I misunderstood the point of this ride

Well, 2013 starts in an hour, and I'm sick and taking a rest before I join my family for the countdown and toasting and all that jazz. (It's not that bad, but I think my poor little pseudo-niece is disappointed in my lack of energy. I can't figure out why I'm her favorite entertainment in the first place; possibly because I listen endlessly?)

This year has been a progression for me; I think I've grown a great deal on a number of levels. (Also I started teaching myself to draw porn! Clearly a huge accomplishment.) The new year will be the year I finish school for good (as far as I have planned) and launch ... the rest of my life, I suppose. Which could be daunting, but headcold aside, I feel energized and ready to take it all on (starting with my thesis, of course). I don't have resolutions so much as ongoing goals. And all the creative projects ever.

I wish you guys all the best in this new year; I can't wait to spend more time with some of you and to see all the amazing things you produce! Absentee though I've been this year, I adore fandom and my circle and appreciate all the little ways you always help me through my rough patches. <3

It's awfully puny, but here's a ( roundup of this year's fanart. )

And here's one last little thing for the year (not that it's in any way seasonal) ... the Warehouse 13/Sanctuary crossover I've been pondering, featuring H.G. and Tesla. (Ugh, Tesla! I have failed your face, or your face has failed me ... challenge accepted for sometime in the future!)

So yeah, that happened. (The lurker in the alleyway is Derek. And no, there was no contextual reason whatsoever for me to be wearing a towel.)

Hi internet! I have missed you. Miraculously, I am basically done with all my immediate deadlines more than a week before the end of the semester (although, you know, there's still my thesis). So I can breathe a little, sort of, and daydream about the actual fanart I'll draw on my break.

There have been a few exciting developments around lately! Every once in awhile someone on my feed retweets stupidly adorable photos of the Teen Wolf cast on the season three set! (As you can see above, my brain remains eaten!) Also, what is this about a Stiles kiss, internet? Surely there is more context than just the slightly hypnotizing gif I found myself staring at earlier?

Also I really enjoy this resource post brownbetty put together with werewolf lore and various ephemera. Ugh I want to make things.

On another side of things, I'm having feelings about the Star Trek: Into Darkness trailer, of course. ( Has anyone not seen it yet? Ah well, here, spoilers. )

Anyway, I'm sitting here drinking tea and singing along to old Christmas Vespers recordings while one of my classmates attempts to put her website together and frequently raises her voice to the internet in general. It's been a fantastic semester and generally just a really good time in my life. <3 to you all!

Ugh, it's so good to be home. I've been back in the Happy Valley for a couple days, on a brief visit to family (biological and chosen). It's nice to spend some time in a place which, while familiar, contains plenty of new faces. I can go whole hours without encountering someone I've spoken to before, if I'm careful. Also I got to pick up my comics subscriptions from the last few months (Brian K. Vaughn & Fiona Staples's Saga is pretty nifty, by the way ... and new Castle Waiting is the best thing of ALL), and go shopping for such things as used music, sex toys and sun dresses, none of which I can do easily back north. (Although dress shopping, it turns out, just isn't happening. MY BREASTS ARE DRESS PROOF. :( I did find a lovely new tie, though, and I got to try on a gorgeous tail coat.)

After all that shopping yesterday, my friend was telling me about this little company in Maine that makes handcrafted dildos shaped like tentacles and unicorn horns (among other things). I thought some of you might appreciate that? ;)

Anyway, enough rambling about random real life stuff ... while I was off doing un-internet things, the fabulous bandombigbang fic I illustrated for was posted! And I Will Be Your Goal (Frank/Gerard/Grant) is a lovely story about relationships and revolution simultaneously gaining momentum in a vaguely steampunk European setting, written by tuesdaysgone and fleurdeliser! Check it out! You can find my illustrations here or on LJ. I had a blast with the Regency-era costuming in particular!

I also have to put in a quick plug for The Only Hope For Me Is You, the final part of tuesdaysgone's Killjoys trilogy, which I cannot WAIT to read. Those stories have basically been my chosen Killjoys canon thus far, and I'm so thrilled to finally get the conclusion!

I hope you guys are generally having a great weekend! I should go tear myself off the internet before I accidentally spoil myself for the Legend of Korra finale on tumblr.

Oof, hello, internet. God, I've had an intense couple of weeks. My grad school likes to start off its second semester by diving immediately into a super-concentrated group project with a ridiculous deadline! Crit was this morning, and it is so nice to be able to think about other things at last (although tbh, the main thing I'm thinking about at this moment is sleep).

Now that we're past that hurdle, however, it looks like a much more pleasantly balanced semester is doable! :D I have some plans (and have signed up for bandombigbang, eeee), but in the meantime, I want to share what I spent my vacation on ...


So Victoria thought this was just another one of "those" modelling gigs. Not safe for work. Contains naked ladies, stockings, and flogging.

See, I've been thinking a lot about learning to draw erotica this last year! I've seen a couple of potential opportunities to draw porn comics pop up, and it's definitely something that interests me, but I know I don't really have the chops to pull it off in a professional way just yet. Drawing porn is hard (aheh); everything from the sheer physical mechanics of bodies interacting to trying to capture some sense of mood. So! were_duck asked me if I'd be interested in teaming up on some kind of joint project, and after I posted this kinky vintage picspam (also NSFW) for her over the holidays, we decided to try a 1920s Greta/Victoria erotic photoshoot AU.

We weren't really sure what form the project would take; at the moment there's just a series of backgroundless pin-up images I drew over a period of a couple of weeks. Eventually there will be artistic contributions by were_duck as well (oh man, the stuff she's working on is fabulous, seriously, just you wait), and ... maybe some kind of story? We have a loose narrative in mind, but I really needed to focus on visuals for a bit; to just start drawing and see where it led me. I have .... a lot of thoughts for where I might go next (whether it's in fanart or original work). There are lots of things I need to work on, though. Like different body types! (I meant to emphasize this a bit more and didn't manage to pull it off; too focused on getting the posing down, I think.) And general anatomy in some places. Hmmm.

Okay, I need to think about relaxing now; I still have a little bit of that deadline tension buzzing under my skin. Be seeing you a bit more of you all soon. ♥

I think I'm going to avoid the fannish year in review meme, because my year has been so oddly lopsided. ( However, here is a roundup of this year's fanart, if only to remind myself! )

I'm heading back north on Monday to hang out in my mostly-empty little town working four-hour shifts for a couple weeks! (And not before time; the statute of limitations on spending harmonious time with my parents is definitely running out.) Among other plans, I think I'm going to be participating in akamine_chan's Fandom Snowflake Challenge. Seems like the perfect way to celebrate fannish things a bit before grad school eats me again. :D

As for real-life reflections on the year, well ... honestly, there's just too much. I left my first for real adult job after three years (gratefully and with much rejoicing, though it was a perfectly good one), left the city, and went to the school of my dreams. Which ATE me. That's already more than enough, without feelings and identity crises and ~life lessons that I'm trying to learn and not dwell on (or ramble about).

(That said, yesterday I bought the cutest bra I have ever owned. Which was a small thing, but ... this year, I feel good about my body in a way that I never have before, and I am so immensely grateful for that. So that's one thing! And I am having this problem where I can't stop staring down at my own chest every five minutes. /o\ Um. Hi. Sorry. Anyway.)

Also, before I disappeared, I got to meet a whole bunch of you this year, and get to know a few more of you much better, and that has been one of the best things.

2012 is going to be amazing, okay? Let's get that done.

This is very nearly belated, for which I'm very sorry! Graduate school takes almost everything I have just now, and certainly all of my time. But! For ataratah:



A better friend and art-beta than I think I really deserve, a good portion of the time. ♥ I'm very very happy you exist, lady!

So ataratah and I have talked a lot about our early love for Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, and awhile back she suggested that we try doing some kind of related art project! This is my piece based on the first of a series of prompts she suggested: a panel from the manga, redrawn in my own style. It was ridiculously fun, hanging around in a cafe, working on these together.

( Oh Nostalgia, part one )

So that was fun! I can't wait to start the next prompt, though I have to space these things out with ... other fanart obligations, of course. (I am pretty much just going to do as much fanart as I can manage 'til I leave, I think.)

You seriously, SERIOUSLY have to go check out ataratah's answer to this part of our challenge, over here (or on LJ). It is drop-dead gorgeous. I cannot get over how fucking graceful her linework and gestures are; she's taken one of the simpler manga panels and just made it come alive. (Also, I don't know if any of you have ever watched PGSM--the live-action Sailor Moon--but I ship Rei/Minako like burning, and this is some of the best fanart of them I've seen.)

Just wait until you see what she has in store for the next two prompts!

I am having a super-lurkery week! Just one of those times when I generally feel like I'm stuck on a "taking things in" setting, reading and reading and not interacting very much. (I don't just mean on the internet, either.) I have no idea if that makes any sense, but. Hi. o_____o

One thing I should really, really read less of is all the DC Comics news. I spent a fair chunk of yesterday going through this massive roundup of reaction links to the de-Oracle-ing of Barbara Gordon, a move which dismays me for a whole variety of reasons (from the representation issue down to finding it reductive on a storytelling/character development level). Also, pleased as I am that Batwoman's going ahead as planned (and Jaime Reyes gets his book back!), I'm still sitting here twitching and wondering when we're going to hear something about Cass, Steph, Helena, and Renee. Ugh, superhero comics, why.

On a related note, stories like this about the marginalization of actual women by the comics mainstream (from a retail perspective, in this case) fill me with rage. Women and the medium both deserve better.

Some happier fannish things! The bandombigbang fic I drew for this year is up: the9thdoctor's Angels From The Neon! It's a nifty take on the Killjoysverse, rather distinct from some of the other stories I've read! You can find my illustration over here; an image that I couldn't get out of my head until I got it down on paper. It was a fun challenge, and definitely took me out of my comfort zone.

Also, tuesdaysgone has posted Bulletproof Heart, the second part of her epic Killjoys trilogy, which does a fantastic job of knitting together and fleshing out the universe we see in the videos. The worldbuilding and character interaction are to die for, seriously; it's the kind of story I just want to crawl inside for awhile. *____* Check it out, and don't forget theopteryx's kickass accompanying artwork.

Oh man, look at me being all scattered! I need to get out of the office and breathe a bit. I have a cilghal coming to stay with me this weekend, which is awesome, and my very last Boston Pride (at least, as a local resident) is tomorrow. So hopefully I can get a little relaxing, enjoying, and re-focusing in!

In honor of Pride, have some (canon) lesbian artwork! There's a lot of Sailor Moon nostalgia going around, and seeing as that was both my first fandom and a massive artistic catalyst for me, I couldn't resist noodling around with a couple of the characters a few weeks back. I totally forgot to post it then, so have it now: ( Michiru and her Haruka. )

Okay, this post is a pretty accurate reflection of my state of mind right now, so I think I'll stop subjecting you all to it. Have a great weekend, bbs! ♥ I should have more art for you sometime soon, and possibly hilarious stories about me learning to drive. (I kind of hope they're not too hilarious.)

It's a new week! I need that. The rain's back, but I don't care; you make your fresh starts where you can find them.

I spent the weekend drawing and cooking, as per usual (Green Risotto Primavera, mmmm). Took some "sketch" prompts from friends, because I've been stalling out a bit, and with the bandombigbang deadline coming right up, I needed something to get me back in gear in a bad way. Here's the first ... not particularly sketchy, as it turns out (if slightly less meticulous than usual, I swear).



For mrsronweasley, Lindsey (the Governor) and Jamia from jjtaylor's Detective Agency series, working late. ;) I've never drawn Jamia before, so, bit of a challenge! Also, I can't lie; I totally have a thing for Lindsey in those glasses, and also in that striped tie/vest outfit, so I couldn't resist putting them together. (Also, if you haven't read JJ's little NSFW outtake about another time these two worked late, well, do yourself a favor.)

That was ridiculously fun. I pretty much have to get back to work before I can tackle any of the other requests (especially if I'm going to be this slow about it), but there will be female-character-centric art posted intermittently while I take care of my obligations. \o/ Because I haven't drawn enough women in a long, long time.

In other random news, I watched more Fringe this weekend, and man. I wish the architecture in this place resembled an old church.

So last night's MCR show was ... fucking amazing, one of the best concert experiences I have ever had. I may actually try and write up some kind of concert report later, but I need to go put myself back together a bit more first, and figure out if I expect to actually accomplish anything today. (If I put off going to the RMV until tomorrow, I am probably going to regret it, huh?)

However, I can't resist post thing the two quick pieces of art I finished to give people at the show ...

Here's an entirely goofy Killjoys/thegaystarfish fusion-y thing:


Also, for tuesdaysgone, a little illustration from her amazing Killjoys prequel, The Kids From Yesterday: ( At the first lick of guitars, he started grinning. )

All right, now food.