all made up with nowhere to go

Today I should be in work, but I am not, because I asked for the day off as holiday, so I am consequently sitting here feeling weird. I shouldn't, really, because I usually work every other Tuesday anyway, but I suppose it's because I know I should be and I'm not.

Anyway, I asked for the day off, as tomorrow will be my birthday, and I wanted maximum chill for that day, which means today is for doing boring chores, for example. I will probably end up doing a few chores tomorrow (like a clothes wash) because I need to, but I'm going to try to do the majority today.

Or Thursday.

Doesn't matter! Birthdays are for lounging around the house and doing as little as possible!

I was going to buy myself some nice food from Iceland on the way home from work yesterday (having failed to find anything that took my fancy when I did my Big Shop last week). Except Iceland was mysteriously closed (the main shutters were down, so I couldn't go in!), so I went in CEX and bought the PS3 version of FFXIII-2 instead.

Which is obviously not food, but it is a thing I had literally been thinking about buying (despite already owning it on the 360), because I am now very close to the end of FFXIII.

I beat the boss in Oerba who, as you may remember, is not one I was looking forward to. But I took them down in two goes. The first was for lols to see how well I could do, and I whittled their 3 million HP down to quarter of a million before the Doom timer ran out. And I was pretty pleased about that.

Then I did some grinding, which didn't even feel like grinding, to get Vanille Curaja, and I bought Fang the current best accessory to improve her already massive strength stat, and I tried again. And it took me less time, and I didn't get Doom cast on me!

And then I've failed miserably at every major fight since, so wheeeeee! Business as usual! I'm currently stuck on the Adamanchelid in Eden, which I remember being a PITA last time.

~

In other news, I started doing some digital art on my new computer, and I really enjoyed it! I've been thinking off and on about how I can't wait to get back to it to see how it turns out. It's nothing special and it doesn't look amazing (imo), but I also haven't done digital in three and a half years, especially not with a tablet.

(I was using a mouse last time because I was doing pixel art - as far as I remember - and placing pixels very deliberately, and a mouse is easier for that).

I also have had some ideas for things I can do once I get back into the swing of it. I've been wanting to make things with lettering for literal years - I think I may have mentioned this before, it's one of the reasons I wanted to learn brush lettering/improve my calligraphy - and I've seen some pixel examples on my timeline on twitter recently. And then, of course, I was all, "I can do that now!"

Not that I would pixel them, I don't think, but I would certainly have a go at doing something digitally. Especially because I'll be able to do faux calligraphy; turns out my tablet is sensing some pen pressure, yay! I didn't think it would, even though I'd installed the drivers, but it seems that it is.

And then, on a semi-related note, I fell into a fonts hole on pinterest, because there are some really nice calligraphy/handwriting style fonts!

I absolutely love fonts, and I always have, and I cannot tell you why*. I have a massive collection of free to use fonts that I haven't looked at in years in part, because I didn't know how to view or install them on Linux. But I know how to do it on Windows! And I just looked in the font folder on my C: Drive, and it shows you previews without even clicking on them!

(I realise this is probably old news to everyone else but this is my first Windows PC in ten years. The last OS I used personally was XP; I used Win7 at my scanning job, but I wasn't allowed to muck around with fonts there so IDK if it did that then).

Anyway, I have now fallen into a font shaped hole on here, so it is probably time that I post this entry, because I don't think I have anything else to say!

~

*You know when there's something you look at, and it just pleases your brain? I am like that with colours, fonts, stationery, and cats.

On Monday. I did some rearranging in the living room, so that now I have a table to work on. This is great in theory. In practice, however, it's not so great. The table is to the side of my chair, not in front of it (I get up quite a lot, so it would be inconvenient). There is not a lot of space for me to sit sideways on my chair, and it's badly upholstered, so the edge of the arms stick into my legs and back, and that is not fun.

I am going to have to rethink this.

I wouldn't have done it at all, I don't think, but that I was thinking about digital art, and how I don't use my tablet much any more (I've had it five years and barely touched it in the last four. In fact, the last time I really did any digital art was last summer!)

One solution is to get an exercise ball to sit on, so I can sit round the other side of the table. They are very cheap (there are ones available for under £10!), and apparently it's really good for you, because it helps stabilise your core muscles, among other things. This is good, because I have been wanting to work on my abdomnials, but I wasn't sure how to go about it (me and most types of exercise are unmixy things). So this could be a good thing! Also it will probably help the problems I have with my hips somewhat, which would be nice because, although they've not been so bad recently, it would be nice for them to not hurt much at all.

The other solution is rearranging the entire living room, and that's a no-no, even if I am feeling slightly more energetic right now.

I did a bit of digital art over the weekend and knackered my right wrist temporarily (I did three days' worth of sewing with no breaks a couple of months ago and made my wrist hurt A Lot. It's not been right since).

Anyway, so far I'm mad at myself because I can't figure out how to get the part where it doesn't look like trash. I'll get there, eventually. (I remember having this feeling with everything else, soooo, hopefully I will learn one day! *crosses fingers*)

~

Which. I'm actually going to go right ahead and say this, because it is somewhat related, but I thought it deserved its own section :)

I don't know how many of you know of Loish, who is an amazing artist (it doesn't matter if you don't). I was looking at her blog on Monday, and I read a post she'd written about when she injured her arm. A lot of artists (and crafters) get carpal tunnel because I don't know about you, but I'm really bad at taking breaks. So is Loish. Anyway, she didn't get carpal tunnel, she got tennis elbow, but the point is that she hurt her dominant arm so badly she couldn't use it.

She recommends using this program called Workrave, which forces you to take breaks from your computer. It makes you break every handful of minutes, and then every 45 minutes, you take a longer break. I've had it on since yesterday (because it works on Linux as well as Windows \o/ ), and it drives me mad but I appreciate it doing its thing.

For ages now I've needed something to make me take breaks on the computer, because I get too absorbed in what I'm doing, and end up feeling crappy because of it. I never thought about a program to nag me to GTFO the computer, but hey here we are.

~

Wordery has all three German versions of the Raven Cycle books (I assume The Raven King will be along eventually), and I think the German titles are much nicer (sorry, Maggie).

The Raven Boys is Wen der Rabe ruft, then we have Was die Spiegel wissen, and Wer der Lilie träumt.

One day I might have to spring for them all, but maybe not new copies. We'll see.

Sketchdump times!

Assorted pics, including Persona 2 fanart (zero spoilers!), and a huge scribble which may make the entire thing unsuitable for dial-up users?

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Comments, crits, whatever welcome as usual.

~*~

In other news, I finished that thing I started the other day! \o/ Now I just have to figure out how to take a decent picture of it *sigh*

Did someone say artdump? Sure, why not?

( +10 pics, mostly original art )

Comments and/or crits welcome! Also should I make tags for my original characters? There obviously aren't enough pictures of them at the moment and whatnot, but what do you think?

messiah_noire requested that I do an art dump after asking last night, so that's what this is :)

Before I start, though, a couple of questions:

1. Should I do this once I've got enough sketches and whatnot backed up on my tumblr? I'd say I'd do it weekly, but I only update tumblr at the weekend (and on holidays), so there's not enough for weekly. What do you think?

2. I need a new art icon, since emo!Cloud is two and a half years old now (although I'm still fond of him). (And Azmodel on eljay is nearly six years old!) Any suggestions from my art? (I could have a look myself, and probably will).

That aside, on with the art! And comments and crits are welcome, as I am always looking to improve :)

( 8 images; may not be suitable for dial-up )

My first picture of the year!

I am not kidding when I say I was up at nearly 1am doodling it. I would have rathered been asleep, so this is probably my subconscious talking, right?

( 1 Dream Lord under here )

As I said on my sketchblog, I'd love to make a comic coloured in this fashion, but I know I couldn't do it because a) I have no ideas and b) I have zero patience.

I need to post more of my art here as well as the sketchblog instead of just assuming you guys will all go and look there.

It's been ages since I posted a pic I'd done on my journal (I secretly think my sketchblog is making me lazier than I already am).

So here's a picture of Morpheus (no, not THAT one):

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(On making new tags, I feel I should differentiate between Morpheus-the-Sandman and that dude from that film, but...I talk so little about either of them that it probably doesn't matter?)

I spent most of the day writing and an hour trying to draw on the PC. It mostly failed, apart from that above, and an evil looking Hadrosaur saying "Don't be stupid. Dinosaurs can't talk." (What can I say? I'm easily amused).

~*~

Right now my brain is full of "what is this i don't even" so I don't honestly have much of anything to say. Except that I should probably stop reading things and listening to music that make me sad or want to cry. Except that I won't, because I never learn.

I kicked ass and made a load of room in my mum's room. Sadly that will not last too long, as it will get filled with books at some point in the very near future so that people can actually sit on our sofa. Which includes me, because I like sitting on there, damnit, even if the bloody thing doesn't have any arms.

But I digress.

Then I went and I doodled some doodles. I was trying to get the hang of how David should look, and found myself enjoying drawing him more than I did Electra, so she has been temporarily binned. Because I did this one doodle, and it was meant to be her, except that it became obvious that what I was drawing was a samurai (vis). So I carried on doing that and ended up with this (also here at dA).

I am not entirely displeased, since that was the whole point of inventing him in the first place. It also means I got use out of a reference I wanted to use for an entirely different picture.

Misc notes include: me not being able to draw cherry blossom, so leaves instead; crappy gradient background completely on purpose!; costume is wrong on purpose, too. I know what a samurai should look like, and I know what I wanted David to look like. The two were not the same thing.

I may do some more fiddling with this tomorrow, I may not, since it turned into a speed paint wherein I tried to finish before I had to dish out tea.

I'm going to try to fill an entire sketchbook just with him, to see what comes of it. And also because I have about a billionty spare sketchbooks lying around doing nothing.