College and Comic Con

I finally made it.  I am now officially moved out of my parents' house.  It's so weird to call it that (it used to just be my house).

It's been that way for nearly a month now and I'm still not sure I'm used to it.  Going away to University has been a very bizarre experience.  I've learned how to buy groceries, how to manage and not manage my time, how to keep an apartment clean, and a whole slew of other things I'd never really thought of before.

Before I delve into my artistic endeavors as of late, I just want to give a little update on my life in general.  I have a job now, that's new.  I do custodial work at a building on campus at four in the morning every Monday - Friday.  It's been a little difficult, keeping up with both school and work and everything else, especially when everyone else I seem to meet is here with some prestigious scholarship under their belts and are only taking the minimum number of credit hours.  But sometimes I take heart at the fact that I'm taking a lot of classes and have a decent job to help support myself.  I'm really learning a lot about being responsible.  And I really do love my job.  All my co-workers are so funny and really nice - except when they're trying to scare you at 4:30 in the morning, but it's all good.  The work itself really isn't too bad, either.  We've finally hired a lot more people since I started working (my first week of work we had a crew of three people for the entire building) and the building isn't all that dirty to begin with.  Enough about work.  Classes are going alright.  My Drawing class is by far my favorite.  It's very leisurely and yet I feel like I'm benefiting greatly from it.  I'm taking Anthropology, American Heritage, Book of Mormon, and the History of Creativity as well.  I'm also in a Freshman Seminar class for the art programs.  I only have it once a week and all we do is have guest speakers talk about different art fields.  Our final for that class is going to be a pinewood derby.  It's probably the one final that I will have absolutely no stress for this whole semester (possibly for all of college).  My other classes are great and all and I love listening to the lectures (mostly) but the homework is killing me.  I never thought I could ever be so sick of reading in my life.  Me!  Whose family only recently had an entire room devoted to books and knowledge.  Ugh, do you know how hard it is to concentrate after reading for basically five hours straight with breaks only to take a few quizzes on the things you're supposed to be learning about in your readings?  Okay, okay, enough complaining - on to the art!

This is a cake a friend and I made the day before I moved out.  It's based on this iconic cake from the videogame Portal.  This same friend and I have had many baking adventures before and we always end up making stuff up and being very slap-dash and experimental without much prior planning.  This has made for some rather interesting adventures.  Like the time we made fluorescent jell-o with tonic water.  Anyways, we made the cake from a mix, but then added food coloring to the two layers to be the colors of the portals from the game.  The frosting was another adventure in and of itself.  I never knew how hard it was to turn something brown.  We didn't necessarily want it to be chocolate flavored, so we just tried to dye it brown with food-coloring but it ended up this horrible cement-looking color.  So we eventually caved and added some cocoa powder to it and voila, brown frosting.  Sorry about the fuzzy pictures, I only had my iPod with me.

 This is the cake it's based off of.

So, I kind of forgot about this, but as I was looking for a different picture to post I discovered it in one of my folders.  My last week in Young Women's (a youth group set up with my church) we played Chopped.  I was requested to make a center piece for our dish and after completely decimating a few cherry tomatoes, finally got a decent-looking rose out of a normal-sized tomato.  I rather like how it turned out.  I asked my leader if she had any basil leaves we could put with it, but she didn't, so we just used some willow leaves from the tree in her backyard.  I never knew tomatoes could look so pretty.

Wow, baking post I guess.  So I got this recipe book for my birthday over the summer called "Our Best Bites".  Originally I was hoping to try out a recipe from it every Sunday, but I don't think that's going to happen.  Anyways, last Sunday I was going to make Orange Rolls, but unfortunately the store didn't have very good oranges, so, looking around, I spied some lemons and limes in a considerably nicer condition on the shelf above that of the oranges.  What the heck?  Why not substitute lemons and limes for the oranges?  So I did.  The whole process of making these ended up very . . . interesting.  I didn't have a zester, so I had to figure how zest the fruit with a knife and then I didn't have a juicer.  If you ever find yourself in that position, just put a measuring cup upside down on a plate and it makes for a pretty effective juicer.  Then, while they were baking in the oven, all the filling melted and leaked out all over my pan and turned into a rather delicious caramel.  Eventually I ended up with 8 lemon-lime (or sprite, as I like to call them) rolls not all quite as pretty-looking as the one pictured above.  They actually turned out really good.  The frosting I made was probably one of the most delicious things I've ever had.

Okay, enough about food.  Now for the thing I've been dying to post about for the past few weeks.  Salt Lake Comic Con!

 This is the outfit I ended up making.  It was tons of fun to make

This is what I based it off of.  It's Asher, a character from mine and my sister's comic.

I also decided to make a tutorial about how I made the shoes.  I'd say more, but you can just read the tutorial.  

After a day or so, I realized that my shoes really weren't as fantastic as they could be.  So I made some revisions.

I'm also still planning on fixing the soles of the shoes so they're sturdier.  So who knows, you may get a third edition of this tutorial sometime.

And now for a few pictures from Comic Con itself.

 Peter Lyon is the master swordsmith for Weta Workshop and is in the green shirt on the left and David Tremont is the head model-maker and in black on the right (next to Gandalf)

 Tee-hee

 Tardis dresses.  So cool!

I'm going to be lazy and just copy what I wrote my brother about it in an email.

It took us a while to find their booth (which was pretty much the biggest one there, but we were just looking on the wrong side of the convention center).  We wandered around and looked at all the stuff they had - sweet swords and prop replicas and the like.  I finally made my way to the counter to buy a pretty cool Weta hat (which you can kind of see in some of the pictures and is totally my favorite hat in the world now) and asked the cashier (who had an incredibly awesome New Zealand accent) if she actually worked in Weta.  She said she just worked for their marketing stuff but pointed out two guys to me that actually work in the art department.  The first guy I talked to (he's in one of my pictures - he's tall and bald and wearing a green shirt and talking to some other people) is the master swordsmith for Weta.  He gave me tons of awesome advice about networking my talents and getting my foot in doors and to be the best in my field and always pushing myself to be better.  It was kind of unreal to actually talk to him.  Afterwards I got him to sign this ComicCon poster that I got for free.  It was so great, all these people were spending fortunes on photo ops with William Shatner and Adam West, but I got to have a lengthy conversation, signature, and photograph of one of my new heroes pretty much.  Later we came back and talked to one of the main modelmakers (seriously, there's practically nothing Weta's created, especially anything for Lord of the Rings, that he wasn't somehow involved in).  Talking to him was both super encouraging and also a little discouraging sort of.  He confirmed my fears that CG is completely taking over and very quickly eliminating the need for extensive, high-quality models in movies nowadays, but he also told me that that's no reason to not keep doing it.  Talking to him was even more amazing than David Lyon (the swordsmith) and it took a lot of will power to not geek out.  I was seriously almost shaking I was so amazed and awed to be able to talk to him about what I love doing and what I want to become.  He also signed my poster and I've got it hanging on my wall now to remind myself of my goals.  He's also in the picture I took, standing in black on the right side.  I've been wanting to watch the Appendices ever since and build things and learn how to get better and just plunge headfirst into making my way to Weta caliber work.  That was definitely the best part of the convention, but the rest of it was pretty great too.  We met someone with a pretty awesome GlaDOS cosplay.  They had an awesome-looking Tardis from Doctor Who that you could walk into and take pictures and stuff.  The lego place was also pretty fantastic.  My pictures of it aren't the greatest, but they built Hobbiton, the Argonath, Helm's Deep, and Baradur out of legos.  It was pretty impressive.  We also talked to a few comic artists and learned a lot of cool stuff from them.  They had a Mos Eisley food court set up.  Everything else was pretty geeky and awesome, but not nearly as memorable and meaningful as talking to Weta.

Anyways, sorry it took me forever to get this up (I actually began writing this post right after Comic Con, but I haven't been able to finish it until now . . .)

I suppose you could say my tip this time is my shoe tutorial, but I also want to say: Follow your dreams.  Don't be afraid to do whatever it takes to be as awesome as you can be.  Yup.

And since this post is focused on Comic Con and Weta, I encourage you to go check Weta Workshop out.  Here's their website: wetanz.com  And if you're a die-hard LOTR fan, go watch the Appendices for the extended-editions.  Most creatively inspiring things ever.

The Road Goes Ever On

Like I said on Sunday, the year-mark of my challenge, I wanted to post a sort of year in review today.  Well, I actually remembered.

So, let the reminiscing begin.

August
My challenge began.  The first thing I posted was this:

 A miniature bookcase for a model of my family's library.  A model I only just recently finished (finally) and at the perfect timing, too, as we soon after that dismantled our dear library in order to have another guest room.  Honestly, my sister and I move out and suddenly my parents think we don't have enough bedrooms in the house.  Anyways, here is the completed model.  Dear Library, you shall always live on in my heart.

I even managed to make a few scale books to go on the shelves.

August also seemed to be my month of baking.  I came up with my own recipes for grape jelly, grape juice, pie, and, my all-time favorite, raspberry-grape jelly-jam.  It's just about time to harvest my grapes again and I'd like to make another batch, only a lot more this time.

September
I seemed to do a lot of drawing this month.  I first introduced my little robots who eventually became the basis for Audubon, my winged robot sculpture (still one of my favorite dolls to date).

October
The month of the great costume.  My oldest brother issued a costume challenge to the whole family and of course I decided to plunge headfirst into my own design.

I've recently begun work on a new outfit (I can't call them costumes anymore because, to me, it just denotes cheap plastic halloween masks and ridiculously fake-looking props, so now I am calling them outfits) and I've begun to consider the possibility of *shudder* costume *shudder* design as a career possibility.  Seriously how do people find a way to make a living through stuff like this.  Anyways, more news to come on that issue.

I also did a lot of drawing in October and I discovered an inking style I actually like (and still use).

November
I finished the delightful little Audubon.  I have yet to write the story that goes with him, but it's still something that needs to happen.

Aw, i'n't he so cute?

I also began work on my hobbit vest which, although the tutorial I made is actually fairly popular among the interewbs, was really not one of my best works.  But I learned quite a lot from it.

I also wrote this in my Thanksgiving post which I find rather true and something I should've remembered a little better:

"My favorite scripture right now is 2 Nephi 2:25 "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy."  I wish I could make everyone in the world really believe in this.  People are supposed to be happy.  Sometimes I feel like other people (and even myself sometimes) believe that you can't truly be living unless you're stressed or worried or unhappy about something.  Being happy isn't going to make it so bad or stressful things don't happen in your life, but it'll sure make it easier to get through those things.  For example, take the Sterling Scholar process I just went through.  At first I was incredibly stressed about the whole thing; I'd been dreaming about this since I was in 6th grade.  I knew I really didn't have a chance and I really started to beat myself up over it.  But when they made the announcement of who won, I was standing in the hall outside the faculty room with my friends.  It no longer mattered to me whether any of us won.  I was with the three nicest, smartest, awesomest people I've ever met, so I was happy.  What else could possibly matter?  I guess what I'm saying is that I'm thankful for this season of Thanksgiving and for all the things that make me happy - friends, family, skinned knees, space.  Good stuff like that."

December
The beginning of many things.  My once a month posts for starters.  Also I started my sections on other artists and my tip section (they still don't have good names).  Also, the beginning of Svenna the Fettish and her Box Elder mount, Rhubarb (another sculpture I'm delightfully pleased with).

A sculpture that has grown into so much more.  Svenna now has a sister and they both will hopefully someday get their own comic which my own sister and I are co-creating.

I also finished my Hobbit vest and made the tutorial for it.

January
I posted some of painting assignments (speaking of, I should get the other ones up here, too, sometime) and also made my first stop-motion armature prototype.  I also made my backpants!  I fully intend to someday design and create a steampunk costume to go with it.  I also have a pair of shorts I'd like to do a similar thing to.  Wow, I used 'also' in that paragraph way too many times.

February
I finally finished my Hagrid doll that I had started back in August and I also made my Birdhouse Guitar (which is still unfortunately uninhabited).  The first drawn picture of Svenna appears.

March
I discovered my love for power tools.  I also began my steampunk goggle headphones (which still looks no different, except the ear pieces are falling apart because I've redone a bunch of things with them so many times).  I posted my marionette Bengta this month, as well.  She's one of my rare creations where I look at her and don't automatically think about all the things wrong with her.  She is, of course, not without her faults, but I believe she's one of my most aesthetically pleasing creations.

April and May
The two months I never posted anything.  A lot of stuff did happen though, that I don't think I ever mentioned.  For one, Svenna and Rhubarb (the sculpture) were accepted into the All-state High School Art Show where then, unbeknownst to myself, my dad purchased it.  It was certainly a major keystone in my decision to do something with art for a living.

June
Computer died, so it was a bit of a mishmash post.  I posted a picture I drew near the end of school that really helped me see how far I've come in my own personal drawing style . . . which I can't find right now, but you can just go back to that post if you really have to see it again.

July
I turned 18 and University starts to become more of a reality.  It was also the debut of Skin the Color of Alder, my nonsensical, who-knows-where-this-is-going comic.

And that brings us back to August.  I started writing this post yesterday and fully meant to post it then, but time slipped away from me and stuff came up.  So I apologize.

Well, after a year of creating non-stop practically, you would assume that surely I learned something.  While it may not be anything deep or profound, I will share some things that have stuck out to me as I reviewed all the things I did and the adventures I've taken.  You need to be passionate about what you do.  Never get stuck looking ahead and forget to be focused on what lies in front of you.  As I start a new outfit project I have to keep reminding myself to take it one step at a time.  I keep getting caught up in what it'll look like in the end that I'm not spending enough time to add in the important details, the genre details, the ones that really matter.  Also, if you're not happy doing something, either be happy or just don't do it.  You can't expect something to turn out amazing when you're not even enjoying working on it.  The love an artist has for his work really shows in the quality.  Again, it boils down to the details.  You're not going to smear some paint splotches onto a smock you're making for an outfit if you don't care about the character it's supposed to represent.  And lastly, perfect practice makes perfect.  It's something my orchestra teacher always used to tell us.  If we practice the same piece over and over again without fixing our mistakes, it won't matter how many times we've played it, we're still going to mess up.  It all comes down to laziness.  Messing up is perfectly fine, I do it every day, but if we get complacent about the things we do wrong that's when it becomes a problem.  If I'm just taking shortcuts all the time then I'll never learn how to make quality creations.  I'll never be able to make something right.  I guess what I'm saying is that I learned that I should stop being lazy and that I should be happy about it.

There's my schpeel.  Thank you to everyone who has been decent enough to read through my posts.  You've made me feel appreciated and inspired me to do better.

Here's to another year of fantastic craziness.

A Momentous Occasion, Indeed

"And in the twenty and twelfth year, on August 11, Amanda did begin her year-long challenge."

One year ago, today, I officially started my challenge of doing something creative every single day for a whole year.  I'm pleased to announce that in one year I've managed to create a portfolio, pass my AP Art test, make up recipes, sell a piece of artwork (to my dad), design some costume concepts for a friend, make a complete costume start to finish, and, all in all, discover that I am further from the skill levels I wish to be than I previously believed.

My challenge won't officially end today because, if my memory serves correctly, I missed three days of creating.  Wednesday will be the real end to my challenge.  Though this momentous year is coming to a close for me, it certainly does not mark the end of my creative endeavors, or, for that matter, my blog.  Drawing and painting and crafting have become an even bigger part of me than before, that there's no way a day is going to go by where I don't think about or get inspired for new ideas and even better projects.  If I remember, on Wednesday I want to post my year in review and just re-upload some of the favorite things I've done.  For now, I wish to leave you with this picture.  A milestone for me as it marks the first watercolor painting I've done outside of a class that I truly love.

Ditto, from the comic my sister and I have in the works.  I know I'm no expert in watercolor, but I'm very pleased with how far I've come since my painting class last year.

And with that I leave with you a tutorial that really helped me with Ditto's hair:
http://autnott.deviantart.com/art/Drawing-Hair-332993023

I'm going to take some time and try to think of some profound tip of my own to leave you with on Wednesday.

Thank you all; it's been a most marvelous year.

The World of Adults

Yep, I've finally turned 18 and to tell the truth . . . there's not much of a difference.  Although I am pretty psyched about the fact that I can buy my own spray paint now.  There are these really cool outer space pictures people do with spray paint that I've always wanted to try, but who knows when I'll ever actually have time to remember to do that.

On to what I have been doing.

For one, thinking.  I've been doing a lot of that lately.  Possibly too much of it.  What I really want to do with my life, career-wise, is work with movies - either making stop-motion puppets, building sets, making costumes, or designing stuff.  The problem is, I have no idea how to get there.  All my life I've been determined to graduate from college, but I'm suddenly wondering if I've made the right choices.  How is Illustration going to get me into the areas I really love working with?  I'm still confident that college in and of itself is most definitely the right decision, but maybe I should've more seriously considered trade schools.  Ugggh, can I go back to not being a "grown-up".  Nothing really seemed impossible at 17 . . . No!  Nothing is still impossible, I say!  If I want to be a puppeteer for MacKinnon and Saunders or a Miniature Builder at Weta Workshop, if I want to move to New Zealand and live in a Hobbit Hole with a vardo for a studio then, gosh darn it, BYU is going to get me there, whether they think they can or not!

I digress.  All you really need to know, is that I have decided what I want to do with my life . . . and it may or may not involve building a gypsy wagon in my backyard to function as an art/craft studio.

That actually felt a little cathartic and energizing to write.

Of course, other than contemplating my life decisions, I have also been creating.  In June, my family took a vacation to New Hampshire.  I was born there and then we moved when I was six (yes, I do still remember a lot about living there) but my oldest brother and his family still live there.  It was the first time we've actually flown out there, we usually drive for three days straight (we actually like road trips).  Flying is another story altogether.  Coming home, our flight out of Manchester was delayed an hour or so.  When it finally came in and flew us to Chicago we had supposedly missed our connection by about ten minutes.  So, being the spry youth that I am, I took off as soon as we got off the plane to see if our connection was still there and, lo and behold! it was still in the gate.  However, they had just barely closed the door and apparently there was absolutely no way of reopening it for us.  So we got to sit there and watch our plane sit on the tarmac for another ten minutes and then pull away.  A tad frustrating, especially since I had training for my first job the next day, but I ended up getting to stay in Chicago for a night and riding taxis for the first time.  It was a pretty fantastic adventure and we finally made it home and just in time for me to make it to my training.

Anyways, back to the actual trip.  It was, excuse my New England terms, wicked awesome.  If I don't make it to New Zealand, I'm moving back to New England.  One of the best things there are all the antique book stores.  One that we go to almost every time we're back there had an entire section devoted to art dolls and dollhouses.  Not even our library or even Barnes and Noble has anything like that.  I ended up getting two old Doll magazines; one from 1990, the other 1993 (I guess that isn't that old, only 20ish years).  For the most part, I just drew in my sketchbook while there, but the greatest creative endeavor was, actually, also tied to that bookstore.  My 9-year-old nephew got a book about wilderness survival and we quickly discovered the shelter section.  Upon returning home that day my nephew and I were determined to build a little fort in the woods surrounding their house (another great reason to live in New Hampshire).  We used some old rope my brother had to tie up larger sticks and logs and then we started stripping bark off of trees to tie brush and twigs to those to form walls.  It was going to have a closed-in roof as well, but we never got around to finishing it, which is very sad; my nephew and I had great plans camp in it one night when it was all finished.

 Sorry for the poor picture quality, I was using my iPod.  My nephew had this genius idea to uproot a bunch of moss and move it into the fort because it was super soft and bouncy.

 My nephew built this fire ring, thought it was too wet to ever make a real fire.

The outside wall that was actually sort of mostly finished . . . and my nephew's arm.


Like I said, building that fort was probably really the most creative thing I did out there, but I was having fun all the same.  Soon after we got back I began work on a Pioneer Rag Rug.  Next week I'm going on something called Trek with my church youth group.  Basically, all the youth between 14 and 18 dress up in old fashioned clothes and pull handcarts in the middle of nowhere for 3 or 4 days.  It's like Mormon Larping!  Well, not really, closer to historical reenactments.  I've been on one before and I think they're awesome and very spiritual and you get to make all sorts of friends.  I'm rambling again.  So we have this checklist of things we're supposed to be doing to get ready for it, like walking so many miles a day or learning a pioneer craft.  I really enjoyed making this and it got rid of a bunch of my fabric scraps.  I used the metal ring supporting this glass table we have as the form.  You're supposed to weave it on an old wagon wheel rim, but we didn't have any of those lying around unfortunately.  I'm totally taking this to University with me, now.  I'll put it in front of my bed or something (speaking of, I move out in exactly one month.  I made myself a countdown to when I move out).

 I enjoyed making the rug so much that I decided to do it again, but this time I'd make two small ones and tie them together around a little circular pillow I sewed.  I'll be using it as a seat cushion and a pillow while I'm on Trek.

Rather than trying to find the pictures I took of the finished treehouse for my portfolio I just took a quick inside view for now.  I'm a little unhappy with the outsides of the walls because of the varying thicknesses of the boards I used.  I wanted it to look like it was built out of scrap wood, but when you put it in scale, some of those boards would be almost three inches thick.  That's a heavy board to be nailing onto a scrap-wood treehouse.  Anyways, I ought to put up a picture of the deck some time, 'cause I do like that part a lot.  The things inside of it aren't really going to stay there, but I have an empty little soy sauce bottle that came with some sushi once, a sculpted cat I made a few years ago, and a susuwatari (soot spirit from My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away) in the top corner.  I'm planning on sewing some sleeping bags and other camp-y stuff to put in it.  And some small dolls for my nieces to play with in it when they're a little older.

Earlier I mentioned that I made a countdown to when I move out.  Well, I actually made a drawing countdown, because I feel like I'm nowhere near as good as I should be.  I feel like I could have potential, but I just never apply myself to drawing, really drawing, all that much.  So each day, when I rip off a paper, I have something I'm supposed to draw.  I'm behind right now, but so far I've done a few portraits, used some drawing books my sister has, and when I had 42 days left, I drew 42 hands.  I actually really liked those hands.  However, I'm probably not going to upload any of those because #1 - they're just for practice and they're really messy and well, I don't feel like showing them to anyone and #2 - I don't have a scanner or photo editing software anymore, so I'm trying to keep posting pictures to a minimum until I have one or both of those things back.

However, I couldn't resist posting this project I've been working on recently.  In my room I have a box fairly overflowing with doodles and collage material (mostly doodles, though).  I take my sketchbook to school, but more often than not I just end up using my homework, notes, tests, and any other "important" papers to draw on.  Then, at the end of the year, I get attachment issues and I have to go through every single piece of paper from that school year and cut out all the pictures I like.  For the most part I've just been using them to collage boring covers of sketchbooks and notebooks, but then the notebooks get filled and I have to decide to either keep the cover or throw all that hard work away.  For some time, though, the thought of writing a completely random comic that had no planned beginning or end has been festering in the corners of my mind.  I once had the idea to take all the half comics I'd drawn on bits of schoolwork and try to mesh them together into one, but I knew that probably would never work.  But then genius struck.  I decided to try and use randomly selected doodles to form the outline of a comic.  I went through a few stages of how exactly some technicalities were going to play out and I finally (for now) decided to pull out 10-20 doodles/collage items at a time and use them to write a chapter.  At first I tried doing it doodle by doodle, then page by page but it was too much for the organizer inside me.  So, with great pleasure, I present to you Skin the Color of Alder (I got the name from something I wrote in the margin of my AP European notes once):

 Yes, this page is supposed to come second.  And yes, that is a diagram of a heart.

Again, I'm a little impaired in the way of computers right now, so sorry for the quality.  If you want to, I believe clicking on the pictures will make them bigger and easier to see.

I'm having so much fun trying to arrange my doodles into a coherent order and make them all connect to each other.  I constantly have to stop myself, though, because I start trying to figure out where the story's going past the first chapter.  I have to keep reminding myself that the doodles decide where the story goes.  I'm just here to connect the dots.

So my nieces were over again.  And we painted rocks again.  And I painted a dinosaur . . . again.

This little guy is a little grumpier than Herman.  Maybe it's because he doesn't have a space helmet.  Apparently rocks just look like dinosaurs to me.

Recently, as I've been packing up my life that is my bedroom, I've gotten into this tidy up mode.  I've finally found the drive to finish old projects that have been sitting around for who knows how long.  Such as  . . . this!

 I started this sculpture-doll-thing about one or two years ago when I wanted to learn how to make and use my own paper pulp.  It may have worked better if my paper didn't have shredded credit cards in it.  Anyways, it was sort of supposed to be a self-sculpture or something like that.  I made the dress from a worn pair of pants that I loved and then I gave her socks and sandals, a trademark of mine in the days of yore.  Then after a while I decided it was a stupid idea and set it aside.  Besides, it was just going to be another waste of space that I would want to throw away in another few years.  Well, after deep contemplation over it, I decided to let it live.  In any case, I had to have something for that little sketchbook I made to go with.  So I carved a fishing rod from a chopstick, turned that into a waltzing matilda all while still grumbling about how much space and materials it was wasting.  But, whilst gluing her to the cardboard box, I used my pencil cup to prop her up while the glue dried and I really liked how it looked.  So, in a stroke of functional genius! I glued my pencil cup to the box, too.  Haha!  Functional art!  Take that, internal criticism!

I also found time to finish this project.

I've had this sub-par head connected to a wire skeleton stuck to my bed frame (with magnets) since about winter.  I'd always wanted to make him into an astronaut, but designs kept eluding me.  I purchased a quarter machine toy, just so I could get the case to make him a helmet, but it ended up being too small.  I think that was the real discouragement to me.  Everyday I'd look at him and say "one day, one day I'll find you a good helmet, and then you can be an astronaut."  Well, I was taking apart a sewing machine a while back and I loved the porthole-esque piece I found that had been part of the bobbin case.  I suddenly had an idea for the helmet.  Not long after that, I had the rest of him, too, all in a matter of just about two weeks. I made his helmet on my birthday because my friends were over having an art party (or "arty").  I don't feel like I was very productive, but I certainly enjoyed watching one of my friends make a knife sheath out of silverware.  It was so cool-looking! Anyways, I'm unhappy with the backpack, but I think I might redo it at a later date.  Y'know, when I haven't been working on him nonstop for two days straight.  Blergh . . .

Also, I did not make the Tardis in the background.  It's a Yahtzee game my parents gave me for graduation.  I thought it made a nice prop.

That about sums it up.

Ugh, I'm too drained to give tips today.  However, if you have any questions about how I make stuff, feel free to ask.  I like question.

I do want to share this link, though.  I read it last month and it really inspired me.  The artist is Jenny Dolfen and she does some of the most amazing Tolkien-inspired artwork I've ever seen.  She's one of my favorites.  Oh, and a bit of a fangirl moment, but I left a comment on this link and Jenny Dolfen actually responded.  I totally had a (extremely brief) internet conversation with a somewhat famous artist that I happen to love.  How cool is that?
http://autnott.deviantart.com/art/Twenty-year-old-Jenny-uncovers-the-mystery-of-art-375233524