Sick Day, Part Two

Now with added, "But it's Halloween!" wretchedness.

On the bright side, I finished watching the first season of Once Upon a Time.  Pretty good stuff.

Here are the costumes we did not get to wear tonight:

I guess I am... sliding down Comrade Nathan like a fireman's pole?  I don't know.  I'm sick.  Who cares about proportions...

I will just have to throw a "Heroes and Villains" party later this year, so we can still show them off...

Sick Day

Ugh.  Not a good day.  Not a good day at all.  I woke up and pretty much immediately realized I would not be going in to work.  As such, I have spent the vast majority of the day on the couch, being pitiful and watching Once Upon a Time.  Also there has been napping.  And probably will be again.

Complete with puppy and kitty, who did not seem to mind my sickness at all.

Baby Cougar!

For all my beloved WSU fans:

Because fair's fair.

Fur Babies and Sea Monkeys

We went to go visit my brother and his fiance this weekend, and Isis bonded almost insultingly quickly with both of them.  Here is a sample:

Traitor Dog

(Pretty cute, tho', amIright?)

Baby Elephants!

Also a baby duck, per my broseph's request.

Again, you're welcome.

Derdriu

You guys remember when I went to Ireland, right?  Sure you do.  Remember when I went to the Cruachan Ai Heritage Center, and learned how ignorant I was about Irish Mythology (outside of fairy tales)?  And remember how I picked up a translation of the Táin?  Well I've finally gotten around to reading it, which means I am being introduced to a colorful new cast of characters.  Take, for example, Derdriu.

Much is made of her hair being both yellow and long.

Man, let me just say this chick gets screwed.  By, like, everyone.  People are all, "Kill it!" when she's born, just because she's destined to be the most beautiful woman in the world and "bring evil".  And the dude that keeps her from being killed?  Only does it because he wants to hit that once she's older.  And when she decides to not make it with the creepy old dude, thank you very much, but instead go marry a man of her own choosing, it's death and betrayal and exile all over the damn place.  Plus more imprisonment and finally suicide.  I mean honestly.  Not to mention what comes after that...

And why is it all these old myths have to have at least one super-hot chick to blame things on?  "Oh, the men have gone to war but it's all Helen's fault.  You know."

"Bring evil," indeed.

More Post It Character Doodling

Still trying to nail down Treachery's look:

Not there yet.  But getting closer.

Birthday Card in Color

An integral part of the humor of this card is that my buddy has a four-year-old daughter:

(Name redacted to protect the innocent.)

(Aaaaand also the not-so-innocent.)

B&W Birthday Card

One my my climbing bro's birthdays is on Thursday, and as such I have begun making a card for him.  Here is the main illustration:

It is a punchline.  Honest.

I'll add color to it tomorrow, but for now?  Bed.

Post It Character Doodles

A minor character from the Sleeping Beauty retelling:

I'm not sure about the facial markings yet.

She has all of one scene at the moment, although she gets mentioned several times thereafter.

All Systems a Lo-Go

...does that title even work?  I don't know... but it works for me!

Nathan's putting together a site from which to sell his photography, and I've been trying to put together some logos for him to choose from.  Here, take a gander at the process:

Click to Embiggen

Regaining Some Sanity

I spent a good portion of today cleaning.  I expect I will spend at least four hours of tomorrow cleaning, as well.

Believe it or not, this actually had me in a pretty damn good mood.

Happy Girl.  In her House Cleaning/Yard Work Hat.  Which she stole from her brother.

See, having a not-clean house makes me feel... just a little bit off.  And the longer the state of affairs continues, the more and more off I get.  Until I am a friggin' basket case.

It has been far too long since my house was truly clean.  But it will be soon, and that is an Excellent Thing.  The impetus for this (aside from a desire to not cringe every time I walk... anywhere...) is that I'm  having my Climbing Bros over for dinner tomorrow night- along with their respective ladies.  Eee!  I'm pretty stoked.  Dinner party, woo!

And speaking of climbing, I'm about to go do a little bit of that right now.  Because it's Saturday night, and IdowhatIwant!

Heartfelt Offering

Colors for Katherine!

(Okay, no more Vampire Diaries for a while, honest...)

She Is in Shades of Red and Black

Katherine in offering you... well, someone's heart, anyway.

Katherine with a hint of Elena

Is She or Isn't She

I have a confession to make.

I friggin' love The Vampire Diaries.

I love that show so much, you guys.  So much.  I resisted it when it first came out, because I'd been a major fan of the books when they first came out (I was eleven and read and re-read them obsessively: they definitely had a major impact on my adolescence) and I didn't want to see them get mucked up.  And since they'd already screwed the pooch by making the protagonist a brunette, I did not trust them.

Sometime last year, however, I saw the series on Netflix and decided to give it a chance.  I spent the first few episodes going, "Seriously?  You changed that?  Seriously?" but also enjoying the little nods to the people who had read the book.  And then things got really different... and I was friggin' hooked.  The show beats the pants off the books (especially the bizarro later additions to the series, of which I have only read one because I think the author may have had a mental breakdown.  And you can ask my husband- I literally threw it across the room when I finished it, it was that bad.)  I'm now happily immersed in Season 3, and seriously considering actually watching Season 4 in real time.

The horror.

Aaaanyway, that is a long lead-up for this little doodle, which is the beginnings of what I hope will be a more finished piece in the near future.

You will notice I went Brunette.

This is either Elena or Katherine- I'm not sure yet.

(But it's probably Katherine.)

Frill of Shame

So Krumps had herself a bit of an Incident, and as a result the vet had to remove one of her toes.  As a result of that, she is now wearing what I would have called the Cone of Shame, were it not for the fact that it's far more like a bib than a cone.

Kink keeps hissing at her.  Nathan thinks it's because Kink thinks she is a frill-neck lizard.  I think maybe Kink just thinks she is getting Above Herself.

The Sickly Yellows

More Real Conversations with my husband:

Depression: Now in Sickly Yellow!

I'm not the only one who gets the sickly yellows, right?

Dinosaurus-Ish

Another thing on the long list of Things I don't Draw Enough: Dinosaurs.

I am apparently incapable of drawing things in a non-cute manner.

;iu

More Treachery

Stiff breeze

Lucinda

Clarissa's younger sister:

Also mid-1800s

Lucinda is supposed to be more classically beautiful than Clarissa- and also much more romantic than her practical older sister.  But they love one another dearly, and get along exceedingly well.

Clarissa

I watched a few episodes of The Walking Dead tonight, which put me in mind of my zombie story.  And thus I did an illustration of Clarissa, the narrator of that tale:

Mid 1800s

Maybe I'll draw Lucinda tomorrow.

Here There Be Monsters

Sometimes monsters are pretty.

And sometimes their touch can disintegrate organic matter.

Rough Edges

This week's project is rewriting last year's NaNo project (a retelling of Sleeping Beauty), and I'm making pretty good progress- if nothing else it's keeping me from getting too antsy about this year's project.  It is also filling my brain with the Desire to Draw My Characters, and thus you should not be surprised if that's what takes over the next few days worth of drawings.

For instance:

Knives make lousy scissors.

He is Tall and I am Small

Sketch for a children's book I'm formulating:

Scary Curt

I managed to weasel out of "drawing daddy" last night, so I thought I'd best give it a shot this evening, and did a quick sketch of Curt while he was making a Very Serious Face (ie, looking down at his new phone).

(Curt is not actually this mean-looking)

I need a new brush pen.

By Commission

House guests, yay!

Double yay because the house guests include Eel and Bee.  Eel is a bit of a budding artist, and so he showed great interest in having me draw with him.  Which rapidly became me drawing for him.  When I asked him what I should draw, he said a picture of me.

He had follow-up instructions, as well.

Child after my own heart.

Sketching Treachery

So the other day I finally came up with an idea for this year's NaNo, which is exciting, but also a little frustrating because I can't start writing it up just yet- and so I've been doing world-building, and some character sketching.  Here is the main character, Treachery Best:

That is a "Boss of the Plains" style cowboy hat she is wearing, and I am learning how damn hard it is to draw someone in a frickin' hat.

If you so desire, you can go here and click on "statistics" to watch my word count go up and up and up (not until November 1st, of course).  I may even put up a cover this year, which I did the first year but didn't do last year.  We shall see...

Trinity Knots and Flowing Gowns

...and also some armor for good measure.

Tried my hand (/foot) at a 5.10- today, for my final climb of the day.  It felt pretty good, I didn't fall off the wall, and so far my ankle hasn't given more than a token protest- a definite improvement all around.  It may be time to start re-incorporating at least one of the 10's per session...

I'm about to go meet up with a woman who organizes people's lives for a living.  It pretty much sounds like my dream job.

Living the Stereotype

Yes, it's true; I went to Ireland and now I'm all obsessed with Celtic art.  Is anyone at all shocked by this?

Pffft.

Anyway, I've been adding a lot of the illumination-style to my stuff, but what I really want is to start incorporating some knot-work.  But you can't just free-hand that business- you have to learn how to do it, or it just looks sloppy and wrong.  I picked up a book while we were in Ireland to assist me with this, but today was the first time I had any time to start playing around (although since I wasn't at home with my book I actually used this website, which was very helpful).  Here are the results:

As you can see I'm not concerning myself with precision at this point- plenty of time (and graph paper) for anal retention later.  For now I just need to grasp the basics.

Small, Troublesome Creatures

If you've been reading my blog for the past couple years, you know that I have Code Names for my nieces and nephews.  If you haven't been reading my blog that long (or don't actually memorize all the nuances of my life), they are as follows (in order of descending age):

Quail
Toad
Eel
Grasshopper
Bee

And I am pleased to announce that I get to add another name to that list:

SeaMonkey Owens

That's right, my brother is breeding!  Woo!  And today I sent him a piece of mail that included a doodle of a sea monkey.  I'd meant to snap a picture of it before I sent it, but I didn't, so here is a more cartoon-y version for this blog:

Ook! Ook!

You Know It's a Rough Morning...

...when you cry your lipstick off.

(Fortunately the day did get better.)