( Short randomness on the Cecilia and Kate epistolary books )
Anyways, E. borrowed them off of me- I've moved all the paperbacks to the garage, so my bedroom's selection has shrunk quite a bit, so that set popped out more than they would if they were sharing their shelf space with the usual overload of books. She's quite enjoyed them and got bit by the Letter Game bug herself and has already left one for me to reply to. Unfortunately she's chosen a time period I'm not very familiar with- the early 1890s- so I'm going to head to the bookstore to pick up some Jules Verne and history books to give me a bit more to go by. I think she picked that time because I wanted to try out steampunk, but she knows even less about it than I do and it's not really a genre that interests her (Girl Genius' art is a bit busy for her tastes). We'll see how it goes. As it is, it might be a bit before she gets her reply letter.

Straying from the topic a little, I got an email the other day (read, I checked that email account for the first time in months) and had a letter reviewing an old Inu Yasha fanfic I never actually finished because I lost interest in the show. (It's a rather lengthy piece of work that's about 95% done and 30% rewritten/editted). Anyways, the reason I bring this up is she says "I think that if T.S. Eliot was still alive, wrote prose, and developed an obsession with Inuyasha, he might have written something similar to this." And I know it's meant to be complimentary- you remind me of that one famous poet I like! But to be honest, I've never cared for Eliot, mostly because of my general distaste for poetry and its need for a sparsity of words and heavy symbolism. I've also read part of The Waste Land and never could come to grips with its fluctuating narrators. Does wanting to tell her this make me a terrible person? I won't, because she actually left an "I've been thinking about your story, not just reading it" review, but a small part of still wants to check if she's got an email address to send a pithy little note going "Eliot was a hack".

I have arted!

First off, a humorous tale of jailed girls.

And secondly, one for Katie, who needs a day off to finish reading my books.

There is no news. (Since book-buying and reading isn't really a new thing with me. I totally called Harry Potter dying in Book 7, btw. And the Snape mad-on for Lily could be seen from orbit the moment you found out they went to school together.) Though I suppose finally getting a new monitor might count as news- mine's been giving me funny colors for awhile and I finally got sick of it and went and got a new one from Office Depot. What's up with all the widescreens, anyway?

The annoying thing about deviantArt is that you have to be a registered user to comment. And when I do something like this, I want to show it to the gang and have them laugh at it. Also, try poking back a couple deviations to see the fun time I had trying to draw movement with weapons, courtesy of Tae, Petra, and Carmen. I would've done one with Odette, but I'm not certain what she's using now- bow or staff (more like a stick, it would be). So I'll go poke Katie about the pixie's weapon and belongings and see what will come up.

I want to go to bed. I also want to wake everyone up and make them see this right now, because I'm so gosh-darned pleased with it. In the 'dear God, I'm never giving in to the architecture muse again' sort of way. Maybe next I'll finally get around to drawing full-body colors of Ted and Gabi to go along with. (I'm having trouble with Ted. She keeps fighting back when I try to get her down on paper.) For anybody who doesn't understand what this is about, just tell me my architecture looks cool. =)

I'm for bed now. I'm up waaaay past my bedtime. I just really wanted to finally get it finished.

E. complains that I never update my deviantArt account. This is untrue. I post random stuff scanned in whenever I get tired of messing with Photoshop, but am too tired to move to the couch to watch movies. (The tiredness comes into effect when you realize that I spend twenty minutes standing in front of the bookshelf going "what do I want to watch?" Except now I have cable. I may never get anything done again.)

So nyah. I have new art. In the 'drawn last year, but you people haven't seen it' kind of way.

I'm also around two-thirds done with what I was originally messing around with in Photoshop. (Art without line art. Boldly tap-dancing on thin ice. But hey, is spiffy enough that Liz copied some ideas for her thing for Stephen. That's a squeeness factor of 'ow, my eardrums'. Squee.)

Note to self: stalk mailman. Movie has not arrived yet.

So last weekend was remarkably full. Photoshopping Saturday morning is nothing unusual (not that I ever get anything finished). But the afternoon visiting and lunch/dinner with Katie and Stephanie (who were remarkably in town for week-long visits with actual overlaps, instead of just waving at the plane as one lands and the other leaves). Highly unusual. (I still know people?) Then spent all of Sunday playing Diablo 2 with E. (I find it amusing that everyone who plays this game that I know tends to stick to one character type and run with it. Dad does Amazons, E. does Barbarians (duel-wielding beating sticks! Rar!), I play Sorceresses (who always end up being halfway decent melee-ers because I'm just *stupid* like that), and... I forget what E said about teh boys. Necromancer and Druid, I think. (Though honestly, I can't say I'm surprised Pug's playing a character that at high levels can summon undead *armies*. I hate playing with summoners. They lag my screen something fierce, and I blow half my mana trying to kill minions I didn't realize were on my side.))

If E. hadn't whined so much about me playing with her, I would've finished this earlier, and then she wouldn't have to whine that I never post any art. (Though I really don't, because there's this tiny perfectionist voice in me that says it's never completed, and I pull a Da Vinci and tote around a hacked Mona Lisa for months until I finally give up and say it's never going to be right and put it out there for everybody else to point out the flaws.)

Am going out this weekend as well. Or at least Saturday. Twas the twins' (ooh, alliteration of 'tw'! Or does it only count if there's three?) birthday a couple weeks ago and I always try to find some day to spend with them in celebration thereof. (Though, actually it's a form of punishment for both sides, as I hate the shops they bring me to, and they hate the way I snark really loudly around fellow customers- who are usually people they know. Sometimes I think they think about just clubbing me unconscious and running off with my wallet.)

Is it carpal tunnel when it's your forearms hurting?

Mostly just linking to it so I can read Carmen's squee-ing, since dA doesn't allow anonymous comments. Morning Practice

I scanned a doodle and am coloring it, right? (Well, you can't actually see it, but Liz can tell you I am because she came and commented over my shoulder, so I am.) And I wander off and babble at Liz about the way we draw (because she's got a comic book background and mine's more influenced by anime) and I tell her my drawings can get to looking a little cookie cutter unless I think consciously about how I want their features to look (i.e.- it's a nose unless it's a characteristic and then it gets extra squiggly marks). Because I only draw stuff so I can color it. And nobody ever gets me anything to color. (I told Liz I wanted comic books to color because coloring books always have children-oriented artwork, while comic books get words and stuff. Must multi-task. Either that or nothing at all. I am so weird.) So Liz says I can color some of her stuff. Tempt me not, foul seductress! (Because I still haven't finished my doodle...)

Conversations with me are weird. I'm not really one to talk (unless I'm drunk or over-caffeinated or over-sugared or extra-hyper about something ... Anyways.)

Liz and I drove out to Navarre yesterday to pick up her dad for dinner. I forget why Liz said she'd never date me, but it made sense at the time. I'd never date her either. She's violent. She'd be the angry artist. Liz said I'd be the quiet nice guy. To which I said "Dear God, I'd be this freaky cross between J.C. and Stephen and it's probably a good thing I have boobs." Or something to that effect.

And that would've been that- we have weird conversations like this whenever we're stuck in enclosed spaces for more than ten minutes in each other's company. (After about half an hour, she tends to get violent. Most people tend to when they're stuck around me for too long. Nobody likes a passive-aggressive sarcastic bitch, especially an aggressive-aggressive bitch.)

Except, y'know, we're artists. Well, she's an artist and I'm a hack. So we went, "that would be a freaking weird picture." And since I got her hooked on Naruto, thus reintroducing her to the scary world of anime and manga, she decided that's where guy-us would end up- in freaky anime-land. She'd be the cute hotheaded redhead prone to violence and I'd be the bishie quiet mysterious one prone to angsting. And violence. (For those lucky enough to never have jumped into understanding anime, bishie comes from bishounen, translated roughly as 'pretty boy.' It means very effiminate. And prone to attracting hordes of obsessing fangirls, due to said prettiness. And for those of you who do know anime- Rurouni Kenshin to be exact- she's Sagara Sanosuke and I'm Shinomori Aoshi. Street fighter versus ninja! Rar!)

She's sketched this. She looks like Gaara- from Naruto, though only we and Carmen will understand this. I have a feeling Carmen'll be gouging her eyes out over that idea, because Gaara's creepy as hell. (Demon badger boy. Insomniac. Remorseless. Bad taste in fishnet ... Anyways.) Looks like Gaara, only with slightly longer spikes in her?/his? hair. And has lots of belts. Because those are popular with angry boys, apparently. And something called bondage pants, that I'm trying not to think about. I get a trenchcoat. And a shirt with only one button, somewhere around by navel, apparently. And a cross on a chain, though it could be a swastika. (Perhaps I should stop messing around with my d6's when bored during game time, since that's usually the symbol they end up in.) And long wavy hair, because that's what my hair's like when it's long. I also don't look as scruffy-looking. My anime-guy-self obviously has strong beliefs about hair care, as opposed to the Elf, with my "hey look, some soap I can use as shampoo" laziness.

The important part is I get a trenchcoat. And a gun, though she's probably not going to draw it. But I'd get one all the same, because mysterious silent guy always gets a gun to do emotionless killing of innocent peasants- Sorry, evil moment. What I really meant was 'of nefarious bad guys with more guns.'

I'm still waiting to see her CSCTokyo: Reloaded.

I've been watching a lot of movies of late. Comes, I imagine, from a wide selection of DVDs owned by roommate and not having to worry about sharing the television- seeing as how Liz works the opposite work schedule I do. I wake up, she's still asleep. I pass her on the way home- either actually at work or if I'm lucky, driving home. (Though the latter hasn't happened yet, curse the season.) She gets home from work, I'm getting ready to head to bed. In an hour or three. So really, the only time we see a great deal of each other is on somebody's day off.

Which is good, since we'd likely kill each other if we had exactly the same hours. It's what happened in my house. =P

The annoying thing, actually, is the fact her artbook doesn't change. When I only saw it once or twice a year, there was always something new to see. Now it's like, "Where's the pretty?!" (And seeing as how she likes drawing guys shirtless... *snickers*) Though it does mean I get around to doing my own stuff, since I've run out of things of hers to look through. (You'll find I have little sense of personal property if things are left out in the open. Bedroom's off-limits, but if you leave things in the kitchen or the living room, be sure that I'll spot it. And I expect the same in return. Feel free to look through stuff left in a public room, but go through anything besides my books when in my bedroom, and I'll have you drawn and quartered. This goes for anybody. Including the stupid cat who thinks my keyboard is the coolest thing to sit on right when I hit the fourth level of my REM cycle. Stupid cat.)

Getting back to the point, I'd just like to rub it in to Carmen that I made doodles and she can't see them. *points and laughs*

Though to make her feel better, I'll tell you what the main assortment of stuff I've done this year is. I bought the Harry Potter books (paperback, because hardbacks would be lethal for cats that are stupid enough to knock into them), and have been rereading them. Originally, I got bored in class and doodled on scratch paper who of the CSC went with what Harry Potter characters. They're doodles, so they're awful and sketchy, but they at least make an attempt to be funny. The only one I haven't done one of is Pug, for the sole reason I refuse to draw a dementor and Stephen already lays claim to having Zombie-Lord Voldemort in his sketch.

Continuing on this Harry Potter fix (which thankfully has passed), I watched the first two movies. Which got me wondering... what houses would the CSC be in? Which made me drag out the sketches, label them (Liz, btw, says "Harry Potter and Cosmic Sewing Circle" sounds like a title for one of the books, and I rather agree) and ponder, what houses would we be in? (Because really, only the sketch for Odette put anybody in a house).

Odette's the easiest one to place. She's a Ravenclaw. Intelligent and prone to like doing homework over play.

Me, I'm easy to place. Slytherin. Sneaky and of questionable morals. Sad as that is. (I have morals. They just don't agree with yours. =P)

Carmen, again an easy placement. Gryffindor. Rash, brave, and prone to violence for reasons thought only to be good in her own mind and similarly deranged ones (usually mine, but I'll never admit it).

Liz, I just asked, as I was having difficulty deciding between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. She's obviously not Ravenclaw or Slytherin, but she has streaks of Gryffindor. But she's right, her Mama Bear act is pure Hufflepuff.

The boys were hard. They're both sneaky and smart. Pug ultimately ended up in Ravenclaw, if only for the fact that I can see him tricking the hat into putting him there. Stephen ended up Slytherin, because he's more open about the fact that he's a sneak. Plus he's a sadist. =P

So I smushed all that into one picture and colored it in as needed. Somebody owes me a new black colored pencil, as Hogwarts robes do not make using any other color easy.

Of course, writing this makes me wonder if I should do one for E. as well...