Rebecca's LJournal

Got it.

2008-05-06T16:24:38Z

I've got "The Host" and a ticket to Stephenie Meyer's Houston booksigning event on Friday.

mwahhahahhah. :)

Avatar: The Boiling Rock part 2

2008-04-27T05:12:31Z

Avatar: The Boiling Rock part 2 -- fangirl SPASM!!!!

OmGOMGOMG.

(dvd is out, therefore torrents are out. Search for it.)

AND SPOILERspoilerspoiler

I adore Mai.

But Zuko/Mai was just so darn UNHEALTHY before.
But now..........
I may be converted.

My inner Zutara is saddened, but....
OOOoooooOOOH!!!!

Other reactions: awesome episodes. Using a cast you would never expect. It rocked.
And Avatar is so wonderfully chalk full of AWESOME female characters. I LOVE that.

SQUEE!

Twi-hard Twilighter (+art)

2008-04-16T06:24:07Z

Edward is a vampire who "falls in love with a mortal and destroys both of their lives, in a romantic and loving way."
--Robert Pattinson, in a recently-released AP interview and video: here

Haahaha! Total glee. Thank you for that, Robert.

I'm currently caught in the grips of Twilight obsession, and for my daily fix I have these sites in a quick-loading Firefox bookmark folder:

http://www.twilightlexiconblog.com/
http://www.bellaandedward.com/
http://community.livejournal.com/lion_lamb/
http://twilightmomsforums.unrealblogs.com/
http://hisgoldeneyes.com/

I'm pretty sure that not much slips by me in the world of Twi-movie news. *is dork*

And my opinion? I had some concerns earlier, but everything I've seen so far just gets me more and more excited. I think (and hope and pray) that this movie is going to be wonderful.

And I ADORE Robert Pattinson as Edward. I've always had a hard time picturing Edward (one reason I tried to draw him), but when they announced Rob's casting, it was a sudden snap of "YES THAT IS IT!!"

Twilight fanart!!

A Twilight Meme, done slowly and with love. Full of SPOILERS.

Twilight Meme by ~purplerebecca on deviantART

Edward Cullen and Light Yagami face off. Because it needed to be done. XD

Light Edward by ~purplerebecca on deviantART

PE exchange pics:
PE Rd. 62 - Culture Shock's Alec & Brooke for Reed Hawker

PE Blind Lighting Round: Talina for Bleupencil

PE: Talina for Bleupencil by ~purplerebecca on deviantART

My coppermine gallery isn't letting me upload right now, so half of these are only available on Deviantart atm. I can't figure out how to fix the gallery and it is bugging me greatly. :(

Deviantart has catagory folders now, so all my Twilight fanart can be found there easily: http://purplerebecca.deviantart.com/gallery/#Twilight

Artness

2008-02-20T19:49:12Z

Posted on DA and my website but not here in the last few months:

Dehj for FeralGrinn and the PE Rd. 60, Dec. 2007. Merry Christmas. ;)

Dev Stock Reffed Sketches 5

DevStock Reffed Sketches 6

Eris/Winter for Amy/phoenixelement, for the PE Bad Girls lighting round.

Dogwood planning sketches
OCs abound

Magazine Sketches 07

Sketches-Does

Noein: Karasu Sketches

Random Sketch Compilation 07
kinda ugly, but, meh.

Dogwood Blossoms: Character Outline

2008-01-29T05:43:17Z

I've had a few people ask for a character breakdown for Dogwood Blossoms. I will continue to update this outline as characters are revealed in the comic. I'll also put here the little background stories about Sesshoumaru's children that don't fit in the comic narrative.

This outline is a supplement to the comic and therefore contains SPOILERS. It's best if you read the comic and then read this for a few more fun details. :)

The Wives and Children of Seiken Sesshoumaru
from Dogwood Blossoms, by Purplerebecca

1st Incarnation - Rin
1540 - 1628 A.D.
Born Rin in rural Japan, has 3 hanyou children.

-1st Daughter, Tsukiko [Moonchild] - Serene and elegant, and much like her father.

With Tsukiko's features being almost full youkai, Sesshoumaru was able to arrange a very prosperous marriage for her with an inuyoukai clan to the North. It wasn't until her brother Koichi visited her in her new home that it was revealed that she was being scorned and mistreated by her new family and abused by her husband. Koichi and Sesshoumaru came in power to take her out of her miserable situation, and in the ensuing battle, her husband and much of his clan were destroyed. Tsukiko returned to her father's house with her small son, and served as female head of the household whenever Sesshoumaru was without a wife.
Because of Tsukiko's negative experience, Sesshoumaru was thereafter extremely careful and often reluctant when arranging marriages for his children.

-1st Son, Koichi [Shining First Son] - Sesshoumaru's dutiful first son.

Koichi took his heirship seriously and was Sesshoumaru's second his entire life. He accepted an arranged marriage with a full inuyoukai lady from Sesshoumaru's mother's clan, and his eldest son, Kenji [Intelligent Ruler], is Sesshoumaru's official heir to leadership of the Seiken clan.
Eventually, Koichi's wife chafed from being second lady to Sesshoumaru's wives and daughters, and left to set up her own household.

- 2nd Daughter, Inuhana [Dogflower] - Frisky little puppy.

Inuhana was Sesshoumaru's first wild child. She spent her life flitting between her father's home and running in the wild having adventures. She always chose her own mates--at various times she had puppies with a powerful mountain dog, and later had a serious fling with an oni (much to her family's chagrin).

2nd Incarnation - Suzu
1648 - 1738 A.D.
Born Suzu [Bell] in rural Japan, she has 4 hanyou children.

That's it for now!

Dogwood Blossoms, Chapter 2, p.17-23

2008-01-28T21:11:16Z

Pink!

Dogwood Blossoms, Chapter 2, p.17-23

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Stats: Patterns made by myself or from masterjinn, and ALP-Stock. Aging textures I cobbled from all over.

Dogwood Blossoms
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Acknowledgments and Disclaimer: Inuyasha-tachi belong to Takahashi Rumiko and everyone she has sold them to. This is a mostly nonprofit fan work that I’m doing for fun and progression.
---

I hope you enjoyed the story of Suzu! Chapter 3 will be about the family occupation (or preoccupation, as it were) -- weapons.

ZUKO!!

2007-12-01T05:04:58Z

Avatar: Day of Black Sun ----

ZUKO!!!! YES!!!!!@!!!@!!!!

*runs around, whooping*

WHOOOHOOOOO!

Orginal Art/ Buy Handmade!

2007-11-29T05:16:23Z

My local town has an Art League, which is mostly little old ladies doing still-lifes and landscapes, and they have a Christmas Gallery every year to sell their work. I managed to find it today, and there were the expected landscapes, etc, and also unexpectedly there was some quite good stuff, which is always cool to find. Even more unexpectedly, in a "bargain bin" of loose, unmounted watercolors, there was this gorgeous watercolor of a diamond-paned window with flowers and shrubbery. Really, quite lovely, and marked only for $2.63.
So I totally bought it. Paid them $6, which was all the cash I had on hand, though it was definitely worth more.

Hee! I got pretty original art!
I don't have much of that, and I definitely should get more. It's very green, though, and doesn't match anything in the house, so likely I'll frame it and give it as a gift some time.

I'm definitely thinking of working on more physical media, sellable art. Broaden my horizons. Things like Bluefooted is doing: fairytale-based, rich and textured and gorgeous.

Things I need to work on: backgrounds, and placing figures in a setting. HARD. SO HARD. Portraits and pin-ups are so much easier. But a fully-compositioned artwork with setting and character is so much more powerful. Yeah.

The little old ladies who were working the Art League gallery today were of the fun, scatter-brained-friendly-artistic type, instead of being the perfectly-coiffed "I and my daughters were all Homecoming Queens" type, which means perhaps I would really enjoy joining them in their painting/arting sessions. XD I totally should try it out.

Speaking of art as gifts, I just discovered Etsy.com: "Buy and Sell All Things Handmade" and it is awesome. I love their "Buy Handmade!!" campaign as well. I'm going to be making/painting several gifts this year.
Merimask has an etsy gallery (those dragon keychains, oooooooh).

I've just finished an awesome scifi series were the author makes a point that in a world where everything is mass-produced cheaply and homogeneously, that the real way to show wealth is to surround ones-self with high-quality handmade items: hand-carved furniture, hand-calligraphed invitations to high-class parties. :} I think that that is AWEsome and totally true. When you can get anything and everything exactly the same all over the country at Walmart, how to you truly one-up the Joneses? Buy and commission handmade items. They can't be copied, reproduced, they're totally original. And expensive, because it is human labor and skill.
(sci-fi series is the ~~Vol~~Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold, and deserves its own post. In a word: LOVE.)

So, yeah, GO HANDMADE!

Oh, Dickens on the Strand, this weekend! And I can't find my bustle-y type skirt! Ack!

Dogwood Blossoms, Chapter 2, p.13-16

2007-11-20T05:33:00Z

A Dogwood update in less than a month! Whoo!

Dogwood Blossoms, Chapter 2, p.13-16

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Stats: Patterns used variously from:
Squidfingers, Inspyretash-stock, and H-Longwood. The background birds were colorized from brush packs from Darkgarden. Tsukiko's calligraphy is random, pretty kanji nouns from Darkgarden's Far Eastern Brush Pack. Aging textures I cobbled from all over. Tsukiko's patterns I made myself in photoshop and illustrator.

Dogwood Blossoms
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Acknowledgments and Disclaimer: Inuyasha-tachi belong to Takahashi Rumiko and everyone she has sold them to. This is a mostly nonprofit fan work that I’m doing for fun and progression.

Life, it happens, some

2007-11-09T02:03:29Z

I went to the Texas Renaissance Festival on Saturday! Yayness.
Though I dislike paying to shop on principle, there is just so much wonderful shopping for me to skip going. And people in costume, which I love. I spent too much, but was pleased with what I got, so that's good.

I scoured the faire for the best face-painter I could find, and I think I found a right fabulous one. I paid for my friend to get her face painted, and then myself, and asked questions of our artist. She was a lovely lady who's been face painting since the 70's, and she was willing to talk. XD

Tips I learned:
She uses tube acrylic paints from Hobby Lobby: they stay on well and peel off with water easily. She uses (hypoallergenic) loose glitter: she dips her finger in water and then into the glitter, and lightly and carefully dabs over the face-paint.

And, I need to practice.

I haven't worked a con in over a year, and I miss it! (I have to work Fridays in the newspaper biz, so I just haven't bothered.)

But I was able to paint kid-faces at our church's Halloween Trunk-or-Treat Festival, and I remembered how much I love it, and how hard it is! The pressure to work fast and get it right the first time, with expectant faces waiting, is, because it is short-lived, exhilarating, rather then stressful.

Oh, I was movie-inspired Bellatrix LeStrange for Halloween! White streaks sprayed into ratted curly hair, lots of black lace, and a cheap wand. XD

Dogwood Blossoms, Chapter 2, p.8-12

2007-10-25T06:30:10Z

Dogwood Blossoms, Chapter 2, p.8-12

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Tsukiko = Moon Child
Inuhana = Dog Flower

Stats: Some fabric patterns are from http://inspyretash-stock.deviantart.com/ and http://12monthsofwinter.deviantart.com/, and several I designed myself. Photoshop for color, Illustrator for bubbles and lettering. Many thanks to the beta group for help and suggestions. :)

Hopefully I can get the next section of pages up before next year, hmm?

Dogwood Blossoms
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Acknowledgments and Disclaimer: Inuyasha-tachi belong to Takahashi Rumiko and everyone she has sold them to. This is a nonprofit fan work that I’m doing mostly for fun.

Art Post

2007-10-25T06:23:39Z

I do live!

Art posted recently (on DA):

The cover for Dogwood Chapter 2 I finally finished:

Next 5 pages coming up in a sec.

Edward Cullen Hates Me.

2007-08-07T05:15:18Z

Stephenie Meyer's "Eclipse", book 3 of the Twilight series, comes out today. XD
In celebration, I set my bum down and actually finished my painterly portrait of Edward I've had on my harddrive for months now.

Edward Cullen Hates Me.

From Chapter 1, 'First Sight', of the first novel, "Twilight".

1280x1024 wallpaper size available to download off deviantart.
photoshop, references from all over the internet, too many hours.

Watercolors I posted earlier but never blogged about:

I've been on a Potter high and been reading Snape fanfic again. Love. Why is it that finding a good romantic fanfiction seems to be so much easier then finding a professionally published romance novel that doesn't irritate the heck out of me?
Am I more tolerate of fanfic because I expect lots of junk before the gold? Or are romance novels really just lots of lust, bad choices, and bad writing? Where am I supposed to get my romantic fix if everything that's supposed to accomplish it is just drivel? Back to the fic I go!

Last night I got a fabulous idea for my next original comic/graphic novel project:
I'm going to take two great concepts that deserve more exploring, one pulled from fanfiction, and another from an obnoxious romance novel I read recently, and put them together into a scifi romance with no supernatural elements. Which means I'll have to actually do research into the physics behind their spacetravel, darnit. But it'll be mostly romance, and it'll be great. XD Look for it in another 10 years or so. :P

HP:DH FanArt Reccs

2007-08-05T00:01:57Z

Harry Potter 7

2007-07-21T20:49:48Z

It was WONDERFUL.

SOOOOOOOO WONDERFUL. And fabulous. And horrible. And fabulously awesome, and I wonder how long it will take me to recover enough that I stop screaming in joy and bursting into tears at odd moments. So good. So joyful and full of amazing moments. I was crying and laughing and whooping, generally at the same time.

So many moments. So many things I had hoped to see but never thought I would. So many I never would have expected. So many things I was curious about but never expected to be addressed. But were. Quite a few things I definitely did NOT want to happen.

I keep bawling. But it was so wonderful.

Thank you, so much, so very much, Joanne K. Rowling, for such a wonderful gift as is the gift of these books, this world, and these characters. And thank you for the philosophies of love, family, and what's really important that runs underneath them, and through them. Thank you.

And now, SPOILERS.

These are my impressions immediately after having read it, and having paced around for and hour or two to calm down. I haven't read anything online, or talked to anybody in real life yet (I really am sequestered at the moment).

By SPOILERS, I do mean SPOILERS!!!!!!

SPOILERS!!

Snape/Lily. Yup! Thought so, not much else would have worked, but I didn't expect it to have gone back that far. She was his chosen love since age 9! WAAAAH! Oh, poor little Sevvy!

Snape vindicated, of course!!! If he had not been, much of everything Rowling had been building on for the whole of the series would have been dashed. Not that I wasn't worried, esp after that completely horrible year at Hogwarts. But I'm so glad to see I was right, and he was working for the side of good. XDDD
But, but, he barely got to do anything!! Gwah! (Besides being headmaster. Which was SO unexpected. But I didn't expect a year of completely open British Death Eater-ship, either. Yeek.) But in the end all he got to do was turn tail, and then beg to get back out there to "find Harry Potter". I was disappointed about his end. :( No chance to betray Voldie in front of his face, only in memory. :( But for Harry to defend Snape in the final battle, straight to Voldemort and in front of everybody, that was beautiful. And little Albus Severus! Wahhh! (I totally want to huggle him.)

People were dropping like flies!!! WAHHH! Tonks and Lupin!! WAAAAAAAHHH! She's killed off all my favorite adult characters. The ones I especially loved for fanfic. ;________;

And Fred! Mad-eye! Dobby!
I was glad that at least T and L went together. But poor George. ;_;

But, Neville pulling the sword out of the hat and killing Negini!!! That was SO COOL!!!
And PERCY!! YAY! He wasn't an insider job like I kindasorta hoped, but YAY away.

And the Ravenclaw Tower! (I would die, riddles for passwords. I'm terrible at riddles. But it was very cool.) And the Grey Lady and the Bloody Baron! The Malfoy Manor! And breaking into Gringotts!! Luna-ness! And Ollivander! So fabulous! So much coolness going around all over.

And the ENTIRE DA!!!!! All the Order! Just showing up! I cheered so hard.

And so much Dumbledore background. Wow, heartwrenching. And GRINDELWALD. Never expected to hear the story. So glad to.
Yup, Harry=Horcrux. Great way to find out what the villain was doing without leaving pov. I liked it. And he was finally valuing Occlumency!

The R/H kiss!!! That was great. And Ron's defeating the locket. And SOMEONE finally thinking of the CoS!! Ron imitating Parseltongue! It was brilliant!

Kreacher! Wow, how far kindness and respect will get you. That was wonderful.
I was so glad Harry didn't actually get the chance to betray the goblin, because that was a horrible plan. And that he didn't choose the Hallows. Of course they were messed up! (Why were they called Hallows anyway? Sacred Items of Death?)

Makani being right about the Malfoys! XD That was cool.

Yay for using Wizarding Fairytales!

I really want to know who got the "unexpected reprieve". And who didn't.

Snape's Patronus, and how he used it. Oh, wowowow. Harry to Lupin about parents leaving their children. wowowowow.

And Harry realizing his similarities to the abandoned boys, Snape and Tom. Wow. (Snape should have realized that, so much eariler, Gah, his blindness to Harry's similarities and his reflected James-hate made me SO MAD in so many of the books. Snape never did anything decent to Harry's face. And thats my biggest pity.)

The VERY END!!! wheeeeeeeee!!!!!
I wanted MORE details. But the very very important ones were there. YAY for the families and the kids!!

So much fabulous stuff!!!!

Okay, I think I'm done for now. I'm going to go watch a completely unrelated Netflix so hopefully I can calm down enough to get some sleep tonight.

See you on the other side.

2007-07-21T05:40:40Z

I am cloistered and sequestered.
I have "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" in my hands.
Yesterday I finished rereading books 5 and 6, and napped.

I will reemerge into the world after I have read the tale that Rowling has wrought.

Then I will put forward my thoughts and scour for the thoughts of others.
And I hope to be as happy with the entirety of Harry's saga as I am with its parts.

I'm very excited.

Twilight: Bella and Edward Watercolor

2007-06-12T01:08:56Z

Been running around all over the last week or so, and before that, dealing with some really obnoxious artist block. This piece hopefully broke it, and if I get some time, maybe I can get some other art out too.

First posted Twilight Fanart:

Bella and Edward
ink, watercolor, and bit of gauche
From Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series, likely the most romantic story written in the last decade. LOVE these two. *_____*

Rissa's Continental Tour

2007-05-28T20:20:01Z

My sister Rissa has been planning a 3 week trip to Europe for a year now. I couldn't go without quitting my job (I want at least a year at this one to rack up some experience), so my mom agreed to go with her.

My sister ordered her passport a month or two ago, but it still hadn't arrived before she had to leave school and came back to Texas. Her flight was scheduled for this last Tuesday. She called and called, and was assured her passport would arrive through the mail before Tuesday. Over the weekend, she was confident it would get here in time. Monday it didn't arrive. She called and they said there was no way it was getting there on Tuesday. My sister bawled in our room and my mom canceled flights and hotel reservations, and they discussed how in the world they were going to get this trip to happen. We watched Heroes and I generally tried to cheer her up from the terrible funk this disappointment had put her in.

Tueday morning, at 8am, a FedEx truck pulled up with Rissa's passport. XD Mom was able to re-setup their flight for that evening, and they packed like mad and were able to get out and go! ^_^

They started in London, saw Wicked on West End, and are in Paris now, seeing the Louvre and Versailles. They'll be going down to Italy in a day or two for some extensive Romanism. Rissa is a Latin major, so she's totally in Old World heaven. They'll go back up to Brussels, Belgium, and stay with my brother Tim and his wife, who are doing some sort church-sponsored job center setup thing all over the Dutch-speaking areas this summer. Ah, my little world travelers.

I'll eventually get myself over to Europe too. I want castles and art museums. Except with a tour, as I'm too lazy to want to plan it all myself. XP

If you are PLANNING TO LEAVE THE USA in the next year or so, please order your passport now, as they are in a tremendous backlog. I have no problems with passports being required for all extra-country travel, oh Government, just be smart enough to hire enough passport people to handle all the citizens who always pop down to Mexico every year and are now required to get a passport! Jeez!

Emo Spidey!!

2007-05-04T05:16:50Z

LOLZ!! Spidey 3 is such FUN!!!

Unexpected friend connections got Sis and I in to see the 9pm employee showing at the movie theater tonight.

Total fun. Emo Parker and a DANCE NUMBER. I was laughing all over.

It looked to be all dark and scary, but they broke it up with cute goof and heartwarming stuff. Tobey just wasn't convincing ~~emo~~ evil at all. Even Venom-boy so enjoyed his conniving mayhem, you can't dislike him.

Highly recommend Spider Man 3! Great fun, great moments, and great action. And the lol emo factor.

Animematsuri

2007-05-03T18:48:14Z

My sister is home! Yay! We've been having Heroes marathons. I'm finally watching it. And it's awesome. (if rather gorey, yeeig!) Hiro Love!

Went to Animematsuri last weekend. Couldn't get off work so I didn't bother with a table, and this is the first con I DIDN'T cosplay for. Shock!

The con had problems: too long lines, half the panels not happening, blah blah blah, but 4 of my prints in the art show sold. XD Friday wasn't even worth going to. So many people, and nothing to do but look at each other and shop. I paid $40 for this?
I think I'm going to start getting a table for Saturday only and doing it that way on these cons. Because I love face painting. :)

I'm totally going to make an Avatar:Princess Ursa/Zuko's Mom cosplay for whatever con I go to next. And for long term planning: I want to do Sesshoumaru's mother from the Inuyasha manga. But that will be an EXPENSIVE costume, so I'm going to take it slow. And maybe commission the wig, or something.

Am I going to end up being "That Guy's Mom" for every cosplay I do from now on? yeeig. Cute ingenue and slinky sex-vixen just don't work with my body, so elegant matron it will have to be. heh.

Art!:

Blonde Fairy

(I would have called it "Green Fairy", but that has connotations that would disappoint any googlers.) ;]

Dipolma, PE Wallpaper

2007-04-23T02:10:50Z

My diploma finally arrived on Thursday. Evidentially there was some $11 fee that I never paid, somewhere, that no one ever told me about and that didn't show up on my financial records because the school paid it, but it still stalled my diploma being sent? Anyways, I paid it a few weeks ago and it finally arrived.

I OFFICIALLY OFFICIALLY have a Bachelor of Arts from Brigham Young University. *sharp nod*

Recent PE exchange:
Wallpaper for Topaz/Tinkerbelcky of Goddesses of Life and Death, Libia and Dauthia, from her comic Kismet.

(I worked quite hard on it, loved the concept, but I don't like the final product, which is bother-all annoying. But here it is. This painting style I tried out just didn't work, or something.)

Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Series: Fangirl

2007-04-11T04:57:00Z

Hope everybody had a lovely Easter!

Last Thursday I went with my best friend Junebug and her sister to see WICKED in Houston.
Oh, so fabulous. XDDDD DeFYing GRAVITY!

After hearing about it all over livej, I picked up a copy of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" last week. I usually avoid anything of the "Teen Vampire Romance" genre (3 novels of Amelia Atwater Rhodes' Mary Sue glorifications having finally pushed me over the edge of disgust with anything with the word 'vampire' in it), but all the fangirling and some very warm recommendations got me curious. After visiting Stephenie Meyer's website and discovering that she is an LDS mom who graduated from BYU (whoohoo!), that she also pays warm and friendly attention to her fanbase, and is a-round adorable and fabulous, I just had to read it.

Bella, awkward, shy, angsty and depressive, is a very sympathetic character midst all the angst and I quite love her. Edward, as I expected, is too perfect, and I wasn't entirely convinced as to why he would fall in love with Bella, (me being one who has lost all credulity when it comes to beings with an almost incontrollable urge eat something ever being able to be sexually or romantically attracted to that thing, and also being one who doesn't find wanting to be eaten a turn on. :} ) We WANT Edward to fall in love with her, however, and he does everything to show that he is in love, so, like with all happy shippy fanfiction, we go with it.

The Cullens rock in general, Alice in particular, and I want more of all of their characters. Twilight is wonderfully written, a fun, enjoyable ride, with many scenes that fill my heart with girly glee. At the end I felt it was great stuff, but not fandom (or fangirl) inducing to myself. I had had plenty of spoiler warnings about the 2nd book from a friend who despises it, so I was going to wait for the library copy to become available before I would read New Moon.

After two days I caved and went out and bought it.

Yep, I've been caught.

Having been so warned and spoiled about most of the plot of New Moon (reading the 3rd book summary teaser spoils one of the major mysteries of book 2), I was able to take its turns in stride and actually enjoy it. It is quite wonderful. After reading through all the online info available about why Stephenie did what she did, I think the major plot weakness of the book was...

...Bella's "hallucinations". I understand what Stephenie was doing, and how she needed to get Bella to be reckless enough to do the cliff thing, to bring about the Romeo and Juliet thing with Edward in Italy (Aro is fabulo, btw), and that she tried to make it clear that even Bella knew the entire time that what she was hearing wasn't real, but this is a FANTASY NOVEL. A fantasy novel where it is already established that Edward, et al, have special powers. And Edward's are mental.

In fantasy novels, "hallucinations" are never just "hallucinations". And you can't expect your audience to accept that it ISN'T really Edward, when we have no good reason to think otherwise. Perhaps if we were also seeing Edward's pov every once in a while, and he definitely wasn't speaking telepathically with Bella, we could accept that she was actually just making it all up in her subconscious. But it's in Bella's pov, and romantic fantasy readers will always know that the "hallucination"/"dream"/"freaky weird magic thing" that the main character doesn't believe in is actually true.

This is the same reason why flowery metaphorical language has to be avoided in fantasy fiction. "His fiery green orbs seared her soul with their passion" can work in a romance novel set in some semblance of the 'real world', but in a fantasy, his eyes very well could be green balls of fire. Writers, don't do that. Don't even try. (Okay, I've read maybe ONE thing where metaphorical language worked in a fantasy novel, and it was brilliant, but it's extremely hard to do well.)

It would have been better if some other device got Bella doing the reckless things, even if it was just her need to feel alive again, which was the the whole root of it anyway. (I LOL ADORE the scene where she watches a zombie movie and realizes which characters she resembles. Total crack up. XDD)

Speaking as a human girl: as beautiful and wonderful as Edward and the Cullens are, being with them happily and comfortably requires being a vampire. And this type of vampirism, with constant resisting and "soymilk and tofu" diet required to be a decent person, is just too much work to be appealing. No, give me JACOB and his yummy werewolf boys ANY DAY. Yum yum, yummity yum.

/end spoilers

So, after reading the first two books everyone, head over to Stephenie's website and read the 4 fabulous chapters she has up from other characters' pov's, including 2 in Edward's point of view. They are WONDERFUL and make everything that mysterious pretty boy does make so much more sense. Generally I wouldn't go for it, but I'm really looking forward to reading her version of Twilight in Edward's pov, Midnight Sun. He's hard to understand, and just chapter 1 made everything click just so much more.

ANYways. Yup, I'm a total fangirl. I happily await everything you write in the future, Stephenie! ^__^

I have this painting of Edward IN my HEAD that I've been trying to get out and it's not coming. GWAH!!!

Birthday! Goals and Accomplishments

2007-03-21T04:25:53Z

I'm 27 today! Gulp.
Happy Birthday to me!

Since I didn't post one on the new year:

Accomplishments of my 26th year:
-- Graduated from College! Got my BA in Visual Arts from Brigham Young University, with a Minor in Music. (Course, I still haven't received my diploma. I need to start bugging people.)

-- Worked a job all year that required getting up at 4:13am, a 20-40 min commute to and from in Houston traffic, and a 6 week block of 12 hours a day, 7 days a week overtime.

-- Purchased (at end of 25) and paid off a car.

-- Purchased my first me-only-mine computer.

-- Stepped foot out of the United States. It was only 5 blocks into Mexico, but, hey! it was outside the US!

-- Got my first art related and real job designing advertisements for the local paper. Yay!

-- Started off strong on a fancomic that will be skill enhancing and a whole lot of fun.

My nonaccomplishments were gaining weight, a several-month-long art block and minor depression, missing most of the anime cons I wanted to work at, and reading a whole heckalot of fanfiction and novels (fun, if not always healthy).

Goals for my 27th:

-- Work my graphic design job and get (really) good at it.

-- Lose weight and exercise. (the Ever-goal)

-- Continue fancomic, get good at it and FASTER. Start on my Purple comic again.

-- Begin my journey in learning to PAINT. To really paint. Digitally, or whatever, I aspire to be able to paint like the masters. It's gonna take a lot of work.

-- Develop my voice more, put together and actually perform the Recital my friend Junebug and I have been planning for several months now. (I = soprano, she = alto, it will rock.)

-- I'd like to get into a serious relationship with a guy. A man. Really. I've never done that before, and I have always wanted to. :P Yes, internets, I have never even been kissed.
(I've held a guy's hand! But I was only humoring him on a date, and I wasn't really interested. geh.)

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Reccommend something shoujo to me, please! I have a great desire to watch something cute, pretty, girly, and romantic, most likely aimed at the 11 to 15 crowd. Magical girl very welcome.
I've already watched PGSM, Fancy Lala, Yes!Pretty Cure 5, Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne, Full Moon wo Sagashite, Petite Princess Yucie, Venus verses Virus, and of course, Princess Tutu recently enough, and I'm sure there are others I've forgotten. Anything else running out there?

Haku Mask, Thunder

2007-03-16T04:19:53Z

This is totally not to make anybody jealous, but, WHEEEEEE!

It arrived yesterday.

Merimask made this Kohaku mask for me. Happy BIRTHDAY to me! More pics in her entry for it here.

A few weeks ago, Merimask asked me if I wanted to barter: a painting by me of Sesshoumaru for one of her leather masks. She makes the most gorgeous masks.
I said "HECK YEAH!" and before I could start on my half, she'd finished this beautiful mask and sent it to me. ^__^

I finished the painting today, hopefully I can manage to scan it tomorrow. It's bigger then the scanner.

(For the curious, that's my bedroom wall, and the prints are paintings by Kinuko Craft, Mucha, and Waterhouse. :)
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The pretty Kohaku on my wall inspired me to finish one of my fanart100 pieces I've had sitting on my harddrive waiting to be colored for over a year.

Thunder.

You would think it would be easy to find reference pics of people with under-lit faces, and of models striding forward. But when you try to search for them, they're almost impossible to find! Gwah! I must be using the wrong search words.

I found some, but it took longer then I wanted. XP

Dogwood Blossoms: Ch2, p1-7

2007-03-10T23:12:48Z

This update took MUCH longer than I wanted, mostly because I couldn't resist the pretty and so colored the entire thing. All kimono patterns where created by me in Illustrator. Mwah.

Dogwood Blossoms, Chapter 2, p.1-7
Sesshoumaru, circa approximately 1663 AD.
Minor gore and dismemberment warning. I think y'all can handle it.

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~~Ch2 cover coming, I figured it could wait.~~

Yamaboushi is the Kousa Dogwood, a Japanese dogwood variant with pointy petals.

Stats: Inked by hand and photoshop; balloons, boxes, text, and kimono patterns done in Illustrator; aging textures a mixture of mayang stock, googled images, and lots of tweaking; all other colors and textures done by me in photoshop over too many hours. Many thanks to the beta group for help and suggestions. :)

Dogwood Blossoms
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Acknowledgments and Disclaimer: Inuyasha-tachi belong to Takahashi Rumiko and everyone she has sold them to. This is a nonprofit fan work that I’m doing mostly for fun.