The Xaotician's Grimoire

pack pack pack

2011-06-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

I finally snapped and went looking for a venue I could customize more easily. To that end:

Here.

Things that are here will stay here for now, but new artsy crap is going over there.

Curios and Trinkets, part the fourteenth

2011-05-05T18:47:00.000-07:00

In which Chala resorts to actually stringing some beads to slow down the rate at which she burns through chain (although there's a lot of chain in this entry, too). There is also a lot of her swearing at an uncooperative camera, but we'll gloss over that bit.

Onyx, candy jade, pumice, and crab agate.

Mother of pearl and jasper.

Lots and lots of moss agate.

Quartz and crab agate.

Hematite and watery aqua glass with a faint coppery sheen. Camera butchery ahoy.

Glass.

Agate and adventurine. Kind of tempted to remove the branch sections 'cause they like to flip over.

Jasper and serpentine.

Turquoise. Easily the most awkward word to type in the English language.

Quartz, rose quartz, and lepidolite.

Screwing around with wire. Stone unknown.

Agate.

Glass.

Crab agate.

Serpentine. New picture, old pieces.

Agate. Really irritating to untangle.

And something made with no intention of letting anyone else have it, ever.

I Have More Time Than Good Sense

2011-04-30T23:23:00.000-07:00

Rather than get anything useful done today, I ended up dicking around with the WoW Model Viewer.

With my sincerest apologies to xkcd:

And this can only be explained with "the people I play WoW with are all insane". It's a long story.

To Hell and (most of the way) Back

2011-04-25T00:24:00.000-07:00

Spent entirely too much time working on a visual timeline of the blood elf version of Ms. Kos:

(A properly large version is here.)

1. Wee sproglet. Yes, she was originally brunette.

2. Sprog. Not exactly appropriately dressed for a future noblewoman, but see if she gives a toss.

3. Disgruntled adolescent (is there another kind?).

4. Majoring in Evocation with minors in Alchemy and Transmutation. Also probably breaking the U of Dal dress code like it's going out of style.

5. Bored with roasting trolls in her backyard; decided to kick some orcish ass in the Second War.

6. Following the Third War, has completely lost her shit.

7. Went back to studying the Art properly instead of screwing around with warlock crap. Being talked to by the saronite in the walls of Icecrown Citadel. Holding a trinket from a friend and attempting to not completely lose her shit again.

8. Yeah, she feels a little better now.

Still Water and Abject Terror

2011-04-22T23:40:00.000-07:00

Some sketches done in between bouts of tossing B into pits of toxic waste in Portal 2.

B's mage and Ismial being cute.

Even sorceresses that waste legions of humans for kicks have to start somewhere.

...even if they do end up freaking out from time to time.

Sharkbait

2011-04-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

My love of near-complimentary colours outweighs my unreliable sense of empathy.

I do find her expression to be equally relaxing and unsettling, though. No air bubbles, because she's breathing water rather than holding her breath.

Unnatural History

2011-04-18T04:58:00.000-07:00

As chance would have it, I found myself doing a spot of character creation the other day. A story-telling sort of chap, and the equivalent of a walking history book.

Didn't much like his clothes here; made him look too monkish with the staff factored in.

Fur lining, armwarmers, and sepia make everything better.

And for kicks, here's a commission from last week. Painting greyish skin without it looking sickly is tricksy.

Don't call me Ishmael.

2011-04-06T11:58:00.000-07:00

(Because if I had a gold piece for every time someone misread or mispronounced Ismial's name...)

Rebooting the Dragon, part the third

2011-04-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

More prodding at Mikala...

...and a little something drawn to relax after beating my head against the above painting for hours at a space.

I finally found the Lab colour slider in Photoshop, and used it for some of the background. It may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Rebooting the Dragon, part the second

2011-03-31T19:06:00.000-07:00

This painting is turning out to be a touch out of character for Mikala, since there isn't actually any artifice in his expression at all.

And for kicks, his sister being obnoxious. And Faenori's brother. I'm making this into lineart, but not liking the results thus far.

And a tiefling. Because I can.

Holiday Vitriol

2011-03-17T17:32:00.000-07:00

I hate this holiday. Binge drinking and the celebration of someone credited with kicking an existing religion out to make more room for his own. Two shitty things that apparently go together wonderfully.

Clearly, Amelia the snake isn't too keen on the literalist interpretations of certain aspects of it, either.

My life as an Ion cannon

2011-03-17T03:30:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know. It's four in the morning and cleverness is most assuredly not my strong suit at this point.

I also first typed that as 'string suit', which really doesn't sound the slightest bit comfortable. But whatever; a wild Brystion appears!

And just because I liked the original sketch best...

God, I hate warlocks...

2011-03-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

Actually, I don't--I have one, that being Ismial's sister--but my main in WoW is a mage, so one must keep up appearances, yes? You know how it is; you're strolling along, discussing Thalassian politics with a colleague, and all of a sudden some smartass warlock's pet demon is chewing on you.

Something for two friends. The felhunter gnawing on Anasyan's robe is by far my favourite part. Who knew something with no eyes could look so freaking happy?

Oh, and seriously? Don't ask about the dead fish. I don't want to know either.

Rebooting the Dragon

2011-03-12T22:07:00.000-08:00

Pecking away at the drawing of Mikala. Still needs backlighting and some shading on the background, but the underpainting is almost done. If not for Myn's timely suggestion of a night sky background for the windows, I'd likely still be beating my head against backlighting him with a snowy daytime sky and swearing a lot.

It looks as though his fate has taken a turn for the less crunchy in Tea and Sorcery, primarily because I was more than a little put out at how much wasted potential the original setup involved. He and Lady Kos managed to form an odd rapport that dealt with their respective grievances quite nicely--roughly 20 hours before they were both slated to die. I ended up changing that--not because I dislike killing characters, but because I would have been right pissed to see a character given a new lease on life and never having the opportunity to use it. Ironic, but wholly unsatisfying.

I did still break quite a few of his bones, though, simply because I'm an ass.

Curios and Trinkets, part the thirteenth

2011-03-12T17:58:00.000-08:00

Spring is a good way off, yet, so I finally snapped and set up the camera indoors to take care of the jewelery backlog. I think that when I finally go back to using the logs in the backyard, I'm going to have to find some way of getting the camera closer to the surface as I did this time. The little details actually show in this batch. Brace yourselves for spam!

Copper and Czech glass. The chain for this particular one was done by a neophyte smith from Gimli (and at the time I purchased it, had been housing a Mjollnir that I wanted to put on a leather cord and send to B for his birthday).

Gunmetal, adventurine, candy jade, and some silverplated brass.

Brass and glass.

Another attempt at catching a character in a necklace. This one was Ismial, the priest that gets all misty-eyed at the thought of messing with complex machinery. Brass and some sort of agate.

Copperplated brass. And springs!

There was at least one mortal maiden out there who was into taming unicorns for the ivory, rather than any interest in the whole magical pony thing. Brass, mystery stone, and some Sculpey.

Gunmetal and some smoky blue-brown mother of pearl beads.

Silverplated brass and some vitrail Swarovskis. They barf rainbows.

Silverplated brass and candy jade.

Silverplated brass and matte crab agate.

You have no idea how tired I am of typing 'silverplated brass'. Also dyed quartz.

Brass and dyed imperial jasper.

Shrinky Dinks, fossil stone, and silverpl--ARGH!

Brass and moss agate.

Brass and a crapload of crab agate.

Glass and dear god I don't want to say it again.

Copperplated brass, candy jade, and crab agate.

Gunmetal and glass. I've had that pendant for well over a decade; the fact that it was billed as a Sidhe knot made it utterly irresistible to me.

A stardial, which Astreja got me for Christmas (I suspect Ms. Kos was using me as a proxy when I requested it). I recently got around to taking it off the silk cord it came on and putting it on something more fitting.

Brass and crab agate.

Brass and crab agate. Again!

And lastly... brass, dyed imperial jasper, serpentine, and a wee bitty bottle.

Various Breeds of Darkness

2011-03-11T22:13:00.000-08:00

I am a criminally neglectful blogmother. I disappear for weeks at a time and then toss it a few sketches before wandering off again, rather than spending time with it. No wonder it's doing so poorly in school.

...excuse me. The Society for Humane Treatment of Metaphors is on the phone, and they don't sound happy with me.

Stuff for Myn! Apparently a bunch of UF/paranormal romance authors decided to make little trading cards to hand out as novelties, so here are four to go with A Brush of Darkness. And since I rather liked that last one...

The sketch that became Brystion's card was originally meant as counterpoint to Hecari, and that ended up going full circle after I'd finished the cards.

(Coincidentally, in the realm of awesome things I did not expect to happen in my lifetime, 'Mebrit momentarily appearing in a published novel' can now be scratched off that list.)

Retooling a sketch of Mikala Quethalis from the beginning of 2006. It seems mildly absurd that he's been around for nearly six years.

And noodling around a bit more. He looked vaguely malevolent when I first started painting in the shadows, but apparently somewhere along the line, I hurt his feelings.

Most of these things were done because I'm procrastinating wildly with regard to another painting, but maybe I'll go into that one later.

Defrosting

2011-02-20T00:26:00.000-08:00

Am altogether too cold, but have more beads. Cannot decide if I should set out some velvet and catch up on necklace pictures, or wait until spring so I can use the logs as a backdrop.

Yes, I realise that I could just brush the snow off and set up regardless, but it's something like -35 with the windchill and I have not completely lost my mind. Yet.

Anaquiel says, "Be my valentine or I'll break you in half, you sissy wizard."

Ismial and his megalomaniacal sister.

In retrospect, given that I tend to warp the "cute monster girl" trope and use it primarily on male characters, yet when it comes to decorating a face with scars I only seem willing to do so on females... somewhere, there's a second-rate armchair psychologist who'd have a field day with this nonsense.

An Absent Shadow

2011-02-15T21:04:00.000-08:00

While I was prodding away at Tea and Sorcery the other day, something occurred to me: Mikala is simply not Mikala without a psychopath in a cage.

The character is many things: a sorcerer, a generally unapologetic womanizer, a peacockish fop, and a deeply benevolent and steadfast creature. That last bit is having some difficulty showing itself as compared to the way I wrote him in the game he was originally from; in it, he spent a great deal of time being toyed with by an extremely charismatic and plaintive murderer whose prison wagon he was escorting. This was made all the more entertaining by Mikala's personal faith, as he follows a god that stands for compassion and forgiveness--but has no tolerance for evil acts.

While there's certainly a malevolent antagonist in Tea and Sorcery, Mikala's had very little contact with him outside of a very civil meeting in which he had no idea what the bastard was up to, and without an opposing force to bring out his less frivolous side, he's not half as much fun to work with.

Ah, well. At least I know how to get under his skin.

"You make a very compelling case and I find it impossible to convince myself

that you're lying, but oh sweet Bahamut get this lunatic away from me!"

Lifeblood

2011-02-07T22:48:00.000-08:00

A sketch from a few weeks ago.

It's highly tempting to make a list of Things That Actually Cause Ms. Kos to Crack a Smile:

Kittens? No.
Being followed around by a flirtatious dragon-disciple? No.
Taking a shot to the arm and contemplating how best to maim the offending party? Yes.

Hecari, part the second

2011-02-07T05:22:00.000-08:00

And done.

I started prodding at a sketch from 2006 yesterday, but I cannot decide who these two should be yet. I don't have many robe-wearing blokes in my head, and the only one that springs to mind is lacking in the lady-friend department.

Hecari

2011-02-06T01:02:00.000-08:00

As I've likely mentioned in the past, an infrequent hobby of mine is tinkering around with The Sims 2. Armed with a truly alarming quantity of custom content, I constructed all manner of pretty beasties, approximately 98% of which had either pointed ears or horns. One of said pretty beasties was Hecari.

I remember very little about her and have no idea where I put her (or my game disk, for that matter), but dammit if she didn't look good, so I'm drawing someone that looks suspiciously similar to her.

"You've all taken leave of your senses."

2010-11-20T09:45:00.000-08:00

Remember what I said about art-rust and Starcraft 2? Well, now I have Civ 5, too. My muse is essentially doomed to shrivel up into a raisin when Cataclysm comes out, so to give it a bit of exercise before then...

...Ismial, looking less than amused. And just because I can:

Curios and Trinkets, part the twelfth

2010-11-12T15:27:00.000-08:00

Catching up. Brace yourselves for necklace spam!

Twenty Thousand Dead and Counting!

2010-11-12T01:12:00.000-08:00

Wholesale slaughter of Alliance forces in the field is but one of her feminine traits.

Sidhe Has Too Much Time on Her Hands

2010-11-09T11:59:00.000-08:00

Dug up from the Steamwick Library employee files:

And I felt like scribbling something this afternoon. Not work-safe until I actually draw her some effing armour (for the moment, I think it'd be a bloody shame to cover it up).

I am horribly rusty. I also picked up Starcraft 2 the other day, so the odds of me cleaning off said rust are marginally worse than a snowflake's chance in hell. Whee!

Not dead, but I do have cookies

2010-10-08T04:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've been neglecting ye olde blog. Generally when I finish a particularly large painting, my muse goes into hibernation for at least a month afterward, and that's been the case.

I did, however, make cookies yesterday morning. These ones, with several exceptions. I did not let the dough sit around to blend flavours, and I most certainly did not wait two days before breaching my supply. I also only filled some of them with jam. I am not a jam person. I like it in very, very thin scrapings on toast, not sugary blobs. In this particular case, I used some seedless wildberry stuff in similarly small amounts, and liked the results. These really need a tart jam to set them off; they'd be sickeningly sweet otherwise. I'll probably make them again next time there's lemon curd around.

Waiting is necessary after you fill them, but a few hours is sufficient for the jam to soften the cookies (the unfilled ones are very crisp and tasty in their own right--more sandy and less melty). I'll have to see if another day does anything.

The spoon-shaping sounds irritating, but it's not (although I may be biased, since I like doing such things). A bit time-consuming, but that just gave me something to do while one batch was baking. It also had the benefit of making them perfectly uniform in size, so I'll never have to guess at the timing (13 minutes) again. An ordinary teaspoon is perfectly serviceable.

If I have not yet implied it, they're pretty damned glorious.

The Xaotician Revisited, part the third

2010-08-08T16:03:00.000-07:00

NSFW, as with the previous versions.

On a completely unrelated note, I have a box of vanilla bean latte cookies and am most assuredly not sharing.

Playing God, part the fourth

2010-08-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

And like magic, we have mechanymph.

I feel a round of NetHack coming on. Five bucks says I run into a gnome with a wand of death on level 3...

Playing God, part the third

2010-07-31T06:49:00.000-07:00

...and this little piggy wasn't going to be anywhere near the focus of the image, so the slackass artist left it in a state of half-paintedness.

Playing God (and catching up)

2010-07-30T04:46:00.000-07:00

From a week or so ago, my two current painterly projects:

And some further progress on the mechanymph:

Currently cannot be bothered to take pictures of jewelery, but there are a few new ones waiting in the wings. Beyond that, I managed to singe my shoulders--further proof that the sun is, in fact, trying to kill me--at a wee mediaeval festival. All in the name of looking preposterous, of course...

...despite the fact that I look about as mediaeval as my mother, there. I suppose I could have ad-libbed something about time-traveling aether pirates, but thankfully, no one seemed to notice.

I keep thinking his mic needs a matching chain coif.

And lastly, since I've been working on Tea and Sorcery lately, I leave you with this:

--

“Now,” Mikala said in a low voice, feeling exceedingly awkward as he shifted his burden about, “how do you plan on getting rid of the body?”

“Well, how did you get rid of the one you killed?”

“Would you believe ‘swept up the pieces and put them in the rubbish bin’?”

Lady Kos sighed. “Never mind that, then. Do you know of a place that sells lye at this hour?”

“To a pair of guilty-looking magi carrying a corpse-sized bundle? No.”

Nice kingdom; I'll take it.

2010-07-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

I found myself reading a badly-worded lament somewhere out on the grand and stupid internet, regarding elves and how some people don't like what they have "become", because elves should be peaceful, tree-hugging, mellow and dispassionate beings.

Setting aside the fact that 1) similar beings existed in folklore for *quite* some time before Tolkien cooked up his version, and 2) even his elves clearly undertook military training... do you know what happens to societies that are peaceful, mellow, and make a point of avoiding technological progress?

They get mowed down and enslaved by the first expansion-happy, warlike civilization that finds them, that's what--and it's a dull, dull fantasy setting that lacks one of those.

And... construct!

2010-07-15T14:27:00.000-07:00

The hair was actually quite relaxing to do. Draw one squiggle, build it up on either side, do another, fill in gaps with little layered arcs, rinse and repeat.

You can see it in its natural habitat (along with some of the other art I did for the site) over at Heart of the Dreaming.

And now, for some extra shinies.

I previously mentioned trying to capture Anaquiel's spirit in one of these; this one is much closer to the mark.

And a beetle. And various kinds of agate, of course.

Deconstruct, Reconstruct

2010-07-15T04:20:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make: I can't draw curly hair. Or at least, I couldn't until this morning.

I'm working on some website goodies for the ever-lovely Myn, and currently this involves lineart of a curly-haired violin player. My initial search for pointers on how to do the hair turned up tutorials on painting (not helpful), and a few that amounted to "lol wavy lines". Not good.

My eventual salvation actually came from a finished picture, namely c85's Miss Murder. Who is, coindentally, one hell of a babe. That is what my painting of Bernadette LaRoux should have looked like.

But anyway. After I was done with the whole ogling thing, I started to take a good look at her hair. A lot of it is built *around* descending wavy lines, but not all--if you look closely, you can see C-shaped strands in rows here and there. Some of it clings in tight ringlets, some of them are looser. The artist added shadows to the parts where each section disappears back into the mass of hair, which is what gives it dimension and makes it seem shiny.

And with those things in mind, I'm taking another crack at this mane of curls. I doubt it's going to look as good as my inspiration, but it sure as hell beats a bunch of squiggles.

On a completely unrelated note, I decided to host a wee contest on DA--namely, do visual art of one of the protagonists of Tea and Sorcery for a crack at winning one of my necklaces. Most people tend to present custom drawings as prizes for such things, but I decided to go with something wearable.

Liquid Light

2010-07-11T00:09:00.000-07:00

No, I do not have an excuse. Nor do I need one.

"I didn't sign on for this crap!"

2010-07-10T08:54:00.000-07:00

Mikala Quethalis, for those who don't know him too well, is a silver dragon disciple. In essence, this is someone who has a teeny wee bit of draconic blood in the family tree (and knowing silver dragons and mortals, that seemed the most fitting species), who has focused their efforts upon bringing that heritage out.

When I played him in Winter's D&D game, he was just shy of halfway through the process, having grown several fangs and some talons, and developed some exceptionally hard and slightly metallic skin. Nothing too terribly exotic, unless you count having breath that could -literally- kill someone. In Tea and Sorcery, he had grown vestigial wings.

As I've chosen to write it, however, that apotheosis cannot be stopped at a convenient level of pretty.* The vain mage has made his bed and now he's just going to have to lie in it.

Let's not talk about how screwed up that hand was, though.

*It actually did during Tea and Sorcery, but I don't think he'd be terribly happy about that, given the reasons.

Curios and Trinkets, part the eleventh

2010-07-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

Before I get on with the shiny objects, I'd like to mention that as of 3:30 yesterday morning, aioli ceased to be a mystic delicacy that I only had in restaurants. This has a lot to do with the fact that aioli is essentially garlic mayonnaise that's wearing Groucho glasses and hoping that no one recognizes it. I ended up just grinding some dried garlic to powder in a mortar and mixing it with some mayonnaise and lemon juice, then leaving it to mellow in the fridge for a few hours. Done.

I'm bordering on will-breakingly tired right now, so do forgive me if I'm a bit laconic about the jewelery.

Labradorite, shell, crab agate, quartz.

I've since added clasps to these. All glass.

More glass.

An attempt at capturing Mikala. I don't think it's going to be possible without an actual dragon, though.

Quartz, if memory serves.

Quartz and imperial turquoise, and some copper beads meant to frame other beads. Turquoise, by the way, is an exceedingly awkward word to type.

The rings spin.

And lastly, something vaguely reminiscent of Miss Nori.

Curios and Trinkets, part the tenth

2010-07-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

I think that I am rapidly approaching the point at which I'll be glad when someone buys one of my necklaces more because it's one less piece to deal with than for the money.

...oh, bugger that, I'm already there. Here, have more shinies!

More chrysocolla.

Glass, candy jade, and something I can't identify.

Carnelian, pumice, and crab agate. I've resorted to trying to make necklaces based on the 'essence' of various characters of mine in a bid for inspiration. This was supposed to be Anaquiel, but it didn't quite come out right.

I think what I -really- need to try is Mikala. Goodness knows he'd approve of my new hobby.

Curios and Trinkets, part the ninth

2010-07-06T14:14:00.000-07:00

Just a pair of bracelets for the moment. I have a few things to photograph, but this vague dread of going outside to do so.

Playing God

2010-07-06T04:26:00.000-07:00

This is the 'underpainting' for what will probably be entered into a contest on the subject of science fiction/fantasy mixes. I have much leftover loathing for the blending of the two from my younger days (though subgenres have done much to soften my heart; goodness knows I prefer my steampunk with a very hefty dose of fey), but the subject immediately had me thinking of Herr Drosselmeyer's Doll, minus the licentious overtones.

Plus, you know, any opportunity to cross-dress as a slightly mad scientist is a good one.

Ah, beauty...

2010-07-02T16:17:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me, while perusing various articles and blogs and so forth, that I am something of an anomaly when it comes to self-image. I exist alongside a culture where female sexuality is simultaneously lauded and degraded, and despite being able to see how that constant barrage of conflicting concepts could mess with the mind of a younger and impressionable girl--and less charitably, a weak-willed woman of any age--I just... don't hear it.

All that I can glean from that strange parallel world is misery and self-loathing, punctuated with the occasional desperate bit of hope that one has, perhaps, managed to live up to an ideal that she did not make on her own, or even tailor to her tastes.

As an aside, one thing that I absolutely adore about the proliferation of steampunk and neo-Victorian style is that they've done much to breathe a bit of class into the world and--I suspect--made at least a few ladies realise that one need not go the route of looking like a cheap prostitute in order to beguile onlookers. I mean, really; what manner of mate do these people think they're going to attract by showing as much flesh as they can get away with?

Anyway. My initial point was that all of that cultural garbage just seems to fly past my head with no effect beyond a raised eyebrow, and I am infinitely happier for it--and that seems to be a state that many mothers of young girls want their daughters to grow up in.

So, I'll say this much: Don't tell her she's pretty. Nurture and laud her brain, for crying out loud.

And occasionally wear studded leather bracers. I think that helps a bit, too.

The Xaotician Revisited, part the second

2010-06-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

My muse is joyriding me around the Photoshop workspace. Giggling.

The Xaotician Revisited

2010-06-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

A sketchy re-visitation of one of the first pictures I did with my tablet, way back. It still gets the occasional drive-by +favourite over at DA, which I assume is largely due to the fact that Ms. Kos doesn't happen to be wearing much of anything in it.

Not that that's changed or anything.

Curios, Crackers, and Coiffures

2010-06-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

The other day, I made a few adjustments to Astreja's recipe for cheese crackers, which is really more like cheese shortbread. My version, as I recall:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup butter
1 cup grated cheese of choice (mine was half gouda, half old cheddar)
A bit of dried rosemary and caraway
1 clove garlic, minced very fine
A smidge of extra butter

Toss the first three ingredients into a large bowl.

Grind up the dried herbs in a mortar and toast them in a dry skillet over medium heat until they've turned a darker shade and become quite fragrant. Toss them in on the flour. Melt the bit of extra butter in the skillet and fry the garlic until it's all browned and crisp, then grind it into paste in the mortar and add it to the bowl.

Mix everything together with your hands. It's going to take a fair bit of kneading to mix it and get it to hold together.

Form the dough into a few balls and roll them out into 1.5" logs, flattening the ends. I tend to do this on sheets of waxed paper, which I then use to wrap the logs. Refrigerate for at least an hour to facilitate easy cutting (though you can certainly leave them in longer, as I did--think icebox cookies).

Pre-heat the oven to 425F. It should be ready by the time you're done slicing the crackers.

Slice them about 1/4" thick and place on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Do give them a bit of breathing room; they will expand a bit. Bake for about ten minutes, or until they've browned a bit on the bottom.

And now for something completely inedible:

More of the glass beads I used in Elke's necklace. This one is also quite long.

Messing about with wire.

You have no idea how hard it is to refrain from adding stone beads to this, even though I know it's done.

In the space of roughly an hour, I turned a hideous belt from the thrift shop into this, which I am quite fond of.

And lastly, I decided to spend some quality time with two boxes of hair dye again.

Lady Kos, reworked... again.

2010-06-16T06:50:00.000-07:00

So, back in 2005, I drew this:

In 2008, I decided that while I really liked the original sketch, that godawful colouring job had to go, and the corset was far too immodest for her tastes.

Better, but still not quite there. Plus there's Mikala being a camwhore.

And now, I think I have her looking like I wanted...

...chaos star, dark circles under the eyes, and all.

On an unrelated note, I need to look into getting a bloody credit card so I can set up an Etsy shop. I'm drowning in friggin' necklaces over here.

Curios and Trinkets, part the eighth

2010-06-15T14:44:00.000-07:00

Part of me wonders when this will slow down. I only seem to be picking up speed.

Some particularly nice crab agate. And I have some heartkeys in silver now, because we weren't already totally sick of how often I use the brass ones.

I consider it a measure of my dwindling sanity that I spent several days in search of something that made for a decent facsimile of crystallized mana. I imagine this is kind of like one of those candy necklaces for blood elves.

Moss agate, glass, and watch bits.

Small mammal expressing disapproval of my presence near the peanut stash.

Present for Elke, who's finishing photography school this week. Seemed apropos, given her love of sparkly crystalline things, and those ones turn every colour imaginable in sunlight.

A better picture of one from the other day.

And this one... Ms. Kos' colleague mailed her a jade pendant many months ago (you can find it hanging from her belt in one of my recent paintings of her, actually). This isn't at all what I imagined it looking like*, and the gems are candy jade and serpentine, but I'm not going to look a... gift inspiration in the...

I guess they must have mouths. They certainly do gnaw when they're so inclined.

I know squat about wire wrapping, but it actually sort of turned out half decent.

*The work of a master elven jeweller is undoubtedly more impressive than that of a hack with a pair of pliers. It'd probably look more akin to Litori's work.

Curios and Trinkets, part the seventh

2010-06-13T18:45:00.000-07:00

Despite being harassed by a diminutive, peanut-gobbling rodent, I managed to get passable pictures of the most recent batch of jewelery. Thinking I might go back to using the tree stumps as a background, though.

Onyx and glass.

Fancy agate. There are about a dozen other colours in the bead that don't show here.

Moss agate. Yes, again.

Even more moss agate. I curved the leaf so that it would fit nicely over the back of one's hand, with the beads hanging down the sides.

Chrysocolla!

And the one that had me stumbling around with a hammer at five in the morning. Paper, leather, ribbon, a ceramic skull, a hunk of coathanger, and a mysterious jewelery bit that Elke came across (I think it was an ear cuff or something--part of it is now wrapped around the neck of the bottle).

And a bitty little potion bottle. Innit cute?

Nocturnal Lunacy

2010-06-13T05:54:00.000-07:00

At roughly 5:30 this morning, I was ambling around the house with a hammer in one hand and the severed head of a coathanger in the other, and a vaguely psychotic look in my eye. I wish I could say that this was something of a rarity, but it's par for the course these days.

(Speaking of which, it amuses me that "sub-par" is a bad thing when the entire point of par is to be under it.)

Anyway, I was reminded the hard way that coathanger-gauge wire is, in fact, serious business. It took fifteen minutes of quality time with a vise, hammer, pliers, and a cylindrical tool handle to muscle the damn thing into roughly the shape I wanted.

And then I put it through a skull. Because I could.

I'll put up a nicer picture of it later. I've four other pieces to take pictures of, anyway...

Celestials

2010-06-12T09:28:00.001-07:00

The one on the right is, anyway. She'll probably end up with golden eyes and a rune-halo. The one on the left looks more like a dragon disciple to me.

Devils and Their Bad Habits, part the fifth

2010-06-11T05:15:00.000-07:00

And like magic, we have tiefling.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend some nice quiet time with my stash of shiny objects and gibber a bit.

Devils and Their Bad Habits, part the fourth

2010-06-10T23:49:00.001-07:00

From yesterday:

And today.

It's getting there.

Devils and Their Bad Habits, part the third

2010-06-08T05:01:00.000-07:00

I'll pretty him up soon enough.

Devils and Their Bad Habits, part the second

2010-06-07T23:00:00.000-07:00

Further tinkering in between bouts of procrastination.

I also got some ceramic skull beads today. Not the right style to be set on eyepins as I do with other beads, but I have other plans in mind for these wee deaders.

Devils and Their Bad Habits

2010-06-07T16:54:00.000-07:00

I found myself drawing a tiefling's portrait yesterday--a city-dwelling Baatezu druid, of all things--and after I'd finished the sketch...

Yes, he's smoking. Vile habit, that. Being a tiefling, it really wouldn't surprise me if he *ate* them when he was finished puffing away. But, I digress.

Normally, I pick my colours from scratch. This time, I decided to try sampling the skin/brick colours from the reference photo that I took the other day, because I really liked the richness of them.

If I can actually pull this off, I'll be delighted.

Chala has a new toy...

2010-06-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

Well, perhaps 'toy' is the wrong word. I was never much one for brooches, but apparently that's just because all the other ones I've run into just suck.

Going up against a silver and green gear stickpin isn't really a fair fight, though.

Curios and Trinkets, part the sixth

2010-05-30T17:04:00.000-07:00

Well, the sun finally came out. Five minutes after I finished getting my feet and skirt wet and bruising my shins by bracing them on the concrete steps outside to take pictures of far too many necklaces. Smartass.

I unearthed my old jewelery box. Or rather, one of them--I have at least three, only one of which actually has jewelery in it (the other two contain coins and a stone egg, respectively). This particular one contains mostly polished semiprecious stones, which I've collected on and off for something like sixteen years. I have curiously clear memories of how and when I obtained quite a few of them. More to the point, though, said box also contained pieces of broken jewelery. Jackpot!

I also now have the most glorious assortment of small bottles. Most are too large to serve as pendants, but curios and pretties to string on my belt? Oh, yes.

And now, necklaces.

A special request, with some green tiger eye and onyx beads. The silver triangle used to be part of an earring.

This would be the pierced turtle I mentioned earlier. Green crab agate and a frosted glass bead.

Something fairly simple. I still have a few of those red beads left.

Another semi-commission. Not entirely sure if it suits the description, but I do like it.

New picture of an old one. The colour of the serpentine beads kinda wussed out in the picture, though. They're more green and dark in reality.

And the fire element bottle. Filled with ashes and strung with carnelian and pumice, appropriately enough.

This is where the other earring went. Green tiger eye, red crab agate, and one of my few green leaves.

Trying for more of a showy steampunk lady-look with this one. The shell beads are more of a pastel blue.

Am also very fond of this one. It involves moss agate and gears, though, so that's kind of a given at this point.

One of the places I bought findings from threw in some wee lucite flower beads, and I finally found a use for one!

I uhm...

I really don't feel like giving this one up right now.

Ah, Tira.

2010-05-29T01:30:00.001-07:00

"Hey. HEY. There's a squirrel sitting in that tree. Are you going to fix this or are you gonna let me out so I can deal with it properly?"

There's much to do in the way of posting up necklaces and so forth, but do forgive me; I've felt rather like death warmed over for the past two days, and Greek salad can only cure so much.

Curios and Trinkets, part the fifth

2010-05-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

Continuing my string of hit-and-run midnight baking, last night I made a batch of what was essentially shortbread with cheese instead of sugar. They lasted approximately 15 hours. I may or may not have started quoting Selin Fireheart upon sampling them.

The trinket-making nonsense continues unabated. This afternoon found me attempting to tap holes into a copper turtle stamping's nose and tail; he's now crawling up a chain destined to hold one of the alchemical element bottles I've been making.

For now, some things I've finished recently.

Something altogether girly and springy. Rose quartz (courtesy of Elke) and crab agate.

Tinkering with Shrinky Dinks, poppy jasper, and onyx.

And something nice and autumnal, with fancy and moss agate.

Honeytarts

2010-05-21T19:14:00.000-07:00

Sounds like an affectionate form of address, but no.

I have a raging adoration for the scent of honey (and the taste, when the sweetness is muted), so when I came across a recipe billing itself 'honey tarts', I went rifling through the freezer in search of tart shells.

These are identical in texture to buttertarts (they're both custards on amphetamines, after all), with a delicate honey flavour. They do not, however, contain any butter or anything of the sort. What follows is a recipe that filled 8 standard-size tart shells; double it for a more reasonable-sized batch. The original recipe included a tiny bit of salt, but I didn't bother.

1 egg
1/8 cup white sugar
1/4 cup honey
A splash of vanilla

Mix the above together in a bowl before adding...

1/3 cup broken pecans

...and mixing them in. Spoon into tart shells and bake at 375F for 14-16 minutes. If the filling acts liquidy when the tart is wiggled, it's not done yet.

Something tells me they'd do just as well with sliced almonds in place of the pecans.

And on an unrelated note, here's a necklace I made as a late birthday present for the lovely Ravenskar.

Curios and Trinkets, part the fourth

2010-05-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

Not that this has anything at all to do with jewelery, but I think I'm now one of the few people on my WoW server that has the 'Kingslayer' title but uses something else instead. 'Loremaster' is so much more stylish on a mage...

Anyway.

I took apart an old bracelet to make the cord for this one; it had five strands in all, so I used two more for...

The red oval was one of the Shrinky Dinks that turned out. Ended up making a nice surface to mount one of my brass flies on, and doesn't go half bad with the carnelian and onyx beads I just added to the hoard.

And these are the others. Need to dig up a more accurate hole-punch. The trees are from one of the many lovely free patterns over at Webtreats ETC.

Something simple with some twisty black chain and chrysocolla beads.

And a sister piece.

...and this one is MINE.

It's moss agate and fancy agate (the white bead with the adorable mossy spots up top). But seriously, it's mine.

Ink and cat hair do not mix

2010-05-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Very tired. I went out and picked up some mailing supplies as I had a pair of baubles to send out to the ever-lovely Z and Myn. Still looking for some appropriate little cloth gift bags; I managed to find some nice brocade and embroidered ones while I was out, but they're altogether too large for all but the most grandiose pieces of jewelery. I could make them, yes, but the whole time/effort/finding cloth/fishing up the sewing machine bit is ridiculous when you take into account that it's also less expensive to just buy the finished pouches most of the time.

On a vaguely related note, my ability to write by hand has gone completely to hell.

I've been tinkering around with the Shrinky Dinks that can be printed on; they behave very oddly when a particular glaze is applied. Despite numerous botched attempts, I managed to get a few little charms out of the deal. Also made the fascinating discovery that Elke's printer is full of cat hair (who would have thought?).

I suspect that I'll be selling a few necklaces soon... if only to free up desk space and help fund this horrible addiction to findings that I seem to have developed.

In closing... I have a lolrus in my sidecar.

Curios and Trinkets, part the third

2010-05-13T09:37:00.000-07:00

Freyja--Tiramisu's analog cat, in a way--has gone walkabout. Due to the circumstances surrounding the aforementioned disappearance, the odds of her turning up alive seem very slim, at least to me.

In keeping with the tradition of personable, fluffy cats making themselves at home here while she's away, a tiny and exceedingly sweet-tempered silver tabby strolled in and summarily adopted the place and everyone in it. Go figure.

That said... jewelery.

Brass, watch bits, and more serpentine!

This was actually the very first one I started--I just didn't have the right beads for it until the other day. Very smitten with the moss agate ones.

More moss agate with some slightly rusted chain. Given that it's nearly a choker, and fitted to my preposterously thin neck, I don't think many people could wear this one comfortably.

The companion piece for an earlier necklace.

And one made to go with the aethermancer's charm.

Copper and serpentine. I'm thinking I might switch the beads out for something bluer, as those greens just do not go.

Serpentine and pumice...

...and crab agate! I need to get some smaller beads of this stuff.

And lastly, a bracelet with pumice, serpentine, and more watch bits.

Curios and Trinkets, part the second

2010-05-09T19:00:00.000-07:00

The lunacy has not abated.

A better picture of the red bead.

Those leaves are plastic rather than glass, sadly... but I have dozens of them.

More serpentine beads. This one's roughly half new and half old material; I salvaged the leaf charm from a pair of earrings. Exceedingly covetous of this and the matching bracelet I made for it.

Curios and Trinkets

2010-05-08T08:41:00.000-07:00

Well, then.

Roughly a month and a half ago, I pointed out that the only thing keeping me from buying myself oodles of delightful little jewelery findings was my lack of a proper workspace. As I probably should have known... that barely slowed me down. My reasoning was that a) the lot of it all fits in a single shopping bag with plenty of room to spare, b) I have always loved playing with pretty little beads and such, c) I wanted a hand-intensive hobby that didn't involve a computer, and d) I so rarely spend money on indulgences that aren't edible.

That said...

Brass, watch gears, and one of my favourite stones--serpentine!

This one was copper.

Something a bit more girly. The bead isn't black at all in reality, but a deep wine red with some faint designs under the enamel.

And something equal parts woodsy and morbid, with wooden beads and brass bits.

This is rarely a good sign. Or is it?

2010-03-23T23:47:00.001-07:00

I've been stricken (again) with the urge to make jewelery. Necklaces, specifically. A grand total of ~12 hours were recently squandered on Etsy, stumbling around and drooling on findings and little pretty bits.

I'm not by and large a wearer of jewelery; I have perhaps four or five necklaces remaining in my collection, and generally wear at least two at once if I'm going to bother. That said, I have developed a penchant for grandiose messes of chain and filigree, and feel like I have nothing to say when it comes to painting, so perhaps it's high time for a change. Making the curios for my tiefling costume last year was an utter delight.

(The main thing keeping me from dropping piles of money on this nonsense is the knowledge that I really don't have a decent non-digital workspace at the moment.)

It's that time again, is it?

2010-03-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

My tablet and I continue to glare at each other, but I somehow managed to get it to cooperate long enough to do the linework of another knot. Still waffling on how to best dress it up.

On an unrelated note, it seemed that it was finally time for another section of Smoke and Serpentine. Not generally something I'd post, but given the time of year, I suppose a love note from Winter to Spring is at least a bit apropos.

V.

For a moment, I considered spring
flush with his alien hope
the sting of daybreak and celadon life

The vines slip through stone
in the innocent fashion of plants
and a cobweb of cracks wreathes the heart

My fingers itch to wander the soil
in search of secrets to unearth

Yet here they remain
and I ache to find contentment in his garden
for I am but a guest
and dread to tear the roots with careless greed.

A Map of Swords

2010-03-19T02:53:00.000-07:00

I've been fighting with my tablet lately; it occasionally has moments where it refuses to take a straight line and instead wiggles about in an aggravating fashion.

Despite that, a sketch. The odds of Miss Kos forgiving me for this anytime soon are slim, but I wanted to mark down her most prominent scars before I forgot where they were again.

Needle of Damocles

2010-03-05T12:17:00.001-08:00

I don't think I could explain why (beyond, perhaps, "visual overindulgence") I ended up drawing Ismial with a mana injector hanging over him. Still waffling on the colours of his clothing, and thinking of putting some trees in the background.

Given my intense loathing of syringes, I think this may be the first time my muse just bitch-slapped me and told me to draw what she wanted, phobias be damned.

Evocation, part the fourth (among other things)

2010-01-31T14:12:00.000-08:00

A bit past due, but I suppose this painting can stop gnawing on my arm now.

And a closeup from when I was working on it:

And another spot of work for the folks of Electric Mummy:

I also feel it necessary to share the stoopid that a few of my WoW guildies and I got up to the other day when our hair-obsessed paladin picked up the coveted pink shirt from ICC. It wasn't pretty, but it was fabulous.

I'd just like to point out here that the cake, flame brazier, and rose petals are totally my fault here.

And not content with merely baffling the people out on the streets, we paratrooped into the Alliance quarter to cause trouble.

Painty painty paint...

2009-12-07T02:21:00.000-08:00

Okay. My current commission is essentially complete. Just in time for another to sneak into my inbox, but I digress. (Yes, I'm allegedly closed. That doesn't seem to stop them, but I shan't complain.)

Colour is a tricky thing. Even with all that I've learned about colour theory over the years, I still feel like I'm flying blind half the time... especially where firelight and dark elf skin are concerned. Ah well, next thing I paint for myself is going to be monochrome for a break--that, and because I dearly wish to avoid botching this picture. Greyscale and I get along swimmingly.

The monochrome palette, not the cat. Stop sticking your nose under my door, you fuzzy sod.

The daydreaming bug has come back to me. Odd as it is, there were a few years when I barely felt it at all, to the point of it seeming like I was only cultivating snippets here and there to harvest them for stories as soon as was possible. That does not feel at all right, somehow.

Now I've gone back to letting them steep and stew for no eyes but my own. Because we all want something that we cannot have--and because actually having it would make it lose its lustre so much sooner.

(It really doesn't help that my friends and acquaintances keep inundating me with delightful music to mull over. I mean, seriously.)

Because I have the attention span of a gnat...

2009-12-01T00:18:00.000-08:00

Unfinished art that'll likely never get completed at the rate I'm going.

Mikala eating all of the cinnamon hearts and being smug about it.

A doodle of Mephikori that didn't pass muster.

...and one that almost did.

This remains my favourite sketch of Anaquiel.

Our Lady of the Mechanical Octopus. I'm starting to think that's a glass eye...

A demon-mask built off of a sketchblob done in Alchemy.

A quick portrait of one of B's characters.

Blind devotion.

Decaying disorder.

A statue. I'm rather fond of this one.

Lady Kos' addendum to the clockwork fey set. Screwed up her face something fierce.

I've come to the decision that all magi should be expected to wear fingerless gloves.

Meiru, most likely.

A draenei I painted in Opencanvas for someone's amusement a while back. Horns are a bitch when you can't erase too well.

And lastly (for now), a fiendish lady-mage.

Elfpunked

2009-11-25T15:28:00.000-08:00

Why?

Because I can.

(He's made it to 70. I don't know if it's because of the goggles or because I like getting stunned looks from passersby who don't expect priests to be able to pull off efficient AoE pulls.)

Evocation, part the third

2009-11-23T06:21:00.000-08:00

"Cut us from the U of Dalaran varsity team, will they?!"

(Really, given that it's an institution of mage-geeks, how bad would you have to be?)

Ahem.

That aside, I am currently dividing my time between working on a delightful little commission and murdering wayward Alliance players that blunder into the Undercity in search of a free turkey dinner*. Hey, I thought it was rather apropos for a Forsaken-style Thanksgiving.

*What makes this all the more entertaining is the fact that I was on my rogue, and thus managed about half of those kills in the form of an extremely aggressive turkey.

Evocation, part the second

2009-11-18T07:30:00.000-08:00

Working on an underpainting of sorts. Also, B and I think that it would be greatly improved by the addition of a basketball.

Evocation

2009-11-17T10:36:00.000-08:00

To most, it means a sort of conjuration. To a few of us, it also means restoring a good bit of sweet, sweet mana.

It'll make sense later. Special effects explain everything.

To give you an idea of how badly I've gone in over my head with that one, the first picture is shown at 12.5% of its actual size.

On an unrelated note, I suspect that I've cracked a toe.

I mentioned mummies a while back. I was talking about these guys, who've taken me on as their official art-monkey. So if you play really fast and loose with definitions, I'm in a rock band. Sort of.

Lock up yer pretty elf blokes, cutter...

2009-10-31T21:55:00.000-07:00

...before I do it *for* yeh, jig?

(An utterly stupid number of images to follow; don't ever say I didn't warn you. All but two come courtesy of Elke... and as I mentioned earlier, my precious Eye is the mad genius of Fyriel.)

(As an aside, this is the cat that serves as inspiration for Tiramisu. Unfortunately, despite being utterly gorgeous, she's rather camera-shy.)

And the season takes hold, part the fourth

2009-10-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

For the record, Weldbond (or perhaps lesser varieties of white glue) mixed with cornstarch makes a better air-dry clay than... well, air-dry clay. At least for my purposes.

What I ended up with was a pliable, faintly sticky putty with a pretty short working time, but long enough for me to mold it onto long press-on nails and work in a scallop pattern, one at a time. It held its shape perfectly, adhered to the nails all by itself, shrank a teeny bit, and dried to a rock-hard and very smooth plasticky finish. It also weighs less than clay and I suspect it will be far less fragile. I made little horns out of some of the leftovers.

Also, it made me pancakes this morning.*

Now, I just have to see how well it takes a coat of acrylic paint.

*This may or may not be a lie.

And the season takes hold, part the third

2009-10-27T14:37:00.000-07:00

An even worse picture than the last, but the bottle is now filled, corked, and further decorated with that skull pendant I mentioned. Contemplating sealing it with (mock?) wax; perhaps some more of this white glue mixed with a colourant of some kind. Black acrylic paint, I'm thinking.

My sundial ring and darling little bone skull have joined the scroll on the chain, though I have yet to get a decent picture of them all together.

There wasn't really much room left on the chain itself for the clock-face bauble I picked up, so it has instead found a home as a pendant on one of the slips of selvage that were tying shut the pouch my eyepiece came in.

And now, to ponder what my chances at getting my hands on (and subsequently modifying) a set of press-on talons prior to the 31st are.

A moment of win

2009-10-27T09:06:00.000-07:00

Even my room is trying to cheer me up right now. In the past ten minutes, it not only fed me fruit leather, but also gave back the hinged skull pendant I bought the better part of ten years ago, and my goddamned Eleanor of Aquitane sundial ring. Hell yes.

I mean, I'm really just trying to find my Warcrack timecard box, but still. Awesome.

And the season takes hold, part the second

2009-10-27T07:04:00.000-07:00

While I've been keeping the dark of it to myself, I suppose letting you lot catch a skeg at the most recent additions to my collection of curios can't do *that* much harm.

(Much as I like making things up... in this case, I'm not. Also, that label was a bitch to cut out.)

The wee deader hanging between the scroll and dragon comes courtesy of Fyriel, a canny Cager if ever there was one.

As for the Eye she crafted for me... that, *that* I'll be keeping to myself until the rest of my trinkets are in order.

Just you wait, cutter.

A reworking, part the fourth

2009-10-17T12:36:00.000-07:00

And like magic, we have a disgruntled mage.

There's a bit more meaning in a few of the runes than I care to let on, but most of them are just for show.

On a totally unrelated note, I'm swooning over a monogoggle.

Postcards from Azeroth, part the second

2009-10-16T23:06:00.000-07:00

Because some of the things in my screenshot folder are just too stupid not to share.

I felt a twinge of guilt for having done this to my poor hawkstrider.

Remember what I said about Prince Malchezaar turning my shaman into a damp splat way back when? Vengeance is delicious.

I have *got* to see a picture of Kendris' rogue in this getup sometime.

Instant ten-man raid. Just add conjured water!

Rather than work on spells or stay in-character, the Magey R&D Department elects to develop the ultimate ret paladin attack cycle. In Kirby emoticons.

Speaking of ret paladins, I've given up asking how B gets himself into these situations. I'm just glad that he has a parachute.

A reworking, part the third

2009-10-16T22:28:00.000-07:00

Her expression speaks to me. More specifically, it says "you know you want to set aside your actual work and finish painting me."

And to that I say, "shut up, Lady."

>:|

A reworking, part the second

2009-10-15T23:23:00.000-07:00

The lady won't leave me be; it's as simple as that.

And the season takes hold...

2009-10-15T03:03:00.001-07:00

It's five in the morning and I'm tearing the place apart in search of some Sculpey to make costume bits with.

It's gonna be one of those nights.

(...I know I put it around here somewhere...)

A reworking

2009-09-06T04:24:00.000-07:00

Ms. Kos continues to enjoy her recently re-acquired position as paramount figment of my imagination--so here's a cropped reworking of an old sketch of her.

She appears to have filched Mebby's cloak and added runes to it.

"You know what you did!"

2009-09-02T21:45:00.000-07:00

Five words that modern parenting and schooling would be better off without, I assure you. To this day, I'm convinced that my seventh grade teacher kicked me out of her classroom for randomly sighing heavily, but I'll never know the real reason, because like a great many other authority figures who like playing mind games, she never saw fit to tell me. And like a great many other authority figures, she got away with this bullshit because there was no one in a position of power around to tell her to knock it off and do her job. Hell, even my own mother has pulled this stunt at least once*, and I generally stand by her parenting methods.

Near as I can figure, there are two reasons people do this:

1. You're a bunch of lazy bastards who can't be arsed to take a minute to explain what the kid did to offend your sensibilities so.

2. You know that kids are devious little bastards who've probably done a dozen similarly bad things within the past few hours, and you hope that by saying "you KNOW what you did!", you might be able to get them to confess to several others that you haven't found out about yet.

Number two, by the way, never works--or rather, for every time that it does, there are about a hundred kids wondering what the hell they're being punished for. And yet the people disciplining them are surprised when they do it again, or slink around behind their backs in fear of seemingly random wrath.

And people are surprised when I tell them that I never want to be a kid again. Hah!

*No, I am not saying what I suspect it was for. See point #2.

Post-Cleaning Grumpery

2009-08-22T15:01:00.000-07:00

Cleaning has ceased for the time being. The worst of it is done; now it's more a matter of finding a place to *put* everything. As a result, I'd like to ask the world at large to stop giving me things that take up space. I've made this request before, and it's gone largely unnoticed. This is why I dislike Christmas so much: I don't want anything.

Except food and computer upgrades. Heh.

Presently on my to-do list:

Get a chair. This new bed is glorious but I cannot type or game at this relative height.
Cull the remaining hoard of shite. I do not care if someone just got me something; if I have no use for it, it has no place here. Space is more valuable.
Throw away my bloody CD jewel cases. Honestly, what are they even good for?
Finally cash in on Tak's offer of computer upgrades. Will very likely pitch in myself and get a new setup altogether; something in this one is dying, and that simply will not do.
Install and figure out how to use Illustrator. Har har.
Finish the two active commissions I have and take the one waiting in the wings.
Move the stuff in this room around. Remember what I said about needing a chair? There's nowhere to put one right now. *grumble*

And to think that I laughed when they said that Capricorns started off as packrats and then threw everything away for the sake of minimalism later on...

My Phone is Filing a Restraining Order

2009-08-18T00:53:00.000-07:00

I've several things to mention:

Firstly, that Abney Park's "She" is a delightfully bittersweet and utterly addictive bit of music.

Secondly, that there is no greater hilarity in WoW than staging an excursion and making one's way into the ruins of Dire Maul in character, right down to unlocking the doors... and then getting a faceful of wall and an "additional instances cannot be launched at this time". Can't speak for Ms. Kos' colleague, but I was dying of laughter.

Finally, I've been cleaning for about twelve hours. Some notes regarding the highlights of the evening:

9:30 P.M. - Mothers are greeting dishes in much the same fashion as one does a friend they've not seen in years.

10 P.M. - Had to explain that the loud thumping noises emanating from the basement were a result of my beating clothes against the washer to get the dust off prior to washing. In retrospect, am contemplating doing laundry on a slightly more regular basis.

12:30 A.M. - ShopVac attempted to eat a fingerless glove. Have administered Heimlich and am now chastising it for poor dietary habits.

1 A.M. - ShopVac has made a second attempt at fellating the phone cord. Fairly certain that the phone cord was not particularly happy about this, going by what sounded like a high-pitched shriek of horror.

1:15 A.M. - ...that had better have been a shriek of horror.

And just because I can...

2009-07-21T02:19:00.000-07:00

...here's a sketch of my newly-minted WoW priest. These guys never fare well with me; I quite literally have half a dozen priests abandoned from levels 8 to 48. It is my fervent hope that the fact that this one has goggles will endear him to me enough to at least break 50.

And a considerably messier sketch of my perpetually down-and-out rogue for good measure.

And lastly, I wonder who this could be...

(On unrelated notes--I have a spider guarding my windowsill against six-legged invaders free of charge, and this is utter earcandy.)

Souvenirs

2009-07-17T00:43:00.000-07:00

I'll be a happy berk when pointed apathy goes out of style... but I have the uncomfortable feeling that at the rate we're going, the world will go up in flames before that happens. Humanity is far too much in love with its ugliest side lately--or perhaps it always has been, and it's just taken me this long to see it. Perhaps the light's finally been kicked out of me for the time being.

So, two souvenirs from my attempts at soothing the disgruntled Chala. See if you can guess which one frustrated the living hell out of me as I was working on it and which one fell off the pen.

I don't want to go on the cart!

2009-07-02T22:47:00.000-07:00

I'm not dead. Really truly. I'm just a WoW zombie at the moment.

There is something else in the works on the art front, though. All I'm saying is this:

Mummies.

My Muse is a Jackass

2009-06-10T13:50:00.000-07:00

Case in point:

Mebrit fumbled with the keys to his apartment, nearly
dropping them when he went to put them back in his
pocket. Upon opening the door and stepping inside, he was
almost entirely certain that he was hallucinating.

"Miss Kos," he called out weakly as he nudged Tiramisu
aside and shut the door behind Endrin, "why is there a dead
woman in the hallway?"

"Well, I was going to leave her in the living room, but she
clashed with the upholstery."

Time to start over...

2009-06-08T16:08:00.000-07:00

Just to keep me from becoming cocky, NetHack decided (after I rolled up Mebby again because the thought of a patron god of afternoon tea-breaks amused me) that when I strolled down a set of stairs as a first level wizard, I should not only be displaced onto a neighboring spot and thus be unable to escape, but I should also be faced with the ghost of one of Miss Nori's previous incarnations, and an angry gnome packing a wand of sleep. Who then proceeded to zap and beat me about the head and shoulders until the wee tombstone graphic popped up.

(So if one was wondering why it took me seventeen years to beat this game...)

Sweet, Sweet Victory

2009-06-07T16:27:00.000-07:00

So, after seventeen years of trying, I finally ascended a character in NetHack. A bloody rogue, of all things. She quite literally strolled through the Astral plane backhanding angels out of the way with a dead cockatrice.

Feeling rather flagrant and slightly incomplete at the high altar, I went looking through my belongings and used up one of my leftover wishes...

...because there would blood if Miss Nori didn't swagger off to demigoddess-hood with a pint in hand.

Tea and Sorcery

2009-06-05T14:23:00.000-07:00

That was my NaNoWriMo project for 2008. Did I--after four years of giving up and burning out--finally drag my ass across the 50k finish line? Yes. Was the story done? Fuck, no.

As of last night, I finally decided to tie off the only truly offending loose thread in appropriately bittersweet fashion, though I'm still fiddling with how to go about it. None of this sequel-baiting dreck. Closure. The story will surely end up being more grisly (and what else could I ask of four vindictive dark elves?), but oddly enough should give the character in question something closer to a happily-ever-after.

Why am I babbling about this? Because I'm actually fairly happy with the prologue as it stands, and have released it to the wild to nibble on low-hanging branches.

Masks and Bubbers

2009-06-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

In the interest of not making an ass of myself while working on last year's NaNo, I went back to doing a bit of research on opiates. Despite my lack of interest in actually using drugs, that one in particular I find oddly enthralling to read about. Perhaps it's because it goes so well with the whole Victorian-Steampunk thing.

Thus, I'm picking through Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater in search of something more anecdotal than dry medical reading, and have come across this gem:

...certainly it is most absurdly said, in popular language,
of any man that he is _disguised_ in liquor; for, on the
contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety, and it is when
they are drinking (as some old gentleman says in Athenaeus),
that men [Greek text]--display themselves in their true
complexion of character, which surely is not disguising
themselves.

I've been saying that for years. I have never bought it for a minute when anyone blamed hateful behaviour or split personalities on inebriation, but instead see it as stripping away all the polite repressions and masks to reveal whatever one truly has inside; sometimes something very ugly. The only person I personally know to have been an angry, violent drunk had a violent temper when stone cold sober. Alcohol merely peeled off the rest of the facade.

Or maybe I just feel that way because I never did anything but giggle and daydream and be more forthcoming with my sympathy while drunk: all core elements of who I am, but not ones that I readily put forth.

Who knows?

...and it's about time, too!

2009-06-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

Cannot breathe. Laughing too hard.

thud

2009-05-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

Very indulgent day; B hauled me on into a string of heroics in WoW just about as soon as I was awake (and as an aside, I am appalled by how much easier it is to heal ordinary five-man groups as a shaman than as a paladin--especially when everyone else is a melee class!).

Went out for dinner in celebration of a household holiday, marking the ninth anniversary of my mother and I leaving home posthaste. Freedom is a good thing. Wondering who I might have turned out to be in such an environment does little but give me a little suffocating shudder of distaste.

Pondering the fact that the sun was still up at nearly nine, I found myself with a particular Strawbs song in my head on the way home, so that'll be my musical overindulgence for the day.

Since Winter reminded me earlier of the ever-amusing practice of putting one's characters through the dreaded Purity Test, and also because I was bored, I did so.

Sadly enough, the tief is still sitting above eighty percent, and that's after Faenori got her claws into him, and allowing for the fact that he considers laudanum to be a perfectly sensible choice of painkiller. Slightly more startling was finding that Mikala has yet to fall below sixty (berk needs to expand his horizons. Hey Winter, is your sociopathic mage busy? *snerk*).

Sidhe's got too much time on her hands...

2009-05-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

...and I don't seem to have enough. Where the hell is this year going?

Continuing with my wee set of portraits, here's a cropped version of the sketch for the next one, which will likely remove all doubt as to what they're really meant to show (although the last one will probably make no sense without the others).

I don't think I added enough visual references to the Heretic games. Every incarnation of this character has always been as a surviving member of an elven race that had the living shit kicked out of it by demons and the undead (rolling her as a blood elf in WoW was so apropos that it wasn't even funny). Might explain why she's grumpy all the time...

clunk

2009-05-25T17:33:00.000-07:00

Let's see...

I picked up a new headset the other day. Momentarily considered a wireless one (because the only reason I *ever* have to replace them is because I have an unfortunate habit of getting the cord hooked on things and accidentally yanking it about) but then remembered that it would actually have to charge up, and it is not uncommon for me to be wearing the things for fourteen hours at a stretch.

The eldest of the furry bastards went and sprained his leg. He is presently limping about and receiving a ridiculous number of ear rubs.

I either need to do a lot more lineart, or a lot less. Presently colouring some that I did for a commission, and I never feel so ham-fisted as I do when inking--even though it's digital. Somehow, painting is much easier. Maybe it's just an issue of practice.

And now I leave you with this atrocity of fashion, spotted in Orgrimmar several months ago: