Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata..

Guys, it's SUPER WEIRD being in a fandom where the primary medium is visual. I've never been great at finding a person's likeness in my art, but at least it was easy enough in HP to just say "hey, that's what I think Snape looks like in the books!" That isn't the case for Once. If I can't make my people look at least a little like the actors, nobody's going to know who they are.

So I've been sketching from IMDB photos and chloris's truly magnificent episode picspam, trying to get a feel for the faces I'm going to be distilling into my style as time goes on.

I'm not fully satisfied with any of these, but I can tell I'm getting a little more familiar with them.

Title: Test sketch #1 - Belle
Artist: twilightsorcery
Characters: Belle
Rating: G
Artist's notes: My first try turned out way too generic. She looks pretty, but not in a very Belle-ish way. I like the hair, though!



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Title: Test sketch #2 - Belle
Artist: twilightsorcery
Characters: Belle
Rating: G
Artist's notes: The second try looks like Belle, hurray! The lines aren't strong enough to be a good template for my lineart, but it's a start.



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Title: Test sketch #3 - Lacey
Artist: twilightsorcery
Characters: Lacey
Rating: G
Artist's notes: Now for the tricky part -- same face, different character. I think the easiest way to distinguish Lacey from Belle is going to be her hair. This was was a *huge* pain in the butt to get right. I must have erased her mouth ten times and her right eye twenty.



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Title: Test sketch #4 - Gold
Artist: twilightsorcery
Characters: Gold
Rating: G
Artist's notes: And then, every so often, it just comes out beautifully without me even trying. It's probably because Robert Carlyle has the best nose of all time.



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Title: Test sketch #5 - Rumple
Artist: twilightsorcery
Characters: Rumplestiltskin
Rating: G
Artist's notes: So of course, my art mojo decided that was enough, and it was going to take a break. After that breathlessly easy one, I got this, which I still hate (it's the teeth; blargh). Clearly I'm going to need some practice to get Rumple looking like himself.



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Back to the drawing board (sketchbook, whatever!) with me! Sooner or later I'll nail down how I want them to look, then I'll get to repeat the process with Regina. I've got a nice finished piece all planned out in my head for her, but I've got a little breathing room because I want to do my Can't Take The Sky illustrations first.

Originally posted at dreamwidth.

Title: Revenge, Sweet and Sour
Artist: twilightsorcery
Media: Photoshop
Characters: Pansy/Astoria (implied Draco/Pansy, Draco/Astoria, Pansy/OMC)
Rating: R
Warnings: infidelity, smoking
Artist's notes: This is my terribly, terribly late Kinky Kristmas art for lunalovepotter! The prompt included, among other things, Pansy/Astoria, lingerie, cigarettes, adultery, a sexy/angsty tone, and a hot & heavy encounter at a low-rent hotel room. Despite the fact that this art caused me more trouble than any other piece I've ever done, I'm really happy with the result.
Art preview:



NSFW art at DD -->

Originally posted at dreamwidth.

I have to admit that I came to the con feeling pretty down. I'd planned to room with ragdoll, who couldn't make it due to health problems in her family. (That was a really big blow, because we always room together.) I'd also hoped to get to see a lot of r_grayjoy and its_art, who have always been at the center of my HP con-going experience even when we weren't rooming together, and who *also* couldn't make it. r_grayjoy and ragdoll had been planning a daily_deviant meetup, which was basically abandoned now. I was looking forward to hanging out with someoldcat again and talking about our collab for the snape_black banner, and she ended up not coming either.

And then, of course, there was the general sense of doom hanging over HP fandom in general. Comments have been down everywhere, writers and artists have left for new fandoms, and the con-running groups have dwindled. Wizard rock and cosplay seem to be doing okay, but that's a different set of people -- my part of the fandom... well, it's dying off.

But despite all that, I had a pretty great time! I roomed with islandsmoke, and I got to hang out with tjs_whatnot, gatewaygirl, ravenna_c_tan, alisanne, and dementordelta.

I was in the Snarry Suite every night, which turns out to be a great place to meet and/or find people. I made a new friend! *waves at andreanna* (I met other people, too, but most of the time I forgot to ask for their LJ/IJ/DW names, whoops.)

And of course, I obsessed over Once. It's not the most popular post-HP destination fandom, but there were people who loved it like I do! andreanna even had the EXACT SAME Rumbelle insta-love/fic-consuming-haze experience I did.

I also went to a joint reading to see ravenna_c_tan and ended up hearing Alethea Kontis's reading as well... and then she gave me a gorgeously-signed book and magnets and postcards. So I've been telling everybody how great her book is (so far, I'm only about halfway through yet) and how you should all buy it. :D (And she's also a Once fan!)

Unlike at other cons, I only did one drabble/drawble session, and my drawble was terrible and unfinished. I need more practice.

However! That Kinky Kristmas art I was supposed to get done but couldn't, due to lack of art mojo and time? I banged out the last two panels IN ONE DAY at MistiCon. It was amazing. (It'll get posted on daily_deviant soon -- I'm just waiting to hear back from r_grayjoy about a posting day.)

I didn't bring my camera due to lack of space, but you should take a look at ravenna_c_tan's con reports to see the AMAZING decorations and the incredible show the cosplayers put on. :)

All in all, it was a lovely send-off con. I'm still holding out hope it won't be the last one I go to, but I'm glad to have the memory.

Speaking of fans getting together, I'm thinking I might look into setting up a small meetup in New York along the lines of the Philly fangirl weekend r_grayjoy organized last year. I'm not sure I'm really the best person to organize it, but I would really love to see all of you again.

*hugs for all who want them*

Originally posted at dreamwidth.

I just imported my IJ account to DW, and it was LUDICROUSLY easy. I remember it being a huge pain when I moved from LJ to IJ, but this was so, so simple. It took ~5 min to move an account I've had for nearly ten years.

Seriously, the work the DW open source community is doing is fantastic.

Originally posted at dreamwidth.

Dear Once Fandom,

Please, for the love of god, YOU MUST WARN FOR CANNIBALISM.

Love,

a very squicked out reader who was not expecting that, omg.

Originally posted at dreamwidth.

True fact: I kept FLAILING AT THE SCREEN while watching this episode. I LOVED it. I'm so thrilled they decided to go this direction.

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*flails some more*

*obsessively refreshes AO3 for post-Lacey fic*

Originally posted at dreamwidth.

Point the first: Can we talk about Tamara? I'm so disappointed. We have a black woman on the show, finally! ...and she's all set up to be the villain for the rest of the season. Of course there's going to be massive fandom hate for her, because she's screwing over Bae (and we all love Bae!), while getting in the way of a popular pairing. Bah. Nobody's EVER going to give me Tamara fic now. I'm still holding out some hope that she'll turn into one of the lovely "villain but we totally understand why" characters on this show, but the odds seem small.

Point the second: The next episode is going to be a Rumbelle feature. I've been avoiding spoilers, but I know just enough to be COUNTING THE HOURS till I can watch it. I'm excited to know anything at all about Belle's curse self (other than that the poor woman probably has PTSD by now -- her FTL personality was pretty resilient, but I'm guessing being locked up as a mental patient and taunted is not like being locked up as a political prisoner and taunted).

Point the third: I made icons from screencaps I took while watching "Skin Deep" on Netflix (AGAIN. Did I mention I had a problem?). I was trying to work on some art, but I got distracted by icon-making. Unfortunately, I'm not all that great at it.

( Whatever; here they are:Collapse )

Point the fourth: I've somehow managed to read ALL THE FIC. (By "all the fic", I mean, "all the Rumbelle fic on AO3 with decent grammar".) I'm really hoping this episode spawns some fic, because if I don't get my hands on some more very soon, I will have no choice but to start writing my own -- and I don't know if you guys remember, but I was not very good at it, but I tried really hard and it ate my life. I should really keep myself under control... and maybe start illustrating some of the really good fics I've read instead.

Point the fifth: I'm going to go find some OUAT people and comms to add. Woohoo!

Originally posted at dreamwidth.

A good friend of mine convinced me to watch Once Upon a Time. I hadn't planned on it -- I have enough shows on my plate as it is, and the likelihood of it being good didn't seem very high, based on what I'd seen in the previews -- but he was dying for someone to discuss it with... particularly someone who'd just given him a big pile of Harry/Draco fics to read and who would thus obviously be on board with some pretty boy appreciation.

I watched it with the assumption that it'd be the sort of show I could take or leave -- the shows that really get to me are the ones with complex characters, which seemed unlikely for a bunch of fairy tale characters living in Maine -- and the main benefit would be good times with my friend.

That... is not what happened.

Instead, there was a clever, unpleasant middle-aged man with a lot of barely-contained emotional problems and a redemption story arc.

I am now utterly useless for pretty boy appreciation, because I've discovered a heretofore unknown weakness for weedy, middle-aged Scotsmen with bad teeth.

Back when I first started in fandom, I did nothing but mainline Snape/Hermione fic. These days I'll ship nearly anybody, but at the time, I couldn't go for any other pairing.

The OUAT fandom is much smaller, but guys, in this one the Snape/Hermione is canon. There is SO MUCH of it, and I've been reading it non-stop. I squealed when I realized I could download epubs from AO3 and make it my subway reading. And my every single evening reading. When I'm not re-watching the show.

I HAVE A PROBLEM. PLEASE SEND HELP.

...

OR MORE FIC.

It's so weird how well it matches up. My favorite Snape/Hermione fic of all time is Ordinary People, despite the fact that it's smut-free and pretty far removed from the source material. My favorite Rumbelle fic is Can't Take the Sky, which is also smut-free and wildly removed from the source material. (Also, it's the Firefly-universe-with-different-characters I've always wanted, so there's that.) There are a lot of just-underage fics that I love precisely because they squick me. There are a lot of obvious self-insert and Sue fics that I love anyway, because there's a little Sue-writer in me still. There's an 85-chapter WIP with an unbelievable number of sex scenes that I couldn't put down. There's a BNF who goes sweeter and more vanilla than I like, but whose fic I read anyway. There are writers with terrible grammar whose work I will trudge through anyway because when it comes to chemistry, they deliver.

If the last time around is any indication, there's going to be another 8-9 months of this, and then I'll start slashing him with everybody, making art, and moving on all the delicious femslash possibilities on this show. (Ruby, Mulan, Emma, your time is coming.)

This experience has also made it clear to me why I didn't get that involved when the rest of HP fandom took detours into Supernatural, Star Trek, or Avengers:

1. Not enough ladies.
2. No Snape.

(It also opens the somewhat bemusing possibility that ugly jerks become attractive to me when they're conflicted about it. Well, at least I'm letting that out in fiction instead of crushing on them in real life.)

Is anybody here actually involved in this fandom? There seems to be a younger crowd on Tumblr, but there be dragons (or at least sappy animated gifs and songfic). I don't know if I really *want* to get involved, though. I doubt I have time for more than one fandom, and the thought of leaving HP fandom makes me feel horrid.

Please feel free to tell me "get off the ledge", or "calm down; we all get new show obsessed sometimes", or "God, woman, you think he's hot? What's wrong with you?"

Originally posted at dreamwidth.

Why is it that I always forget how busy December is? I figure that I don't decorate for Christmas, and I always buy gifts in one huge binge on Amazon, so I should be in the clear. But I never am. This year, it was:

* Unexpected business trips, once for a client visit and once for the office holiday party (by "unexpected", I mean I forgot to put them on my calendar and was blindsided)

* Unexpected family obligations, because I always forget about Hanukkah (must be all those years of Ben complaining that it's a minor holiday and why does everybody make such a fuss)

* Longer-than-usual vist to both parents. Normally I go for three days only, but this year I was able to make it work with five days, thanks to the weekend. I spent lots of time with my ten-month-old niece, which was great, but I was too tired to do anything else.

* Probably because I caught the plague from my dad. He was in bad shape while I was there: hacking cough, lost voice, stuffy head, stopped-up ears. And now I have it. Going on five days now. (I'm back at work today, because even though I'm still useless, I only get five sick days a year and I've already used two.)

* I somehow managed to delete all of my unprocessed photos from my external hard drive. I got a trial download of a disk recovery program, which told me it found 20,000 photos and wouldn't let me download any of them unless I paid for the app. So that was expensive, and then I had to run it again, because it didn't save anything from the trial run. And of course the drive is 2TB, so each run took a day and a half. Adding insult to injury, the second run found 20,000 unreadable files. I did a third run on a different segment, and found maybe 5,000 readable files that were not lost and 15,000 unreadable files. In the end, after charging me too much money, and making my computer unusable for four days, this stupid recovery program did no good at all. So now I have no photos from my honeymoon, or my cousin's wedding, or any of the other events I've forgotten about.

All of which means: my KK art didn't get done. Fan-fucking-tastic.

Originally posted at dreamwidth.

I have officially registered, mostly because rgrayjoy texted me to remind me to do it.

Who else is going?

Originally posted at dreamwidth.