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reflectedeveI'm not leaving for grad school for almost another two months, but I already feel as though I have no time for fandom. :( I really wish I could spend this summer hanging around enjoying Boston and reading fic, but alas, I am behind on everything. I've been working on this entry for a couple of days! (A whole bunch of you have posted intriguing bbbs, too. I won't be lacking for reading material for a long time, clearly ... when I can do it. ♥)
General fun things I have done recently include: making falafel with my new food processor, hanging out and drawing all day Saturday withataratah (pretty much the best of pastimes), buying both a new suit and a new dress(!), and donating my neighborhood video store's copy of Labyrinth to my hometown library (which only seemed appropriate, since one summer in my teen years, I rented it seven times in one month). I'm really sad that the store is closing--it was a true community establishment--but I love that they're donating their entire collection, and that their customers are rallying around to pay for the effort.
Also, I finally saw X-Men: First Class. Which ... was something I found more interesting than genuinely enjoyable, to my surprise? IDK. I have thoughts, though the way I'm going, I doubt I'll manage to write them up coherently. I mean, basically, I want all the Raven fic, and some Alex/Armando, and Erik/Charles which acknowledges that Charles is a dick. (This isn't actually a critique of anyone's characterization; I've only read one story! I'm just kind of nervous.) Speaking of which, if you haven't readolivacirce's fantastic Don't Try This At Home, I recommend it highly. It's hot and appropriately fucked up.
So hey, here's my somewhat belated contribution to that question meme that was going around all last week!
Comment with "me me me" and:
- I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can get to know you better. (This might take me a little while, so I'm sorry in advance for that!)
- Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
- Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions, if you want to.
were_duck asked:
1. Which was your favorite Elfquest character and why?
Nightfall was definitely my favorite! She was (in my youthful opinion) the most badass of the female characters, particularly as the series progressed, and I really loved her costume design. (I was very about the visuals for that series.) I also really enjoyed her relationship with Redlance; that she was the warrior and protector, and he was more of a nurturing type, seemed super awesome to me. Plus, much as Recognition kind of fascinated me, I really liked that the two of them chose their relationship (and later, their child) in spite of tradition.
2. What do you use to color your fanart? (I am shamelessly interested in your process :D)
Ahaha, oh man, but I'm embarrassed about this part of my process. If you can even call it that! I use Photoshop CS3 to color my fanart, when I do color it; I don't have a tablet, so I basically use the touchpad on my laptop to fingerpaint the color in. I don't use any fancy techniques; just different flat colors on different layers, shading added in (when I do) using slightly darker/lighter tones spray-painted in and blended (or occasionally, just little solid areas of darker/lighter flat colors, recently).
Pretty much, I don't know how to color; I have no solid grasp of color theory, technique, or anything like full utilization of my graphics program. I need to get a tablet (ataratah may have finally convinced me), and I maybe could use to take a class. I'm glad people like my colored pieces, but I am much, much more comfortable with black & white inks right now (which is okay, because I particularly like that look).
3. What music (if any) do you listen to when you're drawing?
I actually tend to put tv episodes or podfic on when I draw, because music isn't enough? My art process is kind of slow and intense, and it helps me to focus if I have a plot to follow, or something like that. Sometimes when I'm writing (which is still drawing; I write comic pages in little thumbnails, working out the visual language at the same time as dialog/captions) I do put on music; I have themed playlists for most of my ongoing projects.
4. If you had to be stuck on a bus with one character from Fringe, which would it be? What would you say to them?
Oh man, I don't know. This is actually a little odd, but ... maybe Peter? He seems like he'd be fun to have a casual conversation with; he's good with the banter, pop culture references, interesting scientific facts, and so on. More intense conversation during travel would probably stress me out. (I'd say Astrid, but if I were sitting next to someone that adorable I'd probably just get too shy to talk much.)
5. Tell me about a fandom of your youth (broadly construed). What did you love about it?
Ooh, as it's kind of thematically appropriate anyway, these days ... X-Men comics! I got really into them when I was about eight or nine years old. I loved the idea of superheroes from a young age (I remember adoring the idea of Wonder Woman, way before I'd actually picked up a comic or anything), and the whole outcast schtick was really appealing to me. I also loved the team setup, with all the personalities interacting, and the different kinds of stories you could tell with the same cast over time. My family didn't own a TV until I was fourteen or so, so comics were my real introduction to serialized storytelling, and I loved it. I even grew to really love searching for back issues, building a knowledge of the canon from the middle out.
My favorites were the X-Men: Classic reprints of issues from about a decade earlier; the days when a depowered Storm challenged Cyclops for leadership of the X-Men (and won), when Magneto was interim mentor-figure (and forever a sympathetic character in my eyes), and when my random favorite character, Rachel Summers, was a member of the team. (I did like my angst as a child.) It thrilled me that there were so many awesome female characters with their own stories, though I'm not sure I could have articulated it at the time. Then again ... I remember the absolute frustration, trying to hunt down action figures of my favorite characters. (An early storytelling tool!) When I started out, there was only one female action figure available, period (Storm), and I could never find her. I remember combing through the shelves and learning that the company would ship one per packing case, to be quickly snapped up by collectors. (Things did improve a bit; we won't say anything about molding or cosmetics, but! In later years, I had whole storage boxes of almost exclusively female action figures.)
X-Men was also very much an early fandom for me in that there was interaction involved. Collecting trading cards (and action figures, but mostly cards) was very in at my elementary school. I was quite the cutthroat little trader, too; I'm really pretty embarrassed to remember how I just would not give up until I got every card I wanted off somebody, even when they were determined not to give them away. Also, the world of being an X-Men fan/card collector was almost exclusively boy-oriented at the school, but I managed to draw a couple of my mildly dubious female friends into it.
It didn't take me long to tear into my mother's remaining Silver Age DC comics (rescued from my grandparents' attic when I was ten), discover Tintin and ElfQuest around age twelve, and Action Girl (along with Trina Robbins's The Great Women Superheroes and A Century of Women Cartoonists, which were full of great recs as well as comics-feminist thinking), but X-Men books were definitely the first comics I ever loved, so they probably get a lot of the credit for ... who I am today, really. I haven't been reading them at all in recent years (imprinted too hard on the characterizations I grew up with, I think; a peril of mainstream comics readership), but First Class (both the things that worked for me, and the things that really didn't) has filled me with nostalgia, so I think I might have to see what's worth looking at out of current continuity at some point.
Wow, um, apparently I had a lot to say about that!
Hmmm, I should get back to work. I'm sorry for being increasingly haphazard and unavailable lately! It's only going to get worse. (I mean, I'm really excited! More people to draw with, oh man, for that alone. But I miss being more active in fandom already.) I'm probably going to wind up creating a comic school filter; I'll have to put a poll up soon.
[ETA:] I almost forgot! Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III, what on earth is this? (I fucking love that man, have I mentioned?)
General fun things I have done recently include: making falafel with my new food processor, hanging out and drawing all day Saturday with
ataratah (pretty much the best of pastimes), buying both a new suit and a new dress(!), and donating my neighborhood video store's copy of Labyrinth to my hometown library (which only seemed appropriate, since one summer in my teen years, I rented it seven times in one month). I'm really sad that the store is closing--it was a true community establishment--but I love that they're donating their entire collection, and that their customers are rallying around to pay for the effort.Also, I finally saw X-Men: First Class. Which ... was something I found more interesting than genuinely enjoyable, to my surprise? IDK. I have thoughts, though the way I'm going, I doubt I'll manage to write them up coherently. I mean, basically, I want all the Raven fic, and some Alex/Armando, and Erik/Charles which acknowledges that Charles is a dick. (This isn't actually a critique of anyone's characterization; I've only read one story! I'm just kind of nervous.) Speaking of which, if you haven't read
olivacirce's fantastic Don't Try This At Home, I recommend it highly. It's hot and appropriately fucked up.So hey, here's my somewhat belated contribution to that question meme that was going around all last week!
Comment with "me me me" and:
- I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can get to know you better. (This might take me a little while, so I'm sorry in advance for that!)
- Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
- Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions, if you want to.
were_duck asked:1. Which was your favorite Elfquest character and why?
Nightfall was definitely my favorite! She was (in my youthful opinion) the most badass of the female characters, particularly as the series progressed, and I really loved her costume design. (I was very about the visuals for that series.) I also really enjoyed her relationship with Redlance; that she was the warrior and protector, and he was more of a nurturing type, seemed super awesome to me. Plus, much as Recognition kind of fascinated me, I really liked that the two of them chose their relationship (and later, their child) in spite of tradition.
2. What do you use to color your fanart? (I am shamelessly interested in your process :D)
Ahaha, oh man, but I'm embarrassed about this part of my process. If you can even call it that! I use Photoshop CS3 to color my fanart, when I do color it; I don't have a tablet, so I basically use the touchpad on my laptop to fingerpaint the color in. I don't use any fancy techniques; just different flat colors on different layers, shading added in (when I do) using slightly darker/lighter tones spray-painted in and blended (or occasionally, just little solid areas of darker/lighter flat colors, recently).
Pretty much, I don't know how to color; I have no solid grasp of color theory, technique, or anything like full utilization of my graphics program. I need to get a tablet (
ataratah may have finally convinced me), and I maybe could use to take a class. I'm glad people like my colored pieces, but I am much, much more comfortable with black & white inks right now (which is okay, because I particularly like that look).3. What music (if any) do you listen to when you're drawing?
I actually tend to put tv episodes or podfic on when I draw, because music isn't enough? My art process is kind of slow and intense, and it helps me to focus if I have a plot to follow, or something like that. Sometimes when I'm writing (which is still drawing; I write comic pages in little thumbnails, working out the visual language at the same time as dialog/captions) I do put on music; I have themed playlists for most of my ongoing projects.
4. If you had to be stuck on a bus with one character from Fringe, which would it be? What would you say to them?
Oh man, I don't know. This is actually a little odd, but ... maybe Peter? He seems like he'd be fun to have a casual conversation with; he's good with the banter, pop culture references, interesting scientific facts, and so on. More intense conversation during travel would probably stress me out. (I'd say Astrid, but if I were sitting next to someone that adorable I'd probably just get too shy to talk much.)
5. Tell me about a fandom of your youth (broadly construed). What did you love about it?
Ooh, as it's kind of thematically appropriate anyway, these days ... X-Men comics! I got really into them when I was about eight or nine years old. I loved the idea of superheroes from a young age (I remember adoring the idea of Wonder Woman, way before I'd actually picked up a comic or anything), and the whole outcast schtick was really appealing to me. I also loved the team setup, with all the personalities interacting, and the different kinds of stories you could tell with the same cast over time. My family didn't own a TV until I was fourteen or so, so comics were my real introduction to serialized storytelling, and I loved it. I even grew to really love searching for back issues, building a knowledge of the canon from the middle out.
My favorites were the X-Men: Classic reprints of issues from about a decade earlier; the days when a depowered Storm challenged Cyclops for leadership of the X-Men (and won), when Magneto was interim mentor-figure (and forever a sympathetic character in my eyes), and when my random favorite character, Rachel Summers, was a member of the team. (I did like my angst as a child.) It thrilled me that there were so many awesome female characters with their own stories, though I'm not sure I could have articulated it at the time. Then again ... I remember the absolute frustration, trying to hunt down action figures of my favorite characters. (An early storytelling tool!) When I started out, there was only one female action figure available, period (Storm), and I could never find her. I remember combing through the shelves and learning that the company would ship one per packing case, to be quickly snapped up by collectors. (Things did improve a bit; we won't say anything about molding or cosmetics, but! In later years, I had whole storage boxes of almost exclusively female action figures.)
X-Men was also very much an early fandom for me in that there was interaction involved. Collecting trading cards (and action figures, but mostly cards) was very in at my elementary school. I was quite the cutthroat little trader, too; I'm really pretty embarrassed to remember how I just would not give up until I got every card I wanted off somebody, even when they were determined not to give them away. Also, the world of being an X-Men fan/card collector was almost exclusively boy-oriented at the school, but I managed to draw a couple of my mildly dubious female friends into it.
It didn't take me long to tear into my mother's remaining Silver Age DC comics (rescued from my grandparents' attic when I was ten), discover Tintin and ElfQuest around age twelve, and Action Girl (along with Trina Robbins's The Great Women Superheroes and A Century of Women Cartoonists, which were full of great recs as well as comics-feminist thinking), but X-Men books were definitely the first comics I ever loved, so they probably get a lot of the credit for ... who I am today, really. I haven't been reading them at all in recent years (imprinted too hard on the characterizations I grew up with, I think; a peril of mainstream comics readership), but First Class (both the things that worked for me, and the things that really didn't) has filled me with nostalgia, so I think I might have to see what's worth looking at out of current continuity at some point.
Wow, um, apparently I had a lot to say about that!
Hmmm, I should get back to work. I'm sorry for being increasingly haphazard and unavailable lately! It's only going to get worse. (I mean, I'm really excited! More people to draw with, oh man, for that alone. But I miss being more active in fandom already.) I'm probably going to wind up creating a comic school filter; I'll have to put a poll up soon.
[ETA:] I almost forgot! Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III, what on earth is this? (I fucking love that man, have I mentioned?)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-28 11:23 pm (UTC)I like your answers. Podfics while drawing is a good idea - I'd like to listen to them but I space out too much. That might work...//considers//
ALSO FALAFEL. thx for the recipe link, that looks totally doable! I made some from a box last year and it was admittedly pretty shitty, so I was the only one who ate it. :/
PETE. <3