¡ Prospero año y felicidad !

My resolutions for this year:
1. Cut down on the foul language! My vocabulary used to be so much more expansive and clever than it is now.
2. Improve my mood. Less rage also = less profanity! But it's also less stressful.
3. Engage in artistic activities more often! More drawing, more posting, more writing...arts make me a happier person. :3

Right, so the theme for this year is "cheerfulness and creativity." I'm a chronically grumpy person, so my work is cut out for me.

I had a very nice [if somewhat stressful] Christmas. I hope everyone else did too! I got some excellent gifts, including some gamery (of both the card/board and video game varieties) and a neon sign! (YES!) New Year's Eve was a lot of fun, too. I have reaffirmed that I am the champion of Balderdash, but I discovered that I am very bad at Scrabble Slam (despite being a pretty good Scrabble player.)

I'm a little hesitant about this, for the sake of my ego (lest I get no responses), but I'm approaching 7000 pageviews. That's a lot of pageviews! I know, I know--I've been a dA member for a long time, but I'm not terribly active or social (here), so I'm pretty excited about this milestone. So, even though nobody took me up on my first and last kiriban offer two years ago, I'll try again:

The member who catches my 7000th pageview gets a free drawing!

Of anything, I guess! Within reason. I think the usual process is to take a screenshot and send it. If you miss it by a few pageviews, try sending a screenshot anyway! The 7000th visitor might not have noticed!

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Upcoming Activity

Art requests:

To-Do list:
1. Art request - Status: 45%
2. Something digital
3. Post Cruz'In photos
4. Super Crazy Lemur Thing drawing
5. Work on sketch book!

It was near 60 most of lastweek in NYC (where I was working), but the stupid hurricane kind of ruined things. What with the wind and rain and all. And then I come back to 38 degree weather in the Midwest. Argh. The temperature in Wisconsin had been fluxuating for the past month or so, but I have a feeling it's realized we're in November now. Time to get used to sweaters and wool coats. But NOT time for Christmas trees, lights or music, yet! What is wrong with you people?!

(I love Christmas as much as the next person, if not MUCH MORE--but I don't believe in rushing the season so much that it's not special when the holiday actually arrives. Plus, I like Thanksgiving.)

In other news, I finally got to go to the sweet Japanese bookstore in midtown Manhattan during my trip to New York last week. Kinokuniyo, I think? I got an awesome 2010 calendar, a Haruhi Suzumiya light novel (yay!) and a cool little reference book on bonsai. Now that I've gotten over the grieving for my poor little Juniper bonsai, I think I'm ready to try another. And maybe tame the crazy growth on my money tree. Maybe I'll post photos (sometime in the distant future...these things take time!) if they start shaping up nicely.

I've also been doing a little more digital art work for a friend's flash game. Not the same game the secret agent pixel sprite was for, but the same developer. This time we're not doing pixel art, and it's a totally different theme. I think I'm a little more comfortable with this style, though. I'll post a link and some screenshot if/when it's closer to completion.

Life's been pretty hectic for the past couple weeks/months/year, but I think things are calming down...knock on wood. So I'm hoping to post something over the weekend (maybe). And work on that art request. I am taking a cookie decorating class at JoAnn fabrics on Saturday, so I need to bake some cookies before then, but hopefully that will result in something both pretty and delicious that I can show off in my scrapbook. Stay tuned!

Lastly, NEW SUPER MARIO BROS WII CAME OUT ON SUNDAY. Does anybody have it?! I preorder it from Amazon in order to get a $10 voucher and free shipping, but that means I have to wait possibly until Thursday for it to arrive. ;-; Somebody tell me it's as awesome as I expect it to be.

Art requests:
I can't promise they'll get done in a timely fashion, but I'm happy to take requests. I promise they'll be done within 6 months max. Nothing too risqué though, plz.

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Upcoming Activity

Art requests:

To-Do list:
1. Art request - Status: 35%
2. Something digital
3. Post Cruz'In photos
4. Super Crazy Lemur Thing drawing

Yay Halloween is soon! I'm making my own costume--as you might have noticed, I've got an ANBU mask in the works, with a progress photo in my scrapbook. I just finished painting it tonight, and I'm pretty proud. :3 It should be obvious to anyone looking at it that it's not a professional job (it's definitely not symmetrical, and not on purpose), but I think it looks pretty sweet! Especially considering I've got about zero experience with clay and paint.

Now to figure out how to attach a strap. Securely. I'm really afraid that the mask is going to fall and shatter, or that the holes for the strap will crack. Argh. And then I need to work on my vest (I'm improving a vest I made a few years ago for the same costume...it was made entirely by hand, with very limited resources...I had to get very creative with the fastenings, which I tend to rectify before this Halloween). And arm guards! And shoes! Oh my.

I also bought a little sketchbook recently and have been toting it around to work and such. I've only started one doodle in it, but it's looking pretty cute (a Halloween Picc pic!), so maybe I'll finish it. And I have ideas for other Halloween Picc pics. Poor Picc's been collecting dust for a while...she deserves some attention.

Art requests:
I can't promise they'll get done in a timely fashion, but I'm happy to take requests, and I'll do my best to finish them eventually. Nothing too offensive, though, please.

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Upcoming Activity

Art requests:

To-Do list:
1. Art request - Status: 30% (yes, I did work on it!)
2. Halloween Picc pics see most recent deviation submission!
3. Fella's Halloween costume contest! (going to try going digital for this one) Missed it, unfortunately. When I sat down to work on it, I found that my tablet stylus was stuck in "click" position. Fixed it, but too late.
4. Post Cruz'In photos
5. Super Crazy Lemur Thing drawing

Arts this weekend, I promise.

Old news, still relevant:
Art requests would probably be good motivation to get me drawing again, so if anyone out there would like to make a request or propose a trade, drop me a note (or comment here)!

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Upcoming Activity

Art requests:

To-Do list:
1. Art request - Status: 15%
2. Post Cruz'In photos
3. Some sort of random drawing, to practice a new pose, proportion and perspective...
4. Super Crazy Lemur Thing poster
5. Something digital

Time for my (not so) monthly dA Journal Update!

I was able to head back to Michigan for family birthdays, and also for Cruz'In, a great annual car show in my hometown. Biggest thing that happens there all year! And a pretty big event as far as West Michigan goes, as well. I took several photos, but the light wasn't very good, so they didn't turn out super well. I'll do my best to fix them up, and if they seem dA-worthy post-tweaking, I'll post them soon.

Still 2/3rds of the way done on that same drawing (fan art) I mentioned last month. I bought a proper wrist brace and have been taking steps to reduce the stress on my drawing arm/wrist/hand lately, so I hope to finish that up (or at least make progress!) this weekend while I have some free time. Edit: Finally done!

I also got my first art request ever this week, from ! She's a fellow Naruto fan, so I'll be attempting to do her OC justice, and maybe throw in a little Kakashi. Wish me luck!

Art requests would probably be good motivation to get me drawing again, so if anyone out there would like to make a request or propose a trade, drop me a note (or comment here)!

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Upcoming Activity

Art requests: ~mimikayuko:

To-Do list:
1. Finish fan art in progress
2. Super Crazy Lemur Thing poster
3. Post Cruz'In photos