chairman_wow: a dragon spitting fire (Dragon)
I went to visit [personal profile] lullula in the North this week! It was a lovely time. Here's some things we did:

Read more... )

Tomorrow I have a job interview for a part-time tutoring job and then THE DAY AFTER Tim & I are going to Amsterdam for a week SO MANY THINGS PLEASE STOP THE RIDE I NEED A BREATH.

Amsterdam should be a lot of fun though.

While travelling I've been amusing myself with a pixel art app on my phone. I think I've been improving! These are my two faves I've done so far.

pixels )

And now, to bed!
chairman_wow: medieval illustration of a fox biting a duck. It's saying 'queck'. (queck)


Everyone on Tumblr has been posting Valentine's Day cards, and I wanted in on the action. Oh breakfast, you might not be the one accompanying me to the London Aquarium on Tuesday, but in my heart you are my true valentine. (I still don't really care one way or the other about Valentine's Day to be honest, but I like excuses for dates, and I really like aquariums.)

I'm afraid I still don't have much to report about my life; jut generally attempting to get out of bed at reasonable times of day and leave the house sometimes.

I do have some great short stories to rec, though! In audio and text form, for maximum convenience and accessibility.

The Ghost of a Girl Who Never Lived by Keffy R. M. Kehrli. Audio & text at Escape Pod.
A sad story about clones and identity and childhood and things like that.

Their Changing Bodies by Alaya Dawn Johnson. Audio at PodCastle & text at Subterranean.
And this one is an awesome story about puberty and vampires (no no, bear with me here), and girls being total badasses. Also in the end-- no, I don't want to spoil it, just listen/read.

The Magick by Kristina C. Mottla. Audio & text at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
I guess this is a pretty standard coming out/oppression metaphor type thing (I admit I do enjoy those on occasion), but the worldbuilding is quite charming in a teasing way. Argh, no, tell me how your magic system works, show me what's going on outside this one community, I want to know more.
chairman_wow: picture of my faaaace (Got a cold)
The grumpy hours.

Read more... )


But then I woke up this morning thinking I want to do hourly comics again, that was fun!

/shrug
chairman_wow: picture of my faaaace (Model)
I probably wont have time to scan the rest before late tonight, so I thought I'd post the first half now

probably NSFW, idk )

Lunchtime now!
chairman_wow: picture of my faaaace (Default)
Gutes Neues Jahr

 

The pig is there for luck. Apparently pigs don't symbolise good luck in England, as I learned yesterday when Tim asked me why it was there. This is weird and interesting and makes me want to do a survey! I’m pretty sure four-leaved clovers, chimney sweepers, and possibly horseshoes (with the legs pointing up so they look like a bull’s horns, according to my grandmother) are shared, as well as all the unlucky stuff like walking under ladders and breaking mirrors and so on. (I suspect those were popularised by films and cartoons.) My mum brought me bread, salt, and a penny when I moved into the flat -- for plentiful food, wealth, and good luck, respectively, though we had to look that up -- and when you find a penny on the street you’re meant to (pretend) spit on it three times and keep it in your pocket for luck. That’s all the folkloric traditions and superstitions I can think of off the top of my head. Do you have any?

I think pigs are pretty cool animals, regardless.

So, in the time since I last blogged I’ve been having really nice Christmas and birthday/New Years times. Hung out with my family, baked cookies, ate delicious food, and played card and board games (everyone seems to be coming around to my point of view that board games are for cool kids. My dad even enjoyed Settlers of Catan, after initial scepticism – “You can’t kill anyone?”). Everyone seemed to like the presents I got them, too.  :D (Paintings for my parents & brother, and a pair of Hello Kitty headphones for Tim.) My parents got me a new keyboard and screen, which I asked for intending to attach to my laptop, but then Tim got me the parts of a computer to go with them. :O! I am coming to you at this very moment from my super sexy new desktop PC. I got some other really great stuff, too )

On New Year’s Eve, Tim and I went out to see the London fireworks. The travel guidelines said the viewing areas start filling up around 8, so we went out for dinner and ended up on Westminster Bridge around 7. And then we sat and read books for five hours while Radio 1 played really lame music. It was totally worth it, though: the fireworks were spectacular. I adore fireworks. Pretty bright colours and loud noises are just viscerally satisfying. Fuck yeah, watch us light up the sky! I didn’t want to waste any of that feeling on trying to take photos, because photos of fireworks are never as good anyway, but I did tear myself away for a couple of seconds because the sea of cameras and phones that went up in front of me when it started was too amusing not to document.


Everyone on the internet already knows what fireworks look like, guys.

I was thinking yesterday about whether I should make a resolution this year. I usually don’t, because I think about my goals and how to achieve them pretty frequently anyway, so I don’t feel the need to do it at new year’s specifically. My life has been going really well in the last few months. Everything feels like it’s rolling in the right direction. I like where I live, my relationship is really good, I’ve been making some cool friends at uni and being social, and I got my first essay back before the holiday and got the best grade of my academic career so far holy shit. Of course this is a dangerous moment and I can’t rest on my laurels and stop pushing to keep rolling in that direction, so I’ve decided that my resolution for 2011 is: “Take all necessary steps to ensure the continuation of awesome good times”.

chairman_wow: picture of my faaaace (longcat)
Back in the mists of time before uni started, I decided I should try to (re)learn how to do watercolour painting. At some point I did one of a Pokémon, and I thought "I bet the internet would love this". So I made a few more, and in the last week I finally got around to putting them on Etsy. :D

I have an Etsy shop now, check it out!
Etsy
breakfastspoon


This is the first time I've made an attempt to actively sell things I have made on the internet, so if someone's desperate lack of Pokémon fanart watercolours ever comes up in conversation, I would be super appreciative if you pointed them my way.

Or you could buy one yourself, obviously, if you are so inclined. <3


OH BY THE WAY SPEAKING OF POKÉMON. Tim got us copies of Pokémon Black and White in Japanese. They were meant to be Christmas presents, but we are both people with absolutely no patience, so we started playing them when they got here last week. HATERS GONNA HATE, but I think most of the new Pokémon look pretty cool, and I can mostly understand what's going on, though I do have to play it with a dictionary. It totally counts as practice.

This is my party atm:

Munna and Dangoro are my favourites so far. Floral pink blobs and weird polygons all the way, apparently.
chairman_wow: picture of my faaaace (Model)
Sorry for not posting for so long, guys! Last week I went to Austria with my parents for my dad's birthday. While we were there I found some greyscale Copic markers for super cheap! ♥___♥ These didn't scan very well, partly because my pretty new scanner doesn't acknowledge "Cool Gray No. 1" as a colour distinct from white, but here's me trying them out in my little sketchbook:


The Austrians have a silly word for cream that sounds like the German word for colonel. Yyep.

More )

On the weekend we were there, Nickelodeon was showing seasons 1 and 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender in a big recap marathon kind of thing, I guess, and I managed to catch a few episodes in the evening. By which I mean I watched one and then couldn't stop despite not wanting spoilers. It was kind of on my to-watch list already, but now I need that show in my life.

Tomorrow I might post some photos from the trip. I've been dividing my days since I got back between preparatory reading at the UCL library and practising watercolour painting. (I'll show you the results of that sometime soon, as well.) I've been neglecting the internet a little, but life is good. <3
chairman_wow: picture of my faaaace (Default)
Wow, I am on Tim's laptop and he has the screen on an insane resolution that makes all these pictures look tiny.

My Pokemans, let me show you etc.



Haunter and Piloswine are my favourites from my current party in HeartGold. :3

Some other drawings that are not of Pokemon. )


I'm feeling pretty good about my art lately. I've been improving quite a bit, and I also know hat I can get a lot better still.

----

I forgot to bring a book to Tim's house, but luckily he has a manga collection to raid.

I read All My Darling Daughters by Fumi Yoshinaga yesterday, and it made me feel feelings. I liked some of the stories better than others — I spent the entire second chapter going "What. What the fuck. What." but even so, I can sort of see where it's coming from. Sort of. I'm not sure. I really enjoyed the rest of them, anyway, and I'll think I'm going to read it another few times soon.

I also went through the first five volumes of Ikigami by Motoro Mase, pretty much in one go. They're good, but kind of a downer when consumed all at once. It's set in what I think is a near-alternative-future, in which a more totalitarian Japanese government randomly selects one young person a day to die, allegedly to make the rest of the citizens appreciate life and be more productive members of society.

The protagonist is one of the officials charged with delivering death papers to those chosen 24 hours before their scheduled time of death. But, at least at first, he only appears at the beginning and end of each chapter, which tells the story of what one particular person does with their last day. So, while it's showing you the different ways in which people react to their own inevitable death, and being tragic or heart-warming or depressing, it also slowly gives you a feel for the kind of society these people are living in and how it's shaped by the law. The atmosphere — the bureaucracy and constant fear of being overheard by secret police — reminds me a lot of stories set in the DDR. I think the next few volumes are going to be particularly interesting, as the main character's doubts about his job and his society look like they're about to reach a tipping point.
chairman_wow: picture of my faaaace (Harmless)


It was actually a relatively cool 25°C yesterday, but for the past week I've been pouring water down my throat like it was going out of style.

Stuff from my sketchbook from France )


The Gates of Hell is also an epic piece of statuary, and I would like it for the doors of my house.

From there I walked via the Eiffel Tower (first time I'd seen it up close. Really impressive — as you may or may not know I totally get off on over-dimensional architecture — though standing still to take it all in meant being set upon by a pack of souvenir sellers. I'd like to go up sometime, but I didn't then because it's expensiiiiive, and I figured it'd be more fun together with someone else, anyway.) to the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Particularly enjoyed the 1930s furniture, weird-shit painitngs by Victor Brauner and pretty painitngs by Suzanne Valadon. I also wrote down Raymond Hains, I think because his giant matches (thank you, Google) made me laugh.

The next two days I spent with Tim, so I didn't sit around drawing anything. We went to a comic shop (where I failed to find any comics I'd heard of, but bought some nice looking ones anyway), and the Musée des Arts et Métiers, and the Grande Galerie de l'évolution at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. Why is this one a 'muséum' and not a 'musée'? Arts et Métiers was quite cool — creaky old building full of technological stuff — but I think it might have been better if they arranged it all chronologically instead of dividing it into topics and then arranging the objects within each topic. Or at least pick broader topics; maybe one per floor? The constant jumping back in time was a little jarring.

We also walked around a bit, but it was really hot and Tim wasn't feeling very well all week, so we went home pretty early every day. What we should obviously have done is go home at noon and then go out later and enjoy Paris in the evening, but that never occurred to me. -__-



Lastly, here's a woman with an octopus:

chairman_wow: picture of my faaaace (Default)


That is a representation of an actual car I saw last week. Well, that one was... "anatomically" correct.

Anyways, we owned England on Sunday, so everyone can put their flags away and shut up now.


And now I will go play some Katamari. And maybe later I will scan the rest of my sketchbook and write about France. Or maybe I'll just play Katamari all night
chairman_wow: picture of my faaaace (longcat)


I wear contact lenses half the time these days, actually, but I never remember not to draw my glasses.

Felt like drawing something Katamari-related, and remembered it was on Gratuitous Picture Of Yourself Wednesday on Tumblr. I'd like to propose a new definition of "gratuitous" roughly synonymous to "as silly as possible". Think of all the things that could be improved by this definition! Gratuitous violence, gratuitous sex scenes...

In other news, I don't have tonsillitis! I just had some food stuck in my tonsil. Apparently that happens fairly commonly. o____o
chairman_wow: picture of my faaaace (longcat)
I've been doing some little doodles lately to practice with my watercolours and markers on! And then my scanner did its best to screw with the colours, and then I did my best to un-screw them in Photoshop for a few hours until all of life started seeming loveless and cruel, and in conclusion I'm asking for a new scanner for Christmas.

Blobby creatures )


I definitely need to practice more, but I think I'm improving, anyway.

Oh yeah, and I've started posting some drawings on deviantART again. (I'm being sociable on the internet! :O) It seems the way to get comments on dA is to post pictures of dragons. They like dragons there, I guess.


Tim and I are looking at a flat in London tomorrow. :D I hope it's nice, 'cause it's in an awesome location. Right down the street from the Tate!


Also here's some links I posted on LJ last night. They're for cool kids.

• "Mario's Three Lives". Possibly the finest piece of fanfiction on the internet today.

Spera. I meant to link this earlier, but I don't think I ever did. It's an excellent comic about adventures and things, and I don't know why I only discovered it recently.

BAÏDIR trailer. I need this in my life.

Really early Pokemon concept art. Eeee.

Filthy Figments. Comic porn by ladies! I've never subscribed to a comic site before, but I think I might for this one. :3

• And I'm pretty sure everyone's heard this already, but: The Pope Song, by Tim Minchin. NSFW. But brilliant.
chairman_wow: picture of my faaaace (Holy Shit)

Photobucket


Pretty much done with Illustration askdhaskjlfhadskjfh;adskl. (More pictures at LJ, if you'd like.)
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