Lately I’ve been mulling over updating with tweets, but I don’t have a reliable phone or mobile device with which to tweet.  Also, I’m not sure my moment-to-moment thoughts are worth sharing, but everyone who’s thinking of tweeting says that.

I read The Regulators by Stephen King as Richard Bachman.  It was one of those odd King books.  I realized most of the time if I don’t enjoy a King book its because his ending was rushed or hollow.  Like he had a great idea but no resolution in mind when he started.  But then again he’s the most successful author in the world or something, so maybe I just need to be less anal about my endings and write as often as he does.

Addicting video games and cooking aside, the week’s been slow.  Work moves at a glacial pace, but once I get home the day zooms into bedtime territory.  I’d be frustrated if I wasn’t so frazzled.

Well I’m back, baby.

I’m posting this now as opposed to next Wednesday because I don’t want my failures to claim 3 updates in a row. As for an explanation, I can only say I was stupid.  I fooled around.  I thought I could get what I want from someone else, but now that I see what we have, what we share, I know I was an idiot to ever want more.

I’m referring to Mass Effect of course.

This is how the last two weeks went, basically:

Played as  renegade, didn’t cry for Kaiden when I let him die, and managed not to kill Wrex. Yay.

Read this in a day and loved it.  I wont say more.

Watched Danielle play as a paragon and scoffed at her, then played as a renegade and had sweet, tattooed lovin’.

It’s been a while since I binged on video games.  Some folks, in their college years, drank themselves into oblivion, but I would marathon games of various kinds, steamrolling through on the easiest setting so I could find out WHAT HAPPENS.  Since I put off purchasing a game until it costs as much as a Happy Meal as McD’s, I got a lot of “You haven’t played Halo yet???” because I knew what would happen.  the same thing that’s happening to me right now.

I played through two games in a row and now I need the third.  I NEED the third act, man.

This behavior wasn’t restricted to electronic games either.  Books series, pencil/paper RPGs, musicians, I have a problem with portion control.  I find something I like and then I DON’T STOP LIKING IT until my world is so full of it I can’t remember when it wasn’t around.

Maybe it’s best I don’t drink.

Today was a snow day!  I was excited to have the day off and eagerly awaited the snowfall, to no avail:

It didn’t start until much later than anticipated.  So I sadly put down my mug of cocoa and got to work in the studio, like a good drawing monkey.

I used the time to reorganize and set up more of the scraps of paper and doodles I have lying around.  Some stuff I found is more than 5 years old.  I plan on leaving no scrap behind, and I’m probably going to turn every doodle, every icon, every note into something awesome.

I also saw Jason and the Argonauts for the first time, and couldn’t stop grinning at the skeleton fight.  How AWESOME was that?  I was completely blown away, and have begun to harbor a desire to animate.  I also got email from my wondrous coauthor regarding our rewrite-in-progress and must address these concerns.

Alot has been going on lately, but most of it has been good!  More letters in the alphabestiary are incoming!

The last week was pretty crappy, I won’t lie.  But the world keeps turning.  I’ve been semi-productive.  You saw the fairy-lady image, and I intend to print super-tiny versions for resin casting, then we’ll have some fairy pendants on Starfall.  Go check Dani out there, feedback and attention help when you’re unsure or short on energy.  Not that she is… but if she was it would help.

Work has me sapped of most of my strength this week, and when I return home and sit in the studio I can only summon the power to doodle.  But!  Then I remember the POWER OF THE DOODLE.  At their best, doodles turn into ideas, blueprints for awesome.  This past week’s doodles turned into a plan for monster profiles.  I’m working on one for the Yeti, with a little rhyme included.  I have a rhyme for Vampire and for Banshee as well, but no defined image.  Hopefully I can come up with one for each letter of the alphabet.

Lost came back this week.  I welcome it!  There’s already a ton of stuff written about this the last season, so I’ll just say I saw shades of the Dark Tower series in the season premier.  Both mythologies have their own thing, but the overarching themes of destiny, numbers and possible worlds are similar.  This is only to Lost’s benefit.  I also don’t care if he’s playing Locke, the Smoke Monster, or Ben’s post-op gender reassigned mother, as long as Terry O’Quinn sticks around.

Music: This Too Shall Pass, OkGo Of the Blue Color of the Sky (their NEW ALBUM GO GO BUY BUY)

I almost didn’t make it today!  I wanted to update sooner but YouTube was being super slow uploading my video, and I didn’t want to post without the vid.

This past week hasn’t been very noteworthy.  The major theme has been finance.  Witness Dani and I rearrange our budget in order to keep up student loan payments in this week’s thrilling installment of WHAT HAPPENS AFTER COLLEGE!  In all seriousness, the re-budgeting has caused me to examine how much money we waste, and it isn’t pretty.  I hate wastefulness, and I hate hypocrisy, so I must really hate myself because I’m a wasteful hypocrite!  Time to cut back and tighten our belts.

In the past our attempts at cutting back unfortunately involved reducing the amount of money we could sink in art supplies.  Thankfully I stockpiled a bunch, and I’m only unearthing more forgotten tubes of acrylic paint as we set up the studio!  It can be an easy trap to fall into, and the bleakness of a bare-bones lifestyle (especially during a New England winter, the kind of setting Ethan Frome took place in) can sap creativity, so here’s a couple ways I deal with it:

1: Stay Inspired

I don’t know about you, but there are some things that just make me wanna make stuff.  Reading a good book, a specific piece of music (no fooling, I often listen to one song on repeat until Danielle is ready to bash my brains in) or a scene in a movie (don’t watch the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy though -  there’s getting inspired and there’s wasting time) can really get the juices flowing.  The same way smells can make you hungry or a song can make you warm, the inspiring piece need not be the same media you want to make.  In fact it’s better if it isn’t, or you may find yourself plagiarizing by mistake.

2: Change It Up

Since we’ve already made a change that led to less creative energy, why not push the envelope?  You might take to a new media or subject matter better once you’ve stripped away the habits and patterns of your old life.  Use this opportunity to play around in watercolor instead of acrylic or oil.  Doodle something in a digital program if you’ve stuck to the canvas before, or try sketching on paper if you’re a purely digital creator at this point.  You’ve just thrown your old rulebook out!  It’s only a tragedy if you make it one.

3: Play Historian

To see where you’re going, it can help to know where you’ve been.  Take a breather and pick your favorite completed work.  Come up with why it’s so important to you.  When you start a new piece, focus on these elements.  Far from throwing out the rulebook, this method can help you turn your collected work into a narrative and cause you to see the evolution of your work with new eyes.

Excited to go!

Cameras were forbidden to all those who do not wish to die a most painful death, so I only got this shot of the chesspiece display:

Chesspiece

I also got to hang out with old friends from school.  The whole week was very Potter-themed, and why fight it?  Old buddies Steph and Irina came with and back to the apartment for pizza and drinks.  I made an attempt at home-made butterbeer, but I think it failed due to the lack of proper ingredients.  A good time was had by all.

I learned my old hometown, Pleasant Valley, is home to its own novelty restaurant, the Three Broomsticks Deli!

3 Broomsticks Menu

Go check ‘em out if you find yourself in that neck of the woods (and if you do, you have my deepest sympathies, it may be the most interesting thing to happen in PV in a century).

It snowed from Sunday to voting day.  Danielle and I found ourselves adding to the already prodigious piles of snow at the edges of the driveway.

Snow snow snow

There you can see the snow pile is nearly as tall as Danielle, although considering she’s pretty short isn’t that impressive.

On the subject of voting day: politics bring out the worst in people.  I am heartily glad to have the process behind us for a while,whatever the outcome.  Ads, rhetoric, and soap-boxing can go take a vacation, or a short walk off a long pier for all I care.

The Potter theme continues into this week.  I’ve been commissioned a drawing of the scene in “Deathly Hallows” when Ron

****SPOILERS BEGIN**** stabs the Horcrux locket.  ****SPOILERS END****

Danielle is beginning a few Potter-themed projects.  Check out starfalljewelry.com for more, in her own words!  Now she HAS to update!  BWAHAHA!

All in all, I feel happy with how the week went.  Some stuff stunk, but the major theme was friendship, bravery and truthfulness.  Those are the things that I enjoy about the Potter books, the things I enjoy about my friends, and the things I enjoy in life.

Next week I’ll update the progress on the illustration, and I’ll write a bit about some of the games I’ve played recently and give my thoughts.

Lemme fill you in on what’s been going on. I know, I know, I said I’d keep you guys updated, but as it turns out Comcast screwed us up during the move. They kept shutting the wrong apartment off. We actually switched to Verizon in November and we’ve been loving it so far! So take that, Comcastic-craptastic. You drove away paying customers with apathy and poor service.

We moved upstairs in the beginning of November and what a difference. The move was a little tough, but seeing as we only had to go upstairs it wasn’t a huge hassle. The hardest part was being stubborn and independent. That’s right! Danielle and I moved our furniture with our bare hands! Over the course of a wee all our stuff was in, but in boxes.

It wasn’t until around Christmas that we finally got the place presentable. Our cat Emma has adjusted wonderfully. We’re enjoying the larger kitchen.

Oh yeah, and

The new studio!

Expect to see this room often! I’m still in the process of decorating it and organizing it, but this is my workspace. You’ll notice there’s no computer in the room.

In other news (since people who move can’t seem to talk about anything other than moving I made a conscious effort there) Christmas happened! I got a bunch of new games, and right now I’m working on Dead Space. The game is well crafted, but it has forced me to confront the fact that I’m a great big weenie. I cringe at every sound, break into a sweat when I see flickering lights, and exclaim loudly when Emma brushes up against me (as is a cat’s habit: affection at the least convenient moment).

More pictures!

The wall o' Mucha.

More winter trees.

Breakfast!

These were taken by the new addition to the family, a Canon Powershot SD780.  Another upgrade in our move upstairs. The breakfast one was to test out the macro function.

Expect more frequent updates! My current work schedule has half a day on Wednesdays, so I can return from work, do my chores and stuff and then share the event of the week with all you happy people.  And even all you sad and mopey people too.  I also hope to have topics of more substance to pontificate about.