Journal of a Something or Other

So, I saw a sweet little moment at the Medieval Faire in Forest Grove.

And I was like, “I’m gonna paint that all Norman Rockwell stylez.” Because I miss painting. It was fun. I super love using using my Instagram as a documentation of process.

But everything is the Loc-Nar, for me, so. The feeling sort of changed.

I do love how this turned out and I decided that since the original is just getting filed away somewhere I might as well make it available to get as a print at Society 6, if you are a creepy fuck who likes to spend money. Or a wonderful person. You could be a wonderful person who likes to spend money too.

I tend to feel like I don’t make enough or do enough creative work. Compared to the output I used to do, I don’t. I try to remind myself that it’s okay! I work a fulfilling, creative job and sleep more and am pretty much happy. But it bums me out, especially since so many folks I know are constantly pumping out notable, awesome work. So when I sat down with my Flickr archive for this year (because Flickr has been my memory bank for years now), I didn’t expect much. This was the year I stopped doing focus months, I mean, how much could I have done?

Turns out? A decent amount.

January
Focus month: Branding Ma-Mé. I built and did the branding work for a friend’s site. It was super fun and I got paid for it! I like making other people’s ideas because I just like making stuff more than thinking of what to make.

Non-focus things made:
• I painted a painting that I then slid behind a bookcase, because I couldn’t throw it away, but why keep it?
• A TARDIS piñata for a dear friend. This has been re-Pinned on Pinterest about a million times.

February
Focus month: Airbrush! I have an airbrush and love it, but spent this month really learning it.

Non-focus things made:
• Rebuilt arbour in yard.
• Murder-wall anniversary present for Chase.

March
Focus month: Mending & old work. Cleaned a bunch of stuff, got rid of a bunch of stuff, a really great feeling.

Non-focus things made:
• I did get a wig that is now my web avatar wig. God, I love this fake hair.
• Wrote a short-short.
• Finished serialising the first draft of The Audacity Gambit.

April
Focus month: Chase’s show production, in which I showed you nothing.

Non-focus things made:
• Nothin. But I did start using Instagram.

May
Focus month: Embroidery. Which was fun, but not a lot produced.

Non-focus things made:
• Taught myself eggshell veneer.

June
Focus Month: Another writing month. Editing The Audacity Gambit and working on the second book!

Non-focus things made:
• Made a sky bison costume for a cat.
• Shot a cover for TAG’s Draft 2 Lulu print.

July
Focus month: Animatic. Which got extended, due to summer fun.

Non-focus things made:
• Swatched my insane nail polish collection.
• Helped manage my workplace’s move to a new place.
• Made Chase a hell of a cake for his birthday.

August
Focus month: Animatic, still. Which didn’t end how I expected. I decided to stop doing focus months.

Non-focus things made:
• Research for a friend’s Halloween costume.
• Ridiculous Adventure Time/Breaking Bad drawing.
• Modified a department store ball-jointed doll into a dryad.

September
•We bought a car, wtf.
• Built rig for San’s cape from Princess Mononoke.
• Wrote lots of TAG book 2

October
• Got my first hand tattoos
• Made Princess Mononoke costume.

November
• Worked on a thing I hope to show you guys soon.
• Made a ridiculous cake

December
• Shot photos of cats in both old west and Avedon’s In the American West styles as presents.

So, a decent amount of things, I think? And through all of it, trying to keep my nails sick.

Not a bad 2012, let’s hope for more in 2013!

Oop, it’s been a bit. Without the monthly focuses to keep me shame-tied to blogging, I’ve forgotten the habit. Though, to be fair, I’d been out of the proper habit for a while (which is true of most folks, it seems). What have I been doing. Hmm.

A big chunk of October was spent making San’s mask and cape (from Princess Mononoke) for a friend. I am a huge costume nerd and since they never drew San’s cape as actually attached in any way, that’s how I made it. It took an interior frame and counterweights, but it can be worn comfortably and easily, without exterior rigging, and look just like it does in the movie.

I wrote, but not as much as I should.

I got new tattoos, as part of a slow process in making my hands look amazing (nail art and tattoos are probably the best combo) and myself less employable outside the west coast.

That was a good night. I got ink, some froyo then Chase and I went to see a pick-up (I mean, exhibition) Blazer game. That’s what we did instead of listen to the last debate, because that shit is easier to read about after. I like the crime-solving kind of forensics, not the speech ones.

Internet life has been a little weird because first an act of God ruined my mobile,

Then Chase’s, which I switched to (as he uses his phone mostly) decided to up and die. At the same time, The Old Reader happened. Google Reader was super important to me and I keep poking around The Old Reader feeling the same kind of discomfort as visiting the place you grew up in—it is very similar but not the same, the same people are there, but not all of them and the dynamic is just a bit different

Plus my computer is shittier and The Old Reader is slower, so the 70-100 posts I’d see in a day is too much for me keep up with. I want this part of my online life back pretty badly, but there are some trust issues.

But at least I started reading again. Weird that I even stopped for like, months, right? I used to read a book or two a week. Honest books too, not just pulp. But writing while reading is hard and I was reading articles and doing crosswords and I don’t know. It got weird. But then the wonderful Jon Morris of Oh That Paperback (and like, one million other things) sent me a box of beautiful mass markets and a handful of 1970s’ Analogs. And you can’t turn that down, not an addict like me.

From here it gets less fun and less pictures.

(more…)

So, last January I decided to make myself focus on just one area of what I do per month, so I’d stop flailing and bouncing from thing to thing and just get shit did. Overall, I think it worked out well, I had one focus fail and one focus stretch over two months.  But man, life gets busy and I was doing stuff in those those times, just not the focuses.

And really? I moved and wrote a book this year, took a class and made some cool things. I think I rocked it.  Here’s a little rundown:

January: Month of writing. Started The Audacity Gambit and wrote a decent number of short stories, sorted some things out. Probably my most productive month.

February: Month of comics.  Pencilled the pages for a mini comic.  Done while packing to move and doing it finished a long-stagnated project (or getting closer to doing so, I’ve still got to ink the dang thing).

March: Month of sewing (for the home). We moved and I did up our house with little stuff like curtains and kitchen things.

April & May: Month of nails.  This was a total fail.  A lot was happening in my personal life, so I extended the focus through May and then pretty much failed it.  Which is fine. I guess I am human.

June: Month of photography.  Mostly finishing some projects and taking a picture every day that referenced one from my giant Flickr archive. Probably my second most productive month.

July & August: Month of craft room. I cleaned the attic space that I use for my “studio”.  I was taking a class at the time and we were going to shows a lot, so that I got anything done while also having fun is pretty great.

September: Month of optics.  Playing with the various lenses and things that I have, revisiting the goggles and eyepieces I used to do.  Didn’t get as much done as I’d like, but I had fun.

October: Month of illustration.  Making pictures to go with stories I wrote in January.  Though I didn’t get much done this month, I made some things I really liked.

November: Month of changes.  I re-did how I browse the internet after losing Google Reader and prepared the attic space for my sister coming to stay with us for a while.  This is the busy season for me at work, so it was nice to have something that felt like it was getting done.

December: Month of presents. This was fun, though I wish I’d done more for more folks.

Huh.  It felt like I didn’t get much done, but I think I did?  And what I did do was more focused and I felt less guilt over what I wasn’t doing.  I fully plan on continuing this focus month thing. I’m sure that I will make next year even better.

BAM, ‘nother one done.

This is the title page for Primp, which is set in a semi-Victorian world. So I wanted the illustrations to reflect Victorian paper cut work. Only I am a lazy thing and am not going to actually cut that paper.  But! The image is created in a way that it could be a whole piece of paper, without loose bits.

I drew half of the dressing table and used the lightbox to mirror it, filled in most of the blacks by hand then my big pen started to die so I filled in the larger spaces after I scanned the image and cleaned it up in Photoshop.

I like how this turned out. I enjoy pretending that I am different people illustrating different stories for a magazine.

The interior illustration for this story I want to do maybe as split half pages, which I haven’t seen much.