Funky Cat Studio

(NEED TO CLEAN UP THIS POST!)

I’ve been busy.  And tired.  And irck.  Stupid cold weather.  I’ve never been in cold here in Oregon like it has been lately.

But besides that, I’ve kicked my art mojo into gear, and switched my crafting to something else for a bit.

<strong>Behold! The latest craze! Artist Trading Cards!</strong>

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But yeah, that’s enough of that.  If you really have to see more (you do, right?) just Google ATCs, or visit <a target=”_blank” href=”http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?board=259.0″>Crafter’s ATC</a> section, or the <a target=”_blank” href=”http://www.atcards.com/”>ATCards</a> forum.  Or, better yet, check out what I’ve been making at <a target=”_blank” href=”http://resirem.com/funky/?p=120″>Funky Cat Studio</a>.
The ATC Shiz: Basically, they’re tradeable art, in a mini form.  As a general rule, they’re free.  And I think they just  might be addicting.  Like crack, for artists!

<strong>Panties!</strong>

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I’ve started in on sewing panties.  I bought stretch, cheap fabric, and basically cut around an existing pair I liked.  I “finished” them off by just doing a straight stitch around the perimater (yay geometry!).  This resulted in loss stretch, to help hold things in place, and it worked out like I planned, but depending on how I sit (I’m a pretzle) they kinda cut into places.  I’ve had undies that did that before, so no biggie.

I started a 2nd pair today, but they turned out disastarific indeed.  There may still be hope, but I think I’ll start fresh tomorrow.  I think I know what I did wrong :)

<strong>FFXII!</strong>

Iiiiee! So addicting.  Its lacking the personable characters that I so do love and the nifty story line… but how the FUCK can they follow up on FFX, really? That was the best game in the universe, all around, and makes everything else those people make look like a rap video.

The new battle system completely rocks, though!

And, thats it from me for now.  I hope somebody out there decides they’d like to jump into these ATCs with me.  I’m getting sick and tired of being alone in my hobbies :-/

Everyone agrees! So, you have to admit it, too. 2006 was the Year of Suck.

Anyway, I didn’t personally do much for Christmas/Yule/stupid holidays. Mollie wanted a hat, so I made her one. And I made Jay a birthday card, and bought him some popcorn-in-a-bucket, ’cause he’s a Christmas baby. And I STILL haven’t finished Whitey’s scarf. but that’s what he wanted. But I got him a watch to hold him over til I finish the scarf.

I was interviewed for the local paper about National Novel Writing Month! It should be in the paper this Thursday, I think?

I’m also half-looking to give my ‘keets away. If they continue their good behavior, I might keep them. Vash’s constant screaming has been causing me a great deal of stress, and it can be heard throughout the house most of the time. I just HAD to get the one ‘keet that was a screamer! >.<

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I sought help at the parakeet forum I frequent off and on, but they mostly say I’m not giving them enough attention. WTF? If I paid any more attention to them, I’d have to strap them to my face. But, I’ve tried to kick it up another notch or two, and finally added those manzanita branches, and loaded one with toys. They love the branches and I even half-taught Vash how to ‘whistle’. So for a couple days now, it seems to be working. But if it stops working, or if I just go into a coma from paying too much attention to them, then OUT to the curb they go!

But really, who knew that trying to ignore the screaming would make it worse? Seems to me that would give them the clue that they don’t get what they want when they’re doing that. Apparently with cockatiels, ignoring makes them stop.

Ah well.

Oh, <a target=”_blank” href=”http://resirem.com/funky/”>Funky Cat Studio</a> is being redone a bit. A friend sent me a camera so I can start selling my stuffs online. I started taking pics of everything I’ve made since my other camera died. I’m only writing this right now ’cause my batteries are recharging.

Speaking of photography. I did photos at HASL’s New Year’s Eve party. Photo Den donated the camera and equipment so I could print the photos on-the-spot. I want one of those photo printers! Iiieee!

But anyway. Here’s me, and a certain someone. I blurred her out ’cause its none of your business :-p

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So this weekend we moved furniture, cause I’m rabid for change (its a Gemini thing).  That and I wanted proper room/lighting to mess with DDR and EyeToy.  More on that later, whenever.
Today seemed like a good day to start diving into guitar again.  Yes yes I know.  Keyboarding and guitar learning all at once? I can handle it! Especially now that NaNo is over and I’m thoroughly stocked on handmade jewelry and cards.
I’m glad we got that Guitar for Absolute Beginners DVD.  Its helped me out so far and I’ve only watched about 5 or 10 munites of it.  I have to keep hitting the pause button to deal with stuff, but that’s okay.  And my fingers will prolly be bloody stubs by the end of the day but… I can handle it now I think.
My main problem is switching between chords, especially from G to D7.  Um.  I think that’s the ones.  From C to D7 I can handle, and D7 to G, no problem.    But, again, that’s okay.  I’m just relearning, so all is good.  Come to think of it, I think that was one of my turn offs before… I just suck an getting from Point A to Point B.

Ah well.  How’s everyone else doing?

I’m doing a really terrible job with this Snowflake outlining method.  It appears to be a pretty good method, but for the weird-ass novel I’ll be writing, it’s making some of the steps really hard.

Here’s my MC, though.

<strong>Name</strong>: Sabine or Sabina (female)

<strong>One sentence story outline</strong>: Sabine seeks to change the world, only to have someone change hers, and she learn to accept herself and see the world for what it is.

<strong>Character’s Motivation/what she wants abstractly</strong>: Sabine wants to make the city a world of beauty through art.
<strong>
Character’s Goal/What she wants concretely</strong>: Sabine wants to display and share her art - grand scale.

<strong>Character’s conflict</strong>: Sabine is raped when she moves to the city, thus looses her Muse/self.

<strong>Character’s epiphany</strong>: Sabine realizes that her Muse was not taken, for it can only be given, and she did not give to the rapist.
<strong>
One paragraph summery on character’s storyline</strong>: I haven’t written this yet, as I’m very confused by the whole story (what’s new?) .

I’m getting little bits of info here and there (that damn broadcast never really shuts up).  I just found out a moment ago something about the Antagonist.  And boy is he ever.

But here’s the fun part! I was poking through the rape and rape related issues on Wikipedia and found this TOTALLY COOL statue called <a target=”_blank” href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women”>The Rape of the Sabine Women</a> by the artist  <a target=”_blank” href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giambologna”>Giambologna</a>.  So that’s how I got my protagonist’s name.  My antagonist’s name might be something such as Giam or Giovanni.  What do you think?

Also, the city she moves to is going to be names somehow off of the region of the <a target=”_blank” href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabines”>Sabines</a>.  I’m not sure yet.  Oh, and what’s going to be cool is that there is also a <a target=”_blank” href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Poussin_RapeSabineLouvre.jpg”>painting</a> of this title.  I think I have it in a book, ’cause I kinda recognize it (I shoulda been an ART MAJOR or something! What went wrong??).  So I’ll try to make sure to look for that later.  I might even have a pic of the sculpture in my book collection somewhere.

Oy… I hope things become tons clearer soon!

Erf.  I’ve really been struggling with what to do about NaNo this year.  I want to do it, I plan on doing it, but I’ve had a hard time trying to figure out what to do: Write book 3 of the Blood-Rose trilogy, or write something else entirely?

Looking back at book 2, which was written last NaNo (half on the road, half through sleep dep.), I think I’m going to just… ditch it.  Toss it out, rewrite it.  But I’ll do it at my own leisure.

I’m going to do something new for NaNo.  I don’t know what’ though.  I was kind of wondeirng what it would be like to write something cookie cutter, totally unoriginal.  I don’t think I could allow myself to write like that, but it may be an easy win for NaNo.

Its always about being as original as possible with me.  I never wanted an easy win with NaNo before, so maybe this means I’m getting tired of NaNo.  Meh… or maybe I just wanted to do something different for me.

So yes, I’ve been scouring the web for ideas, but really, I’ve been getting inspired a little from the dreams I’ve been having lately.  Like that one idea about the sady that looses a part of her brain… I had an idea from a dream that was rather Serenity-esque… that she didn’t loose that part of her brain.  It was just reprogrammed.  Its a cun-spik-ah-see.

And has anyone seen Mirrormask? I thought of incorperating surreal stuff like that movie into it.

I dunno.

Time to break out a fresh, new notebook.