Brain Flotsam V2.007

My portrait just came back from the framer, and it looks pretty awesome. I think I'll hang it in my office until I make something even more awesome.
It really came out well.

This is based on this fabulous portrait photo, remixed under Creative Commons.

I have a new illo in the works - not a drawble, but an actual illustration. currently trying to decide if I should render it digitally or with colored pencils once the line-work is done. (I'm doing that digitally until I have an image I like. Too much erasing, otherwise.)
The muses (and the snupin chat) finally coalesced a Steampunk HP idea.  Not related to the steampunky snupin_santa story, but gushing about that in chat did help the ideas process.
In other news, advent drawbles are going well, although I am having so many ideas for side-stories or previously unseen moments in the Far Away as Moonshine universe that I may switch back to drabbles for a few.  Seriously, I sat in traffic this morning (there was a truck on fire at the last interchange before I get off for work. Everything was going so swimmingly until I hit that snarl, sigh) and got two new ideas for bits in that world. Include one featuring Alice Augusta Longbottom and her friends at Hogwarts.
I should make Moonshine-verse stuff my reward for finishing a new scene of the original novel that I should really be doing more work on.

Also, this weekend there must be some sewing. I have some millinery to finish and a quilt to design. Plus I have to go buy fruit pierogi from the Polish Deli on the other side of town. The office party this year is themed "Food Around the World" and we're supposed to bring a traditional ethnic dish. Well, when I was in Poland the only pierogi I was ever served in the dormitory were desserts.

Almost done with the portrait for class...

Man, I think I love these pencils.

The flap about the new photo of Narcissa confirming the horrifying truth hinted at in the early HBP stills has me wanting to draw.  Quelle surprise, right?
Perhaps my Mucha homage should be Narcissa instead of Luna. (Not that I won't do Luna, too, eventually, she is my default female subject after all.)
Well, it's all up in the air and the sketchbook for a few more days, because between the Quilt Show and Julie's visit for the RenFest in the next three weeks, I am tuned to channel "ACKFESTDEADLINELOOMING" for the foreseeable future. (Halloween? What's that? -- and even worse, in some ways: Samhain? I think I'd better do the abbreviated version this year.)

But the concept idea has been planted.  It will grow. ;)

It can sprout right next to my "The Emperor: Evil is Sexy Remix" of Lucius.  LOL.

More photos:

( ew, yucky burn under cut )
The burn photo is tiny.


Completed sketch, with 14" ruler for scale. It's actually a bit too dark, I may have to use a lightbox and re-draw it.

It was such a great exercise, I should probably make a point of drawing right-handed regularly.

Since my left hand hurts and it's hard to draw, I decided to start my art homework right-handed, using a grid.


The photo and its grid. Mom and I bonded over Viggo Mortensen in The Two Towers while I was working.


The sketch in progress.

I just mailed in my snarry_games art.
Next, finishing snarry_holidays.

Then hp_art_project.
Then... a lot.  Eep.
Hmmm... 
snupin santa
snapely holidays
smutty claus
plus two livelongandmarry portraits in progress. (they really are in progress, I promise!)

poor Lucius as The Emperor card is kind of languishing now in the WIP folder. Aw.
Thanksgiving shall be yours, Lucius, I promise.

I may need to do more stress-relief quickies in between, we shall see.  Hp_art_project in particular has been giving me compositional hives.  Arrgh!

I'm back from my second wedding weekend, with good news!
Mom called at 10:30 to tell me our power came back on! Hurrah!

Wedding weekend was lovely, but wow it was cold in the Catskills at night. I hadn't packed for that, had to borrow clothes.  ;)
Wedding itself was a fairy tale, and it was wonderful to see so many friends, old and new.  I even got a referral while I was there; one of the groom's friends was so enchanted with the ceremony he wants advice about his own wedding. Not sure if that will be another wedding for me or not, as he lives in the UK and that brings its own special brand of legal hurdles, but it would be nice. Still, interfaith weddings are what I do, so I'm happy to email the couple about theirs. Fun times, indeed.

Now that we have the power back I can't wait to really get going on my pending art projects. Whee!

Very excited to be in the snarry_games this year.
It's going to be intense and awesome, I'm sure.

Of course, after our squeeing and encouraging and all, it seems fated that venturous and I would end up on opposing teams.  Hee.  *smooches Ven*
It's also somehow entirely appropriate, after spending years and years role-playing Pernese dragonriders, that I'm working with Team Dragon! Yay!

(I have something like a constitutional objection to using super fancy fonts and massive graphics in my posts - occupational hazard - but perhaps just for this I'll end up using a header. ;) )

Now to put away my great squeeing over Snusa (which is awesome!) and work on this stuff.  I have all of October to worry about my later fest deadlines.  Hee.

I spend a lot of time messing about with Google Documents to update my master plan for my Harry Potter Tarot Deck, and will continue to do so, but I thought having a master table that other people could see and comment on would be neat. And possibly helpful.

Now, here is the catch to all of these assignments: the Majors, Courts, and Aces are mostly portrait cards. For these, I have chosen a CHARACTER rather than a scene whenever possible. A few of them are multiple characters (The Moon, The Lovers, The Wheel).
I want to avoid repeating characters as much as possible. There are two clear exceptions: Harry, since he is obviously both the Fool and the World, and I have placed him also as The Sun; and Minerva, since she has a place as a Head of House in the court cards, as well as being Justice. (If anybody can come up with some alternatives feel free to let me know.) Another "exception" is the use of the Animagi/Werewolf forms of the Marauders, as well as having Lupin and Sirius in their own cards.
Anyway, the point is, my reluctance to repeat too much is why some characters who seem obvious fits for Court Cards do not appear there. They have probably already been assigned to a Major Arcana card.
The pip cards are still very fluid. They will most likely be the last ones to be drawn, and as such there is a lot more time to re-assign and tweak the images. They will be scenes from the book straight out of canon or something that canon clearly implies, rather than trying to make up new scenes for each one, or shoehorn HP characters into Pamela Coleman-Smith's compositions. This is why each card will have a keyword as well as their number assignment, since it may not always be extremely obvious what the suit is from the scene. (There will not always be a place for the actual pips to be visualized.)

Ok, them's the rules. Comment at will.
( big honkin' table )

I realize that given the nature of auctions, there will probably be a flurry of action toward the very end, but bidding does end in less than a week. So here is a re-post of my stuff before I depart for Portus and a much more limited net presence.

For LJ's livelongnmarry fandom auction for marriage equality:

Offer: Digital Portrait (with single print)
and
Offer: Digital Portrait (with single print) II

More because it's an interesting exercise in commission work than because I am expecting big money for a charity, I have posted for LJ's livelongnmarry fandom auction for marriage equality.

I posted two listings, each for the same service, digital portraits of characters or people.

Offer: Digital Portrait (with single print)
and
Offer: Digital Portrait (with single print) II

I am debating putting up one for a portrait in traditional media, probably graphite/colored pencil/ink/watercolor or some combination thereof. 
What do you think?

New tarot card layout = aggravating foreshortened limbs (too many hands! aieee!) plus extra bonus person sinking underwater. Water is its own oddity, and magical water? Hmm. Also, I am having some trouble envisioning casual day robes for the young wizard circa 1979. Anybody?
It's weird, is what I'm saying.  But I love it anyway.

Egads.  Robert Place just left a comment complimenting my Temperance card on my Tarot NING page. 
Eeee!

Oh. Hey.

Judgment.
( quoting and stuff )
It's like my brain is just leaking tarot bits all over!

OK, I have re-assessed and re-assigned more cards.
The Hanged Man and The Tower have been totally re-imagined. Harry is no longer the Hanged Man, which I'm sure will make a few folks out there happy.  I know that's not a popular choice with all the tarot folks out there.
I think I found a better option - Regulus, falling into the pool of Inferi.

Also, even though the imagery seems written for a typical tarot deck, I have decided to move away from Dumbledore's death on the Astronomy Tower as The Tower card, and go with something I felt had a more immediately devestating impact on Harry.  So The Tower is now Sirius falling through the Veil.

The Wheel is giving me hives. Change, fate, luck, unexpected events. I've thought of Tonks, or perhaps Bill. Nothing is firm with this card yet.  It used to be just the circle of House Point Hourglasses, but I'd really like to have a character in there instead.  Hm. Maybe this one needs to be Draco! Woah. I may need to ponder that. Early morning is apparently when my lizard brain comes up with *fantastic* possibilities!

Judgment is also a bit frustrating, although I really like the idea of the Sorting Hat the composition is driving me mad. It seems like the initial Sorting Ceremony doesn't really fit the card, so do I instead choose a moment when someone is pulling out the sword? Or do I look again at the whole card? The Heirophant gave me this sort of trouble until I moved totally away from my initial idea and embraced something different. 

Well, I am surprised at how terribly disappointed I feel over not being in the LMoM winners, even though I knew from Day 6 when I had that unfortunate power failure that the rules would not allow it. Just goes to show how little things get to me.

So I need to do something new and maybe a bit more developed art-wise. I am working on a new tarot card, but those take days to do and I am not feeling it at the moment. I feel very proud of the LMoM work I did, but I'd like to get better at expressing emotion instead of simply anatomical accuracy. I feel like a lot of what I have been doing of late is rather sterile, even stale. I'm not sure how to fix that, really, except to draw more and more and more and hope that something spills over eventually. I really admire the work of some of the other artists in the challenge, who managed to bring an intensity and *movement* even to their sketches that I would really like to emulate, although our styles do differ.

Thus I need to dive back into doing some more elaborate stuff. I have three exchanges in the queue but the first deadline isn't for a month, so I've time to noodle around a bit and vent some of the angst.
Just for kicks, here's a poll.
What should I draw next? Feel free to leave something more challenging in a comment. Poll #1860 Art Therapy
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

What to draw next?

Poll #1833 Fairy Tales
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Pick a fairy tale...

(It's possible only Lisa knows what this is about, but really it's not hard to guess. Just pick something. If you don't recognize one of the tales and care to find out about it, try Sur La Lune, my one-stop shop for fairy tale info.)

Poll #1687 Percy is teh sex.
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Bedroom!Percy: glasses or no glasses?