yes, I still draw, in case you were wondering.

A lot, actually, but I just now scanned this stuff the other night. I hate my parents' scanner, by the way. Have I mentioned that before?

Gawsp, a border AND a background?! No wai! This is Tajadeo, and I have no idea what dark recess of my mind he popped out of. The picture oughta look more awesome in color, if I can manage to color it the way I'm imagining it. More backstory to come with the colored version.

Here Lies Arthur, by Phillip Reeve, was a very strange book all told, but I did like this scene. Sorry I fail at Peredur's face so very badly. Gwyna looks okay.

This dude is mine. He was one of the ones who spontaneously appeared in the steamverse mess, and his name is Proffessor Jeremy Biddle, and his job is to stitch up all the gaping wounds and stuff. I stuck him with Commander Green's crew for that very purpose, haha. And also to annoy the heck out of Jackson, because I have a feeling they would hate each other in a brotherly kind of way.

Zomg, pen. Erasable pen. But still.

Had to draw the Lost Hero gang, especially Piper, because they are too much fun.Thalia looks awful. Ignore her.

Practicing some DYNAMIC POSES for Anabeth, since she's been hanging around so much lately. Elfy-eared Anabeth is a leetle beet of a spoiler, I suppose, unless you're Lady Arin and you already know what happens.

Currently reading the third book of the King Raven trilogy by Stephen Lawhead, and loving Will Scarlet and his pretty wife Noinina so very much. They're so freaking adorable together. And Scarlet is hilarious also. Best dialogue in the history of the universe.

And lastleh, Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor is coming out fairly soonish! *hopping about madly with impatience* Can't wait to read it!!! From what I hear, there will be horns and pretty clothes and blue hair involved. So. Freaking. EXCITED.

I'm attempting to draw something rather out of my usual comfort zone right now. We'll see how it turns out. Also, there's pictures on my camera that need to come off so you can see them.

This next week is going to be INSANE. I am so extremely terrified right now. Aaaaaargh.

Commander Kip

He must have gotten up on the wrong side of his Hail Marys this morning.

Normal is overrated!

can't catch ME

and make me a man! Nobody on the PLANET loves Peter Pan as much as I do. Even though he's totally not speaking with me at the moment. I need to draw him MOAR. By the way, this is how I picture him when reading the book; I somehow managed to NOT channel Jeremy Sumpter while drawing this, which took a mighty effort, I can tell you. Not that I don't adore Sumpter!Pan, but I'm still happy I remember what he looked like before I saw the movie.

Genesis Mary Pike, Miasma division. Repetitionrepetitionrepetition... will eventually nail that haircut... And you may or may not remember Tide. I could swear I've drawn him before, but then again, I might just be losing my mind. Whatever. Here he is with his epic fairy staff of DOOM. Also notice, no wings because he's a WATER FAIRY, duh.

And here we have a hobbit. A girly giraffe-necked hobbit. I could not for the life of me tell you why.

There's a ton more stuff I wanna showya, but my parents' scanner quite clearly hates me with a burning fiery passion (reciprocated by me, of course) which means that whenever I scan something, I have to first figure out where it saved, then convert it to JPG and rename it with an actual name instead of "scan000002" or whatever stupid name the scanner gives it. *RANT etc.*

Um, what else? Oh yeah, How To Train Your Dragon. Saw it with my mom last night. It continues to pwn mah soul. I just want to hug it and cuddle it and squeeze it and and and... or I could just stop now.

Commander Kip

*divebomb* Toothless, what are you DOING?! We need her to like us!!

Normal is overrated!

the Iron Dragon

ZOMG, people, ACTUAL ARTSES! *epic gawspage all around* Miracle, innit? I would like you all to meet my friend the Iron Dragon. Say hello. Quite the beast of a shotgun, isn't he? I painted that woodgrain on by freaking hand. Took forever. Had to go to the art store and buy myself a smaller paintbrush, cuz the one I had just wasn't cutting it. And since this beastie has so many moving parts, some of them simply refuse to stay painted, no matter how many coats of sealer I slather on there. Rawr. I must say, however, that it makes a very satisfying noise when you cock it, like "snick snick crrrrr-rr-rr-ack snick THONK" or something like that.

The new and different color scheme that happened here is mostly a result of me with a stack of new paints and absolutely itching to try them out. Bought some actual BLACK last time, woot! And gold, and russet, and silver, all of which I used here, along with some of the umber I had before. I also picked up some unbleached titanium, which is roughly the color of bird droppings, and now I can't remember why I bought it. Oh well.

And I just saw Treasure Planet again, by the way, and I still love it so much. The QUOTES, aaah, there' s so many good ones! *reduced to incoherent gabbling in the corner*

Commander Kip

*fires pistol at random* *hits chandelier, which takes out catwalk, which sends pirates falling to their doom* "Did you actually aim for that?" *outrage* "You know, actually, I DID?!"

Normal is overrated!

irrelevance

is the order of the day here. Listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psuRGfAaju4

Dude, I want an old electric keyboard with a button labeled 'magic'. Jealous much.

I blame this strange music phase I'm going through entirely on Reedfrost. *smites*

That is all, and I know it's boring, but I'm so busy right now and none of my art is scanned and yeah, we'll get there. Eventually. Sorry everybody.

Also, I love Lady Arin. But you all knew that.

Commander Kip

Dude, look at this. It's, like, a BULGE. It's EMBARRASSING.

Normal is overrated!

testing this out...

testing, testing... dude...



Did it work?

Hmm...

Commander Kip who just discovered Wordle
*sees pizza box* "Really?" *box empty* "No, not really."
Normal is overrated!

see what you can make of it

Ugh, this was so hard to make and it SHOULDN'T have been. All I had to do was rub dirt all over everything, and there was me trying every way I could think of to dye those pieces. I wash my hands of this stupid installation. Literally. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast stink-bombing the art room and spashing around in mud up to my elbows. But I'm glad this is over with.

Might I add that I LOVE HOW IT TURNED OUT?!!!

I was trying to make something that looked like samples from an archeological dig. I think it worked. YAY.

School starting again, blaargh...

Commander Kip
I bequeath to you my axe.
Normal is overrated!

not dead yet - *ghasps for air* -

- but getting there pretty quick. I NEED MY INTERNETZ, PEOPLE. Or bad things happen.

I was in Minnesota with my mom over Spring Break, and while I actually did have internet there, I was forbidding myself to even look in its direction because I'm WRITING CHAPTER TWELVE, BLAST IT ALL. I promised myself I'd finish it by the end of the break. Well. That's looking unlikely, but I at least want to push past the spot where I got stuck last time. Momentum, I tell you. Momentum is key!

And look at me, sitting on my booty in front of my blog screen. So productive.

Gads, I really need to call Lady Arin. She probably thinks I've died for real this time...

OH I FORGOT - I've read some books during break, including the first book in the new Heroes of Olypmus series, The Lost Hero. BAAAHAHA it was so much fun. I love Leo and his magic toolbelt of doom and his giant mechanical dragonthing. Yay.

Commander Kip who has way too many things she's supposed to be doing right now
She wanted me to betray you guys, and I was like, 'Pfft, right, I'm gonna listen to a face in the potty sludge.'
Normal is overrated!

documenting the epicness

Grr, pics not showing up in the right order, as per usual, but ANYWAY, I had fun at Lady Arin's house. Even though I was sick. *tries to glomp the Lady without breathing all over her*

They have a swing on a hillside. In my opinion, EVERYBODY should have a swing on a hillside. I almost DIED swinging on it. My own fault; that coat is too slick to wear in a swing, I though I was going to slide right out and fall to my death. XD

And now...
MY MISTCLOAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the rest of my costume, but MISTCLOAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lady Arin is so good to put up with me and my silliness. She took about fifty billion pictures of me leaping off those steps, and in almost every on of them my hair is getting caught under my nose and I look like I have a ridiculous mustache. Anyway, there's my knives in there too, which used to be a heinous evil pair of death scissors, except I took them apart and now they're my knives. And I do love them so.

We had a wonderful random time. We watched movies (When Harry Met Sally, BWAAH so cute), ate awesome chili, slept more than usual, talked about whatever, took ridiculous pictures that involved me wearing a giant pregnant-lady nightgown with a pillow stuffed down the front and Lady Arin waving one of my pistols around whilst the sidekick gave her bunny ears, spent some time flopsying about in the woods, climbing trees, toting gear, shooting stuff, laughing way too hard at everything, doing slightly dangerous or stupid things like swinging on random vines out over the creek, without knowing whether said vines would hold my weight or whether I could actually keep a grip on them. Luckily, I somehow managed both. Oh, and there was also a swamp involved, which Lady Arin magnificently drove us through at least five times while I was there. WITHOUT GETTING STUCK. And then we'd go zinging out into the road like a friggen slingshot. It was such an adventure... you don't even know.

So that pretty much sums up my epic weekend at the Lady's house. Then I came home to an absolute boatload - no, an ARKLOAD of homework because we've had like six snow days and we're so so so far behind. And then my cold went away! *skips about squeeing*

Oh, speaking of skipping and squeeing, listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joIbYX11aLY

It's hilarious, because I actually really like the lyrics, but I can't take the thing seriously because of that super dippy tune; all I can think of is little hearts and rainbows and smiley faces like one of those Japanese pop music videos. Whatever, it makes me smile. *smiles*

Commander Kip who actually didn't have time to make that blog post... *sheepface*

*yells across entire house* DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT KISSING?

Normal is overrated!

back from Lady Arin's

and just itching to post some pics, but can't because they're not on this computer yet. A couple of completely unrelated sketches will have to do.

You don't know this person. Her name is Genesis Pike, and she is SO HARD TO DRAW and I feel like an idiot for giving her such a difficult haircut. WHY WHY WHY?! This was my first attempt. As you can probably see, I failed. Although I do like how her wingpack came out. That blasted haircut. Slightly better this time, and poor Gen looks more like herself.

Third attempt, and I can already tell that her hair will be impossible to draw head-on; it's got to be from the side or a three-quarter angle, or there's no flipping way.

So then I wanted to draw all of her gear... I guess I have to explain who she actually is now. The weird steampunk thingy sprouted an entire military force overnight, you know (remember that giant gob of stuff about Keera Jenkins and the rest of her team?) and Genesis was spawned out of the churning molten mess that resulted. She's some kind of elite paratrooper-type person who's supposed to swoop down from above and mop up the hairier situations, hence the wingpack. So she's like, a flying ninja Marine or something. I gave her a pair of shock pistols that fire concentrated bursts of electricity, but they can also be loaded with pellets filled with knockout gas or whatever (check out the ammo belt.) Story-wise, she's kind of an older sister figure for Keera, who was only fifteen when she joined the military, and Gen took her in and showed her how things were done. Gen's got an interesting personality: she acts decidedly cool towards most of her comrades; she's level-headed and doesn't talk too much; she moves like a ninja or a panther or an amorphous liquid, whichever you like; she enjoys her job; she narrows her eyes and tilts her chin up when she's angry; she acts gentle most of the time but is seriously beasty in combat; and she can do flips. That's pretty much it.

Oh, and in case this matters to someone, I drew this picture on the back of a piece of history homework. During class. *sheepface*

And now the nonsense. I have no clue who this is, but I like his (her?) ears. Androgynous elfy for the win!

Very very bored with ACT prep work. As a result... things like this happen. I like floofly wings.

Random blue thing. Sorreh. Math bores me, and then spacegirls start jumpin around in the margins.

This actually makes sense (sorta.) My girl Xandria, the best friend of the guy who is in love with the dead person. You've met her, I think. She wears odd clothes. I changed her bangs; I think I might like 'em better this way.

ELLIAN RETURNS! Oh, my poor neglected Portals people. She came out looking WAY angstier than usual. But I guess I can't blame her, since she's supposed to, you know, save the world and stuff.

Percy Jackson. I've never felt the urge to draw him before, but I found an artist on DevART who draws him perfectly. (BurdgeBug. You might have heard of her. She's so beasty.) And there was a picture of him in a hoodie and swim trunks, with awesome shaggeh surfer hair, and I was like WHY YES THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE. And then he hopped out right after I finished this gigantic heinous math review in my ACT book. Waving some skewed weapons, and whatever. But I was so happy to be done with the stupid math, I was feeling generous and let him stay.

Oh, I had a very frightening Idea with a capital 'I' for Portals the other day. Lady Arin's heard about it, but I don't think the rest of you have.

It wants to be a video game.

WHAAAT?!!! *falls over* How did this happen?! Oh yeah, because I can't seem to write a linear storyline to save my life, and the Portals plot follows all these different people all over the friggen place and it's just the biggest mess ever. But see, video game plots are supposed to do that, because they're open-ended and the player gets to choose where to go and what quests to take, so the writers have to make sure to follow every single plot bunny that crops up and write out every path the player could possibly stumble across. And my everywhere plot kind of does that already. Also, I have two main characters with very different feels to their storylines. Ellian is a ten-year-old kid, and has ten-year-old thoughts, feelings and mannerisms. She gets herself into ten-year-old sticky situations, but nothing terribly life-threatening or scary. There are no enormous gouts of blood in her story, nor are there impossible emotional conundrums that only an older person could experience. Yeah, she ends up with a lot of responsibility and has to eventually save the world, but she doesn't have to do it alone; there are a bunch of other people who help her out along the way. Because she's a ten-year-old kid. Anabeth, on the other hand, is nineteen and her story is substantially darker. Her friends (and enemies) are all older. There's a lot more drama involved with her, and although I haven't explored her story quite as much yet, I just know there are bound to be some fairly epic gouts of blood. So I thought, there could be a screen at the beginning with a picture of Ellian and a picture of Anabeth side by side, and a little blurb under each; like for Ellian it could talk about her a little bit and then say something like, 'for a more light-hearted and fun adventure, difficulty: moderate' and then for Anabeth, talk about her and then say 'for a darker, more dramatic adventure, difficulty: hard' or something like that, and then depending on which one you click, that's who you'll play. And there should be an option within the game that lets you switch back and forth between the two storylines just in case you want to play them both. I played a game like that once, where there were two characters and you could switch back and forth between them whenever, and the one you weren't playing would stay right where you left it, so when you came back to him/her, he/she would still be in the same place.

Raise your hand if you're still awake. *looks around* *no hands* Hehe, thought not...

Saw the new Star Trek last night, and Sahara the night before. Such good movies, you guys!

Commander Kip

I've never beamed three people from two locations onto one pad before!

Normal is overrated!

FLAIL

Gaah, you guys, I cannot live without my LAAAAAPTOOOOOP. Seriously, I have the biggest headache right now. Although that might have something to do with all the horrid math I did today.

Point being, I had a sketch I wanted to post on account of Valentine's Day, but I can't at the moment because daddy dearest hasn't gotten around to moving my files to the kid comp yet. I can't exactly blame him, seeing as he's in the middle of making a living right now, but still. Meh.

Speaking of Vday, there was a dance at my school this weekend, which I quite cleverly opted out of. One, the tickets were ten dollars apiece, and two, you're supposed to have a date in order to go, or at least a group of friends. Since I had neither ten dollars nor a date NOR a group of public-school friends, I was like naaah. Let's go paint guns instead. So that's what I did with my weekend; that, and way too much homework. *cradles aching head*

Pointless post is pointless.

Oh yeah - I did get to watch Prince of Persia again. I still love all the freaking parkour, and Dastan's arms, especially, make me very happy every time I see them. For serious, he's got these muscles that are out to here. And I also adore his messy hair. It's funny; that's what I liked about Aragorn too. I have a thing for guys who are all beasty and sweaty and covered in blood/grime/hiking-through-the-wilderness stubble. Once you clean them up, shave them nicely, comb the dried muck out of their hair and put them in fresh clothes, you discover that they aren't nearly as sexay as you thought. So sad, how my mind works.

Commander Kip
"Bring a good movie to watch." "Oh, have you seen Inception?!" "No..." "I don't have it."
Normal is overrated!

Asian ball-jointed dolls.

I have just discovered them. AND NOW I WANT SOME VERY VERY BADLY. It's quite terrible really because they cost like five hundred dollars each, and that's just for the poor unpainted hairless naked bodies. And apparently they have a way of telepathically FORCING you to buy them many clothes and wigs and eyes and pretties and friends and families and pets and significant others to go with. So there's a slim-to-none likelihood of me every getting myself any, broke as I am.

But that doesn't stop me from ogling at their general gorgeousness on DevART all I freaking like. Which is probably a bad idea cuz it just makes me want them MORE.

I want this wig so I can make a Thaelen doll. He's dying to have this hair.
And this wig for Anabeth, only picture it kind of yellower.

Gah, just those two characters of mine... If I had them, I would pretty much be happy forever. But apparently it doesn't work that way; I can tell already, from browsing a few doll sites and thinking to myself, "hey lookit, that one has Kaelo's face" or "that red wig is perfect for Edana," or "yep, Tears probably has a messed-up ribcage exactly like that," and so on.

Snarl. This is my own stoopid fault.

*swats self with frying pan*

For reals, this post actually happened because my poor wonderful laptop up and died on me this week, blue screen of death and everything, and I don't know when I can get it fixed... or even if my stuff will still be there afterward (I have backing-up problems.) So everybody cross your fingers for poor Daedalus and hope he can be resurrected successfully. Until then, I dunno how much art I can figure out how to post. *heartbroken sigh*

Commander Kip who NEEDS to stop drooling over BJDs now

You gotta KILL HER, Jesse! You gotta beat her up into a MILLION PIECES!!!

Normal is overrated!

this is the post that never ends

because I constructed it over the course of a week or so; it's February sixth today. Lawl. I had three snow days last week on account of the EPIC BLIZZARD we had. Which makes me vereh happeh, cuz I didn't at all feel like goin' to school on any of those days. Yaay, blizzard.

Here's that huge stack of sketching I promised y'all. This isn't even all of it, but I was getting tired of waiting to scan the rest, so here's most of 'em.

When I get stressed about homework or whatever, stuff like this happens. My head people get stressed too. I was trying something, and it wasn't supposed to look like this, but I'm not complaining. I think it's one of my faeryn ladies from Portals. It must be. Look at all that hair. That, my friends, is a hot mess.
And then there was Lizby stuff. Lots of it all over the place. I imagine little Silence will actually be quite pretty when she gets older, see?

And Ben Lander is as girly and schizophrenic as ever. Even when he was a little kid, he was girly and schizophrenic. *hugs the little blighter*

And you've seen Fiera before, but this is a better picture of the front of her, despite the lopsidedness.

And lookit, I think Tears just had some sort of brilliant idea. Gaw, that kid is messed up.

Hokay, on to more randomer thingies. I dunno who this faerie dude is. I know nothing about him except that he is smirking at you.

Say hello to Shoal. He lives in my room cuz he's just that awesome. His door wouldn't stick to my bookcase without some serious coaxing. But I love him because he stops Irk and Tide from getting into TOO many fights. All he has to do is make epic puppy faces at them, and they stop. Like magic.

No, I have no clue who this is. Some androgynous Asian person with a mysterious tattoo/birthmark thing on his/her neck. *helpless shrug* See, this is what my brain throws up when it's had enough history homework for one day.

And this happened because we were talking about industrialization in history class, and I was like STEAMPUNK HECK YESSSS and this person suddenly popped out of my pencil and quite startled Godfather, who made the mistake of sitting next to me and was all like WHERE DID THAT THINGLADY COME FROM??! Whatevah, I liketh her boots.

This is Damien. I have a feeling you've never met him before. Gaw, what a terrible first impression. Quit slouching, kid! He's the one who went ahead and fell in love with a dead person, 'member I told you guys about that? At least, I think I did. And he has an actual BODY and stuff, omg wut!

Designing exercise for metalsmithing class. This class makes me happeh cuz all you do is draw and set things of fire and bang on stuff. Best ever.

Project sketches for abovementioned class. When I get the actual ring done, y'all can see it and stuff.

So, you nerdy people, d'you know what Mole Day is? Anyway, the science club at school asked me to design a t-shirt for their Mole Day celebration, and the theme was Moles of the Carribean. Hence this monstrositeh.

Weirdest thing. I scribbled with a pen on this piece of paper to see if it was working, and the scribble turned into a flower, which stuck itself in this person's hair, and then there was this person looking all worried like she was on death row or something, so yeah I'll just stop now.

Mr. S. has this voice that's really nice to listen to. Makes me want to scribble random crap whenever I hear him talk. I want this necklace, by the by.

Went and saw Tron with Spud and the grandaddy; yeah, I grant you, the effects were cool. Way cool. *drools over light cycles and glowy frizbee weapons of doom... you have NO IDEA* But the plot - ha, what plot? - the nonexistent plot was... nonexistent. Ha.

And now we get to the good stuff. Like Thaelen and his messed-up face. Every time I see this, I dislike it more. Although I'm still quite fond of his HAIR. I tried something on his nose that I will clearly never try again, because it makes him look rather evil.

Oh yeah, this has no relevance to anything whatsoever. I like Batman. So does this gap-toothed kid, I guess. *stares absently at the ceiling* This kind of thing happens when I'm not paying attention (in class. Ahem.)

No, I don't know what happened. Some people popped out of my pencil and started kissing. As if their lives depended on it. You know how that is, right?

Mmkay, better save some for later, I think. This post is getting retarded.

Just a heads up, people: if you've read the book Dorian Gray, and you're planning on seeing the 2009 film adaptation, CANCEL THOSE PLANS IMMEDIATELY because that movie is one of the most odious, terrifying, gore-soaked, inappropriate things I've ever seen in my entire life. Seriously, it will RUIN your brain. I've taken to sleeping with a pistol on my bedside table, and that's only when I can actually sleep. Gaah, don't watch it, guys. It's awful.

On a happier note, I got to see Inception again, with the rest of the fam this time, and remembered how much I love it, especially the soundtrack, and the zero-g ninja skills, and Cobb's melt-your-corneas adorable children, and Arthur everything, and Eames and his creeping, and the psycho wife/murderess and EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF IT ACTUALLY. But most especially the soundtrack.

And now I want to see Bridge to Terabithia again because we saw a lovely production of it at the Coterie and they used a real live puppy and it was way beyond awesome. And then they did little short spoof of the show afterward and I laughed until I was in pain. Gaah, so much fun.

My hands are cold. I'm done now.

Commander Kip

"Quick, gimme a kiss." *does* "They're still looking at us." "Yeah, it was worth a try."

Normal is overrated!