Additions to the Family

Despite minor setbacks and a shitload of translations, I've managed to survive the week. And with a really good news too! About a week ago (since I'm all moved out of my mom's house and living with another cat-lover), my boyfriend and I adopted a little girl kitten using the site SegundaMano. She is a lovely thing who has grown tremendously in the week she's spent with us, breaking out of her shell and becoming an increasingly active and demanding kitten. Her name is Cleopatra (Cleo for friends and family) and we're ansolutely thrilled with having her at home.

She has also taken to sleeping in the oddest places.

She is still terrified of being carried around but she's been scampering about now that everything else has stopped alarming her: trying to eat people's feet and my laptop, attempting to conquer the bookshelf and kill the evil that is our bed's comforter. And she's become accostumed enough to our home to develop a routine of her own: she sleeps a couple of hours, wakes up and goes to her litter box, eats something and then goes completely berserk for another couple of hours. Rinse and repeat. She's like clockwork.

She is still a very affectionate kitten, though, and mortally upset whenever we leave her alone in a room or I attempt to cook (obviously the sink and stove are in cahoots with the comforter). It is impossible to work at my computer now that she's constantly demading attention and trying to shred my right hand to pieces but I can most definitely declare that I am utterly, madly, hopelessly in love with her.

In addition, thanks also in part to our new independence, we've started a new D&D campaign (I've started like zillions and zillions of those and they always end prematurely, hopefully this one will stick). I've decided to use a character concept based on the Time Master Trilogy. I'm really happy with my character and of course have gone completely overboard in the character creation bit and have been reading way too much D&D and spent way too much time attempting to draw her.

The idea was to make a character with a basic integrity to her who was following a god of evil not for power or conviction but because she was in love with him. People familiar with Louise Cooper's work will probably recognize the character but I think she's changed enough in execution to merit an original name and design. After all, I've come to realize that, unconciously, she's also been significantly influenced by Robin Hobb's Etta, from the Liveship Traders Trilogy.

The idea has also grown a bit in its own right thanks to our GM's influence and she ended up serving an Archduke of Hell instead of a proper god. So we'll see how that comes along.

So without further ado, here are my first designs of Fynn, cleric of Mephistopheles:

I totally cheated again and used PJ Harvey as a model

Alas! I still suck at that hip-work.

She's supposed to be not terribly attractive and kind of solid and manly, to contrast with so many warrior types in chainmail bikinis and all those cleric ladies with the peek-a-boob thingies in their robes. You know what I mean.

Pissed Off Post Is Pissed Off

A couple of years ago, when I was still going to therapy, I remember quite clearly discussing a passage from Paradise Lost with my therapist. Let's see if I can find it.

I fled, but he pursu'd (though more, it seems,
  Inflam'd with lust then rage) and swifter far,
  Me overtook his mother all dismaid,
  And in embraces forcible and foule
  Ingendring with me, of that rape begot
  These yelling Monsters that with ceasless cry
  Surround me, as thou sawst, hourly conceiv'd
  And hourly born, with sorrow infinite
  To me, for when they list into the womb
  That bred them they return, and howle and gnaw
  My Bowels, their repast

That's family, right there, that's what they're like. They crawl up inside you and gnaw you from within when following all natural courses they should just leave you and pack up to live their lives.

There's been a bunch of insane stuff happening with my family lately because a second cousin of mine committed suicide. Of course an event like this one brings up a lot of bad blood between people and general neurosis among all family members. In the last month my mother has been dealing with it by being bloody furious with a couple of people who deserve quite a bit of fury thrown in their general direction. The problem with families, as illustrated by Sin's babies in the above passage, is that you can never deal with it out in the open. It does no good. You can't tell family members they suck because you have to deal with them on a regular basis and you don't want them mad at you. You can't say "Fuck this shit" and cut them out of your life because even when you do the fact remains they're still family, what they have done and failed to do you will carry with you the rest of your life.

My family has seldom paid attention to me or my interests. I mean, yes, they're family and they ask you things, but they ask you what they're interested in knowing, what they value as important. Not what you value as important. Which means conversation stays pretty universal: kids, significant others, success at work, school, occasionally friends... They never ask about my writing, they never ask about my drawings. They are not even marginally aware that I roleplay or that I've been nursing a horrible writer's block since I left High School, which has left me completely hopeless on my ability to write professionally. These things are completely outside of their sphere of influence and sphere of interest and therefore completely unimportant to them.

This blog has been active for eight years now! EIGHT. Not once has a family member stepped their metaphorical toe inside it, to politely ask what has been going on. Or even not so politely.

On  April 24, 2005 I wrote the following: "So right now... I want to die. Honest." I've written about my life and my writing here. I've written about my creative outlets and about the men I've fallen in love with through the years; some of them, people who have left me devastated and hurt, seemingly beyond recall. I've cried while writing. I've screamed. I've been hopeless and helpless and utterly alone.

I've also been happy and creative and oddly expectant. I've been forgetful. I left this place for years, and recently I've left this place for a couple of months. But it doesn't matter, everything is there. I have no regular followers because I don't write regularly or for other people. I write this because it pleases me. Occasionally, the friends I cherish and the boyfriend I love happen upon this place and take a look around. Occassionally I even ask them to, if I want their opinion on something.

This is something no one in my family, not even my mother or father, has ever taken the time to appreciate. But so what? Who cares? It's not like I'd want them here or feel comfortable if they were. Who wants your mother reading about your adolescent angst of how much you hate her and everyone else in the world?

But there are certain other means of communication which require decidedly less effort or interest or knowledge of the subject. Because let's be honest, just about anyone can write your name in a Facebook search and send you a "Friends Request" and then go on, thoughtlessly assuming that they are closer to you because of this new-fangled, very simple and efficient mode of communication.

Tonight I made a joke post on my Facebook Wall: I wrote an Apocalyptic Log besides one of the iconic pictures of Slender Man. I was even slightly unhappy with its sappiness since I was silly enough to include an "I just want to apologize to X''s mom..." I was thinking just one post was not such a good joke and maybe I should have started slower and more genreish and slowly built up to a crescendo. Maybe with some Photoshopped goodness thrown in for good measure.

People who have not called me or sent me an email or phone message to enquire about my recent move away from my Mom's (at last!) suddenly started enquiring into my state of mind. They wanted to know if I was feeling alright, if I was going to burden the family with another act of self-destruction. On Facebook. Because calling me or emailing me or anything else is just TOO DAMN HARD. It was, however, not too hard to call my mother and disturb her Sunday evening, not to ask for my phone number so they could attempt communication, but to ask HER to call me and check whether I was doing good.

I know I can't say this to your faces, I know if I did it would accomplish nothing but hurting people who in spite of all evidence to the contrary I still appreciate, I know this might be completely out of proportion but DAMN, FUCK YOU FAMILY! I'm closing my goddamn Facebook because I don't want to afford easy access into my daily life to a bunch of people who will neither care nor understand unless it can somehow bring them closure or an illusion of knowledge were there is only the shallowest glimpse into the person I am. You can damn well call me and ask like everybody else from now on! Or if you really care that much you can come check out my blog. It's on the Internet and completely public. There is absolutely nothing holding you back form it except maybe your own apathy and self-centeredness and of course the fact that you'd have to sift through all those other things you don't give a damn about in order to get to all the juicy, juicy gossip you really want. Fuck you and your kids, seeing their fucking pictures is not enough of an enticement to tolerate these fake attempts at concern.

I may be a selfish, self-absorbed hermit but DAMNIT, I don't pretend to know you through a fucking Facebook application or a half-heard rumour.

Procrastinating

This is my favorite activity in the world. I am now engaging in it by writing in this blog and alternating between watching a crazy English lady twitching and singing and watching some crazy japanese people twitching and attempting to sing.

It's all really very entertaining.

Anyway, the actual reason for this entry is the following drawing ( I should be translating but posting drawings online sounds like a better idea for some reason):

I'm fiddling around with proportions in an effort to once more procrastinate on the homework Derrewyn asigned me for working out the problems on the drawing below this one. I should be drawing hips and kidnapping goths with fancy boots but I much rather attempt to figure out how much taller Mitsu is than Elaine

(not that she is in anyway tall.) I'm getting pretty good at those stupid boots and I seem to enjoy drawing Elaine in skinny 80s jeans. I keep getting the slight suspicion that Elaine should be tinier and Mitsu taller but honestly, how am I gonna do that without making them look completely ridiculous? At least this is good practice for the kissing drawing!


(I have in fact actually been working on my Derre!homework, there's just not enough of it to merit a post yet. And Elaine and Mitsu are just so CUTE.)

At Last

I'm exhausted. I think I burned out on the stupid drawing. I'm still not entirely happy with the right hand or the boots but I think for the moment I can live with them... for now! I'm just so happy I dared to finish this effing thing.

Also, isn't Mitsu sexy? I love him forever and his stupid heavy metal and his stupid pretty hair. I'll fix all that is wrong with this drawing when I can move again.

Moar Sketches

Sooooo, still translating and still working on Mitsurugi drawings. Not much progress on either but at least, between collecting tons and tons of reference pics of nekkid men, I've been kinda working out the pose I wanna draw him in.

My first attempt sucked. Mostly because I was using reference pics that weren't full-bodied and I was having trouble imagining how the legs behaved. Have you ever noticed how many pictures are cut off at the hips? Stupid eighties metal bands can't be bothered to be pictured with their legs apparently. In conclusion, Ire sucks at drawing legs. Thus, practice, practice, practice. If it hadn't been for Posemaniacs I would have been completely screwed.

Click for a larger image

Attempt #1 is the one on the left and I'm, naturally, quite unhappy with it. Thought Attempt #2 is certainly better, especially in regards to the feel of the character it still makes me a bit uneasy. I think the long hair makes him look too much like Fabio to me. Also he needs either fattening up or slimming down depending on what version of him I wanna draw. I'm probably going for the skinnier Mitsu, which is a frightening prospect since he is a big-boned boy. Ooooh, the troubles I get myself into!

Character Designs

I was getting sick of working with characters I barely knew, who didn't belong to me and had very little development possibilities in the immediate future. So during the last couple of months, in an attempt to get over my art rut, I've decided to go back to some of my old favorites.

I've been retooling my old RPG character Elaine a bit, just to make her features a little more clear in my head (you know, beyond "tiny, curly-haired and turned up nose"). I tend to use actor screencaps as models for the first batch of sketches and then refer to that batch for further attempts. I know it's a bit lazy and I feel sort of a cheat but it does help me with a number o things; amongst them the very problematic issue of expressions.

So long story short, Elaine has been revamped using a tiny Jodie Foster as reference (I just had to! It was that lovely bump on her nose!). Which means I had the pleasure of watching "The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane" over and over again in an attempt to get some good screencaps. Die Martin Sheen, DIE!

This has been particularily interesting because I'm going to start working on a character design for Elaine's father. Most of my lame excuses regarding her lack of resemblance to her mother went along the lines of "meh, she looks like her dad!". Well, now I'm going to have to put my money where my mouth is.


Aside from Elaine, who is so oooold, ooold that she should be senile already, I've been working on a character design for one of my boyfriend's most endearing creations. He's newer (and of course hipper) and of Asian descent; which means I got to work outside of my comfort zone for a change. Big Japanese man with a beard. I can't get more uncomfortable than that. Fortunately for me, my boyfriend is not a hack and kinda had a model in mind for his character already. This made getting screencaps a lot simpler.

Kenta Kiritani was the chosen model for Mitsurugi Moto, a character originally made for the L5R setting and later adapted to a couple of other games. I got all my screencaps from the movie "Beck" and was very glad because Mr. Kiritani pulls a lot of very interesting faces in that movie.

So quite a bit of work buuuut the problem is I'm still slacking. I should be working on some full-body drawings so  I can fiddle around with clothing and proportions. Mitsurugi is BIG and Elaine is a tiny thing and I hope to draw them kissing at some point so I forsee a nightmare of proportions in my future. Sighs. Back to translating before getting all obssessed over drawings.

A Change of Pace

I had already resigned myself to never posting in this blog again. I had thought I was quite beyond it and that it would serve no useful purpose. However, due to popular request (ha!), I think I can at the very least attempt to find a use for this place (other than adolescent angsting, having, hopefully, outgrown it by twenty-five).

So if nothing else, I'll try to fill the pages, errm blog entries? Well, I'll attempt to fill this thing with the odds and ends of my life. Mostly the stuff nobody else cares about. Sketches, paragraphs, character notes... anything I can think of. It will, perhaps, teach me about constancy again.

And because the people who have encouraged me to attempt this again deserve a little bit of attention I'll try to turn comments back on. If I can figure out the new blogger controls...