Sketchbook Project 2011 art

The bookwyrm. I think he lives in the pocket that library tickets go in? This one clearly needs a better glue.

Madame Brushfoot, the missing lepuuri monarch from my Nanowrimo in 2010. I'm still not entirely sure how she ended up IN the bottle. I think Dolorous may have had something to do with it.

Marker, ink, punched paper (the spikey branches) and photographs of bottles printed out on overhead projector paper.

Tsu scatters dried fish across the surface of the pool; hopefully, to keep the hungry sacred sun-marked eel from nibbling on her when she next comes past.

Tried to give it a vaguely egyptian style, to compare with the more Mayan / Aztec influence I gave the other folk. Drawn in pencil on normal drawing paper, scanned and adjusted digitally to emphasize the linework, then printed on papyrus paper (a batch of which I had printed up a while ago) and coloured in markers. I would have drawn directly onto the papyrus paper, except it was really hard to see any pencil work on.


(Crossposted from my "Storybook" journal)

The Blue AU continues...

OK I'll tidy this up in a minute... XD

At long last, I've POSTED the first 50,000 words of "Toccata and Fugue"! I got them written back before the ahem, "interesting" trip to Munich, but hadn't actively posted all of them. I have a couple of thousand still in reserve, so... we'll see how long before I get it finished! (Getting snowed in in Germany seems to have temporarily killed my creative drive, but never mind. It'll pick back up. *crosses fingers*)

Toccata and Fugue at Livejournal
Links to the chapters, in tidy little clumps:    Part 1!    |    Part 2!    |    Part 3!

Plus! At last! Have a chapter of Future Tense. I had this 99% written back in mid October, but NaNoWriMo barged it out of the way, and (of course) a certain teleport was misbehaving.

I hope to have some more Adverse Camber finished at some point, too, but before that, I really HAVE to get my Xmas cards finished. I already know I'm going to miss the last post for sending things abroad (...as it's this friday, and I still haven't finished the cards. Heh. ¬_¬), but I'd like to at least have the cards in my possession before Christmas!

"Toccata and Fugue" - WINRAR!

Woohoo!

Thus far: 50,179 words (according to the NaNo website, MSWord pegs it as a few less.)

Still not finished, though. XD I'm guesstimating... maybe 150,000 at the end? It'll probably end up like "Screaming Blue Murder", to be honest XD. (Which took me by surprise at 200,000)

And so, ON I GO...

"Toccata and Fugue" (part 3!)

Plus! As of today, "Toccata and Fugue" on LiveJournal has a usericon! HURRAH XD We can has butterflies.

"Toccata and Fugue", Chapter 11

As well as me announcing I have a new chapter up! This is also an experiment in how things come out on my journal when I use the "Share This" button on LJ.

Chapter 11

"Toccata and Fugue" (part 2)

  

  

Blurb "Diary Experiment!"

All right, THIS is the reason I was getting all antsy about when the FedEx man was FINALLY going to deliver my parcel yesterday (and partly the reason I got off to a poor start with my NaNo): at the start of November, I had a 25% off code for Blurb, and I've been itching to see exactly what quality their books are, so I made a book!

No, it's nothing I'm going to mass-market. XD As it's just my "blog" (well, after a fashion) from University - so it's essentially something nobody in their right mind would be interested in.

The quality IS pretty good! It seems well-bound (I've heard stories of Blurb perfect binding not being quite SO "perfect"), the image-wrap cover is tough and well-printed, and all the inner pages are exactly as I wanted. It's also "bigger than I expected" - ok, so it's exactly the size I selected, at 8x10, I just pictured something smaller in my mind's eye.

Is there a reason for this, aside from "vanity press publishing"* my university diary?

Essentially, yes. I wanted to see what I was getting for what I paid, because I wanted to see if it'd be an option for when I (finally, ha ha yeah right) edit "Thunder Daughter" into something I wouldn't be ashamed to try and self-publish.

I just think that at £33.95 (before the 25% off) for just over 100 pages? And that's with me electing to use a fairly smallish font, Thunder Daughter would undoubtably need a bigger font-size and goodness only knows how many pages it would end up being... It'd have to be pretty special for anyone to want to buy it, and I'm not sure my art/writing is THAT good.

Oh well. I DO still plan to self-publish - sure, I'd love to be a "proper published author", I just don't think I have the time to devote to my hobby. (Or the dedication to hunt out a publisher for what is probably a VERY niche market.)

* is it still classed as "publishing" when you're only ever going to print one, for yourself?

"Toccata and Fugue"

The NaNoSaga begins? Aude Sapere #4, "Toccata and Fugue" at Livejournal. (Please, no comments on the spelling of the LJ username. All the ones with "Toccata" spelt correctly were taken XD)

Either visit the main livejournal and navigate at your leisure, or else click on the images to go to chapters one to five:

The Suffolk Fundraising Cycle ride

I keep forgetting to post this. Not art, but something to be at least a little bit proud of, anyway! "Team Tina" have been in the hospital "Discover" magazine - we have in fact raised quite a bit more than £1,500, now. (Click the image to enlarge. I'm the turquoise-y blob "hiding" up the far end.)

Silly art!

Hey, would you look at that. She is pocket-sized.

Celerity
Strangely-proportioned blobby markerwork. The "wings" in the background I planned to finish in Photoshop, buuuut I need more practice with that at the moment! XD

Mirii
More blobby markerwork. XD

Three Chapters!

...All right, two chapters and one short. It's the same difference!

     This has been "mostly written" since the end of July, but because Skywarp is a speshul snowflake with an overblown sense of entitlement, it's taken me this long to get it finished enough to post.
     Rasa's little group are still busy slogging their way North to Stolica-Sostine; Slipstream and Mirii have little better to do than "get to know each other a little better". (Or, try and fend off awkward feelings that might get them into trouble.) Wen, on the other hand, in the Nuori-Deuchainn Pit, is beginning to let her true colours show through.

     All right, this has been uploaded for a week or so, but I wanted to get another couple of things together to post with it!
     It's really not fair to just expect someone to want to jump into the operating theatre after missing such a big chunk of his life - especially when the surgery means you might not be able to go home so easily as you want.

"Study is Overrated"

Poor Pulsar. She should have known that the prospects of getting any study actually DONE while there was a Skywarp in the house were going to be fairly slim... (Just some silly, Mary-Sue-ly fluff! WITH GIANT ROBOTS, woo. XD)

Last post of August

...and the first proper post for this little blog!

At last, I finished the clock for my wall: 

I promise it DOES have all its hands! The shine from the decoupage glue I used to paste the "pebbles" background down means you can't see one of them very well. ¬_¬

See? All three hands! Incidentally, it DOES work - I made it from a clock mechanism (that I've had in my "box of junk" for months) and a circular "pre-stretched" canvas. The numbers are a shade wobbly, but eh. It works!

And lastly:

Chapter six is FINALLY done and uploaded! (Certain characters *cough*Warp*cough* thought it'd be fun if we made a play on it being "Chapter Sex Six" but I nixed that one in the bud.)

Now I need to work on getting that next chapter of Adverse Camber finished. ¬_¬ It'll be November soon, and even though I know I'll never get AC finished before then, I can at least try and get a FEW more chapters out of the way.

"New" Blog

Sooo I decided maybe now was the time to start USING this blog, as I have it. My last "testing" post was back in April LAST year, after all. XD And my LiveJournal is full of nonsense, so I could use this for "proper" things - or rather, "more notable" things? - like when I upload new art etc.

...I give it a week before I forget about it again. *adds dashboard to homepage so she might remember to use it every once in a while*