that voice, she looked up from the scroll she'd been reading. “Hi Skylar-” But the words were cut off with a gasp. Instead of the blue and gold macaw jaguar she expected to see, before her stood a somewhat shaggy looking fellow with dark hair, bright eyes, and a golden & blue outfit. 

  “Wait, Skylar is that you!?” She exclaimed. 

 He shrugged his shoulders, looking around. “Skylar, who's Skylar? I'm uhh, Tylar, yeah, Tylar the totally normal human!” But the goofy grin on his face betrayed his attempt at a prank. 

 Elena leaned forward “Really? Hmmmmm, you certainly sound like him...are you SURE you're not Skylar?”

  “Oh, come on I didn't recognize YOU when you were a jaquin!”

  “Ha, well you still gave me a shock!” she replied, getting up from her desk, the paperwork could wait, this was important. “So, Mateo made you a human potion?”

 He nodded “Yeah, I thought that if you could have such a great time being a Jaquin, then it's only fair that I try out being a human to see how fun it was. Come on, you can show me how to do human things!”

  “Sure, I have some spare time, what kind of ‘human things' do you want to do?”

  “Well, I’ve never gone shopping before, and if we go then I can get stuff for even more human activities! I saw some really cool looking musical instruments being sold at the market. If I got one for my own, then you could teach me how to play it!”

 Elena clapped “Sounds like a plan!” They both walked out of the room and down the hall together. “The mercado gets pretty busy in the afternoon, so we better get going.”

 He smiled “Then there's no time to lose, right?” They were at the top of a staircase, but instead of taking the stairs, Skyler climbed over the banister and jumped.

  “SKYLER NO!” Yelled Elena, her fear magic kicking in and pulling him back up before he could hit the ground.

  “Whoops, I forgot humans can't fly.” he said, looking slightly shaken from the realisation. 

 Elena caught her breath, calming her dress back down to red. “Yeah, it's a pretty unfortunate part of being a human.”

  “I'll just go down the stairs the way they were meant to be.” He said, climbing onto the railing and using it to slide all the way down. Then he waved at Elena from the bottom. She shrugged and took the railing slide as well.

 A while later, Elena and Skylar were walking down the busy street, carrying over a dozen shopping bags between them. With Elena paying for the two of them, they had both gone a little bit overboard with their spending but they were having such a good time, they didn't even notice.

 Skylar pointed at the one building they hadn't visited yet. “Let’s go there!”

 “Are you sure? That’s Doña Paloma’s emporium, shopping there might be pretty intense compared to everywhere else we've been.”

 “But we're royalty, so that'll probably make things easier, right?”

 “Possibly?” She said with doubt in her voice, but Skylar was already running through the door.

  When Doña Paloma saw them both enter, she turned away from two of the other customers she had been talking with to give them her full attention. “Hello and welcome to my emporium, Queen Elena. And hello to you as well, I don't believe we've met before?”

  Elena gave a wave that was weighed down by her shopping bags. “Hola Doña Paloma, this is-”

  “I am a Prince from a distant Kingdom, and I’ve come here to do some shopping!” Said Skylar with a big smile. Elena noticed the touch of mischief in his expression.

  “A Prince!” Her eyes lit up with the light of opportunity. “Well, hello there, your majesty.” She said with a bow “You have definitely come to the right place, my store carries a grander selection than any other in the kingdom! Here let me take you on the grand tour.” She took him by the arm and led him into her store.

  “¡Gracias!” said Skylar putting down his bag before walking along beside her.

 Elena followed along behind, as she realized this may have been a bad idea.

 After what felt like hours Skylar had been shown so many interesting things that Elena had to hold him back from buying the entire store. But in the end he had selected a fair number of things to get, including a harp, an extra large bottle of paprika, and a shovel.

  “An absolutely wonderful selection, your majesty. Thank you so much for choosing to shop at my emporium.” Exclaimed Doña Paloma, personally ringing up the goods at the till.

  “You're welcome, your store is really cool! Adios!” replied Skylar once he loaded the final bag into the waggon he had also just bought and began to walk towards the door.

  “Haha, wait a minute, Your Majesty, you have forgotten to pay for those.” She reminded him with a very forced smile.

  He stopped “Oh, well I don't have any money.”

  “You don't have any money!?” She looked shocked, but she quickly regained her composure. “Ah, so I see, His Majesty doesn't carry around any money, that is wise, you wouldn't want to get robbed. So, I assume you have a line of credit you could use?”

  “What's credit?”

  “You…you don't know what credit is?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll pay for the stuff.” said Elena,

 But she ignored her “How do you not have any money or know what credit is?”

 “Well, back in my kingdom we don't need to buy anything, so it's not necessary to have any money. Honestly, I'm not even sure I understand what money is. Why is it considered valuable in the first place?”

  “You don't know what money is!? I can’t believe it; no, I refuse to believe it!” She looked personally insulted. 

  “Here Doña Paloma, this is all the money for the stuff, we’re sorry if we offended you.” She put the money on the counter “Okay, Skylar, let's go.”

  “Wait a minute, Skylar! You are that jaquin prince, aren't you? You have a lot of nerve to pull a stunt like this after what you did four months ago!”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

 She scowled at him “Really? You don't remember how you knocked over my entire display I had in front of the store. Then you said you had to leave on “royal business” before you could help clean it all up?”

  “Oh yeah.” He looked at her sheepishly “Well, in my defence I was trying to get home fast, my dad gets really grumpy when I’m late.”

  “Hmph, well, since you don't have those wings to knock things down anymore, how about you make it up to me now. I need the tops of the shelves dusted.”

 Elena stepped between the two of them, “Look, Doña Paloma, I can pay you back for any of the damages he caused.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Skylar insisted “I want to do this, it’s the responsible thing to do and I've never dusted a shelf before, could be fun!”

  “Good, you can start with that one.” Said Paloma, pointing to the nearest shelf with her fan.

 He walked confidently towards it, then turned back with a confused look “So, do I just put dust on the shelves? There's plenty of dust outside I could get, the Mercado has some really good dust.”

 Paloma smiled smugly “No, that's not quite how you do it, but I'm sure Queen Elena would be able to show you how.”

 Skyler looked at her hopefully and Elena sighed, they were probably going to be here for a while. 

I know you already voiced your opinion on Carzel (Carla x Marzel), but what’s your opinion on Elena x Marzel?

Elena x Marzel seems cute. They're both stubborn, they both love their families, and they both are learning how to be good rulers and doing a pretty good job so far. All the scenes with them interacting are always pretty fun, so they seem compatible. They both had their biases about each other at first, but they became good friends pretty quickly. Elena taught Marzel a lot about land stuff (and those scenes were always hilarious). Plus, he gets along with Francisco, which is an added bonus.

Politically, it probably would be beneficial? It would likely strengthen human Serena relations. Although geographically I don't think they'd be able to merge Avalor and Coronado, so they'd have to figure out which of their possible heirs would inherit each Kingdom, but that probably wouldn't be too much of an issue. I definitely don't think either one would have to move to a new location permanently. (Elena is so magical now I feel like spontaneously getting water breathing powers would be expected at this point.)

A certain person asked me how I paint with watercolors so I guess I'm going to tell you all! Now I'm not professionally trained, I just learned what I know from experimenting, asking questions, and looking up tutorials. So this may not be what the experts do, but it's what works for me.

How I paint:

Materials: I have a watercolor palette, a little jar full of water, my paint brushes, some paper that is thick enough for watercolors, pencil, and some paper towel to help mop up excess water. I always put down some kind of rag cloth or newspapers down on the table first so I don't get any paint on the table. Watercolors don't stain as much as other kinds of paint but it's best to you be careful.

I always use a watercolor palette to make my paintings. This is a very different system from oil paint or acrylic paints or even liquid watercolors or watercolor pencils, so you need to keep that in mind with the rest of the things I tell you

Step 1 (Start): I decide what I'm going to paint and make a little pencil sketch of it on the paper, It doesn't need to be detailed it just needs to give me a rough idea on how big it will be and where various shapes will go. (I sketch it very light so that you don't see the pencil lines on the finished painting but you can make it dark if you still want to see the lines).

Step 2 (Layers 🧅): I decide which colours would be best to be put on the bottom layer and which colours should be put on the top layer and then begin painting accordingly. For example I painted Mirabel's skin before I painted her hair, so I could have bits of her hair going down on top of her skin. I mix the colours together on a scrap piece of paper first just to test how they look.

Step 3 (How to apply paint): I dip my paint brush in water and then swirl it around in the needed colour until I have my desired amount, then I begin to paint in the shape that I want. Whenever my brush needs more colour I put a very small amount of water on it and then rub it gently against the paint palette then brush it again on the paper. For dark colours I swirl it around longer in the paint to get more paint on it and then lay it on thick. For lighter colours I put more water on the brush and less paint on it and then use the water to spread the paint even further across the paper. Important tip: Never press your brush too hard against the paint palette or the paper when you're painting, otherwise the bristles could be bent out of shape or fall out. Use the same amount of pressure you'd use if you were petting a kitten with the paintbrush. (You shouldn't actually do that, it's just a metaphor.)

Important tip: If you ever have too much water on your paintbrush, use a paper towel to mop some of it up. You can also use a paper towel to help get unwanted paint off your brushes.

Step 4 (Waiting): After filling in one shape with a specific colour, I move on to the next colour. If I don't want the colours to mix together I wait a minute or two for the first part to dry before I continue on to the next part. But if I do want a gradient then I start adding the new colour and brush them together a bit with water.

Step 5 (Small details): Watercolours mix together really well but that means to get good looking light colours you have to apply them directly to the paper, where there isn't any paint, otherwise if they are mixed with a dark-colour they could become muddy looking. For things like Mirabelle's glasses I painted the skin around them first, leaving a white blank space and then once the paint had dried I very carefully added the light green, making sure not to get the brown paint wet again. (I also use this process for the butterfly on the accordion and the earring.)

Step 6 (Optional Final touches): Sometimes I used paint for the pupils of eyes but they never seem as detailed as I want. So instead what I do is I leave the eyes as blank white circles, and then once I'm finished painting everything else, and everything is completely dry, I use a small pen or marker to draw the black outline around the eyes as well as pupils and pencil crayons to colour the iris. I also use pencil crayons for the eyebrows, lips and dress butterflies.

Repeating these steps for a very long time eventually leads to a finished painting. If you have any questions let me know.

Are you still taking requests? If so, can you please draw a crossover between Elena of Avalor and Encanto?

They are having fun making music together!

If you are still taking requests can you do li’l Flores cousins (like in Día de Madres)

They're having so much fun at carnival! Queen Lucia even let Elena wear her special tiara! :D

Remember that time in “To Queen Or Not To Queen” when Elena fell asleep in a graveyard?

[Comic script: Panel 1: Elena: Buenos Dias, Victor! Victor: Hola Elena! You're up early, so you can't wait for your coronation today?

Panel 2: Elena: Yes, plus I accidentally fell asleep in the graveyard so I had to walk all the way back here. Victor: …

Panel 3: Elena: Ack! Victor, what are you doing?! Victor: BEGONE GHOSTS!!!!]