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