Every time I make a post, I think about all of the GIFs I want to use.

So, these past few months have been in a slow but steady upswing. I finally escaped the bookstore, which broke my heart in so many ways, but I couldn't deal with how management was using it's position to manipulate employees and employee relations, especially among those they didn't particularly care for. I work part time now for a computer company, and I'm trying really really hard to get full time, but I'm not under the impression that it will be any time before the end of march. This means taking lots of extra shifts to try and get as close to 35 hours a week as I can. Sadly, even at 35 hours a week, I'll still end up making more than I was at my old job.


That aside, it's been good times, albeit busy. I've been working on and off on a bunch of different projects, both art related and crafty related. So I'll just sort of go down my muddled list as best I can.


I'm still sewing and knitting some things, though I have been really bad about getting them pictured. Rest assured, I am slowly getting over my fear of using a sewing machine, and it has saved my poor craftin' ass more than once in the last month or so. I was knitting infinity scarves for a while, and now I have such a backlog of fucking awesome fabric that I've started sewing and dying some stuff as well. Yay!
(If you guys are into free crafting stuff at all, I have been wading around in the backposts of Aunt Peaches blog for quite some time now. I'm half convinced this is some kind of code name for Amy Sedaris. Also, some free online patterns for Infinity Scarves if you want to sew them instead of knit them.)




The other major news is that for the first time in my life, I have an iPhone. And I am utterly goddamn addicted to it. This is why I put off on getting one for so long -- well, the addictive qualities and the fact that my monthly data bill was always going to be like 3x's more than I could actually afford. So far, I have gotten addicted to battle cats (image above), bread kittens, and instagram.  My problem now is finding the time to cycle through my games that I like, and then get back home and actually do some solid work instead of dicking around on my phone all the time. Suffice the distractions, I have actually managed to squeeze out a few arties, however silly they are for the time frame I'm working on.

I only have a WIP screenshot, but I started on the linework for what was going to be a little sketch in CSPaint, and sort of turned into a "I'm going to make this a polished picture, instead" thing. I should mention this was a picture that started back in September, and I have basically left it on my desktop in various states of being ignored since then. At this point, I may use it as a valentines day picture of some kind, I dunno.

I've also been working on a little bit of stuff in CSPaint just to get used to how the program handles. I made a picture for the EGD website, but I don't have enough stuff to update with quite yet so I may wait a little bit. But since I've made the decision to leave all Hewia art off of DA, it means y'all can come here to get little snippets of stuff I do. I also made a version 2 of this image, but you're going to have to click on it to find out!

The last little bit of trouble I've been getting myself into has been in Poser & Blender. I've finked around in poser 9 enough now that I have a basic concept of editing figures and lights and stuff, but what I'd really like to start doing is being able to rig my own models, specifically of Mahadevi and Himegami. My first attempt at 3D Modeling was back in the last 90s with a Himegami head I made from a modified mesh of Nefretiti's face. It was in a now-dead program called stratavision that was not all that great. But it was what I had so I made due. Now, I've been watching a lot of 3D artists and the videos and tutorials they put out for beginners of designing their own base, putting in the textures, getting all of the SSS blenders and color refractions to work so that it doesn't look like shiny plastic with a misaligned human texture under it. So far, I've put about 10~12 hours into my Mahadevi figure, and I'm not even done with the base figure yet. After this comes figuring out how to design clothing and jewelry and stuff, or even imitate armor that's already in the game. Here's what I have so far:

I actually have a Soranik Natu model I started working on as well, but I'm going to get the heavy lifting out of the way first with Mahadevi and then work my way down the line. I'm hoping to perhaps submit my 3D art to blizzard in the future. I'd still love to be in their character design and costume design department(s).

Welp, that'sabout all for me right now. Just wanted to get out a little journal plop so that people didn't think I was sheltered up somewhere making a nest out of my own hair. Hopefully there will be more arts & crafts soon!