Sunday, May 29, 2011

State of the Neko address: week 66, part 3

song+ Penny & Me- Hanson- Underneath
book+ Pathfinder core rulebook
quest+ getting my easel set up
upper+ the first Pathfinder game went well
downer+ i still have no paint brushes
attire+ green satin pajamas. oh yeah.
drink+ watermelon Arizona juice cocktail


so this week has been pretty interesting overall. Friday night Kyu tattooed me again, but i don't have a picture of it yet since it's on my back and still healing. i realize i still owe pictures of the dresses i've sewn for Althea and Azle, and of the paintings i did Thursday with Moose too, but my camera is acting up. hopefully i can get it to cooperate soon since i'm very pleased with it all. i'm also pleased with the tattoo, it's a crescent moon and six tiny stars all done in negative space by shading around them. they're falling down my spine from just under where the neckline of a tee shirt hits, and the whole thing is a little under 3 inches long (i think? i can't exactly measure it myself). i do try to choose places for my tattoos that can be relatively easily covered if i need to enter a working environment.

i think today will be spent working on the cloak and cape patterns for the awesome twins. if i get the patterns done today i can probably finish the capes tomorrow. once the patterns are finished i may work on my Pathfinder character model. i've bought her and done some nice work on converting a HUGE scythe to one more appropriate for her TINY height. now i just need to pin the scythe parts to her fist, and her arm back onto her body. it kinda fell off. xD once she's reassembled though i can get to working on painting her up.. also her Panther (Fluffy) and Fox (Renaud) companions. i looked up actual reference pictures for their coloring today so they look right and not like generic blobs of color.

i still need to finish reading the rulebook, but since we actually started playing yesterday i have a better understanding of what i need to know personally for a smoother gaming experience. i think i'll also re-read the Druid and Gnome pages in particular to see if there's a special way i can take my character to make her really useful to the party. the skills i started out focusing on are shared by Krista's Half-Elf Ranger, so i think i'll let her focus on those and i'll diversify a little to use the skills everyone else overlooked. xD like Knowledge:Nature and Knowledge:Geography, and because Druids can only wear naturally occurring (non-metallic) material Craft:Armor for myself. next time we kill a dragon i'm gonna use that skill to skin it and get myself a dragon-skull helmet and dragon hide cloak out of the thing since i can never equip any of the treasures we find. xD

Thursday, May 26, 2011

State of the Neko address: week 66, part 2

song+ Give a Little- Hanson- Shout It Out
book+ Pathfinder core rulebook
quest+ getting my easel set
upper+ i have a healthy supply of paint, canvas and glitter xD
downer+ i have no paint brushes
attire+ khakis and layered blue tanks
drink+ milk


this week's been pretty calm. i got possibly the fastest shipping ever on a miniatures order. placed it Monday night, had a shipping notice Tuesday morning, and opened the package Wednesday afternoon. i now have the model for my Pathfinder character, i just have to do a few modifications then paint her. should be fun! xD

Monday was a new-music day. i spent several hours going between wikipedia band discographies and my download sources looking to fill the gaps in my music catalog. it was successful as it nearly doubled what i had. time was also spent carefully removing everything i already had from iTunes, relocating it to a new Music directory on my external drive, then re-uploading it to iTunes. there was also some effort in making sure every album has the correct artwork, and deleting tracks that managed to get added more than once, from original albums, and then greatest hits, or a song and its remixes and any number of other examples. i'm sure i've missed some, but for now it's at a workable state, and it's displaying 29.42gb of music. xD too bad my iPod only holds like 6.5/7gb at a time.. i've been coping by switching synced playlists since i passed that point last summer.

i spent Tuesday with Krista. i've known her for a while (a little more than a year, i think) but the escalation to BFF level interaction has been pretty much just in the last month. we've discovered that we're very good friends, but it'd probably be better for the rest of the world if we weren't. xD i did tell her that BFF was a bit cliche, so she's instead Supreme Commander of Expeditionary Awesome.. because she's about the only person that can reliably get me to leave the house. we have many of the same mental issues in common, so there's an inherent understanding that makes it easy for us to nudge each other from sudden lousy moods.

Wednesday was very chill. i slept in bizarrely heavily. every time i woke up, i worked on reading the Pathfinder rulebook, only to find myself waking up again a few hours later. other times the rulebook hasn't put me to sleep, so i guess my body was trying to fight off sickness or something? in any case, the sleep was nice, no unpleasant dreaming or anything, and after i woke up for the last time i decided to work on listening to the new music instead. i still have a bunch to get through, but thus far i'm pleased with my acquisitions.

today i'll be spending time with Moose for the first time in a while. she should be here at about 11, so we'll see how that goes. xD most likely scenario is she gets here at least 10 minutes later than she suggested for a meeting time. she's capable of being on time, but more for work than anything social in my experience. my habit is to be ready at the proposed time (for the rare instance she's on-time) but to add 20 minutes to her arrival time and be pleasantly surprised if she's earlier than that. it's kinda a cynical outlook, but it keeps me from being disappointed while waiting. *shrug*

as of today Shale and Adamelli are no longer available for sale, so i'm taking pleasure in the knowledge that i didn't just manage to order, but ordered early enough to place myself toward the top of the waiting list. while that won't necessarily expedite the shipping of my order, it's something i feel good thinking about. shipping is predicted to take place late Aug/early Sep so there's plenty of time still to prepare by buying wigs for both and eyes for Krista's girl, but i started on something for them to wear when they first arrive over the weekend. i'm sewing to fit the Kid Delf measurements, because by the numbers they're almost the same. silhouette-wise i could be screwing myself though, so i'm doing looser-fitting than my usual design style just in case.i have one pink halter-toga dress with grey ribbon accents (for my Seraph- Althea), and one green princess-cut ballet dress with ecru lace accents (for Krista's Unicorn- Azle). both will be accented with red cloaks, or more accurately- Althea will have a cloak (complete with red hood) and Azle will have a tie-front cape like she's a hooved superhero. xD they'll be adorable though. working out the patterns shouldn't be difficult with all my practice making people-sized cloaks and capes for various costuming endeavors.

having now finished my day with Moose, she was only like 5 minutes late, and i can say i had a great time. we went to Asel Art for half-price canvases (i got 5 of varying sizes for 5 bucks) and spent the day at her place painting. i got three paintings finished, all in different art styles, and we've made tentative plans to have another painting day on her next day off. when i have money again i think i'll actually buy myself some brushes so i don't have to rely on her to do anything at all. i did find some good deals on mid-quality brushes online, and i can do mid-range for most stuff with good ones for detail work. i'm also thinking about trying more palette knife type techniques. i experimented with an improvised one today and i think i like what it could do for some effects a brush leaves streaky. i used a makeshift one today for a sunset effect that didn't quite work, but a real one is more maneuverable and i think it'd have better control.

overall i'm pleased with the three paintings i finished, but i think i could do better with my own supplies and less distractions. xD between the canvasses i already owned and the ones i bought today, using the three i did leaves me with nine still blank. four specific ones are reserved for a certain project, but the other five could easily be used to improve my technique to the point where i maybe wouldn't feel like i was screwing someone over if i sold a painting. between materials consumed and time spent any craft that gets sold needs to be priced at a certain minimum, but i'm frequently reluctant to add much past that like it's not good enough. X.x i think with time (which i have) and space (which i'm working on) and decent materials to work with (namely brushes) i can turn out something better. i'm still using acrylics now, but i think soon i'll finally be ready to try out the oil set that i've been holding on to (afraid to use) for like 8 years. xD

Monday, May 23, 2011

State of the Neko address: week 66

song+ Till the World Ends- Britney Spears- Femme Fatale
book+ Honest Illusions
quest+ getting my Pathfinder character built
upper+ the Unicorn/Seraph twins have been ordered
downer+ nothing i can think of presently
attire+ khakis and my Mario Kart tee
drink+ milk


so i did see Thor last week, and it was as good as everyone said it would be. i've done some sewing for the Adamelli girls that likely won't make it home until August at the earliest, and the stuff is pretty cute. i'm pleased. xD

unrelated, the increased frequency of trailers for X-Men First Class had me looking it up on IMDB and Wikipedia. the cast list has me TOTALLY PSYCHED for it! i know that some of the other X-Men films have been less than stellar, but seeing the Hellfire Club as the villains (and the casting for Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost in particular) has me more and more excited. Kevin Bacon and January Jones? yes, please! also the choices for the lesser known mutants to round out the cast have me really excited.

it's boring to watch the original 5 all the time, so seeing Havok (the other Summers brother), Banshee, Darwin, and girl!Angel is pretty awesome to me, even if Beast is randomly there without Cyclops (but hey- we get his brother), Jean (with Emma and Xavier there's no need for a third telepath), Iceman, or guy!Angel (really two Angels would be confusing). also (mutant-not-demon) Azazel and Mystique (probably?) fighting on the same side makes me kinda happy inside since they're Nightcrawler's future (at this point) parents.

i'm excited from a costuming perspective, the costumes are closer to the comics and further from the other movie's leather-is-all-we-need perspective. i squealed in glee the first time i saw Banshee's striped wing glide-enabling arm-to-torso things, and again when i saw Emma in her White Queen regalia turning to diamond. Emma's by far my favorite X-book character (so delightfully manipulative and droll), and i think i love villain!Emma more than reformed and co-leading the X-Men!Emma. i'm hoping this one will be better than the other X-films, like Iron Man and Thor have been good. i know that there's a good chance it could end up closer in watchability to Daredevil or Wolverine Origins, especially being unaffiliated with the Avengers build-up, but with the better Marvel movies lately i can't help being excited. xD

i've watched all the available trailers so far for it and while there's the expected mish-mash of canon and random, the details of how all the powers work/are controlled, and the cause of Beast's secondary mutation are accurate and made me hop out of my seat clapping. even Kyu is psyched for this one, HE suggested we hit it up with the Warhammer/Pathfinder group. like after work that Friday, or after the usual gaming that Saturday (which is the day we always see each other. it'll be totally awesome, i can already tell.

Monday, May 16, 2011

State of the Neko address: week 65

song+ Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes- Fall Out Boy- Folie a Deux
book+ my journal?
quest+ getting the GameStop job i applied for
upper+ the Unicorn/Seraph twins have been ordered
downer+ it's another few weeks before i'll know on the GameStop app
attire+ jean skirt and my pink Thor-petting-a-unicorn tee
drink+ Sun Drop


the last week has been pretty exciting for me. substantial progress has been made on the doll sales i only really started Thursday. of all the stuff listed only three things have yet to be paid for, and two of them are being held. it's gone so well that i ordered and paid in full for the Adamelli twin girls that i'll be splitting with my friend Krista. the plans for the girls changed a few times, but Saturday when i showed her pictures she melted and decided to split off the unicorn one, which works fine for me since the one i really want is the human version (but with the tiny wings on her head). Krista wants ours to look like the display ones, but we're gonna make slight changes. we're ordering similar (but much cheaper) wigs and eyes. i'm actually gonna use the Cass eyes since the size is perfect, and i've picked a few different pupil-less designs for her to look at for hers, either in pastel shades, or glittery to go with mine. there's still time for her to decide and for us to order, so it's not something she'll have to rush or anything. xD i'll be doing their faceups, and the minor cosmetic modding to disguise the magnet-holes in the calf of the hoof-legs. since the wings will be part of my girl, it's only right that i hide the open wounds where they could attach to the legs. i'm very excited about the project though! so far as dressing them goes, their dimensions are almost identical to the Bory girl i still haven't sold, so i can use her to make some stuff while i wait for them. yay! xD

Saturday other strides were made in alternate hobby areas. about half the Warhammer group (the good half: me & Kyu, James, Alex & Krista, and Gami) are looking into starting to play Pathfinder as an alternative to Warhammer. not all the time, but to change things up sometimes since the same thing all the time gets boring. as of this last weekend, we've pretty much all picked our initial race and class and decided that Kyu will be our GM. we're a while from playing still, but it should be fun. depending on when we manage to start, (Blind!)Justin may also join us, but since he's moving back home this summer, we're not centering our plans around him. and complete tangent, but you haven't seen dedicated hobbying until you've watched a blind guy table someone at a visually-based miniatures strategy game. xD

Sunday was Justin's celebratory "hooray i finally graduated college!" dinner at Chili's and there was a pretty huge crowd there, it was fun. while there was guy-on-guy flirting, good natured teasing about molesting the blind guy (and how he'd never see it coming), things being lit on fire, and condiments being dumped on the table to doodle in, none of it was Kyu's doing! i was a little amazed. xD granted none of those are habits or set-in-stone behaviors, but he's done each of them at some point in the past. admittedly, his condiment, toothpick & cherry tomato art installation piece was a few years ago at Wendy's and entirely on the disposable paper tray liner. less obnoxious to clean up after for sure than directly on a table.

sometime this week i hope to (finally) see Thor. i'm looking forward to it, and everyone ever has said it's good. this means there's a 45% chance i'll be in that minority that absolutely loathes it (like Dark Knight- i'm the token hater in pretty much any group talking about Heath Ledger's Joker) but i think i should be okay with this one since i don't have any rabid Thor fanaticism to color my opinion of it. xD yay doll stuff and nerdy comic book movies!

Friday, May 13, 2011

State of the Neko address: week 64, part 2

song+ Let Me Blow Ya Mind- Eve (ft Gwen Stefani)- Scorpion
book+ my journal?
quest+ trying to earn enough to order my Seraph in time
upper+ things are selling quickly!
downer+ there's no interest in the Beyla parts?
attire+ khakis and my Human Torch barbecue tee
drink+ Dr Pepper


so of all the items i listed for sale yesterday, only the Beyla fantasy parts and R head are left unbought. that's an absurdly quick response to a sales thread.. like ninja shopping or something. xD i'm VERY close to being able to order my Adamelli twins, and that's awesome.

i'm hoping that the rest will sell soon so i can order their proper wigs and eyes about the same time, just so i don't forget about it. i don't want the ones they're shown with, i'm thinking i actually want wine red curls and eyes in a vivid mint or lilac. i haven't decided yet. possibly one of each. i actually have the glittery lilac eyes from Soom Cass.. i wonder if i could buy a pair of glittery green ones from a different MD for a reasonable amount..? (probably not) i want them very obviously inhuman, but not menacing at all. i've decided on the names Althea (for the Seraphic human) and Amelia (for the unicorn girl) and i've designed a few different robes in a blend of Greco-Roman and Angelic styles. these girls are gonna be awesome! xD i'm super-psyched about them! sewing for immature little-girl MSD bodies will be like a vacation after spending the last several months fighting the nightmarish (but great-to-look-at) EID curves. i'm looking forward to sewing for them.

in the interest of thinning out my bulk supply of stuff-i-don't-need, it occurs to me that i have other limited (or just expensive) outfits from other companies that won't fit any of the dolls i've kept. i know i have some DOT outfits (and possibly shoes too) and tons of F2BM stuff i custom-fitted to the DOC girl i sold back in February. i'm thinking for that i may do a bulk lot or two. there's enough of it, and it was super cheap initially, but you can't get it anymore so there's probably some demand for it..

Thursday, May 12, 2011

State of the Neko address: week 64

song+ Sunday Morning- Maroon 5- Songs About Jane
book+ Chronicles of Narnia
quest+ trying to earn enough to order my Seraph in time
upper+ i have enough to sell
downer+ i don't know if they'll sell in time
attire+ pajama shorts and a tank top
drink+ milk! yay milk


so i'm (way) late again with the posting this week, but things are okay. i'm working on following up on the job application i turned in at GameStop a while back. nothing yet, but i'm cautiously optimistic.

i'm sorely tempted by Soom again. i was doing so well for a while, but Roro pointed out Adamelli to me and i'm SO tempted! i want her in her beautiful human form with her little wings to be a Seraph, but Kyu wants her in the unicorn form, so i'm looking to see if it's possible at all to order. my mock order told me i'll need $639 after shipping for both blank and nude (slightly more if i end up doing a layaway). being crazy poor is lame, so i'm now hoping to sell some of the stuff i was fleetingly tempted by before that i no longer have any use for. basically i have a Bygg (whose tail vanished, but is otherwise entirely complete), both Beyla heads and fantasy parts, and the complete outfits of Glot, Skoll, Beyla and Bygg. i'm hoping to successfully sell them, ideally in time to make her order before the deadline of May 25. i've been looking at what other people sell comparable items for and i THINK i have fair prices worked out, but i'm never sure if i'm over-charging for anything. i hate working with numbers. X.x i think my prices are reasonable based on what's searchable in the DoA marketplace and what i initially paid myself, but i'm not quite sure.

in any case, i need to take better sales photos of the outfits and the unicorn bits i'm gonna list. i really wish i knew where the Bygg tail vanished to, but for now i guess i'll just be listing an incomplete doll and adjusting the price accordingly. i think that if i get decent pictures soon though i can have my sales threads up today. i'm optimistic that people will reply eagerly, since i really want this girl. i want her as a little Seraph girl more than i've wanted any other doll in quite some time. if it came down to it, i'd probably be willing to sell my beloved Momo (a Soom Hati) if doing so would for sure get me this girl. i'm not listing Momo yet, i'm thinking the rest of this should be plenty, but i did think about it seriously. the only doll i've wanted more is Vesuvia. i still adore Vesuvia, but i'm fully aware that i'll never realistically be able to afford her. i actually have a (slim) chance of getting Adamelli, so i'm gonna try really hard for her.

*sigh* i'm obsessing over this doll. if i do get the position at GameStop that'll be great, but no way will it be in enough time to fund this endeavor. it's still a while before i know what's up with the job thing, but yeah, cautious optimism. xD

update for anyone interested: i've put up the three sales threads (since dolls can no longer share them) on DOA. Beyla parts, Bygg, and the outfits. feel free to share the links with anyone else that may be interested too.

Monday, May 2, 2011

State of the Neko address: week 63

song+ Till the World Ends (remix) -Britney Spears feat. Nicki Minaj & Kesha
book+ S*A (all 17 volumes)
quest+ getting James' birthday present done
upper+ my wrist is finished and looks awesome!
downer+ the fumigation made no difference at all
attire+ pajama shorts and a tank top
drink+ milk! xD


let's see what's new since i last posted. more than i figured since last week's post came so late. XD

Saturday morning mom and i went to a Miniatures show in Dallas. some of the stuff was really neat, and we followed it up with Ihop, so that was fun all around. after returning to Arlington i dropped off my leftovers and picked up my army book to head up to the comic shop and watch everyone else play Fantasy games. i learn visually better than anything else, so i like watching. i spent lots of time talking with my friend Krista outside while she smoked too, she gets bored watching after a while, and is really fun to talk to, so i didn't mind. Kyu was gonna finish my Wonder Woman tattoo, but Vance (the tattoo shop owner) was in a bad mood, putting Kyu in a bad mood, and he's smart enough to know not to try to tattoo me in a lousy mood.

Sunday was better for that so i headed in with him to get it done, and Vance was asking why he's never done anything BIG on me. my answer was that he's shot down all my big designs as being to complex or annoying for his skill level and patience (which i can totally respect) but Vance decided to go through all his flash art to see if there was anything i'd agree to. he found a plushie cow design that was cute, it had a comic bookish "squeeze me!" caption bubble on the belly, and i suggested turning it into a moose instead. i even explained it as "i love my sister, but sometimes she just makes you wanna squeeze her until she can't speak". so i now have a completed amazon branding on my wrist, and the lines for my squishy moose adorning my left thigh.

Photobucket Photobucket

it turns out tattooing me is hard and annoying because my skin rejects the ink, so the needle has to be extended a bit further, and injected a bit deeper. it's possibly related to how i heal really fast, and how my hair not only grows out crazy quick, but rejects foreign color and styling of any type. xD it's possible, but it's more difficult to do anything. Vance described it as having "rubbery skin" which i chose to interpret as a comment on my superhuman healing factor, and not an accidental comparison to a whale or walrus.. X.x after the line art has healed, we'll get to coloring it. i told Kyu that he can do it any colors he wants since it's a plushie and realism is not really a concern, and he said green and purple, but i have no idea if he was joking. xD i'm not worried really.

i'm working now on a way to put together a WHF Brettonian (Arthurian Britain really) army to a Narnian theme. i wanna do a list with the four Pevensie children, but i also wanna do a Prince Rilian/Green Knight list with a Lady of the Green Kirtle since the Silver Chair is my favorite Narnia book.. it's not one i can afford to but the things for (especially since i still haven't pulled together all my Dark Elf list) but it's fun to plan out something so heavily themed. xD really it'll only be to have fun with since most of the models will be heavily modded and from other army sets, most of the Brettonian models won't suit for what i have in mind at all.

i think for now that's all that's going on.