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Muinamir

míri corco

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this is to remind me:

  • Feb 25, 2009
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...that I will probably be making two bead curtains: one will use the earth color beads, the other will use the blue ones. The blue will not work with my future bedroom color scheme, which will be mostly yellows and greens.

I will also be making a trellis on wheels for my passionflower vine, to be purchased later.

There will be a gauze canopy or curtain for the bed that will be embellished. I think that's best paired with a heavier fabric in dark moss. At the head of the bed, maybe some kind of decoration on the wall. And something above the window.

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god damn.

  • Feb 1, 2009
  • 2 comments

I find I just don't like coming here to post anymore because I've always been more comfy with Blogger's layout. Am humoring a move back to Blogger, since most people I know are blogging either on Blogger or LJ. But right now the physical move takes precedence over the virtual one.

This is not really any kind of update, more of a personal memo. I've just been browsing the kinds of plants I like and I realized that if I ever have enough room to grow non-food things, I'd like to grow Salix koriyanagi 'Rubykins" and S. exigua for basketry. I wonder if mushrooms would tolerate a straw medium held in willow baskets? Also, blue lotus, madake bamboo, and if I'm feeling especially ambitious, Boswellia sacra. If I ever have room for a greenhouse, my ambitions become more disturbing still... keffir lime, long pepper, mimosa, cacao, pitcher plants...

ETA: oh yeah, and papyrus, natch.

ETAA: I'm going to enter a beading contest this year. *sigh* always something else...

2 comments

plans for '09

  • Dec 27, 2008
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I'm supposed to be practicing for the audition, or cleaning. Bleh. Here's a sneak peek at something I hope to be working on early next year.

Inro-rough
Inro-rough
Bryce 5 isn't playing so nice with Vista (no surprises, really) so this was done hurriedly with the cloud pattern drawn in Photoshop. Usually I just sketch with pencil and paper, but I was having a hard time visualizing how the silver would work with the color of the wood.

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Night of The Living Dead Before Christmas

  • Dec 24, 2008
  • 1 comment

Zombiesplode! My guest comic for Hijinks Ensue is now live. I thought I'd post a bit about what went into making this, warts and all:

Pencil-char
Pencil-char


I had a flash of inspiration immediately after Joel asked me to do a guest comic, one that involved a three-page story about the whole HE gang (Denise included, to make a team of four) fighting off a horde of L4D zombies to a full-length zombified parody of "The Night Before Christmas" and almost escaping by helicopter as dawn breaks... then Joel wakes up and realizes it was all a dream... except that Josh has respawned in the closet and no one lets him out. I'm kind of glad that idea got rejected, because I'm pretty sure I would have gone insane trying to draw it. (Overenthusiastic fangirl, much?)

Pencil-zombie
Pencil-zombie
My usual modus operandi is to pencil by hand, ink by hand, scan the inks and then color in Photoshop (which is what I did for the JoCo T-shirt). I decided to try inking in Photoshop this time, using the basic pressure-sensitive brush (I have a Graphire 3). It's probably a lot faster with a Cintiq--I like the results but I feel like it took me way longer to ink on the computer than it would have by hand. But then again, scanning hand-drawn inks also involves cleaning up artifacts. Jury's still out on that one.

Ink-char
Ink-char
Below you can see I moved the Infected mob to accomodate the panel size. I did something stupid here: rather than drawing this whole thing in one go on a big piece of paper, after I did thumbnails I drew all of the panels separately and assembled them during the coloring process. Don't do that. Bad things happen. Psychologically, it makes you feel like you have six comics to finish rather than one. I think it was at this point in the week when my Twitter updates started to get kind of incoherent. I totally had large-ass paper I could have drawn on but for some reason I didn't use it. I got around the issue of limits on what would fit in my flatbed scanner when I did the T-shirt by cutting up the drawing and then scanning pieces of it.

Ink-zombie
Ink-zombie
For the panel with the guys sleeping, I did the characters as a separate layer from the background. For all the other panels, I flatted and colored characters and background on the same layer. Flatting was done with the polygonal lasso tool and the paint bucket, and shading and highlights were done with the basic brush tool. I seem to gravitate towards a more hand-drawn, hand-colored look even as I make my (somewhat ungainly) transition into digital cartooning.

Color-char
Color-char
I actually was just going to draw Boomer Santa about to upchuck on Josh's head, but in looking for reference shots of caribou I found one reindeer that had the exact same expression on his face as the reference image for the Smoker...

Color-zombie
Color-zombie

Good times, good times.
1 comment Tags: comics

sesame candy

  • Dec 21, 2008
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Sesame candy
Sesame candy

As something of an apology to some of the people who have had to put up with my deadline crazies this month, I've been making sesame candy. And to make amends to you few dear readers for having fallen off the blogging horse again, I'll also tell you how to make it. If you have a candy thermometer (and if you do not, why in Christendom not?!*), this is a cinch to make, attractive, and delicious. Happy Holidays!

Ingredients

1 c black sesame seed
1 c white sesame seed (I replaced this partly with some pumpkin seed I had)
1 tbs anise seed (optional)

1/2 c honey
1/2 c brown sugar
3 drops vanilla flavoring

butter for pan

Equipment

large skillet
small saucepan
9x9" baking pan
cutting board
candy thermometer

Directions

Grease the baking pan with butter, and set aside. In the skillet, roast all seeds on medium for 5 minutes, or just until aromatic. Set aside.

In saucepan, combine honey, sugar, and vanilla. Either keep the candy thermometer in a cup of warm water, or put it in your saucepan now. While stirring, slowly bring to a boil. Check temperature with candy thermometer. When syrup hits 275 degrees, remove pan from heat and add the sesame seeds, stirring constantly. Turn mixture into the pan. Spread evenly. Let it cool 5 min, then flatten the surface with a spatula.

Let cool an additional 10 min, or until the mix is warm but firm, then use spatula to pop it out of the pan onto the cutting board. With a greased knife, cut into squares (or rectangles, or whatever). Let cool to room temperature.
Place into wax paper or candy cups to serve.

PROTIP: if you misjudge the cooling time for the candy and it gets too hard for you to cut (as I did D:), heat up some water in the skillet and place the baking pan in it to soften the sugar again.


*Earl Grey ftw.


 

Post a comment Tags: food

Delighted ARRRRRR!

  • Nov 10, 2008
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pyrate-hat
pyrate-hat
From Captain Jack's Pirate Hats. I'm wearing the black Barbossa treated with oil and wax, with a black leather hat band and black ostrich feathers. It's a good look, but to save the trimmings during inclement weather I'll have to make some waterproof decorations, maybe a cockade out of synthetic mateiral. I do intend to wear this as my winter hat, when the chill calls for headgear. Hell yes.
Post a comment Tags: pirate

aburanuki

  • Nov 9, 2008
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drying bamboo
drying bamboo

Right before the rainy season started, I cut down some bamboo culms in my backyard with the intent to make flutes and ocarinas once they've had some time to cure. These are not the traditional Madake variety or anything fancy like that; they're very leafy and crooked. Weeds in the garden, really (they snuck under my neighbor's fence two years ago; since then my neighbor has cut down his side of the bunch). But I figure, why the heck not? If I am in any way successful making a few ghetto-ass flutes from scratch I might give it a go with the real deal.

The root ball was a nightmare; I managed to get some roots--the prize of hardcore shakuhachi makers--on only one culm, after half an hour of careful digging. I fired up the barbecue and placed the stems over the glowing coals to sweat some of the sap out, and wiped it off (somewhat unevenly; it was dark outside when I toasted them and I was having trouble seeing the sap). They turn a very pale green in the heat, and develop a bit of mottling. Now they all hang from my rafters slowly turning a pale golden yellow. We'll see if any of them make it through without cracking.
Post a comment Tags: music, cottage, i have no idea what i'm doing

olive oil from Cost Plus

  • Oct 21, 2008
  • 3 comments

...tastes like nothing. Therefore I am doctoring it with spices to give it something resembling flavor. Lots of cumin, some coriander, fenugreek, garlic cloves, mustard, dried habanero, rosemary and lemon peel. We'll see.

3 comments Tags: food

Meet The Recluse

  • Oct 14, 2008
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MEET THE RECLUSE - ELE
MEET THE RECLUSE - ELE
So this is the version of the song "Meet The Recluse" used in the video. I tried to clean up the most aberrant of my off-key moments, but I wasn't about to Autotune it to hell and back. I think it's best that you know that I suck at singing, so that I have the motivation to practice and get better.
Post a comment Tags: ele

The Recluse and the ELE

  • Oct 12, 2008
  • 2 comments

If you were wondering what all that crazy effort was going into, here is the final product:

The Recluse: Application to the Evil League of Evil



2 comments Tags: ele

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Muinamir

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