influence map

Taken from the Influence Map template by fox-orian on deviantart.

Thoughts I take away from this meme: I like redheads. I like archy-texture. (ow) And I wonder if I'll ever really leave the manga influence behind, or if I even want to.

CLAMP really pulls your eye in, doesn't it?

I tried to assemble these with some cohesion and more or less in chronological order. It came out in two columns, beginning with Nausicaa on the top left and ending with my very recent fashion obsession on the bottom right. It's my life in pictures. I didn't expect it to mean so much.

Also, I'm afraid you'll all think less of the Vincent picture now you've seen Anja's work. :(

an addict's withdrawal

Oh God, I want more booooooooooooks!!!

Very recently read Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan. Dear Lord, I want this book. In hardcover. In fact, can someone make a whole book of all of Keith Thompson's art for this series? I would buy that too. And I want to read Philip Reeve's Larklight and Starcross again. I haven't even read Mothstorm.

NaNoWriMo is making me want to read instead of write. I am about 3K words behind, although I made a good start. Anyone out there doing it this year?

In slightly related news and to make this post less boring, SIR Terry Pratchett's newly-granted coat of arms from the Royal College of Arms. (You have to scroll down a bit on that page.)

The motto is "noli timere messorem" - "Don't Fear the Reaper". I love the UK, don't you?

today I am thinking about Vincent

starry starry night...

Pentel watercolours, Quink ink, Safeway cleaner with bleach.

I am fascinated by the effect bleach spray has on Parker Quink ink. It's a chemical reaction taking place as you watch! And it's pretty, too.

somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly

wherever you go, is who you are

"There is a richness that soaks in when you stand somewhere beautiful, in a place you have never been before. I have known it and it made me the person I am today."

So I'm writing again. We'll see how it goes.

lady in the forest

Well, it started out as fashion illustration, and then it became something else.

Ritual

In other news, I have joined this. eek what have I done

QUEEN OF DORKS

Ok so I single-handedly won a sudden death round at Trivia Night tonight, getting ALLLLLLLLLLLLL the questions right!!!!! ANNNNND they had a Kids' Lit round so NATURALLY I aced it!!!!!!

And we BEAT OUT the top two super-genius teams who win practically every Trivia Night and we can finally GET OUR PICTURE ON THE WALL OF FAME!!! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

.............the thought does occur that if any of you Geek Fight peeps had been here you would have gotten even more questions right. That sudden death round was on urbandictionary terms, for Hawking's sake. I cannot believe I was the ONLY one who answered 'Hipsters' on one question and 'Dork' on another. I mean, what do people do all day?*

BUT STILL I HELPED OUR TEAM WIN FIRST PLACE WOOOOOOOOOOOO

*yes, I know the answer is 'something more interesting, usually.' let me have my moment plz.

notebook drawings

Dug through my things and found pictures from the Italy trip with my cousins some years back. They make very nice drawing references.

I also have a very cute, and very cheap, small notebook, the Chinese-stationery character kind. It has interesting textures, sweet sayings and funny little illustrations. I thought they would go quite well with my new hyperrealistic pen style.

They do!

birthday wish list!!!

It'll be my birthday again soon, and you know what that means: totally unrealistic wish lists!!! Hee hee.

Some of my dreams are already coming true--I've already got some swag from friends like manga and a shoulder bag for work. And I got to visit Manila and party with some very old friends!

But it's not a wish list if you didn't have some completely unlikely items in there, like a Lamborghini or one of those ginormous Phaidon books hand-bound by Italian monks. A wish list is basically throwing your desires out into the universe...just in case it's feeling generous.

So I've mixed up the unlikely with the plausible for fun, and maybe you guys can make up some of your own wish lists to join in!

• Hopeless Savages Greatest Hits volume 1 - a not-yet-printed Omnibus Edition including my favourite comic ever, Hopeless Savages Ground Zero, which has been insanely difficult to find.
• A Lomo Lubitel or LC-A+
• Blue animation pencils or pencil leads
• An extant copy of Helen deWitt's The Last Samurai. I have owned three different copies of this book at different times, and lost them in different ways. :(
• A Softimus Prime!!! Please stop laughing now, you know it's awesome.
• An iPad (you knew this was coming), possibly with a stylus and a copy of Sketchbook Pro.
• Comic book and manga layout sheets.
• Any of the following: Welcome To Temptation, Bet Me, Tell Me Lies or Fast Women by Jennifer Crusie
• Anything from here. If I had to choose, I'd pick a few of the Caran D'Ache Neocolors or the Inktense pencils, or maybe some acrylic medium or canvases. But really I would take anything. Even if I already had it.
• A geeky coffee mug like the Penguin Classics/Moderns

Or, you know, an e-card from Artpassions.net would be ok, because I love that place and people hardly send e-cards anymore.

So I fell down the stairs at work today.

I was short on sleep, and in a hurry, and a little annoyed because of the combination of the two plus some crowding on the stairs, and then my heel slipped.

My heel slipped on the top step, and then my whole body sort of folded up.

And I was so out of it, I just watched helplessly as I slid, on my knees, with a bumpy but steady turn of speed to the bottom of the stairs.

It kind of hurt, but it didn't seem so bad. I was just irritated with myself and in the mood for some mindless self-indulgence, so I went to the mall and bought myself some pens and a blue mechanical pencil.
Of course, when I got back, my foot started hurting enough to notice, and it got pretty swollen, which didn't improve my mood. I finally had it checked out by the company doc (benefits! yay!) who put a cold compress on it and had me prop it up on a pillow while I had a short nap.
Then she taped it up, gave me some meds, and told me to keep a cold compress on it and get it X-rayed if it was still swollen after 24 hours.

I hurt myself rarely enough that it looks kind of cool. If I were younger I could pretend I were Robin and had hurt myself kicking a skel in the teeth, or facing off with Lady Shiva or something. As it is I just draw sketchy comics and sit at my computer with my foot up and an icepack tied round my ankle...blogging about it.

The End!