A brief Armageddon update - Day 1

A quick update from today, the first day of Armageddon. On silly netbook - everything looks slightly stretched. Hope it's the netbook, not my pictures!

Only sold about $30 of stuff - very slow today, for everyone, but apparently my posters on the Drawfest (DeviantART) stall have been selling well. Also RIGHT BY THE WRESTLING. AARGH. SO LOUD.

Some interesting stalls this year; Dr Who jewellery, art... the creators of Looking For Group and LICD (Lars Sohmer and someone else, i think) had a stall, which WOULD have been very cool six months ago - a month after finding, and two months before getting very tired of - the webcomics. Bought a couple of posters (one from Murk, the awesome guy-painting-rainbow-everything picture, and an artist I don't know, with a realistic donkey-unicorn; left posters on stall overnight so can't look up the signature...)

I was bored and drew one of the other artist's ball jointed dolls. It's called Ophelia, is apparently a vampire, and is both creepy and disproportionate.


I also drew Chell, from Portal, with the Companion Cube on her back, but couldn't remember what the portal gun looked like.


Arkillian's moving to share with other artists on a spare stall tomorrow (they didn't get told to turn up on Friday to get their ticket-stuff, so had no stall today but will have space tomorrow). As we have no space, this is good - I will be left to plot with ThePlanPony (who will then escape back down to Hastings and avoid repercussions).

Was disorganised - don't have any kind of business card, and have two t-shirts from Redbubble to sell (which are attracting attention = good) but hadn't considered taking orders. Also should have ordered more common sizes. Did get to wear my YinYang one though and feel arty :D

Also saw Bria Silivren in her shiny black armour of -50 movement penalty, at the 501st/Rebel Legion (Star Wars costuming group/s) stand. (Okay, Fem TIE pilot costume).



And drew a friend who couldn't make it and cut it out and stuck it everywhere and photographed it. I doubt I'm allowed to put that up. Even though my drawing doesn't really look anything like them cause I was drawing at an angle (...and then sat up and looked at it straight on and went "oh.....piffle").


Also TPPony bought a Firefly print off Jason Palmer, who Bria has been telling me lots about. So I said 'Hi my friend knows you and keeps showing you the art she bought" and he knew who I was talking about, and so did not go "ARGH ANOTHER PERSON TRYING TO SUCK OUT MY TALENT BY SHAKING MY HAND" and instead politely shook my hand and said hello in a friendly way. And I sucked out his talent. mwahaha.

The post for Day two is here

Armageddon Convention Incoming -Time To Panic and Run Around With Billboards

The 2010 Auckland Armageddon Scifi Convention is coming - in fact, it's in two days. And it's time to turn into an Artist again.

It's something I do have to do, because when someone's looking at my prints, I can't be the 'Biology student reading the journal articles for next week' or the 'librarian on holiday and so entitled to pretend I can't see you'. And while I can be 'the person who writes crazy things online' I can't just handily link to whatever I'm referring to - ArtRage is usually the main culprit here, trying to explain how I painted my paintings and why they must go and download it and buy a graphics tablet immediately (actually, I need a new one. Mine is rather old and worn and I got it secondhand).


And I can try and explain, to people I'm trying to lure online (usually onto Squidoo) that I write about things that people might be interested in, and the site pays me because I bring them visitors and ad revenue - and they get paid by the ad companies. And that I can link to certain companies who have programs set up to encourage people to link to them by offering commissions on sales. Or that I upload my artwork to sites who do the printing only when someone orders it and takes a cut of the profits to handle that. (Just had to explain to my mother about what a purple star on Squidoo was - see last bit of previous entry - and how I could magically know what search terms people are using to find her page. She's smart so I don't need to repeat much ^_^ But it's a new language to her).

And that is how I am used to making money - which is why people coming to my actual, physical stall is both blase (in that I am already accustomed to what people look at and for) and extremely exhilirating (they are looking at MY art! MINE!) and terrifying (OMG I have to talk to them. And if I ignore them they'll leave. Or if I look at them they'll be creeped out and so will I! I have gotten into awesome conversations and I love answering questions and helping people, but I hate starting the conversation, and don't usually know how. Plus people don't realise I am joking on 80% of first encounters, which leads to trauma, which makes them less likely to buy my pictures :D )

See? Pictures >>> I made a calendar!

A Fantasy Calendar by Flynn_the_Cat
See more Fantasy Calendars

Normally I tell people I am a librarian. An equally skilled and misunderstood job [today I issued 80+ laptops, showed someone that the computer volume was muted and the headphones weren't broken, looked up various books for which they only knew the vaguest of titles, quickly and easily pulled several obscure search results out of thin air and resisted the urge to say 'acracadabra' (or 'Avada Kedavra' in certain cases >.> ),  issued lots of headphones, showed someone how to save to a USB, showed someone how to add another powerpoint slide, showed someone how to attach a document to their email, and typed up a spreadsheet for my manager and discovered how to make a tick symbol in Excel ('a' in the Martell font)].

But for three days, I have to be the Artist. I always AM the Artist, it's part of me - an undercurrent lurking to swamp unsuspecting commentators - but now I have to be the Professional Artist. And not sneak any Discworld books into the con to read under the table. At least I have lots of prints and posters and stickers. I hope I have less at the other end D:

And this post wasn't really about Armageddon at all. MWAHAHAHAHA.

Nevermore To Carve A Pumpkin, Nevermore, My Sweet Lenore

A tale of being pumpkinless for Halloween, Edgar Allan Poe costumes and Purple Stars.

I grew up in England, and at least a couple of times before I was ten and moved way to New Zealand, we got to hack up lovely orange pumpkins and scoop out the insides and learn about the goblins and witches and bogles that they were meant to keep away on Hallow's Eve, as they all danced around in a last fling before All Hallow's Day when no evil creature could venture forth.

And then we moved to NZ, and the pumpkins were pale green things that took over the entire garden and were weeds, that sprouted giant gourds in the grass at the wrong time of year. Also, I dislike pumpkin, so have no interest in figuring out the exact shade of pale green that indicates ripeness. Suffice to say, there are no pumpkins to be found in October.

This has been a source of silent, simmering, regret, slowly burning away, fanned into active jealousy over the years as  was exposed to the internet and could no longer ignore the fact that people on the other side of the world were carving up pumpkins for Halloween. Big, orange, toothy, inventive pumpkins. Orange pumpkins. And putting candles inside them to make flickering, glowing lanterns.

So I channeled all this anguish and annoyance into - no, not a sulking fit - something actually practical and... uh, sensible. Yes, staying up until 5am on the night before work is sensible. If you do it right. Which, obviously, I did. Obviously. And made a page about all the ways you can carve pumpkins without actually having a pumpkin (and Jedi mind tricks don't feature... although I may now have to add them).

And in the process of writing that page I discovered - they make fake foam pumpkins. They actually look realistic (the name is cringeworthy though - Funkins? seriously?)

And preceding that, I saw a post on GeeksAreSexy about obscure, geeky, cosplays and had to rave a bit about making the Edgar Allan Poe costume. Because it has a RAVEN *dodges rotten tomato pixels*

And I found the greatest EAP cosplay ever. A Zombie Edgar Allan Poe.

The claws are made from quarter inch aluminum, leather, steel springs, and brass hardware.
Modeling, makeup, wardrobe, photo editing by Danny;
Jabot: Laura Vaughn

Photographer: Allen Peterson

But seriously, ravens are awesome. They tell stories and are smart birds and live for years, and if they ever leave the Tower of London then Doom Shall Befall. There was a great little side story (okay, it was morbid, but that's par for the course) from Cain and Abel in the Sandman graphic novels. and now I want a little Raven Finger Puppet that I can pull out and go "Nevermore" at people with.


"Are there any more laptops?" 

"Nevermore..."

"How long are you open til?" 

"Nevermore...."

And in completely random news, the page I put together for my mother got awarded a purple star on Squidoo! it's about her visit to Barcelona and has lots of photos of Antoni Gaudi's buildings, such as the (I was forced to agree after the three hour slideshow - he is the greatest architect in recent history. And so I attempt to inflict him on others...)

Antoni Gaudi's Architecture: The Treasures of Barcelona

Blog Redesigning

You may or may not notice, or care (I ... have no idea who visits this blog, or for that matter, if any of them are repeat visitors. I know I GET visitors, but I don't know if you, reading this, have any idea what the blog looked like last week) but I've been tweaking the blog colours and layout and stuff.

Sadly, my artistic rule of dramatic cool doesn't always translate into what is actually readable. Black and orange = bad. Guess I should change the header, too...

Buffy and Angel's Claddagh Rings

I was tidying up the Buffy T-Shirts page (and adding more props) when I stumbled over the Claddagh ring again. Discovering how poor the quality of the relicas apparently is, and finding that there were many perfectly good version, that simply didn't have 'Buffy' in the title, I had to make a page. And here it is.

Buffy and Angel's Claddagh Rings

In the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel gives Buffy a ring, as a symbol of his love. That ring was a Claddagh ring - an old Irish wedding ring that is very popularly worn today between couples. Angel already had one of his own, a remnant of his Irish heritage.

Oooh, time for a 'related pages' link dump. (actually, more seriously, I didn't realise how MANY Joss Whedon pages I'd written and I need to sort out my new niche a little :D ) 
...meanwhile, my cat is warbling at me for attention and is sneakily oozing off her blanket and onto my actual quilt. Because she likes killing me with sneezing.

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