Break? What break?

My winter break is always so busy that it doesn't even seem like one. Aargh. Anyway, it's my birthday, and I'm sick again - this stupid cold-thing will not leave me alone. Whatever.

News! We got some sweet books for Christmas, including The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson, Inheritance by Christopher Paolini, and the Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan. I also used some of my Christmas monies to nab two of the hardback Serenity comics, Those Left Behind and Better Days, from Barnes & Noble. I was planning on using those particular monies to get Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Claire, but then I was like "FIREFLY" and now it will have to wait, because all my monies are gone. Also, I'm fairly sure my mom is giving me Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor for my birthday, which is freaking awesome.

You know what else is freaking awesome? X-Men First Class, is what. Most particularly the end. I love it when hot dudes get shot. Says a lot about my character, don't it?

Also? Have some pictures.

Oh, I missed posting on Nath's birthday this year, so here's his present. Or the upper half of it, anyway.

And by the way, I somehow magically ended up with "una A muy grande" in Spanish for the semester, which is fabulous, though somewhat confusing, since I apparently got an 83% on the final. Whatever, I'm not complaining. A 90.2% for the semester is still an A, yes? So whatever.

I just got back from Lady Arin's, but I don't have the pictures yet because she's sending them to me from the library, but when I get them, I will show you some. Milady, I'll have you know that you look ravishing in period clothing.

And since I was at Milady's for the last few days, I had to postpone finishing Pippin's portrait of Ewin that I'm working on. Gotta finish up his cloak still. In fact, I'd better go work on that. Toodles, all.

Commander Kip

Enough chatter up there. And try not to drop God on me.

Normal is overrated!

some quick nerdy things

First order of business: the Halloween post is UP! So scroll down and read it, or if you'd rather, wait until after Christmas and then read it, because nobody's in a Halloweeny mood right now. I sorta missed my window.

Second order of business: Happy Koloss Head Munching Day! http://www.17thshard.com/forum/blog/8/entry-185-where-to-buy-signed-copies-of-the-alloy-of-law-updates/
Now get out there and munch some heads! *nom* Mmm, heads.

Speaking of heads, I was bored in English the other day and the result was a crappy drawing of my Skyrim wood elf character, Sansavi. I haven't actually played her yet - she hasn't even been nearly beheaded - but when I do, it's gonna be awesome.

I can't tell on the stupid monitor I'm looking at right now, but I promise she has dark skin and is wearing freaky warpaint. I swear. And by the way, I told Spud not to follow the Imperials, but did he listen to me? Noo, nevah. So now he has two characters, an Imperial-aligned female Argonian warrior and a Rebel-aligned female Imperial mage. He still prefers playing the Argonian, probably because she can breathe underwater, but his Rebel mage is leveling so much faster, it's not even funny. That's why the good guys always win, you know; they kill the bad guys and steal their bawsome gear. It's genius, and it always works. I also told Spud not to choose the warrior class, but again, does he ever listen to me? Nooo. And now he's all like, "Dude, this magicka stuff is so much more powerful than low-level weapons, herp derp! I shoulda made my Argonian a mage too! Wow, I'm tho thmart!" and I'm all like "I may have mentioned all that. But... you never listen to me, so how would you know?" And he gets the biggest kick out of doing dangerous/stupid/evil things just "to see what would happen", like leaping off cliffs and attacking random villagers and stealing expensive items when a guard is standing right there. I swear, he spends half his time with a huge bounty on his head and the other half killing witnesses in order to get rid of the bounty. That boy has no moral compass.

I have my last two finals tomorrow (!!!) and then it's break and I can get down to playing Skyrim in earnest, rather than just watching my brother play it. XD Oh well, I feel like I'll do much better after watching him fail so hard. Whenever he does something that doesn't work, I make a mental note not to do it when I play.

Aaaand no one understood any of that, I bet. Sorry for being so boring. I had a nasty bugger of a cold last week, and I'm still not fully recovered. Hence the nerdy spewage. I'll be myself soon enough.

Kay, back to Spanish. Ooh, I'll be so glad when this final is out of the way...

Commander Kip

Bumptious bum. *snigger*

Normal is overrated!

We Now Interrupt Our Scheduled Program - you'll never believe this -

but I FREAKING GOT INTO COLLEGE.

*MASSIVE DANCE PARTY*

Seriously, I'm so relieved right now. St. Olaf was my first choice, and they like me, and I like them, and it's all good. Now I only have to do one scholarship audition instead of like five. And if you're wondering what the heck I'm doing on the Internet in the middle of the day, it's because I GOT INTO COLLEGE and I'm just celebrating for a minute. So there.

Now I have to go study for finals. *deflates*

Commander Kip
"Aren't you planning a rescue mission?" "Yeah, it's called winning the war."
Normal is overrated!

tiding over

I actually started the Halloween post, and it's getting super huge, and my blog is neglected, so you get a stack of random arts while you wait. Which means that the Halloween post will show up UNDERNEATH this one, kay? So scroll down more every once in a while until it shows up. It's gonna be frickin massive.

Still pumped for Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I own a copy now, but can't read it cuz finals are soon. Most likely, it'll end up as a Christmas present. But anyway, I'm pumped. Watched Serenity with Brenticus the other night. Cried. (I always cry during that movie.) Took a whack at drawing Zoe, but I don't think I made her lips big enough. For serious, her lips are really big.

Um, maybe this is Rochester? At a strange angle. Whatever.

There's an artist I've been following online for several years by the name of Adele Sessler. I think there's a link to her site in my sidebar - Meadowhaven, it's called. She has a character called the Mistress of Illusion or somethin' like that. Fun to draw. I think these are sorta inaccurate. But whatever. Due diligence, right?

Akima! Sorry, the colors are sort of wrong. I just used whatever pens were in my school bag, and that means no green. Sorry. Also, the pose is horrible, but I drew it in pen, so oh well. By the way, I love this girl because she gets shot in the shoulder and there's blood and everything. Titan A.E. is awesome like that.

Raven. A very tiny Raven. See how big those Spanish words are?

Here I was trying to get some ideas for my River Tam costume for Halloween. And even though there were like twenty choices, the world conspired against me and I couldn't work it out in time. Snarl. Anyway, here were a few of the options. See why I love this chick?

Xandria Castillo from the ghost kids thing. She has dark hair, I promise. Actually, this kind of looks nothing like her. Whoops. Partly cuz I gave up on the shading, but I'm pretty sure I got distracted by the vamp team and forgot about the ghost kids entirely. Not that I don't love them, of course.

Quick attempt at an older Ellian. In a tweed suit. Or something. Although, I don't think twentysomething-year-old women actually wear tweed suits, but that's kind of not the point. Portals is changing itself around in my head like, daily. For serious, every time I look at it, I see something new and awesome. Yay me. Oh, and I drew some sketches of Cairbre the other day, whose name is now going to be Kavra, because that's apparently the phonetical pronunciation of Cairbre, thank you Amzi very much. Who would've thunk? Gaelic is haaaard. Point being, I haven't scanned those Kavra sketches yet, but I will. Don't worry.

More randomer types of stuffs shall now ensue. There's really no good explanation for any of this crap.

Except this one, to which I shall only say, I have a thing for fairies with dreads and/or elaborate hairdos. The end.

If you survived all that, you get one of my famous theoretical cookies. Here. *gives*

Now, some sleeping would be nice.

Oh, Green Lantern was pretty great, by the way. Not the plot so much, but the Ryan Reynolds part, um yes. I heart Ryan Reynolds. And there were some pretty sexy explosions also.

Commander Kip

"I've known you all my life! I've seen you naked! You think I wouldn't recognize you just because I can't see your cheekbones?!"

Normal is overrated!

Hallowfriggenween

There, this beast is done. I told you it was gonna be huge, and look - so it is. By the way, I helped with the decorating this year. Those gold stars were my contribution. One of my favorite parts of Halloween is the mini pumkins. No the green and orange one there; the really really tiny ones.

We use them for everything.

They even smell nice, like cinnamon and cider and caramel and all sorts of holiday delicious things. *inhale* Mmm, mini pumpkins.

Cutting out those stars took about a million years, but it was worth it cuz we're recycling them to go with the Christmas decorations.

I love that bottle with the weird pickled vegetables in it. When I have my own house, I will have an entire Halloween cabinet full of nothing but bottles and jars full of nasty pickled things. And also finger bones and suchlike.

The bigger stars were even harder to cut than the little ones, but I think they look nice in the sunlight.

As my mom pointed out, that particular display looks more like Christmas than Halloween. Whatever, they're multipurpose.

My fingers looked like this after cutting them. Gold glitter paint everywhere.

When we decorate for Halloween, I get all the cheesy stuff for my room. No one else wants a bright orange owl that lights up when you plug it in.

I love this guy. He's so squishy.

My attempt at all-natural decor.

Funniest thing: my dog is terrified of this stuffed owl puppet. He thinks it's going to kill him any minute. He keeps staring at it, motionless, for several minutes at a time, followed by a deafening storm of barking and flailing, followed by a desperate last-ditch attempt to yank it down off the bench in an effort to kill it before it kills him. I threw it at him the other day, and he hightailed it out of my room like the devil was after him. I couldn't feel bad because I was busy laughing so hard.

I don't remember why we had roses, but when they started dying, I hung them upside down to dry. They turned out very nice; held their shape perfectly.

LEAVES! I love them so.

Specially when they change color, you know.

Yay!

*buries face in*

There are such striking sunsets in the fall and winter. Love. Kay, now costumes. This was the Monday before Halloween.

I am quite clearly a gypsy. I think this year's gypsy costume is way better than the one I wore last year. Those jingly things around my waist are literally the best thing ever. The vest, I borrowed from my mother. I don't like it on her, but I like it on me. Maybe because I wear it with light blouses, and she wears it with turtlenecks. Maybe I just hate turtlenecks. That must be it.

By the way, I took all these pictures myself. Yay timer!

Tuesday I was a post-apocalyptic scavenger. This one still needs work, I think. Actually, what it mostly needed was lots of dirt scrubbed all over everything, and some burnt edges, and a large weapon of some sort. But I only had so much to work with, and I had to follow the school dress code, so no.

You can't really see it in any of the pictures, but I made a string of random bits of metal to hang from my belt. It was partly to dress up the costume and partly me trying out a concept I'd thought of for a story (which almost worked; gotta experiment with it more. I'll explain all that later.)

Found those ski goggles in the closet. They make everything more better.

Wednesday I was going to wear my Andra costume again, but it was a little chilly outside, so that's why I have on the long-sleeve shirt under the tunic. And look, there's my new dagger!

Shiny, right? I didn't wear it to school, obviously, but I did wear the sheath.

And I wore my ears, because I figured dressing up as a generic elf character might fly better with the people at school, none of whom know who Andra is (and I didn't feel like explaining twenty billion times throughout the day.) So I got asked a lot if I was supposed to be Link. And I was like, "No. Not even Sexy Jutsu Link, because I'm clearly not wearing a hat. Duh." Although the colors are almost exactly the same as Link, now that I look at it. Oh well.

I actually did braid my hair this time, though! I think I've finally struck upon a method of pulling the front of it away from my face like Andra does without using insane amounts of hair spray. Not that you can tell any of that from this picture, but whatever.

Thursday I was a vampire hunter. I wanted some leather armor to go over it, but had none on hand and no time to make/acquire any, so no.

Nor did I have a proper stake or any other kind of awesome weapon, because they don't allow weapons at school. I ran into this problem with nearly every one of my costumes. Snarl.

In that pouch on my back are several whole cloves of garlic. I have two little bags of powdered silver hanging from my belt, as well as a high-powered flashlight and night vision goggles, visible in the first photo. Not visible anywhere, because they're in my pockets, are my vials of holy water. Just hand me a massive crossbow and I'm set.

That's all the crosses I own. Too bad; I wanted about sixty more, to hang randomly on my person.

Then I wore a Halloween Fairy costume on Friday, but we went straight to a piano lesson and I had to change so there's no pictures! I am quite sad. It was a freaking awesome costume. There were striped stockings involved. Anyway, on Halloween proper we went trick-or-treating with Brenticus and his sibs, and for that I was a steampunk pirate.

It was basically the same costume I wore at the OYAN workshop, but I picked up this precious hat at the costume store to go with it, and also a sword. Because I can't ever go in there without buying a weapon of some sort.

Said beasty sword. It has a little bit of a Prince of Persia vibe, but we're ignoring that right now.

I've had these gloves for ages, and they finally got too small, so I just chopped the ends off the fingers and made hobogloves. Problem solved.

Oh, and these were sitting there, so I took pics. There was a tutorial on A Fanciful Twist detailing the creating of these brilliant fabric bangles. The author said they were addictive, and she was right. You can't just make one.

There's a Halloween one I did. (And my Allomantic vials/holy water in the background there.)

This one I made for my mom.

But yeah, trick-or-treating was a blast, even though I felt really bad taking people's candy, being an adult and all that, but Brenticus reasoned that I probably wouldn't ever get the chance to do it again after this year, so why turn down free candy? Good point. He dressed up as Mat
from the Wheel of Time series, the first book of which I'm reading right now, and all evening we were tripping repeatedly over his gigantic spear. His brother was an Alloy of Law Allomancer, complete with mistcoat and very fetching hat (can't wait to get ahold of that book, Sanderson yaay), and his sister was a stylish ninja. My bro and his cohort were both League of Legends characters. Where's the fun in that, I ask you? Nobody had any idea who they were supposed to be. Halfway through the night, my bro switched to Ringwraith because that's what everyone said he looked like, so after a while he just went with it.

*drops down dead* Now I gotta study for my massive frightening Spanish final. It's gonna be bad. I am legitimately terrified.

Commander Kip

"Do something with your other hand. Touch your partner. Touch yourself - wait -"

Normal is overrated!