WOOOO

know what this blog needs more of? hot guys and dinosaurs YEAAAAAAH

dreams of heads falling off

i've been working on this for so long in some form or another that i don't really have anything left to say about it. other than i really like drawing deserts and i'm happy i'm working on a comic that takes place in mostly desert. and i guess also that i dedicate this to Salem; it was the piece i was working on and struggling the most with while she was sick and i lost her.

finally saw Kiki's Delivery Service for the first time yesterday (yes, i know, what kind of studio Ghibli/Miyazaki fan am i?).  it was really great, as expected. probably in my top favorite Miyazaki films now, after Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away. i love the character of Kiki so much, and related to her maybe a little more than i'd like to admit, heheh. and i love the way Studio Ghibli does those super-stylized, cute cats.

gutter

i love Oscar Wilde. i wish he'd written more than just one book. i could read his snarky, cynical ass forever.

some of my favorite quotes (mainly preserving these for myself in the future):
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
 "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."
 "Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace."
"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information."
"Illusion is the first of all pleasures."
"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."
"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter."
"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."
"Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing."
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."
"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."
"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."
"Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow."
"The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for."
"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."
"We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities."
"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong."
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."
"One's real life is often the life that one does not lead."
"I can resist anything but temptation."
"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."
"Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about."
"Only the shallow know themselves."
"The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius."
"Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years."
"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating."
"The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional."
"There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution."
"Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made."
"I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means." - upon being told the cost of an operation.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

(sorry it's so long; he had a lot to say and boy do i love to listen. XD )

fangirlgasm

few things have consistently endured in my affections over the years like sailor moon. it all started one morning in summer when i was eleven; i had an ear infection, so sleeping was all but impossible. i gave up trying at 6 am and turned on the tv and watched samurai pizza cats. but the show after that was truly magical. pretty, goofy, stylized anime girls transformed into soldiers in tiny skirts and whooped up on some weird-ass sexy demons. and there was a talking cat. i was hooked from that moment on.


and rather than waning like so many other interests, my love for sailor moon has only grown exponentially over the years. some months ago i finally tracked down the "lost" and "forbidden" very last season, sailor stars (thank god for youtube!) and began the thrilling but painstaking process of watching every episode. it was truly a wonderful season, definitely one of my favorites. i totally cried at the end. XD

perhaps my favorite things about sailor stars is the introduction of the three starlights (gender-bending female sailor soldiers from across the universe, sent to earth to find their long-lost princess, meanwhile moonlighting as a boy band), and that mamoru is once again handily swept out of the entire series. only this time it is interesting because he's not kidnapped or comatose as per usual, but he has to go away to university, i think to the u.s. and this creates a very interesting moral and emotional dilemma for usagi, who never hears back from him yet tries to remain steadfast despite her loneliness and pangs of doubt...and then, in comes seiya.

here's some really shitty sketches of seiya x usagi i did tonight while i was nerding out about all this.

i'm always kinda hesitant to draw anime characters, because i feel like they get a little too distorted and i'm not sure how to handle certain features they have in my style, but whatever. i couldn't resist drawing these two any longer.

i don't really care if seiya is male or female, i like her either way with usagi. <3 i guess part of me likes the seiya + usagi pairing because vicariously, i'm crushing on seiya a little bit myself. XD when stars began, i fucking hated seiya. i thought he was just a typical stuck-up cock anime character. but as the season went on, he won me over hard. once you got to see how sensitive and disarmingly genuine he could be, his cockiness became more charming. and it doesn't hurt that he's so unwaveringly dedicated to usagi, despite her constant rejections and affirmations that she's already "taken." i have a definite soft spot for one-sided romances, and immature boys. plus, he and usagi are just so funny together. XD

besides seiya just being an all-around better character and a better match for usagi i think, mamoru is just fucking boring, and he never really seems that into usagi anyway. throughout the entire series, he always brushes off any attempt on usagi's part to get romantic with him...which i guess makes sense and is kind of noble at first, since when they start dating she's in middle school and he's like, about to graduate high school. just every now and then he'll be like,"oh, usa-ko, you're so stupid and cute," and kiss her forehead or something. i think the only truly romantic gestures he performed for her that i can remember off-hand is that one time he ate cookies usagi made him despite them being horribly burned (after she started crying about it), and he rushed out to buy her some expensive glass slippers (?) she'd wanted for her birthday (after he'd forgotten her birthday like a total dick! ). he's presented as being this incredibly stoic, well-read, cultured and super-intelligent young man with tons of restraint...and it's like, THIS is the ideal match for usagi, an immature, crybaby who fails all her classes? XD it always seems to me that mamoru isn't really into usagi at all, but rather keeps on being with her because it's their "destiny" or whatever, and they've already met their daughter from the future that he's crazy about, so he doesn't wanna fuck that all up.

anyway, i'll stop rambling about this inane crap and go back to working on things i should be doing. maybe one day soon i'll do a real seiya + usagi fan art and get it out of my system, haha! oh yeah, and this video. <3 few things make me all fangirly and gushy and fawny, and seiya is one of them. i love that episode when usagi thinks seiya's trying to put the moves on her XD hahaha and the part where the monster shows up and seiya grabs usagi and gets all serious...!!! SIGH<3 okay, stopping now!! XD

oh nose

had an interesting conversation with someone in which i pointed out i noticed that he had a thing for a particular "mouth type," because while he liked a pretty wide variety of girls looks-wise, they always had the same type of mouth, teeth and lips. since then and giving it some thought, i've come to realize i may have a similar fixation with noses.

screw eyes; noses are almost certainly the first thing i notice about someone's face. but it's not necessarily a matter of how beautiful or attractive i find a nose, but how artistically fascinating it is that draws me to it.

i know this young lady is beautiful by just about anyone's standards, and i'm not arguing that she isn't indeed beautiful, but in my personal view her face is just a little too bland. she's a characturist's nightmare; no outstanding features. her nose in particular is a yawn. so tiny and "perfect."

although cute in theory, i'm not that into these little, upturned, round noses. probably just because almost everyone in my family has this nose. bunch of bland, baby-faced people.

 here's where things get interesting (for me). both these people have interesting noses, but for my purposes i'm focusing on the guy. lookit that nose. now that's a nose with character. i love the mixture or dips and rises, the curves and straight lines. this is one of my favorite types of noses. i look at people's faces a little longer and try to figure out the geometric shapes that comprise their schnoz if they have a nose like this.

this is another of my favorites, the "hawk" shape. straight and slightly down-turned, or maybe flat and wedge-shaped at the tip. i tend to like any noses that can easily be made up of recognizable geometric shapes. the more prominent and architecture-like they are, the better.

can't find a good real person example, but this might be my favorite shape of all. perfectly straight, with a pointy, slightly down-turned tip. this shape is SO FUN to draw. i particularly enjoy it if it has that small dip just below the brow before going straight into the bridge (again, can't find a relevant picture of this).

and lest i seem like a cute, small, or rounded-nose bigot, i do enjoy nose-watching in all its exotic varieties of shapes and sizes; these are just the ones that set my heart aflutter when i see them in real life, like a bird watcher who spots a rare yellow-bellied pheasant. for instance, this girl's nose is just awesome in how cute and absolutely round it is. just a grouping of cute little circles! i'm a girl of extremes, i am.

do

beautiful punk rock hijab girl i saw at work.

emotional shirt

feeling weird lately. like i'm going through these ups and downs emotionally. i start feeling down when i contemplate what i am and what i probably should be doing with my life. all i really want to do is learn as much as i can, express myself to the fullest possible extent, whatever that may be, and experience as much as i can. but it seems like life, at least my life, is set up to be a stifling antithesis to these goals. subjugate myself for money only to not make "enough," then die. is this all there is to life? am i just looking at it wrong?

also keep having weird mood swings that don't seem to be triggered by or related to anything in particular. i'm making good progress on a comic and for some reason this makes me feel like weeping. maybe hormones? there is no logic in it.

anyway. enough of my cheeriness! here's my favorite shirt, ever.

years ago my uncle brought it back for me from a business trip to, you guessed it, Germany. i have no idea why i love it so much, other than it's damn comfortable. i guess i like eagles, and the coat of arms are pretty cool. maybe it's sentimental? i dunno. i know that i kick myself for wearing it while i bleached my hair. stupid. it's falling apart now and full of so many gaping holes that i can't wear it in public without it being considered indecent. but i can't bear to part with it. maybe eventually i'll figure out a way to salvage it.

sketches WUT

no harm

thinking about maybe doing a daily sketch thing like a lot of artists are doing. been sketching a lot of stuff unrelated to anything i'm working on lately, and not only is it relaxing and keeps me on my toes, but i've been having fun with it.

but i can't scan anything at the moment, so have this god-awful, sloppy thumbnail page of an as yet undone future Miss Bunbun chapter. DON'T LAUGH! >:(  my horrible scrawly hand-writing has been blurred out for you, because i am merciful. oh, and spoilers or whatever.

help Steve Perry

i know my blog doesn't carry very much clout, but i thought i'd try my best to get the word out.

basically it's summed up here: http://lorelei76.vox.com/library/post/help-stephen-perry-writer-of-thundercats-and-silverhawks.html

i made a donation a few weeks back that was embarrassingly small because that was all i could spare, and he sent me this incredibly gracious, grateful e-mail. and recently i sent him another small donation and got another super nice e-mail. i'm posting this because i'm sure he still could use all the help he could get, fighting cancer and trying his best to take care of his young son. and the thing about this situation that really tears at my heart is that this could easily be me, or any of the many artist/writer friends in my life.

anyway, yeah. thanks if you read this and feel moved to help out.