Though I realized too late I never warned that I was leaving, I return now, from a week in Florida (Key West, specifically), with most of a tan, some of a sunburn, a saucy new hat, and MYSTERIOUS WRITING FROM THE ETHER THAT I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT, EITHER. They've been driving me nuts. The first two segments I typed up in the "Notepad" function of my cellphone, because I had to get them down and I didn't have anything better on hand. The third I got down on the last airplane today, in my sketchbook, with lots of silly spelling mistakes and scribbles caused by writing really fast.

And that's all I know. There's an angel, and I'm pretty sure it's all the same angel, but that's the extent of my knowledge.



In other news, Florida was fun, but much, much too hot. Family vacation and all that :3 We went out on a sailboat for a day-long tour of the area that included snorkeling, kyaking, and swimming in the ocean, and we saw a gorgeous mangrove island up close and a pod of dolphins almost as close :D We rented cute little mopeds one day, and just buzzed all over the island on them--25mph has never been so exhilarating XD We visited several awesome museums and Ernest Hemingway's house, complete with dozens of six-toed cats named after famous people. We lazed around the pool and the beach. We walked until our feet nearly fell off. We ate lots of delicious and interesting food. We wandered among feral chickens. Not kidding. It was a good time ^^ But it's still nice to be home.

uWOW it's been a while since I've actually managed to get a post together o__o Suffice to say that moving, getting home, and being home has been crazy. Also, job search. But I have been getting some doll things gone, even if I am leaving again on Saturday to go to Florida for a week.

First of all, I painted Kyu :D He was so much fun to work on. I never realized how nice whiteskin can be to a faceup! Originally I was just supposed to be re-doing his eyebrows, but when I wiped them off I discovered (much to my horror) a perfectly smooth layer of grime that made the resin look about 3 shades darker than it actually was where I wiped :/ I blame Kai, because this was all UNDER the coating, not a buildup after his original painting. So I took pictures of his old faceup to refer to, and cleaned the poor boy up. I also sanded the backs of his ears down smooth and painted those as well, all with acrylic drybrush technique--I'm very happy with the way everything came out. So, here he is!

Kyu of course is a frequent visitor here but actually belongs to bakubaku  :3


( 7 total of Kyu, 27 pictures in the post )
And then, Kyu being all pretty again, I took him and his fellow urban fox Ruby out for some pictures together :D As you can see, Ruby has lost her pretty wig but gained some new ears--not permanent, of course, as she isn't staying for good this way, but I made them out of apoxie sculpt and painted them with acrylics--a test of the technique I used on Kyu's. They're held on by their shape (sculpted over saran wrap) and two little blobs of kneaded eraser XD

Even I'm not completely sure what their relationship is; foxes share an uneasy and distrusting kinship. Infer what you will from the pictures, I have no explanations for you.


( 20 foxy photos, 27 total behind cuts )
Also, I am downloading and watching a new anime for the first time in years; it's called Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, and I'm really enjoying it and highly recommend the series. It's available with subtitles from Anime Eden. Designed by CLAMP, but handled by someone else to rid it of a lot of the weird melodrama that usually turns me off their stuff. It's interesting, and also being played on Adult Swim.

I don't feel like making separate posts for all three groups of photos here, so you get one big post of cute and pretty :P No worries, though, there's only 5 or 6 per set.

Explanations first, then everything. The Al pictures were just random, taken over near campus because it happened to be a nice day and he looked super cute in his nice clothes. I just like them ^^ Then Ruby; trying out dressing and working with her, which I really never did with the pirate, and pretty pleased with the result. Elly and Tan pictures were taken about two weeks ago, when bakubaku was in town, and are just cute and fun. Yay for Yos!



( Pretty Al is so sweet! 5 of him, 16 total )



( Ruby's on her way to a club, clearly. 5 of her, 16 total )



( Last but not least, the darling little once <3 6 of them, 16 total )

*sneaks in after a month of disappear-ed-ness, and throws in some faceup photos before dashing off again!*

Life is busy >_> And that's about all I feel like saying. So, instead, look at all these faceups!

I finally wiped Adrienne, and have been trying out different things on her head before I paint her back to herself; the first experiment was with non-permanent modding, using acrylic heavy gel medium, and I got in the habit of the calling this pirate 'Morganne'



( 7 more of the pirate, 21 photos total behind the cuts )

Next; Six, again. This time, I was asked to base the colors off the 'clean' side of the pirate faceup, for a slightly consumptive, Sweeney-Todd feeling. I'm pretty happy with the way he came out :3



( 7 more of Six, 21 photos total behind the cuts )

And newest, another Adrienne-head experiment. This one, I'm thinking of as Ruby; she reminds me of a red fox.



( 7 more of the fox, 21 photos total behind the cuts )

...... *zooms away again!*

Stolen from me_under_glass, because it looked like so much fun!

Years roleplaying:
Um...... 7-ish? But I barely count the scarily bad first few ^^;;

Least favorite muse?
I'm pretty sure I like all the ones I can think of off the top of my head.... Maybe Jason? He annoys me a  bit. But I still like him pretty well from what very little I know.

Male or female muses?
Both. But the ones who aren't completely either one fascinate me--love my androgynes lots.

Oldest character played?
I'm gonna guess this is by the character's age--which makes it Ame, I think. She's either in her late thirties or several centuries, but only Cu even comes close to her age.

Longest muse played?
Since she does still crop up now and has been along for the ride since middle school, Ame again.

Newest muse?
Um..... Cain. I guess? New Kid still doesn't have a name, though, even if he's been around longer.....

I finished it! At last!! I've been coding for weeks.... But it all pays off, because now I have a clean, neat, better organized, and easy to update site for my art! The consequence is that the doll site is temporarily offline while I clean up and simplify that as well. It was in need of an overhaul and an update.

So, as well as an announcement, this is a call for your help! Yes, you.

I've tested this--specically the DHTML/Java for the gallery page--in the newest version of Firefox for Mac and in the latest Safari. But I don't have any other browsers or a PC readily available! So if you have anything else at your disposal, would you do me a favor and just go to the site, click around, check out the gallery, and report back to me with your computer type, browser, resolution, and how things worked and looked? I want to make this as broadly accessible as possible. The main site was designed for no smaller a resolution than 1024x768, because while there are people with smaller ones that's become the minimum for the majority lately, and the images would have to be painfully small to accommodate anything less.

So, on to the link! As always, I live at

http://myarmcanfly.net

Please and thank you!

FINALLY painted it! This was such a pain to do, but I'm really really pleased withe the result ^^ Took about 3 hours to do, using layer upon layer of uncooperative acrylic thinned with matte and gel mediums.

Story-wise, he's actually had this since December--got it while he was in LA for his dad's funeral. It's based off of the Hartman family crest, which consists of a gold lion and a white heart on a red field. I like to refer to it as "a fierce design about being weak"

PICTURE TIME!

That's right--finally, a shoot with everyone for a change! All four of my resinlings rounded up into one place and dressed in just normal things... It's nice to actually work with them all. Three was an awkward number for pictures, and four is so much better....

Also, at the end of the post, there's a few borrowed-body shots of MNF Al! I think over Spring Break, I'm going to get his box from home so I can go ahead and sell the KD body. This will help me stretch my last bit of school-year funds, and then over the summer I'll be working and I can save up to get him an older MNF body--I'll need to get one from around the time he was made for the sake of color match, but hopefully that'll make it cheaper as well. So as of now, that's the plan.

Anyways! Pictures! Cute pictures!

So, guess who has the perfect eyes at last! That's right--the baby of the family <3 Adrienne is now the only one not wearing nice glass eyes, but I just can't part with her Souldoll P59s ^^;

Elly-bug's new ones are Dollmore grey glass, bought from user BlueEyes on DoA :3 She and Rom finally match nicely! Overall, her coloration is all darker and cooler, while his is warm colors and a bit lighter, but that's what I always intended. Rom's chestnut brown--a little reddish, always--versus her dark, umber-based chocolate brown.... And Rom's near-lavender tinted grey against a dark, blue-toned shade for her. He's the fiery one, the hothead, while she's sweet and calm and as collected as a five-year-old can be most of the time. Fire and water? But they offset eachother well, and they're still close, still related.

So today I took her along to class, to get some nice sunny pictures between my two stupidly long and a bit tedious studio classes. There are also photos of her and Chichi from this weekend to be put up some time tomorrow, and, at long, long last, the TRUE final solution to Al's body problems! That's right, I've actually figured it out at last, and can be sure--and it doesn't require replacing the cute-as-a-button Ttori head!

But for now, Elly-bird :3 So much love for the little one!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Okay, yeah, I know half my F-list dislikes V-day. But I think it's a sweet idea for a holiday, and it gives us all a great excuse to eat candy.

So happy day, even if you reject the Hallmark holiday!

And lots of love from Rom for all, too



P.S.--Send a Weekend America E-card! One of those drawings is mine!

Tagged by fragileshell
The rules are easy, just post 10 things that recently made you happy! Then tag 10 people and force them to post this meme on their LJs. Because it is good. Everyone needs a little happiness once in a while.

1.  Meg. Okay, yeah, I know, that goes without saying, and is sappy. But it's also true <3

2. Big books of things--at the moment, Postsecret and the complete fairy tales of Hans Christian Anderson

3. Finding good places to put all those books. Sometimes, now included, I get a strange sort of glee out of that kind of organization.

4. Unseasonably warm weather, like the 60 degrees we were blessed with today

5. Seeing all the labor that goes into printmaking produce something really cool. I'm in love with my print.

6. Cookies from home, sent and baked by my mother

7. Google SketchUp! Wow, I'm having TONS of fun. 3D modeling software! That's free!

8. Freezepop, my guilty pleasure of synth-pop joy. Less Talk, More Rokk and Sprite, specifically

9. Producing really good work for my classes, especially my illustration classes. Somebody, remind me to show my steampunk girl when I'm done with her!

10. My dolls. Not doing anything in particular, just having them around me and being able to pick one up whenever it strikes my fancy. Elly's always good for an instant smile :)

And for tagging.... Everyone!

Last post, and I'm caught up! These are the newest photos of Al :) Everything except the shoes and suspenders were made by me!

Woo! Just this and one more post of Al and I'm all caught up on photos!

Adrienne stole a lot of clothes from bakubaku 's boys while we were home. And I had to get photoshoots in several of those sets, because they were rather stunning on her, in my opinion :o

First: The Militant




Second: The Punk

This was a couple weeks ago--just before I left from break to come back to Baltimore--but that's an improvement over a month old, so I'm getting very close to being caught up!

Small evening meetup at a cute place called Momo, which has bubbletea and food but also pool and bowling. It was a lot of fun :)


Elly and Tanal, a DIM Achernar/D1-60 Type N. She seems unsure what to think of "the funny man" ^^;

Continuing the photodump so I can post my newest shoot with Al-baby, it's Pile O' Faceups time!

These were all done over break--the first two for Ohayocon, the third just because Roo needed some attention/touch-up from last year.

First, we have Zac--Zacarel, owned by luka_sama  He's a Delf Lu-Wen, normal skin, and I was told only that he was "The doting father" and given a temporary faceup for the eyebrow placement and shape. This was my first faceup with my new Rembrant pastels, and I was very happy with the way they worked ^^ His lips have satin finish gloss varnish instead of high gloss to make him a little less feminine.




Next up, Luka! Though cleaning was hell with him (OH GOD, WHY WOULD ANYONE USE REAL MAKEUP ON RESIN?!) and there was a lot of underlying damage I couldn't do anything about, I think in the end he turned out for the better. Luka is a very girly boy, also owned by luka_sama, and I was instructed to make him girly, made up, and happy. His lips have high gloss varnish, and his eyes have satin. The piercings were already drilled, I just glued new jewelry in. His ears were full of uncleanable gunk, so I had to blush darker than I would have liked to cover it up. Luka is a normal skin El.
 



Last but certainly not least, we have bakubaku's Roo! Roo is an MSD F-09, and is meant to be a sweet, innocent, and slightly vacant sort of boy XD This is my first time painting a mouth with teeth, so feedback please on how that worked! Roo has satin varnish on his lips.

...Or at least as far grown up as he can be in his current mold :x

Since I'm supposed to be posting my backlog of photos, here's the links to my last photostory on DoA and Resinality, for the sake of letting those who haven't already see it.
http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188590
http://www.abjds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2388
Cuteness with Rom and Elly abounds!

But now, the big deal for today 8D I finally finished/fixed Al's face! Also, he has a new wig and necklace, and while the necklace is much too heavy looking and big and silver and bling-y for him I'm still oddly fond of it as something of his. It's the kind of think he would acquire, you know? Heraldic wolf rampant in silver.... His kind of thing. I don't know exactly why, but.... He likes it. And I like it except for its size, so we're close enough to agreement. His new wig is actually the default Ayumu wig that came with Elly ^^

I feel speedy tonight--here's the next part! This is the second Ohayocon meetup, from Saturday. Bigger, but almost an entirely different set of people and dolls. We got chased out of the con areas because security said we couldn't have so many people in a hallway XD So we walked all the way down to halfway down the empty part of the convention center (which is HUGE, for those who haven't seen it) and took over an empty/closed food court.


Elly got ahold of a Dollheart bunny hat and a teddy with glasses, for critical cuteness overload X3

...... As always, break = the magical disappearing Wolfie.

But I'm back now! Back, and full of way too many photos! I start posting them tonight 8D; First off, Ohayocon 2008--the first meetup.


Elly, Tan, and Puppy :3

Having been MIA for almost three weeks now, it's high time I stumble back here and wish every one a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, delightful new year, or whatever else you choose to celebrate. Even if its Festivus you feel like doing, it's still a happy holiday sort of season :) I've been gone for a variety of reasons but don't worry, they're all good, but I'm not detailing them here. Instead, I want to share my personal bundle of Christmas joy, brought to you by my parents via a conspiracy with bakubaku  that made me very happy indeed 8D As was predicted by several, I metaphorically shat bricks when I opened the box XD

Any guesses before I go on?

Too late, photo time!