all these things I would say

[reflectedeve]

Ugh, am I awake? I have royally messed with my own sleep schedule this weekend. Mainly because I made the mistake of reading prozacpark's old rec post for Pretty Little Liars, started watching it while coloring one of my kink_bingo pieces, and wound up binging. I had to forcibly remove myself from the computer yesterday afternoon in order to get in the script revisions I had planned. It's all very ... dramatic and somewhat overblown, in terms of the plot, but it's certainly entertaining. The real draw, however, is absolutely the female-dominated cast, and the marvelous set of nuanced female friendships that the show develops. It's something I miss from the majority of my media, and it's so damn refreshing.

(I have to say, it's also really trippy to be watching Bianca Lawson play an adorable high school lesbian when I've just been watching her as a morally ambiguous high school guidance counselor!)

So maybe there'll be some fanart at some point ...

Meanwhile, speaking of the kink_bingo art I posted a couple days ago (here and here - simulated gore in the former, nudity & sexual situations involving tentacles in the latter), I've been trying some new process stuff and I thought it might be neat to talk about it a little.

My Gerard/Lindsey "guro" piece was a little challenging, because I wanted to do a two-color ink illustration in a lot of detail. I ... still haven't gotten around to learning to use a tablet (I have a tiny refurbished one to practice on sooner or later), so I needed to draw the two elements separately on paper and assemble them in Photoshop. I did the pencils all together (using two different colors of lead, for easy differentiation), and then inked on two pieces of translucent vellum. (I was just going to do that with the paint/"blood," but I liked my pencils so much that I wanted to preserve them! I might do this more often.) After scanning them together and recoloring the paint/"blood" inks red, I recombined them.



Originally Gerard had paint on his face and upper arm as well, but I decided not to include them in the final piece. And if you look closely, you might notice a lot of little spots of white gel pen on the first piece of vellum ... I kind of had a last-minute fight with Gerard's facial expression.

I should get going; I have more comic script revisions and job search stuff ahead of me. And then Teen Wolf ... which, in spite of its flaws, continues to inspire large amounts of sheer fannish giddiness. But I leave you with this question: what even IS Gerard Way? He certainly makes me feel a bit better about myself (I feel like someone's been telling me that I look at least five years younger than I am every other week lately). Ugh, come do a signing near me, bb. (I really can't wait 'til I have time to get down to my hometown comic shop and grab some Killjoys already!)

Comments

[prozacpark]

YAY YOU WATCHING PRETTY LITTLE LIARS! But, mostly, I think I am going to be DELIGHTED to be sharing a fandom with you again and have an excuse to flail about all the femslash at/with you. ;)

I tend to think of PLL as taking place in its own weird hyper universe where all the overblow-ness is part of the world. I am trying to remember if I ever successfully got you to watch "Twin Peaks?" I know I TRIED, I just can't remember if it ever happened. But it shares a lot with it, but it's a lot more feminist and awesome version of it. <3 No idea where you're at in the series, but it gets more subversive as it goes on, and at this point, I am confident that all the female positivity is intended and not an accident (as it sometimes it, and we find out when the show starts killing all the women or taking away their agency, SIGH.)

Um, which show is Bianca Lawson playing a morally ambiguous high school counselor on?
And yes, please, PLL FANART. <3 Are you shipping anyone yet?

Lastly, I am, as always, awed by your art, and really appreciate this look into the process? I mean, I only understood about half of it, but IT IS SO FASCINATING.

[prozacpark]

Yeah, I don't really feel the need to consume or engage in fannish things until I start feeling canon withdrawal? Or, well, if I am shipping something VERY HARD, then I might spoil myself terribly by reading fanfic because I can't wait. But given the obscurity of most my ships and the fact that there's rarely ever any fic for what I am shipping, that happens, like, once every five years or so. ;)

I love the Halloween episode SO much, because Alison is...Alison and still cruel and manipulative, but it makes it so clear that she needs them, too? In a very different way than they need her, but all the various relationships she maintains with them are so nuanced and different that I just want to ship her with them all to varying degrees, mostly with Spencer and Emily, though.

I love antagonist relationships too, and morally ambiguous characters, but I need to be able to find some part of them relateable/redeemable, you know?

Yes, me too. I mean, I would probably still fangirl the character, but if I feel like the text isn't giving enough depth to a female antagonist (or worse, wants me to hate her for reasons it wants me to LIKE men), I have to break up with the text. But yeah, I absolutely need depth to the moral ambiguity in order to keep engaging with the narrative

OH! Do you have tumblr savior? If so, I can tag my PLL stuff with "spoilers" (or another tag!) so you don't have to worry about scrolling past them or getting spoiled? Let me know!

But Spencer's my favorite character, so you have a good chance.

YAY FINALLY. You do not know how many people I have converted to PLL only to have them NOT have Spencer as their favorite, and I sometimes feel like the only one. BUT YES SPENCER OH GOD SPENCER. Um, me and my thing for Go Getter Girls. ;)

I have heard good things about the female characters of Teen Wolf, but yeah, also faily things about the rest of it. I am waiting to watch it when I am not being spoiled by shows treating women well between "Pretty Little Liars" and "Bomb Girls" because I suspect I would judge it harshly if I watched it while watching other, obviously more women-positive things.