Tag: art

Mad Science for All

You too can proclaim your love for all things Mad and all things Science. Well, not REALLY mad. Just… unconventional. You know. Not, you know, anything dangerously unstable – scientists can handle these things. They’re rational, once you understand the principles. Nothing to be institutionalized over. Come on, knowledge is power! I think it’s fairly rational to want a Death Ray. Almost everyone wants one, deep down. But you know, not everyone can handle it. Not everyone has the knowledge – the genius – to get by with performing the impossible. You know it really IS a miracle of science – it should be called MIRACLE science, not mad science! Yes. It’s not mad at all. How DARE you call it mad. What were you thinking? Is it any wonder fools like you will be the first to go? I’ll SHOW YOU ALL…

I say, in the immortal words of myself, or perhaps Doc Gestalt, quoting my own Etsy description.

Look! Stickers! Magnets! Pins!  All for sale here. Or if they are gone, joy of joys, let me know so I can put more up for sale!

Tea for One

I am having fun with my little (Windsor & Newton Cotman) watercolor set! Especially since I bought a new Koi Waterbrush, and a tube of Lamp Black (The set didn’t come with black because it’s a crutch, by some standards, to use black. This is because most black colors are actually filled with reflected bits of other colors and not black). I have put it all into my Moving Option pen case. (From Jetpens.com)

Steampunk Gallery

I finally put a lot of photos of my more Steampunk-styled pieces into a gallery. There is a tab at the top of this page, but you can also click right here.

I do other styles, but Steampunk is in demand right now. I will expand the gallery later, but I have 18 images so far!

I have decided that I am going to start saving the money I get from commissions, in order to buy a quad-line stunt kite…

Such a Deviant

Two reasons why I have not blogged lately, one of which is a decent excuse.
First, I have not blogged lately because when I had that swell idea to write an Artisan story to go along with jewelry, well, writing is HARD WORK.

Second, I had a deviated septum (that’s the bone in your nose) and had surgery for it about a week-and-a-couple-of-days-ago. It was “pretty miserable” (but no one wants to hear how gross nose surgery is so I won’t go into details. Suffice to say I survived it, and if you also need this fairly routine surgery, you also will survive it.) but now I am doing better and should continue to see improvement over the next several weeks. Someone told me she would rather give birth to twins than have that packing in her nose. I don’t think it was THAT bad, but it did make me feel so sure that I was unable to breathe, that I went to the ER – where they explained to me that no, I was breathing fine, and I was in fact hyperventilating.

Thirdly – bonus reason – I have been trying to clean out and “destash” a lot of craft supplies (and even, gasp, books) that I will likely never use (check it out – some are up for grabs at http://glimmerville.etsy.com).

I will post more art/craft/jewelry, but I don’t guarantee a story like I wish I could. It still seems like it would be a good writing exercise for me, but it is kind of onerous to say “post an actual story with each piece of art, or else” – I’ll do what I can.

Webcomics

I have a poor track record with actually keeping up with reading Webcomics, notwithstanding the fact that I keep considering making one. But these webcomics are ones written by people I actually know (or at least, have chatted with). So, for your consideration, I present an incredibly biased list:
My long-time great friend JB has TWO comics – not regularly updating, but fun to read the archives. And any day she plans to start them up again, really. Follow Gwen, Rremly the dragon, and friends with: http://www.catharsiscomic.com
Further, JB breeds and sells Crested Geckos! You can follow their fictional antics here: http://www.jbscresties.com/comic (And if you are in her area you could buy one!)

DJ Trousdale is a fellow Christian I met on deviantART. Check out his comic here: http://djtrousdale.com/hexfactorial

Sticky (or at least that’s the nickname I know him by) has a Morrowind-based comic here: http://www.skaarj.com/comic/ That was a fun game. I didn’t finish the expansions – I keep meaning to.

I just met Samantha on Ustream last week, as she worked her way through the “24 Hour Comics Day” Challenge.  I have a big soft spot in my heart for overweight red-haired magic users (you in the peanut-gallery, shush) so I fell in love with her comic: http://www.witchytech.com/lifesawitch

Urban Fey is written by a mother-daughter team! I know Windy (aka. Kim) from JB’s comic’s forum, and also deviantART – what a tangled web 2.0 we weave. I was also in their Guild Wars guild. Go Team Mystic Sheep! Anyway they have a novel take on the court of the Fey: http://www.urbanfey.net/ AND are in the process of working on some more comics too! See what’s coming: http://www.mysticsheepstudios.com/pages/comics.html

I know Natalie from watching her illustrate other podcasts, and from deviantART. She has a webcomic of mad science and underwater adventures: http://radioisopod.com She also has a podcast! I did a guest mad science bit on it, once. Natalie has webcomics over here too: http://thesecretlair.com but if I told you about The Secret Lair, well, they wouldn’t invite me back. (I have an honorary title and that’s all I can say.)

Got a comic yourself?
Tell me about it!

 

 

 

Inspiration vs. Distraction

I have an addiction.

Didn't buy it...yet

Frankly I am sure I have a ton of addictions, but I am only considering one in this post: I love to buy books. And, since I only have so much shelf space, I concentrate on buying books I can’t just go get in the library. Consequently, I don’t have that many novels (though I have my favorites). Instead I concentrate on How-to books and Field Guides.

Right now I have just noticed (thanks to Amazon suggesting it) “Yet Another Art Instruction book I Cannot Possibly Live Without”. The book is called Manga Matrix: Create Unique Characters Using the Japanese Matrix System by Hiroyoshi Tsukamoto.  Now anyone familiar with the stuff I doodle will say “But Rachel, you don’t even draw Manga style anything” and this is true. But I find the style (frequently) very pretty – especially when I think of Ghibli or sometimes Clamp, etc. I have several books on the style just to reference anyway.

But my real question, which should probably be posed over at http://Conceptart.org is this: When do you say to yourself “Intervention! Buying one more art instruction guide is not going to help you improve; actually drawing is the only thing that will actually help you improve”? 

That’s one of those questions I don’t like!

Work in Progress: Dragon edition

Right now I am working on scuplting two dragons – one is a commissioned piece, and one is just for fun.

This baby is just for fun, but I really like the way he is turning out. I tried a texturing technique (tingue twuster!) that I found on the Dan Perez site.

If you want more “step-by-step” information on how I do this, let me know – but mostly it’s “wad tinfoil and wire in the middle, then cover with clay until it looks right”. I have actually taken many progress shots of  the dragon below (the one below the baby). Maybe I’ll do a step-by-step sort of post, but it would be picture intensive and I don’t know that anyone really wants it. Just ask questions if you have questions – I’d be thrilled to find out that anyone is reading the blog, hint. [Edit: Yes I know you are reading the blog, because I received some nice feedback when I asked for ways to keep my milk safe in the fridge! And thank you!]

 

He only has a partial wing, so far
He only has a partial wing, so far

This is the one that is “an actual commission that I should be working faster on” whoops. Sunday I started on a wing, then picked it up yesterday and discovered that the Apoxie never set! Perhaps I mixed the batch badly. This is why I would fear for everyone’s safety if I was a mad scientist.

 

Not very complete yet.
Not very complete yet.

On an EVEN BETTER note, my dad’s company just got some work in today – praise the Lord!

That was a huge answer to prayer.

I hope your day is going well, too!

 

And it’s Game Night. I bought a new card game called “Illusio”, that I haven’t tried yet. I don’t know that I’ll have time tonight, but I loved the “rival magicians” theme.