Right Brain Itchiness

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FINISHED. Decided to do away with the scratches, since his face is just too damn calm to be that disheveled. I'm quite proud of how it turned out, considering it's only my seventh digital painting total, but I'm also sick to death of it. Think I'm going to stay away from digital for a few days...

I may just make this deadline.
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This is what I've been working on in my spare time for the last two days. It's not quite done; the skin tones on the arms need to be refined and the background trees are still very blobby. Still, I'm quite pleased with it so far. Crap, and I need to add the bloody scratches...

I've also gotten a lot of writing done. This is why I love weekends. I may clean up an excerpt and post it later tonight. May.

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Oh watercolor, how I've missed you. Boo on the uneven arms, though.

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This is a study for a larger, more in-depth piece I'm planning. I'm going to paint a watercolor and then a digital version of it for shits and giggles. I'm curious to compare them and see the differences.

Today's speedpaint (one hour):
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In book-related news, I've been reading a lot of Shirley Jackson. The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, etc. I'm not sure how it will affect my writing, if at all, but I do adore her killer characterizations and strong sense of atmosphere. She made a freakin' house convincingly evil. Enough said.

Blargh, I got maybe two hours of sleep last night thanks to WINDS FROM HELL. The sound of wind howling is fantastically atmospheric until you actually try to go to sleep. Then it's just frickin' annoying.

Also, I seemed to have lost weight instead of gained any from the multiple Thanksgiving feasts. Probably because I got pegged as the designated driver so I couldn't drink. Still, I'm surprised; usually holiday stress revs up my nasty binge habit (which apparently has not been officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as an eating disorder; my brain and body says otherwise, you dinks). Family tension and lots of food. Not much more is generally needed.

Yet there sits a big a bowl of gingerbread trifle in the fridge, untouched. I'm just not interested in it. Weird.

Happy turkey day to all who are celebrating it! We're currently watching Die Hard and listening to my mother translate what the German thugs are muttering to each other. My god does Alan Rickman look good in a suit.

1) I bought In Utero over the weekend and have been listening to it constantly. Without a doubt, it's become one of my favorite albums alongside Emperor's Anthems..., Akercocke's Words that Go... and Ulver's Perdition City. There's just such a great raw, brooding energy to it. Mmm.

2) I'm quickly growing to love digital painting. Like watercolor, I can paint large areas in a short amount of time and then fuss over details as much as I want. I'm still using OpenCanvas, mostly because I enjoy the simplicity. I think once I want to move into using textures, I'll turn to GIMP. Right now I don't even bother using different layers; I'm not worried about making and fixing mistakes. After years of painting watercolors that threaten to go belly-up at any moment, I guess I've learned to take it in stride.

3) Thanksgiving is almost here. Nrrgh.

4) I'm at 20K with Gemini City! All right, so if I'd kept up with NaNo it'd be nearly 50K. BUT, instead of 50K of churned-out crap, it's 20K of decent writing. I think that's a fair exchange. Anyway, there's still much to write -- I'm estimating 90K total for the first draft -- but there's something about leaving the "teen" range that always makes me feel a little giddy.

An hour's worth of fur:



I've never actually painted fur in watercolor, so I can't compare the two. All I can say is that even with a forgiving medium like digital painting, it's intense.

That's how I feel so far with digital painting, because I'm getting better results when I go from darker values to lighter. Watercolor's just the opposite.

Anyway, here's the attempt from yesterday:

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I'm dipping my toes into digital art. I've avoided it so far because I'm more of a tactile person; I like the feeling of splattering paint across my shoes and graphite smearing across my hand, you know? Still, I already have the tools -- my laptop's a tablet PC, and there are a few free programs I've been eyeing (GIMP and openCanvas to name a few). Now that I'm comfortable with my watercolor artwork, I think it'll be good to learn a new medium. It's difficult to be stagnant when you're going, "Layers? What? Opacity? Guhhh."

After the disappointment of Shiver, I'm curling up around China Mieville's The Scar, with Jeffrey Fords' The Physiognomy next in line. I suppose what I love so much about the New Weird is the cultural complexity of the worldbuilding and the often cynical character relationships. Nothing is easily resolved, and morality is a muddled matter. It's fantasy rotting from syphilis.

On a final note, many of the novels on this list sound very interesting; Redemption in Indigo sounds like it could be awesome in a Margo Lanagan/Angela Carter way, and you know a concept like The Loving Dead is enough to make my twisted little mind go squee. And of course Mieville's latest and the werewolf anthology.

I've made a goal for Gemini City: have the first draft finished by mid-December. Then I'll let it stew for the rest of the month before starting the second draft in January. It'll be a fitting way to start the new year, no?

In other news: the Twilight media frenzy is driving me fucking batty. I don't like things getting shoved down my throat even when I agree with the idea or concept. For example, I can't read most of Mercedes Lackey's work because she beats readers over the head with the "IT'S OKAY TO BE GAY" theme. I totally agree, Ms. Lackey, just please -- I'm starting to bleed from one ear.

But Twilight, the series that makes my hackles rise with its portrayal of abusive stalkers as perfect boyfriends and anti-feminist ideals hidden under layers of fluff... Twilight offends me just by its very existence. If you enjoy it, whatever, it's not as if I'll think less of you. Different strokes for different folks and all that. But mention Twilight to me and I'll get a crazy gleam in my eyes. Give me a few more days and I'm sure my head will start spinning.

I hate it when a book I've been looking forward to ends up disappointing. When I heard about Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, my first thought was, "Damn. Sounds a lot like that werewolf story I've been sitting on for two years because it's never quite clicked together. Maybe I'll get some inspiration from this book!"

Then I picked it up from the library today and began reading it. It reeks of Twilight. Girl with distant parents becomes object of obsession by supernatural boy, true love ensues, etc. Why did I think this sounded similar to what I wrote? Oh yeah, because the media blurbs emphasized the WEREWOLF aspect. Unfortunately, Stiefvater doesn't even make up for the derivative plot with good writing. I can forgive a lot if the prose seduces me. Reading Shiver is like your leg getting humped by a chihuahua.

I wanted it to be good, I really did; frankly, I'm sick of reading bad books. And it contained werewolves! So much symbolic potential just begging to be explored! Such a bummer.

I don't get it, guys. I seriously don't. I mean, different strokes for different folks and all, but every time I see a photo of him, I shudder.

For as long as I've been using the Internet, you'd think I'd stop being startled at a single word like "feet" returning a breathtaking amount of fetish porn. I just want a reference photo of feet, Internet. Preferably one without a guy's Captain Howdy saluting me. Is that too much to ask? IS IT?

Most of my allotted writing time today was spent on a conversation between two characters, a brother and sister. There's a lot of shared history between them, and I'm mulling over what to imply and what to bring to light. Obviously the pieces that are important to the plot should be given the most focus, but I also like to hint at a character's history to provide a better sense of what makes them tick. It's moments like these, when I'm cackling with glee at all the options to explore (How he got that scar on his face? How her short temper has gotten her into trouble before?), that I realize I'm probably suffering from some form of insanity.

So I bike a lot. It's my main mode of transportation, and I go anywhere from three to nine miles a day, every day. That's a lot of work for a bike that's, frankly, a piece of shit. I got it at Walmart for $100. Enough said. Unsurprisingly, it's constantly breaking down and fucking up.

The other day I finally tallied how much I've spent keeping my bike up and running, and realized that I'd save money by buying a good bike that won't fall apart whenever you breathe on it. ( So I did. )

In other news, I finished Dark Secrets by Elizabeth Chandler. It was much better than I thought it'd be, with three-dimensional characters and a heroine that actually thinks for herself. Shocking, I know.

Boys Beware, a clip from a 1950s "educational" video comparing homosexuality to smallpox. It's the music that really does it for me. Well, that and phrases like, "One never knows when a homosexual is about".

To quote Neo, "Whoa." I wrote 1,784 words today after bitching about falling behind with NaNo yesterday. The writing gods must love irony. Despite the busy-ass day, every time I put a pen to paper the chapter just flowed. Sometimes I'm amazed at how badly this story wants to be written.

Anyway, an excerpt! Feel free to point and laugh.

( People are always dying in my novels. This one is no exception. )

I'm still on a reading rampage. Today it's Mrs. Dalloway. I'm not going through it as fast as The City of Ember or The Lovely Bones, since its stream of consciousness style needs to be savored. I'll save my thoughts on it for when I'm finished.

In writing-related news, don't mention NaNo to me. I'm currently editing what I wrote in the first few days and growling under my breath. I can do quality or quantity, but not both, apparently.

Also, a few story ideas have crossed my mind. Well, they're not strong enough to be ideas. Concepts, more like. One was inspired by the phrase "eat your heart out". The other involves marrying the dead and looking after their needs. There's definitely a short story in there somewhere; I may play around with it tomorrow.