Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Or Happy Christmas, Happy Holidays, Season's Greetings, whatever you prefer. Hope you guys have a good one! ^_^

Anyways, I've come to the conclusion that the best way to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender is in a week-long marathon (Thank you, Nicktoons Network!). Six hours a day for five days straight, and there aren't too many shows I could sit through that with. What's more, it lets you fully appreciate just how good the story telling is in that show.

That, and it's a handy way of purging a certain horrifically done live action movie from one's brain...

IT LIIIIIIVES!

*fwump*

Yep, still alive over here in Kitland. Sorry for going MIA for two months. The cold I mentioned in the last post? Hadn't gone away by the end of October. Turned out it was bronchitis. Which, I suppose, explained the extra dose of fatigue...

Sadly, NaNoWriMo just... didn't happen this year. I got about 10K in, but just didn't have the energy for it (I blame the bronchitis). Most of November and December have been spent trying to catch up - November, catching up from everything I neglected in October, and December with the everything I didn't do in November while I was trying to catch up from October. It really is a whole vicious cycle. Or a downward Spiral of Doom. Whichever you prefer.

In any case, I am almost back on track with Strawberry Syrup. Heck, I might even finish this chapter sometime soon!

Next goal: getting back on track with my blog. XD

My History with NaNoWriMo

Yeah, I so jinxed myself. I managed to catch my first cold of the year, and this one came with epic levels of fatigue. Yaaay, fatigue! But it seems to be going away finally, even if I am still keeping a bag of Ricola lozenges nearby.

October promises to be a busy month, though... For one thing, I will be preparing for - drum roll please - NaNoWriMo 2010! I haven't decided what I'm going to write yet, which isn't exactly unusual for me. Well, as usual or unusual for something that's only been done three times.

In 2006, I went the whole "PLOT AND PREPARE!" route, complete with snowflaking an entire story throughout the month of October so I could just plunge right in and write on autopilot. It worked, more or less, and I made my 50K with days to spare. That particular story is still waiting for me to swing back into high fantasy mode so I can finally finish it.

All October of 2007, I focused on one story, hammering out the characters and the world setting and all that fun stuff. On October 31st, there I was, ready and waiting for midnight to strike so I could plunge into my story. Midnight came... and I discovered that was not the story I'd be writing that year. Completely refused to be written. Wasn't happening, no way, no how. So, on November 1st, I pulled out my notes on an older story idea I never got around to writing and dove in head-first... and loved what came out. Another winner, too. It has since had its first draft finished and is waiting for me to get off my tail and put it through some hard editing.

2008... didn't happen. It was a rough year, and I opted out of NaNo.

In 2009, I was itching to get going on NaNo, and October was spent planning the sequel to 2007's story. No snowflaking this time, but I knew the basics of what I wanted to happen. Think major stops on a road trip, but leaving the in-between as a surprise. Smoothest NaNo yet. The story itself hasn't been finished yet, but it's getting there! It's somewhere around 85K. With any luck, I'll be able to finish it before November.

This year? I have no idea what I'm going to do. XD I haven't decided on what I'm going to write yet, but I've got some time. Should be interesting!

Brewfest! Whoo!

World of Warcraft has several festivals during the year, and today marks the start of one of my favorites: Brewfest!

Backstory: it's a celebration of the harvest (not to be confused with the Harvest Festival, which is more a memorial of fallen heros and a Day of the Dead-type thing), and what better way than with a festival featuring bread, pretzels, cheese, sausage, and most importantly, beer! Basically, it's WoW's version of Oktoberfest. And yeah, this all thought up by the dwarves - we know how they love their ale.

More importantly, it's a set of quests involving getting drunk (and hunting critters that can only be seen while drunk), riding rams, and hurling empty beer mugs at raiding Dark Iron Dwarves.... all of which can be repeated once a day.

So if I disappear for a few days, you now know why: the World has sucked me in once again.

Brewfest: Kusa tested... Kusa approved!

Sometimes Research is Gyaaaaaah

I put off this week's page of Strawberry Syrup as long as possible. It's one I've been dreading ever since it was conceived. Why, you ask? What could be so bad about this particular page?

I'm arachnophobic, and this page has a close up of a spider.

Just drawing a spider wouldn't be bad. I know from years of them dropping on me, crawling on me, and generally doing their best to freak me out what spiders look like from a distance. However, this was a close up, and like any responsible artist, rather than just wing it, I grit my teeth, braced myself, and headed over to deviantArt to check out spiders in the photography section.

Now, I'm not as bad as I used to be. A few years back, I went on an ill-thought-out canoe trip with two other people. I'd never been canoeing before... and it turned out that neither of the other people had any idea what they were doing. Fortunately, it was a calm river, but I had to learn fairly quick how to steer a canoe from the middle when the person in front kept strong-arming us into the shore with epically bad paddling skills.

During one of those collisions with driftwood and whatnot, a branch fell into the canoe. Turned out there must have been a spider convention on that branch, because five minutes later, once we're into the middle of the river and I've finally commandeered the other paddle from Captain Disaster and Person #3 has been worked up into a thorough panic, there were at least twenty small to medium size spiders crawling all over the boat.

Running away screaming was not exactly an option, and we already had one person near-hysterical, so I managed to keep my cool, ditch the branch, ignore or slay most of the spiders, and calm #3 down enough to follow directions. Since that day, I haven't felt that utter terror that used to accompany the mere thought of spiders.

That doesn't mean I like them or love looking at them.

Gyah. GYAAAAAH. I am so gonna have nightmares tonight! ><;;

New Box: Red Butterfly Believe

Okay, yeah, I know, I suck at naming things. I have a long storied history of pathetic attempts at titles. If anyone can think of a title that doesn't sound like some sort of J-Pop group, I'm open to suggestion! ^_^;;

Anyway, this is my latest box. It's made of sturdy cardboard - the kind used as a base for paper mache projects - and painted "tomato red." Add in some decorative paper, sparkly acrylic gems and a butterfly trinket, and voila! We have the Red Butterfly Believe Box.

It's about 5x5", which makes it a nice size to set on an end table with a vase of flowers or something. It's definitely more of an autumnal color scheme, which, hey, just in time for that season!

In the meantime, I need to figure out the shop's policies. Apparently, having that blank is a major red flag to other Etsy folk. Our policies are elsewhere on the page... however, they were written by my SIL awhile ago, so I need to find them and figure out if we need to cover anything else. Good times.

Popsicle: Complete!

Yep, I finally got around to finishing it! To be honest, going to Marietta actually helped. I had a vague idea of what I wanted in the background (as you might have been able to tell from the line art), but after going to a small river town, that really stuck with me. The result:


Popsicle by ~Kitsune64 on deviantART

I tried out a few different things with the background, among them custom brushes and textures. Some worked well, some... not so well. Still, I like the overall picture, even if I still haven't quite gotten the hang of rendering a "painterly" background.

Plus, I managed to get a pic up for August. How an entire month went by without me posting a single pic in my deviantArt gallery is beyond me. Oo;; I'm just glad I noticed before September 1st!

The Art of Dan Dos Santos

In last month's issue of Realms of Fantasy Magazine, they did a feature on the artist Dan Dos Santos. Now, I'd never heard of him before, but I had seen his work. This is the guy behind the Mercy Thompson book covers.

However, Dos Santos does more than girls with tattoos. He does some amazing guys, too, not to mention what he does with magic and dragons. I'll be eagerly awaiting the day when he puts out an art book. Until then, I'll just have to content myself with lurking around his digital gallery, The Art of Dan Dos Santos. Not only does he have a full portfolio of work for you to feast your eyes upon, but a few tutorials, as well, including a free one on how he created the cover for Moon Called. For the really in-depth stuff, there's a 5-hour video tutorial available for download (at a price, of course).

Definitely worth checking out.

Updates, Updates, Updates!

Man, I'm feeling productive this week. I finally - finally! - got a new page of Strawberry Syrup up, plus went ahead and updated all of my Squidoo lenses for the first time since early June. I've also photographed my latest box for Willheit Shoppes, and so listing that will probably take place early next week. I just re-listed all my other boxes, so waiting a bit will get it further up in the search.

So, what's next on my list? For starters, I want to get a couple of journals done and up for sale. I picked up some illustration board from Hobby Lobby, so I'll give that a try for the cover. I also might finally start a lens for my Zazzle shop, and if I'm still feeling uber-productive after that, maybe start a new box.

Gotta strike while the iron's hot!

Kit and Coptic Binding

New skill is go!

After a trial run with a card stock cover and ordinary type paper, I've created my first hard cover journal/sketchbook!


It measures in at approximately 4 1/2 x 6", with 120 pages. I used one of my favorite pics, Terry in Flight, for the main image on the cover. Yeah, it's a little old (it was done in '06), but it's still one of my favorites. Behind that, the top image is an old map found in the Wikimedia Commons. Seeing as it was an OLD map, it was in the public domain, and thus free to be used as a backdrop. Below that, I simply gathered together a bunch of quotes that relate to creativity, imagination, and whatnot. They create a sort of visual white noise, set the mood for the journal, and are ones the resonate personally with me. Rather than assemble it collage-style, I went ahead and put it together in Photoshop and printed out the final product.

In almost all the Coptic-bound books I've seen, the spine is open. Either this is to show off the artistry of the stitch, or it's really difficult to do a cover over the spine. In my trial run, I used three rows of stitches, which worked fine, but I wanted something a little more... secure-feeling, so this one's got five. For the cover, I hunted down the backing from an old calendar - you know, the cardboard inserts the manufacturer sticks in to keep it from horribly deforming during the shrink wrap process? Well, not all of them are normal cardboard. Some of them are a really rather nice variety. I snagged some of that (See? Never know what you'll need later!), and with the reinforcement of the Mod Podge, it's turned into a really nice hard cover.

For the paper, I pillaged an old, mostly unused sketchbook for some 50lb sketch paper. Now, the really nice thing about Coptic binding is that it has the ability to lay flat on just about any page without needing a wire spiraling through it. I wouldn't suggest pinching the covers together and waving it like a fan or anything, but the binding does seem to be pretty secure, even if there is a little more movement than I'm used to in a journal.

For the thread, I used embroidery floss, whittled down to three strands and then braided. I haven't done any strength tests on embroidery floss lately, so braiding it together gives it a little more strength and security. Color-wise, the top contenders were blue and brown. Blue won out - it picks up the color in his hat and the text better.

About the only problem I'm having so far is that the first and last rows - the rows where one signature of paper is attached to the next - don't quite look right. I'm using a "one needle" technique, so maybe that's it. That, or I'm not doing something right. If any of you have any idea what I'm doing wrong there, please do let me know!

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my little journal/sketchbook! I'll be keeping this one.

Kit Learns a New Skill

Every now and then, I like to go cruising through Etsy to check out what other people are doing, maybe get inspired to haul out the old arts and crafts materials and work on a new box. This time, I came across some of the handmade journals. Now, there are two things that consistently test my willpower whenever I go shopping: decorative boxes and blank books. I have an enormous collection of of sketchbooks and journals that have caught my eye over the years, but I'd never seriously considered making my own. After all, you need special glues and tools and things like that, right?

And then I saw these.

Pay special attention to the bindings. I've seen that kind of binding a few times in stores, but I'd never known what it was called. Say hello to the chain stitch, aka the Coptic Stitch in reference to the fact that this binding has been used at least since the days of the Dead Sea Scrolls (so sayeth Wiki).

A quick Google search led me to this tutorial. Turns out all you really need to bind your own journals is a needle, thread, and maybe something to punch holes with. It's kinda complicated to explain, but once you actually DO it, it's not all that difficult. It took me about an hour to bind a 60 page test book. I'm not saying I'm an expert or that I created the Bestest Little Journal out there on my first try, but the basics aren't too difficult.

I'll have to see if I can refine my technique and hunt down some better materials than what I used for my test book. If I can, I might be able to make some pretty cool stuff.

Eye Practice, Part II

And the practice continues... I wasn't happy with the first eye, so... I completely redid it.


I'm much happier with this one, as you might have guessed by the fact that I did two eyes, one with warm shading and one with cool. Yep, just for the practice, which I think is definitely helping. I decided to change the eye shape a bit, refine the eyebrow so it doesn't look so pixelated, and work on the textures. The shadows might be a little too dark, but I haven't decided if I want to do anything about that or just leave it alone for now.

I have actually finished the entire face by now, so here's just a small peek at that. The proportions may be a little off still, but it's still a big step for me, and I think those proportions a a little closer to realism than my last attempt. Don't get me wrong; I still love how she turned out, but it's still not exactly realistic. This one's yet another step closer.

Of course, the next challenge is the hair... Attempts #1 and 2 have not gone well. Hopefully third time's the charm!

Eye Practice

Yesterday, I got my hands on Impact Publishing's "Fantasy Art," which they term a "bookazine" because it is over 200 pages and probably only got stuck on the magazine rack because it's Volume 1 and bound like a nice magazine and because the creators couldn't even decide on what it was (alas, that means it's exempt from most coupons). Plus, it comes with a CD with video tutorials, brushes, and reference images. Haven't gotten into them yet, but yay, references!

In any case, it's chock-full of tutorials and helpful hints on everything from painting portraits to designing architecture. Every now and then, I like to try something a little more realistic than my normal anime style, so when I saw the tutorial on digitally painting eyes, I decided to put the Popsicle pic on hold and give it a try.

This is what I've got so far:



Still not quite as realistic as I'd like, but not too bad. The eyebrow needs some serious help, as well as those lower eyelashes, but overall, I think it's a step in the right direction. And yeah, went for a red eye (can't completely purge my fantasy tendencies!). Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Popsicle Process

Yep, didn't exactly get it finished yesterday - an impromptu round of WoW with the brother and sister-in-law demanded my attention. Several hours of traipsing through the Barrens later, and it was back to work.

In any case, the lines are done and the base colors are all set on the girl. Which means it's time to start on the background. I'm going for more of a city scene. Or, at least, a town. Not something I do a whole lot, but practice is a good thing. Little trellis thing will hopefully be a cafe, and the further background will be done sans-lines, I think. Stick some city-bound foliage in there... I don't want the background to dominate or compete with the girl for attention.

Coloring this is going to be... interesting, to say the least. We'll see how it goes!

Home Improvements

This has been an interesting month. Terrible for blogging and doing anything productive, online-wise, but still interesting. We're in the process of making a few home improvements - specifically, new vanity tops in the bathrooms and, for the big one, new floors through much of the ground floor. Seeing as I'm from a family of packrats and clutterbugs, this means a LOT of packing things up to relocate them during the installation.

Exactly HOW I fit so much stuff into such tiny spaces, I do not know. I'll have to take some pictures.

Anyways, my goal for today is to get one more finished pic up in my deviantArt gallery, so I snagged one from a recent sketch session to try and get that done. If not, I'll have a fresh pic for August, then.

I figured this one was a nice, summery one. Girl eating a Popsicle - nice variation from the typical girl-in-a-bikini pics that usually show up when someone wants to do something summer-like. It's half-inked right now... and outlining in Photoshop takes forever, but it gives me a smoother line than in MangaStudio. I'm still not sure what I'll put in the background, but we'll see what shows up!

Okay, back to work!

More Avatard Kit

And for all of you who have been wallowing in despair ever since M. Night's bastardization of The Last Airbender hit theaters, a ray of hope! Yesterday, Nickelodeon announced the greenlighting of an animated sequel series set in the Avatar universe: The Legend of Korra.

You can read the full press release and see the pretty promo picture here.

Now, normally I'd be worried about a sequel series, especially after what a certain director decided to do to one of my favorite TV series, but there is one very important aspect of The Legend of Korra that makes me really look forward to it: it's done by Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the creators of the original series. They have proven to put the quality of the story and the characters at the top of their priorities list. Perhaps just as importantly, they are willing to listen to their creative team's suggestions and use them to craft the best story possible.

They also have an excellent track record with creating strong female characters . I'll admit, I had a twinge of doubt when I read the description of Korra. Well, less of a 'twinge' and more of a bevy of alarms developed from years of reading urban fantasy, which is filled with so-called "strong" female characters who can be described as "hot-headed, rebellious," and "independent." None of which are bad traits, mind you. It's just that in the hands of a lesser writer, "strong + female" translates into a genuinely unlikeable character you actually want to personally drop off a cliff.

Good writers, on the other hand, don't think of characters as "strong males" or "strong females." They just think of them as "strong," without trying to figure out how they can try to play with gender. At the very least, a character's gender is not that character's defining trait. The Avatar crew probably could write books on how to create strong characters with depth and fully rounded personalities.

It's one of the reasons Avatar was so popular.

In any case, I have high hopes for The Legend of Korra. With any luck, it will stand alone as a good, high-quality story with more great characters and not be a shadowy imitation of the original.

Avatard Kit

This past weekend, M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender opened in theaters. For those of you who don't know, it's based on the completely and totally awesome Nickelodeon cartoon, Avatar: The Last Airbender. The series took place over the course of three seasons, each with their own title (The Book of Water, The Book of Earth, and The Book of Fire) and, unlike most American cartoons, had an overlying story arc with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Add to that characters that actually developed and grew over the course of the series, romance, moral dilemmas, action, adventure, and a serious threat to the world, and you've got yourself a winner.

Oh, and can't forget the humor. Lots of humor... so I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw the previews of a dark, joyless world in the grips of angsty melodrama.

I haven't seen the movie, nor do I intend to in theaters. I know, I know, there are some people who like it, but I'm having a real hard time reconciling some of the changes Mr. Shyamalan decided to make to the actual mythos of Avatar. Cutting things out of Season I to fit it all in a less than two hour movie, I can understand. Drastically changing the plot and the characters' personalities to suit his own personal vision? Unforgivable. And don't even get me started on the names. -_-;;

In any case, I did find something to help ease the anger over some self-absorbed director mauling one of the best things in the past ten years in some quest to make it his own: the Avatar: The Last Airbender Artbook. I spotted this in the bookstore Monday and just couldn't resist. Mike and Bryan (the creators) talk about the development of Avatar and how they got it all together, which is fascinating for anyone who is creating their own world, plus discuss the characters and the process and provide plenty of development sketches and conceptual artwork to drool over.

Yeah. This has made my week. :D

As for the movie? Well... we'll see what happens when it hits DVD.

How to Develop a Twitch

Step 1: Run an older version of Photoshop on Windows 7.

Step 2: Compulsively save your work after every action for fear of the dreaded "Illegal action/Not enough RAM/You just lost half an hour's work!" pop-up.

*headdesk*

It's not a big enough problem that I'm going to shell out hundreds of dollars for a newer version of Photoshop. For one thing, I actually really like the version I have. But it's random spazzing at inopportune moments? Yeah, that I could do without, especially when I have to restart my computer every time it happens.

Needless to say, there's a reason this week's page is going slower than I'd hoped. However, it WILL get done! *strikes a pose of DETERMINATION!*

Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Behind Again

Man. Take a creature of habit out of its habitat for a few days, and watch its little life spiiiiiiral out of control. It doesn't help that Wimbledon's currently going on - whenever one of the tennis majors hit the screen, Kit's productivity takes a dive. The worst one is by far the Australian Open, when anyone in the States who wants to watch live tennis needs to stay up to greet the morning light. With Wimbledon, I just end up staying up late, watching Wimbledon Primetime on The Tennis Channel (yes, I am that much of a dork, and yes, I did watch the epic Isner/Mahut match).

In any case, I have yet to reign in my wildly fluctuating sense of the temporal, so that doesn't help. I suspect I'm in the middle of another CBP, which always puts a dent in my personal timetable. However, I am determined to have a comic page done this week. At the moment, it looks like it'll go up sometime tomorrow evening at the earliest, but at least it's started!

*listens to the slow, sarcastic clapping of a single person*

... Yeah. I'll just get back to work now. :D;;

This Week in Movies

I have watched an inordinate amount of movies in the past week. Some good, some bad, some really bad. Some, I'll even watch again. Here's the run-down of what I've watched recently.

• Children of the Corn - My sister-in-law has been broadening my horizons by introducing me to all sorts of bad 80s horror, including a jaunt with He Who Walks Behind the Rows. While I'm fairly sure Malachi's actor did indeed grow up to be a secret sociopath and/or the older brother in The Adventures of Pete and Pete, I think the most terrifying part of the movie was the idea of Bert and whatsername riding around with a dead kid shoved in their trunk for hours.


• Dune, circa 1984 - Dune is one of the classic books of sci-fi/fantasy. It is the fantastic journey of a young man from the pampered son of a duke to the religious leader of insurgents with a death grip on the throat of civilization. It's got political intrigue, deep characters, strong leading ladies, action, adventure, mysticism...
  
  The movie? Not so much.
  
  Sure, the effects and costumes were great for the early 80s, but that doesn't excuse their butchering of the plot and massacring of the characters, especially the women (What's that? You mean Chani actually spends time outside of Paul's bedchamber in the book? Nooooo...). Toss out the plot, add in rampant internal monologues, some epic rock power ballads, hip-thrust-activated blasters, random face-bleeding, and Sting, and you've got... something completely and utterly headdesk-worthy. Only watch it if you and your friends love to MST3K things. Otherwise, skip it and watch the SciFi Miniseries.. Or, better yet, read the book.


• The Spirit - ahaha, where to start... What can I say about a superhero who has an Oedipal complex for his city and gets stuck in a toilet seat in his big introductory fight? This is one of those movies made to be bad, but more often than not, it was the movie equivalent of nails down a chalkboard bad. This is what happens when you've got a mentally unstable vigilante whose only power is that he can't die. Too bad that whole transformation process didn't add a few IQ points, huh?
  
  Of course, I do have to give it credit for one thing: "THIS IS FOR MUFFIN!!!"
  
  You go, Spirit. You go.


• The Seamstress - What happens when you've got a serial killer of children, a desperate mob, and a psychic school teacher who keeps leading people to the bodies? Well, for starters, one dead school teacher and her unlucky husband. They set about haunting the island until a group of college grads show up 20 years later, all in support of their friend's search for her obsessive mentally ill father, and just lookit that body count rise! Lesson here: True friends stick together. Idiotic friends get themselves killed by wandering off on their own.
  
  Not a terrible movie, but not something I'll feel the need to sit through again.


• Boogeyman - Now, this is my kind of horror. Low gore, an unreliable main character, and plenty of playing with your head. Barry Watson gives a great performance as a guy who, after years of therapy, has finally been convinced that he's got no reason to be afraid of closets. Then, his mother's death forces him to go back to his childhood home... and see if those therapists were right.
  
  If you want the full effect, watch this one at night, when you're all alone in the house. Or maybe I'm just an easy target for what's just out of sight in the dark...


• Boogeyman II - Again with the "kid witnesses traumatic death grows up" theme, although this particular kid ends up in a mental hospital, in group therapy with agoraphobics, cutters, germophobes, and whatnot to try to work through her boogeyman issues. Cue the Boogeyman killing them off one by one.
  
  ... Yeah. This one lost all the psychological horror and tried to replace it with gorn. Did I really need to see maggot infestation and reverse lipo? No, no I did not. Do yourself a favor and just stick with the original.


• The Phantom - Hello, update! The Walker family line has a new addition in this two-part "movie event" from SyFy. This one was actually pretty enjoyable, and I do have a soft spot for parkour chase scenes. They probably should have rethought their casting, however, when the 5'9" hero's sidekick(ish) person is a 5'10" woman... in 3" heels. Kiiiinda makes him a little less intimidating when they stand side by side. Overall, a pretty good flick, and the ending leaves it open for sequels or even a series... and yeah, I'd definitely check them out.
  
  And yes, I was ecstatic that our hero refused the wear the purple unitard. There are some traditions that just need to be left in the past.

So, there you have it: what I've been watching in the past week. Now, on to Wimbledon!

Back from Vacation!

Yep, just got back from a trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We hit Mackinaw (City, not the island this time around), St. Ignace, Bay Mills, and Tahquamenon Falls (yeah, I'll give you a few minutes to figure out how to pronounce that one). Weather wasn't spectacular - I think the highest we hit was 65F, and at one point ended up buying a new hoodie just to ward off the cold while shopping.

Some trips are just destined to have problems. We figured that was the way this trip was heading when my mother dumped a hummingbird feeder full of sugar water all over herself before we even left the house. The trip went on to include: more roadkill deer than I've ever seen in my life, salmonella-licious chicken and a saladless salad bar at the casino restaurant, a screw-up at the hotel regarding the reservations, and everybody's favorite combination of a dead car battery and no cell reception.

But there was a lot of great things about the trip. For one thing, I made enough off the complementary tokens at the casino to cover my shopping spree at Mackinaw Crossings and my favorite store ever. For another, the falls were beautiful and I got a ton of great photos, which will be appearing in future posts once I downsize them from GIGANTIC. I'll probably adapt a few of them for my Zazzle shop and maybe in an "Other Things to See" segment on my Mackinac Island lens.

I'll talk more about the trip and what absolutely made my day next time. :D

Things That Make Me Go "Hee... ^_^"

It happens every now and then - say, slightly more often than once in a blue moon: I'll be surfing along through deviantArt, just checking out whatever catches my interest, and all of a sudden I'll come across something Strawberry Syrup-related. An icon, maybe - not TOO terribly surprising, since I've got a pre-made selection of SS Icons over in the Fun Stuff section of the site (although that reminds me... I need to get some of those up for the Dwayne fans out there). Always makes my day.

Well, yesterday, I came across two. And not just icon users. They've also got Strawberry Syrup plugs in their sigs. One's even got a link.

... Yeah. I'm still downright giddy. :D

Maybe it's different for webcomickers with bigger audiences and it's more commonplace to stumble across things. I don't know. But at last report, Strawberry Syrup's got about 90 steady visitors, so when I come across something related to the comic, it definitely still gets an "omgSQUEEEE!" reaction out of me.

Personally, I hope I never lose that reaction. I do, however, have to work not to exhibit my total dorkness by doing something like glomping them through their comment pages. ^^;; Yeah, cuz that wouldn't completely shatter any illusion of cool I've got going.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to hunt down Koni, show her, and resume my Happy Dance of Squee.

Creative Collaborator? Wha?

Some people have wondered what, exactly, my partner for Strawberry Syrup does, considering I do the writing, the drawing, and the shading... Well, I assure you, she has a very important job: she's my creative collaborator.

Sounds like one of those fancy made-up terms, right? I suppose I could also call her my muse, but I've already got one of those, and it can get huffy about other people treading on its territory, so "creative collaborator" it is! When I get stuck on something, I turn to my dear creative collaborator and talk it through. We bounce ideas back and forth, expand on some and discard others, until not only do I know how to get past the current snag, but what is going to happen for the next two chapters.

That's what happened last week. After a convo with my CC, not only did I get through a minor snag, but the next few pages are thumbnailed and I am really looking forward to something coming up in the future (trust me, after three years of working on something, occasionally you need someone to rekindle that joy of creation and all).

Besides, that's the way the entire story of Strawberry Syrup started: a series of late night conversations between the two of us about why there are no half-vampires on the VAMPIRES' side. Ferdy just done raised his son right, y'all!

Granted, who knows what would have happened if Josie had done the raising... I shudder to think of it. Oo;

Ps238: The School for Metaprodigy

It's been awhile since I've really gotten into a webcomic (someone else's, anyway), but yesterday, I was cruising around that void in space-time known as TV Tropes, and I came across the trope page for lame superpowers. Hilarious stuff, there. Superheros with the power to change the color of things, summon pigeons, and even one poor soul saddled with the ability to remove his own arm and beat people with it.

In any case, there was a link there that led me to Aaron William's comic, Ps238, a fantastic webcomic about a secret public school (yeah, you read that right) devoted to the education of the children of superheros, magical beings, and kids who can tap into the cosmos. You can recognize who most of the superheros are based off of, but don't be fooled: this isn't just a spoof comic. Sure, there are plenty of inside jokes for the comic-savvy readers out there, but once it gets going, you've got a great cast of characters in a well-written storyline and some truly fantastic elements. I read through something like three years worth of comic in the past two days.

Fair warning: the first several pages are a series of "Public Service Announcements" and advertisements for the school. They may seem random, but they're used to introduce a few of the characters. The story picks up right after them. Had they gone on a few more, I probably would have stopped reading... and missed out on a great comic.

Very Cool Clouds

We've had some interesting weather lately. Lots of rain, lots of muggy heat (ugh), and lots of very cool clouds. Last night, I managed to snap a picture of these beauties:



I love skies like this and thought I'd share. Just about makes all the heat and humidity worth it. ^_^

Art Blog: James Gurney

On my list of Things That Inspire Me, the work of other artists is pretty darn near the top. The way they compose a scene, how they incorporate characters, how they create backgrounds and moods and so much more can all spur me on to try out a new technique in my own work or drive me to improve overall. And, of course, I have some sort of obsession looking at other artists' sketches and their processes, but from what I've seen, that's pretty common among art people.

In any case, one artist whose work has inspired me for years is James Gurney. Yep, the guy who does the Dinotopia books. I have a well-loved copy of Dinotopia: The World Beneath that I loved to flip through and study the paintings in. I recently discovered that he has done a lot more extensive work for everything from book covers to National Geographic illustrations.

Even better... he has a blog.

This guy posts pretty much every day (and occasionally, more than once!), and Gurney Journey is just bursting with tips, explanations, and inspirations for artists. If you're an art student or just want to improve your work, you seriously have to check this out. You never know what you'll learn.

Dionysus and Ampelus: An Exercise in Environments

Just over a month ago, I did a picture of my Dionysus character called Night Terrors. Dio does not have a happy history, being the god of madness (among other things). So when this image popped into my head while listening to some Linkin Park, I decided to go with it. Then, of course, I felt kinda bad for Dio, so I decided to make it up to him by drawing him during a happy time in his life, which resulted in this sketch:

Ampelus was a handsome young satyr boy/shepherd Dio fell in love with when he very young - his first love, in fact. The first time I read about him, the author had just said he was a shepherd boy, without mentioning the whole satyr part, so I'd tried to draw him as a human several times.

Yeah, that didn't work.

Then, as I was researching deeper into Dio last month, I discovered that there were a few more sources on Ampelus than when I originally looked into him yeeeears ago. Lo and behold, all of them said he was a handsome young satyr. Cue the lightbulb clicking on. However, my usual satyr didn't really fit him, either. So, I decided to go more the sileni route, giving him human legs with the ears and tails of a donkey - and, of course, the horns, since it's just not a satyr without a pair of horns.

Ampelus was all set and Dio looked happy; all I needed to do was figure out the background. I decided to try to make it look like a scene and not just a character portrait. I wanted them to be part of the environment, and not have it just be a backdrop. To accomplish this (or try to, anyway), I opted for a landscape, with the canvas wider than it was tall, and set about filling that in.

My version of Dio met Ampelus near Mt. Nysa, where Dio hid in goat-form among the nymphs from his stepmother, Hera. It needed to have the feeling of a secret place where lovers might meet, a tucked-away place where they could be alone, yet still beautiful and light and airy with a feeling of innocent love rather than deep passion. To me, that meant water: a pond or small lake with waterfalls. Add lots of flowers and make it late on a hazy day with the sunlight diffused, and that got the feeling I was going for.

However, I really wanted this place to feel alive. The flowers helped accomplish that, but it needed just a little more. It needed wildlife. In the classic texts, no one quite agreed where, exactly, Mt. Nysa was, other than somewhere in or around the Mediterranean, so I started researching what kinds of wildlife the islands in the Aegean had. I didn't want anything that would draw attention away from the happy couple, so I looked into reptiles and amphibians first. A frog and a turtle with a rather interesting shell pattern caught my eye, so I put them in.

After that, I needed some birds. The Grey Heron fit the bill, and wouldn't draw too much attention to itself as it stalked among the water lilies. As with the rest of the background, I tried for a more painterly look, with brushstrokes suggesting the details rather than drawing in every single leaf, petal, and feather. It's something I've been working on in my backgrounds for about a year now, and I think I'm finally getting the hang of it.

Check out the final product over in my devArt gallery.

The Return of Productivity!

Today was what I consider to be a productive day. I finally got over the slump in my story (still working on that NaNo story - it's now just shy of 77K!) and hit a part I'm really enjoying writing again. Occasionally, I hit a part in a story where it's just about torture to keep putting words on the page, either because I need to recharge or just because I'm not really interested in that part of the story right then. That would be what the last twenty pages before today's spree were.

A few of the NaNo emails have addressed this issue in the past, so I know it's not just me: somewhere in the middle of the first draft, the author wants to do anything besides keep writing. If the story could just magically finish itself, that would be great. I figure there are a few reasons behind it: boredom or a short attention span on the part of the author, it's a part the author just doesn't want to write, or that part just honestly is not that interesting.

In the case of the last one, that's a problem, because chances are good that your readers will feel the same way. At best, they'll skim along until things start getting good again. At worst, they'll put your book down and find a better one.

Approaches to fixing this vary. Some writers take a step back, do a little reworking, and fix the problem. Sometimes that works for me, but I have heard revision horror stories where a writer just keeps trying to fix the problem right then and there and ends up never moving forward. Personally, I'm a big believer in finishing the entire first draft before starting in on the revision cycle. This also means I keep a notebook or stack of Post-It Notes nearby so I can write down the big revision ideas to implement later. After all, chances are that I'll be doing multiple revisions anyway, no matter what I do to the story, but I can't actually revise until there's something to revise!

In other news, my hand has decided it's capable of drawing again, so I've gotten started on this week's Strawberry Syrup page. You have no idea how ecstatic this makes me.

deviantArt Version 7

Alright, so yesterday, I made my usual stop at deviantArt yesterday and had a mild panic attack. Things had changed. Now, I'm not adverse to change. Sure, I may resist it tooth and nail because I'm a stubborn creature of habit, but I can adapt and even grow to like the new changes. . . which is why I didn't instantly flee to my dA journal to declare Version 7 as some sort of demonic entity sorely in need of an exorcism during my "buh... wha?" phase yesterday.

Today, I've had some time to adjust and find where they put things, and... well, it's growing on me. Parts of it, anyway. And there are some nice features. For example:

• The ability to navigate through galleries and my devWatch with my keyboard's arrow keys.
• Having the comment bubble directly under the artist's comments.
• The artist's comments auto-expand when you scroll down.

Alas, there are also some problems. Most of them just strike me as annoyances that were likely incorporated to make the site more iPhone and iPad-friendly. For instance:

• The giant arrows to either side of a deviation. They just clutter up the page.
• The pop-up thumbnail navigation bar at the bottom of a browsing page. Irritating at best.
• The way full-size deviations load now, what with the pixels and the zoom and the augh.

However, there is one thing that irritates me above all else about Version 7: the small views of deviations. Thumbnails? Look great. Full versions? Pretty much look fine. But the small view? Tiny, jagged, pixelated pieces of crap.

Maybe it's meant to strongly encourage full view. I don't know, but I actually liked having a nice small view. Imagine you have an epic illustration of a sweeping landscape. In full view, perhaps you can scroll around this epic and marvel at all the tiny details and subtle nuances, but if it doesn't fit entirely on the screen, you can't get the full impact of that pic. In a decent-sized small view, like the ones dA used to have, you could see enough of the detail and the whole piece and fully appreciate it for the masterpiece it is.

Now? Not an option.

*sigh*

There seem to be a lot of people up in arms about Version 7. If they choose one thing to fix, though, I just hope it's that.

Surgery: Not Fun

Well, maybe it is for surgeons. I don't remember any of it, thanks to the blessing of anesthesia. Unfortunately, that blessing came with the not so great side effects that led to me camping out on the couch asleep or wishing I was asleep for most of last week. But at least it's over with now. All I'm gonna say about the surgery is that it was minor, relatively painless, and according to the surgeon went well, so that's a relief.

Now then, there is one other part of surgery that I'm not terribly fond of: IVs. In this case, after a few tries, the nurses opted for the back of my hand. My dominant hand. So that's a rather sore bruise at the moment, one that is making it pretty darn clear that I will not be drawing a comic page this week. Or anything else digitally. Which, of course, means my muse has suddenly woken up and gone, "Oh, hey! You know what would be really cool? How about drawing a (insert cool idea)? Or what about (another cool idea)? Wouldn't that be sweet?"

Oi.

Anyways, enough whining. Time for me to at least get back on posting schedule!

Nervous, Nervous, Nervous...

In case you didn't catch it from the title, I'm a touch nervous today. Have been for the past week or so. I'm scheduled for (minor) surgery tomorrow morning - bright and early. I've got to be there at 5:30am. At least there shouldn't be much of a wait...

Anyways, there won't be a comic this week. And now, back to being nervous...

Rough Week

Oi. Last week was a rough one. One dental appointment for fillings, one doctor appointment to send me to a specialist, one specialist appointment to tell me I need minor surgery. Lots of fun... -_-;;

I'm not sure if I'll be doing the comic this week. My brother has suggested that I see if anyone's interested in doing guest comics, which while it's kinda short notice for THIS week, I think I may ask for them for when I go on hiatus at the end of the chapter. It could be fun! (ya know, assuming anyone's interested in doing it)

Anyways, that's pretty much the update on why there weren't any posts last week. Wheeee...

Textures

There is one part of digital art that I've never really utilized as much as I could: textures. One reason for it is that, badly done, pictures can look really bad when textures aren't used right. And believe me, a lot of artists don't use textures well, so I'd always been a little turned off on using them, save for certain circumstances - making something look like it was done on old paper, for example, like in my Medan series.

Then, I started picking up ImagineFX Magazine, which is possibly the most helpful and inspiring digital art magazine I've ever had the pleasure of reading. A little on the pricey side, but well worth it. Anyways, one of the issues from a few months back had a walk-through on a steampunk piece that not only had an interesting way of shading, but proved that well done, an artist can use textures not have it look natural, like a part of the art rather than a photoshopped mess.

Of course, this led me to want to try it... which led to my second problem: finding royalty-free textures, preferably for free, without spending days scouring my home town with my digital camera in hand.

The solution came from a friend of mine who had no idea I'd even been considering doing this: CGTexture.com. A lovely database full of free-to-use textures and royalty-free photos, all perfect for the digital artist. All neatly organized, too. You do have to sign up for an account, but they have a free version. The only catch is that you may only download 15 MB within a 24 hour period, but considering the variety of file sizes available for each texture, I haven't even come close to reaching that limit.

Oh, and no using the textures for scrapbooking purposes. They're very clear on that.

Anyways, whether or not my texture experiment ever sees the light of the internet remains to be seen, but I won't get any better if I don't try, right? Right!

The Eleventh Doctor

Alright, so it's finally happened. The Eleventh Doctor Who has finally premiered in the US. *cue cheers and whistles* As of this past Saturday, we now have Matt Smith's version of the Doctor on TV, and as a dutiful little new series Whovian, I was right there, watching the recap and mythos special before the premiere and recording it all just in case something came up that required leaving the room.

So far, I have liked Doctors Nine and Ten, but here's a confession: when he first showed up, I did not care for Ten. I'd thoroughly enjoyed the darkness of Nine, and he was, in fact, my first Doctor, so that automatically earned him a special place in the SciFi Geek quarter of my heart. When Ten showed up, though, I felt the urge to headdesk. He was just so... cheerful. After Nine, it was a bit jarring. However, David Tennant settled into the role after a few episodes, and like a determined puppy, Ten eventually broke down my walls and became yet another beloved Doctor.

I'm keeping that initial resistance firmly in mind when it comes to Eleven. The whole food thing definitely threw me off, so perhaps not the best introduction, but by the end of the episode, I could see potential. There were some highly amusing moments, and he'll probably settle into his version of the Doctor in a few episodes. I'll be looking forward to that time.

See, the interesting thing about Doctor Who is that it's not like a soap opera, where a new actor takes over an established role and everybody pretends it's the same guy. Each new Doctor is expected to be his own person. It's the great thing about Time Lords being able to regenerate - no awkward attempts to play the role like the actor's predecessor. Same history, same core, different outward personality. It makes for some fantastic possibilities.

One of these days, I will attempt to subject myself to the earlier Doctors out of sheer curiosity, but for now, I'm just going to try to get used to Eleven and hope that glimmer of potential that showed up in his first episode turns into a character I can fully enjoy - or, at the very least, enjoy enough that I stop marveling over the way his hair doesn't actually look like it belongs on his head. It should be interesting, at the very least.

The Great Cleaning of 2010

Twice a year, my subdivision gives people an extra incentive to go on a major cleaning spree: an all pick-up trash day. The spring cleaning one was today, which means I spent a large chunk of my weekend - you guessed it - cleaning. The focus this time was on my room, namely clearing it out enough that one can actually walk from one side of the bed rather than climbing over it.

Mission: success! Cleared out plenty of junk, reorganized things into a more orderly fashion, and even sent a few bags of clothes off to Goodwill.

Of course, Spring Cleaning isn't quite finished yet. Up next is the Great Dusting of 2010, also known as the Culling of the Dustbunnies. It may require a mask - at the very least, open windows. The abnormality in space and time known as my closet will have to wait, I think, until the September all pick-up, lest its contents once again overwhelm my room and all adjoining spaces.

The Comic Process, Part II: The Lines

After the Thumbnail, it's time to put the actual page together. For you familiar with the Western comics way, it's the pencils and inks. Because there really isn't much of a difference in appearance between the two, I'm just going to show you the inked version:



As you can see, nice clean lines, dialogue bubbles in place, black shadows added... Basically, this is how the page looks before I export it into Photoshop for the shading. If this were a print comic, I'd do screen tones in Manga Studio, but since Strawberry Syrup is a webcomic, I prefer to work in solid grays, and I tend to find it easier to do in Photoshop.

That, and I resize and crop the pages a bit - much easier in Photoshop.

Anyways, pay special attention to the panel where Hunter's about to grab the shiny glowing doorknob. In the thumbnail, you'll notice that there were originally two panels there. I decided that I really only needed one. The emphasis is now on his hand, rather than the hand shot just being glossed over by the eye.

Next time: the finishing touches!

Insomnia

So every now and then, I go through periods where it takes me really long to fall asleep. It can last anywhere from a day or two to a week or two. I can be drop-dead tired... and I still don't fall asleep, which means still being awake at, oh, eight in the morning. Yeah, it doesn't exactly top my list of pleasant things. Tends to turn me into walking zombie. Depending on just how little sleep I've gotten, a cheerful bubbly yet none-too-bright zombie. Also have a tendency to ramble.

So I'm really kinda proud of myself for actually focusing long enough to get this week's page done, even if it was about as late as it could have been without being posted Thursday. Add to that, all the itty bitty issues that popped up with a new version of Manga Studio. Oh, nothing major, but everything from setting panel margin widths to exporting differences... definite test for someone with an insomnia-spurred attention deficiency. So definite feeling of victory there... even if I did completely forget to add the text to Dwayne's shirt.

Anyways. As far as the whole insomnia problem, we'll try the whole "little mental stimulation before bed" thing. Now, on to finishing this week's episode of Supernatural.

Manga Studio EX 4.0

Well, it finally arrived, and one thing is for sure: it's going to take quite a bit of poking around to figure everything out! Oh, sure, the basic set-up's the same, and all the regular tools seem to be in place, if not under the same icons, but there are a few key differences, like in how the stories are set up and a few of the finer points of the tools.

And there are quite a few new features for me to play with. I'm particularly excited about the color feature. Not that I'm expecting anything to rival Photoshop, but who knows? I might be pleasantly surprised. It should be interesting, at the very least.

The next page of Strawberry Syrup may still be done on the old laptop, though, if not the rest of Chapter 4. It depends on if MS 4 has problems with the story set-up of MS 3. We'll see how the poking around goes.

Postal Delays

No comic this week. Alas, my upgraded Windows 7-compatible version of Manga Studio hasn't arrived yet. Sure, I could do it on my old laptop, but there's a whole hassle with transferring and all that fun stuff, so I'd rather just wait. This is what I get for ordering a hard copy.

I did, however, finish up Mariposa with an easy background, so she kinda looks like a trading card or something. You can see the finished version over at my deviantArt gallery. I think she turned out pretty well. ^_^

It is going to be so nice to get that upgrade. I want to do some sketching.

Character Design: Mariposa

Alright, so sometimes in the course of my chat!RPs, the question comes up of what the kid of two characters would look like. I, of course, love it when this happens. It's like a special treat for the character designer in me: try to create a character that incorporates traits of two others in some way. Hello, playland!

This hasn't happened in awhile, alas - I think the last time was with Bridget back in 2008 - but one of my frequent RPmates brought up a potential kid the other night, and of course, I had to give it a shot. For now, I'm calling her Mariposa:



Mariposa here does not have a chance of existing short of the magical equivalent of the mother of all drunken one-night stands, but man if she wasn't fun to figure out. Pretty much the only things the other RPer suggested were that the kid be stunning and dark featured, so I got to play a lot with her.

Plus, I had an excuse to do something more in my usual style on the new laptop. Granted, since I don't currently have a working copy of MangaStudio that exports, I had to do it ALL in Photoshop, including the sketch and the line art. Normally, I do all that in MangaStudio because the MangaStudio pencil tool rocks for sketching, and the pen tool in beautifully easy to use. Outlining in Photoshop in comparison is SO incredibly tedious.

Anyways, I'll probably figure out a simple background once I know more about Mariposa here and then throw her up on dA. Good times.

Pressure Sensitivity Problems Solved!

Sorta. Turns out Manga Studio 3.0 is nooooot quite compatible with Vista or Windows 7: the pressure sensitivity just does not work. After spending some time checking out help forums and whatnot, my brother finally suggested we try the demo for Manga Studio 4 to see if it was still a problem them... and lo and behold, pressure sensitivity was fine.

Fortunately, it's just an upgrade, so it cost me $130-something instead of $300. Oi.

Anyways, I opted for a physical copy this time (my last copy was a download), so I've got a little time before it arrives. Alas, I found out AFTER that that the demo doesn't allow you to export. In the mean time, I decided to make sure Photoshop wasn't having any problems and did a quick little experiment in a different style than usual:



Not my best work. I was trying for something. Didn't quite get it. But I'm actually happy with the lips for once, so that earns him a posting somewhere. Basically, I wanted to do something where I could use a few different brushes, do some smudging and blending, and not spend a WHOLE lot of time on it. Character's name is Erich, btw... older brother of one of my RP characters, hence the unusual hair color. I dunno, I've just never liked drawing completely random characters. Gotta have some sort of story there.

75% Good, Maybe 25% Eh

Well, I've had a few days to play around with the new laptop, and so far I'm pretty happy! It's lightweight, only needs an extra fan when its playing WoW, runs WoW beautifully, and can even function with other programs running at the same time. I'm adapting well to Office, and I'm starting to get used to the different screen proportions - this one's longer and squatter than my former Toshiba, so that takes a little time to acclimate there. And Windows 7 seems to be working pretty well for me.

Things I'm not so fond of: the control panel that keeps trying to pull out every time my cursor wanders too close to the left side of the screen, some of the Win7 navigation, and the fact that I can't figure out how to set up my tablet. Seriously. I know it's not the laptop's fault, but I can't find my pressure sensitivity, and that's kiiiiinda important for the whole art thing.

I'll probably have to draft my brother to figure out that last one...

But overall, yeah, so far way more good than bad. I'm happy.

New Laptop!

Yes, I know, I move at the pace of molasses, but when a purchase is going to cost me more than $500, I like to take my time.

And if I'd been able to find a piece of machinery that could actually handle what I want it to, I would have been ecstatic. Between the laptop itself, the service package (which, we learned after my father's famous "Don't worry, we'll get that LATER! :D," is best purchased at the same time as the laptop), Office, and all that fun stuff, I ended up dropping close to $1500. Oy.

Anyways, I opted for a lovely Toshiba Satellite A505, which is the upgrade to my current model... which I am still using for the time being. The new one is currently going through the lengthy - and I do mean lengthy - WoW install. Hopefully, everything will be transferred over by the end of tonight, and I'll actually be able to use it.

The Comic Process, Part I: The Thumbnail

Alright, so by now you're well aware that I have a weekly (heh, supposedly) webcomic, Strawberry Syrup. Here's how I come up with each page.

First up: the Thumbnail.

A thumbnail is basically a very quick sketch meant to help me figure out what elements I want on the page and where to put them. By 'very quick,' I mean no time spent on detail. Here's the thumbnail for Page 20 of Chapter 4:

As you can see, very quick, very sketchy, and not exactly an architectural blueprint here. There are three key things I need out of my thumbnails. 1) Where are the panels going? 2) Who's in each panel and what position are they in? 3) Where are the speech bubbles going? It doesn't take a whole lot of detail for me to tell any of those things, especially when most characters have some identifying characteristic. Dwayne's got his big ol' wizard's hat, Sammy's got glasses, Ferdy's got his cape... Not real hard to tell them apart.

Now, here's the important part: the thumbnail can change. They're not set in stone, and I'm allowed to change them, as you will see in Part II. By sketching it out nice and fast, I can see how it does or doesn't work, how another panel arrangement might work better, and what content might work better in each panel. If I weren't lazy or on a weekly schedule, I'd probably sketch out those variations, too, and pick which one looks best.

As it is, I thumbnail once, then wing it. Do not follow Kit's example there, kids. Ideally, you'll have each chapter thumbnailed well in advance. Trust me, it's easier that way.

'90s Nostalgia

Lately, my family has been spending Saturday nights reliving the joys of one of our favorite series from the nineties: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, courtesy of Netflix. Sure, it's corny, and silly, and the costumes make no sense (the hats... what were they thinking with the hats?), but it's fun, and that's what we've always loved about it.

Of course, back in '94, the special effects didn't look QUITE as ridiculous, but hey, you can still get that same stunning quality in certain SyFy movies.

In any case, it's got me all nostalgic for the great series of my tween-to-teen years. I mean, there were some fantastic shows then. A few of my other favorites, in no particular order, were:

• Quantum Leap


• The X-Files


• Highlander


• SeaQuest DSV


• Are You Afraid of the Dark?


• Buffy: The Vampire Slayer


• Farscape


• Pretender


• Sliders


• Forever Knight


• Mystery Science Theater 3000

Yeah, you can tell where my interests lie. XD Those are the ones I'm pretty sure I'd still enjoy now (and thanks to SyFy, I do still get to enjoy Highlander and X-Files on a near nightly basis) and not counting the slew of kids shows on Nick that I used to watch on a regular basis. I just don't know if I'd enjoy Clarissa Explains It All, Hey Dude, and Welcome Freshman now as much as I did as a kid. Are You Afraid of the Dark, on the other hand, I'm fairly confidant I'd still enjoy at least a few episodes of.

Hm... I should look into hunting a few of these down... Anyone out there have any favorite shows from the '90s?

Strawberry Syrup is Go!

And there's a good start on #2 of last post's To Do List: page 20 of Chapter 4 of Strawberry Syrup did, indeed, get done! On time, even. Well, okay, so about 1am instead of my preferred midnight on the dot, but there it was, all set to go...

Which is about when I remembered that whole conversation with my brother/webmaster a few weeks about about having tweaked the site and me needing to get the new files. Cue the recollection of never having gotten those file and, being technologically impaired, having no idea how to get those files without terminally screwing something up. You may think I'm exaggerating, but technology and I have a rocky history. We're talking demon-possessed printers, premature New TV death, and the generation of enough static electricity in winter to put Pikachu to shame. Never mind my habit of killing websites if I don't know exactly what I'm doing.

So, rather than have the site go down or spontaneously combust and destroy all of my brother's hard work, I decided to wait. Wednesday afternoon, I explained the problem to the great webmaster and ended up emailing the update to him. So, all the little Strawberry Syrup fans (those who haven't lost interest by now with all the unplanned stops, anyway) had a brand new page for the first time in over a month. Hurray!

And now I'm going back to writing.

Hello, March!

Well, the Olympics are over, snow is still on the ground, and it is officially the start of a new month. Time for this month's To Do List! In no particular order, here are my goals for March:

• Finish 2009's NaNo.


• Get Strawberry Syrup back on track.


• Get my hands on a copy of Rachel Caine's Midnight Alley. *shakes a fist at the local bookstores*


• Sit my butt down and actually update my Squidoo lenses.


• Add more stuff to my Zazzle shop.


• Get stuff sent out.


• Keep up with my writing routine.

I'm keeping it simple. Got a few minor goals to round out the major ones, and then a few "if Kit works really hard and the stars align" goals to aim for. I've already made a good start on that first one today. Why yes, there is a reason I spent a good chunk of the afternoon researching common town names, last names meanings, the native tree life of Michigan, and topics for high school essays on Hamlet.

More seriously, I have finally, finally cleared out the debris from that roadblock and moved into the actual writing phase again. Kinda sucks that I'm going to have to quit sometime tonight to get that next page of Strawberry Syrup started... I don't even want to think about how much my drawing skills have deteriorated after not using them for a month.

Breaking Down the Roadblock

Operation Roadmapping: Success!

It probably sounds like the dullest and least creative thing ever, but outlining the story thus far and then making a little chart with the events for each major plotline actually helped a lot.

Yes, I made a chart. I get all analytical like that sometimes.

Anyways, by charting the plotlines in separate columns and then using a different row for each day of the week, I could visually see whether my plots were balanced enough and what needs to happen next - which was the whole point. Even if I eventually change things around (which, given the nature of rewriting, I probably will), for now at least I can get moving again.

... Which I'm going to go do now! :D

Roadmapping

While I'm letting the stories and whatnot I've been working on for the past month stew and get a little distance on them, I've been going back over 2009's NaNo. I'm pleasantly surprised by it (this being the first time I've read the whole thing through from the beginning). Sure, there's plenty of work to be done, but it's not headdeskingly bad. There is hope!

Of course, before I can do anything serious editing-wise, I need to finish the sucker. Unfortunately, as I got to the end, I realized why I lost steam in the first place: I had no idea what the next scene should be. Not a good start.

Fortunately, I have a few things to try. Option one: outline. Yeah, I know, that's usually something you hear people doing before they start writing. Well, if that's what works for them, that's great. I've tried it before. Snowflaked my first NaNo novel back in 2006. Still need to finish that novel, actually, whenever I swing back to high fantasy mode and feel like trudging through one giant mess of prose. While I never had to think about what came next, I also wrote on autopilot... which meant I didn't realize things were getting horribly horribly tangled until the very last major plotpoint. There is going to be a lot of major restructuring in that one.

No, this time, I'm using the outline to track where I've been and hopefully see what needs to be the next scene. I'm mapping out POVs and the three main plotlines while I'm at it, and I won't be outlining any further than I've already written. I'm using it as a chance to keep all those little threads from getting hopelessly snarled and back into a nice, neat braid again. Really, all I'm looking for is a next step.

I'll let you know how it works out.

The Morganville Vampires

Back in January, I picked up a collection of YA vampire stories called Immortal: Love Stories With Bite. I admit it, I'm a sucker for vampire stories, and while not all the stories were fantastic, there were a lot of really good ones that make the anthology worthwhile.

Rachel Caine's short story "Dead Man Stalking" was one of my favorites out of the entire book, and while I wouldn't have called it a "love story" in the romantic sense, I think it explored a different kind of love, and I am so glad it was included. It was an introduction to Caine's series, The Morganville Vampires, which, I am sad to say, I may never have picked up otherwise. Here's another admission: the back blurb of a book matters to me. The title or cover might get me to pick up a book, but it's the back blurb that gets me to either buy it on the spot or look inside. The back of the first book, Glass Houses, never really grabbed my attention.

The short story? Grabbed me, hooked me, and dragged me back to Borders for more.

Luckily for me, the first two books were published in a 2-for-1 volume back in November, so I picked that up... and have flown through Book 1 in three days. Considering my normal method of reading is a chapter or two every morning, that's breakneck speed for me. I love the characters, I love the writing, I love the quirks and twists and turns and the way it keeps me on the edge of my seat. Caine isn't afraid to put her characters in danger and keep them there, and despite the main character being a 16-year-old brainiac in college, Claire hasn't struck me as a Mary Sue. Sure, she's super book-smart, but other than that, she's pretty much an ordinary girl who flounders in ordinary ways and finds herself in extraordinary circumstances.

I've just finished the first book, Glass Houses, and just started Book 2, The Dead Girls' Dance, about three hours ago... and am already six chapters in. It's not that I read that slow: it's that I have other things to do... or keep trying to do. And yet, I just keep picking the book back up, read another scene or two, try to put it down, and can't. I don't want to wait to know what happens next.

And that, I think, has to be the highest praise any book can ever hope to achieve.

I think there'll be another trip to Borders this week, and I will be grabbing as many of The Morganville Vampires series as they have.

The Right to Write

One of my favorite writing exercises is pretty simple. I grab a book, flip to a page, and write down the first noun or verb I see. Repeat two more times. Then, write something using all three words. It's a good little exercise that can come up with some interesting results, especially if you do it shortly after getting up, before the Inner Critic and Editor have had their morning coffee.

Anyways, today the book I was using to find words was Novel Ideas: Fantasy, an anthology of short stories and novellas that eventually spurred the author on to full novels or series. I haven't read them all, having found it a fantastic source for my exercise and not wanting to know context for the words, but today, I flipped to the intro page of Orson Scott Card's story Lost Boys.* Well, the only Lost Boys I knew of involved Kiefer Sutherland in a pair fangs, so of course I had to read the intro... where Card described a night of storytelling at a university Halloween party where he decided to tell a ghost story that ended up with half the people present pissed off at him.

Long story short, Card decided to give personalizing a fictional story a try by telling it in first person as if it were fact and had happened to him, even to the point of using his own life and real names. He then added fictional characters and events, like his "eldest son" Scotty and the bodies in their crawlspace. When he later decided to write it as a short story and present it at a workshop, the other writers were furious. One even went as far as telling him he had no right to write a story about losing a son like that unless he actually had.

That got me thinking. Is there anything a writer doesn't have the right to write? It goes right back to that old stand-by of "Write what you know." But people tend to interpret that as, "you can only write your class, race, gender, and lifestyle." Which means people shouldn't write about different family set-ups, professions, or religions, either. Which, frankly, would make for a pretty bleak reading selection, particularly for a fantasy lover like me.

Instead, I prefer to think of it as having a deeper meaning. Humans were granted an amazing imagination, and we "know" a lot more than we give ourselves credit for. We all know the basic emotions: love, joy, anger, sadness, grief, desperation, fear, embarrassment, etc. Writers can take those emotion and extrapolate them into what their characters are feeling, and through their words, they can inspire their readers to feel those things, too. Imagination is a powerful thing.

Am I saying screw the research and just write whatever the heck you want? Not if you want it read by other people. Do the research, listen to people who have lived through something similar, pay attention, and then put that wonderful imagination to work.

So did Orson Scott Card have a right to write that short story from the first person? In my opinion, absolutely. As he wrote in his afterward, he may not have lost a child to death, but he knew intimately what it was like to have a child who couldn't really live the way all parents want their children to. The emotions in his story came from a very real place, and it resulted in a powerful story. That people would get outraged over the fact that he hadn't had a child die seems ridiculous to me. It's fiction - the truth is in the lies.

* This is the story that he later turned into the full-length book, Lost Boys: A Novel. Obviously, a lot changed, but the key idea seems to have stayed the same.

Snow, Snow, Snow...

Like many parts of the United States, we've gotten a lot of snow this month. In fact, it's snowing right now - the big, fluffy kind of snow that makes you want to run around outside with your tongue sticking out. And while we didn't get any snow on Valentine's Day, I did get this shot:


Yep. Two little sparrows, all puffed up on the back step out by the bird feeder. Rather fitting to have a male and a female on Valentine's Day.

Give Your Warlord a Charm Bracelet Week

Today, I decided to take a break from writing and indulge in a little World of Warcraft. I've been playing for several years now, but it's been a bit since I last played - October, I think. In any case, I remembered that they should be having their Valentine-esque holiday, so I decided to hop on.

And for the first time in years, the quests are different.

Last year (and the year before, and the year before that...), you bought perfume or cologne, distributed valentines, collected goodies, and spent oodles of time traipsing around Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, and Undercity for the quests.

This year? You get to collect charms, make a "lovely charm bracelet," and hand it off to, say, Thrall, who literally says, "Oh, what a lovely charm bracelet." Then you get to turn in your quest while squealing in fangirl/fanboy-ish glee because the great and mighty Thrall loved your charm bracelet.

The great and mighty Thrall probably has a pile of charm bracelets behind his chair and is debating whether or not he can arrange the death of whoever came up with the bright idea of the lovely charm bracelets.

Of course, now I'm wondering what other changes Blizzard's going to make this year. I also need to find out where people are getting the pet pugs, because those are adorable.