Pictures of the book!












- Trigger celebrating with towel.

I really have to get going on more artwork now. >.< It's quite annoying that the moment I seem to accomplish something, I hit a massive artblock (whatever the hell that is). Can't think of anything to draw, never satisfied with what I do draw, and really this is going nowhere.

Looking out for floods at the moment. If you haven't heard, Britain is pretty much underwater right now. My sister in London is probably busy moving all her gear upstairs because of the impending floods and up here we've just hear that the town is expected to flood some time next week. But I think we're more or less ok, since we live on the highest hill in the area. XD There's a chicken farm up the road so if the town floods and our hill becomes its very own British Isle, things won't be too bad. While all the plebs swim around below, we shall elect ourselves the new royal family and dine on eggs every night. It'll be grand.

Firstly, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Dazed! :D

Secondly, sorry I've been letting this journal get neglected again.

Thirdly, my copy of Digital Art Masters: Volume 2 (published at last) arrived the same day as HP 7, so the 21st of July was very much orgasmic. I'm somewhere near the end.

Fourthly, then I finished the book today after throwing it against the wall at least three times, and I feel horribly depressed.

( Three Accounts of Book Abuse: HP SPOILERS AHOY! )

So here's some updates~

Digital Art Masters, volume 2 is going to be published July 16th at £22.99 ($45.47). I'm in it somewhere. X3

Also, City Escape is up in the Contemporary Art Gallery in Romania...





SO VERY MUCH COOL BEANS. XD

Nothing much else has happened really. Grandma got a dog. She can't remember his name so it changes every day, but I think that covers everything.

Also, I hear LJ is having a nice big strikethrough of epic proportions and journals/comms are being purged left, right and centre that have even remotely questionable interests thanks to some morally superior twits with lawyers, so for the time being I've deleted all my interests. Better safe than sorry. :/

To all those people who said there would never be yaoi in Naruto canon...

( HA HA HA! XD )

My life is now complete.

I've lost half a stone, which is never a good thing.

I've checked my BMI, and needless to say, I would be banned from certain catwalks in Madrid with this number. I'm about 17.8. =_= Last year I was at least over the minimum at 18.6. So this probably explains the reason why I've been so ill lately (or this could be the result of being ill), and naturally when I don't eat, eating begins to make me feel queasy, so I eat less, and so on, like a  viscious circle. But I love food, and it sucks having no breasts to speak of, and ribs are really not that attractive, so I can't understand why there are girls out there who diet to hell to be this thin. I'm ninteen and I have the waist of an eight year old. It's just... wrong.

The only upside is that I now fit my size 0 jeans that I got from America a few years ago.

The downside is that they look terrible on me anyway. ¬_¬

Bring on the doughnuts and fudge cake!

Grandma gave us all a good scare a few days ago by keeling over with pains in her chest. She was rushed to hospital and they did tests, but fortunately it seems that it was just a bad case of angina rather than a heart attack. Apparently her english doctor took her off the angina medication she had been prescribed by the american doctor, because Grandma had insisted that she didn't have angina. So now she's living with us while she recovers and it seems like she's angling to move in permanently.

I love grandma. She's funny and cool and in many ways my kindred spirit.

But I cannot live with her.

Take for instance...

Me: *walks into room to collect my shoes*
Grandma: What's the matter? You look depressed.
Me: *is neither depressed nor ecstatic* This is just my face, Grandma.
Cue a five minute discussion about how depressed I look and how my mother isn't feeding me enough, etc, etc.

And this happens every time you go near her. In her book, everyone is either tired, depressed, or ill, and she feels she must comment on this immediately.

There's also classic dinner table soundbites...

Grandma: *loudly* Al Gore is an idiot!
Mum: He's not really...
Me: He's pretty well-versed on climate change...
Dad: He's not an idiot compared to Bush.
Grandma: Who's an idiot?
Everyone: Gore.
Grandma: Who said Gore's an idiot?!
Everyone: YOU DID!
Grandma: I never said that! Gore's not an idiot!

You might be tempted to think this is evidence of an increasingly senile mind... but she has always been like this to some degree. It has been getting worse though. Normally her mind waits a few minutes before promptly forgetting information. Now it's seconds.

So while I love her and I'm very glad she's ok... I hope to god that she doesn't have to move in. But if she's getting to the point where she's getting herself locked in the bathroom because she can't remember which way to turn the handle (which has already happened once), there really is no way she can be left to live on her own.

I just fear for our own sanity should that happen...

In other news, I saw Hot Fuzz with Steph yesterday. XD VERY, very good film. Absolutely hilarious. I saw the beginning of Naruto Shippuden today. While the opening is possibly orgasmic, it wasn't long before the art and story quality trailed off into something that resembled sludge. Filler sludge. Which was disappointing. I wound up turning it off before it finished because I couldn't stand how bad it was. *sigh*

I've also finished my part for the upcoming book. The editor's happy with it, and all that's left now is to 'ok' the page layout, sign something, and then just wait for it to come out. And if anyone happens to be in Romania at some point in March, pop into the Romanian museum of Contemporary Art and my work should be on a wall somewhere. :D

But most importantly: Richard Hammond is alive and really not a vegetable! All is good in the world. :3

XD Sort of. Or at least I found out that auntie Kath's friend who rings up to tell us how Kath is - and usually gets me - is a voice actress who works alongside David Tennant in the Doctor Who audiobooks.

Apparently he's very nice and professional. :3

I IZ CONNECTED!1!!

I'm still working on the 'Making of' but I'm still struggling on the first paragraph. Gah...

I got another note on DA...

( Something about the end of communism and the Romanian National Museum of Contemporary Art... )

You're all effing nuts. I'm freaked out now. I'm pretty sure there are more than 115 better artists and artworks than me and mine online.

I really don't get this. It all seems too good to be true...

(But hell, if it's genuine, I'm in there.)

Wherein my external hard-drive got corrupted and kept crashing the computer - threatening to destroy ALL the work, back-ups and all... just when it actually matters.

Anyway, the problem seems to have gone away now, and I can resume working on the 'Making of'. I'm still wondering what the hell I'm going to write. I'm thinking of focusing on composition or colour or painting style, but it's all pretty difficult to explain. Fortunately they've allocated more words to the artists this time around, so I'll have more room to ramble.

So far I've done the concept sketch. It actually is the concept sketch (I didn't make it up!), I've just neatened it up a bit a lot.



But I'm not sure if I should bother with it, because the concept sketch has a completely different concept than the final product. As in the concept art is quite personal and the final piece is at a distance and the characters are just part of the background really.

*sigh*

I can't think like an artist. XD When people ask me my motivation and inspiration, the only reply I can think of is "Well, I was doodling and it sort of began to look nice..."

I'm doomed.

I got accepted into the Digital Art Masters book! XD

Except, now I actually have to turn in a 'making of' walkthrough by next month. I'll have to track down all the artwork drafts I made (so disorganised!). Either way, it's shut Dad up. :3

Auntie Kath's just taken a turn for the worse again. Problem is, we don't know what's happened to her or how ill she is because the hospital has been talking to her cousin - the gold-digging drug addict bitch who's trying to put legal injunctions against our side of the family - and she's told the hospital that we're not family and aren't entitled to any information about Kath. The only thing the sister would tell us is that she's ill and we have to go see her immediately, on New Year's Eve, even though some of us live on the other side of the country. Apparently it's that bad.

So we're going to blow off the party plans go to hospital instead, because honestly we think she could be dying.

And it's heartbreaking because just a few days ago she seemed better than ever. :(

I got selected by DirectLine to have something fitted in my car that will moniter my activities. XD If I stick to the speed limit and drive only between 6am and 10pm, I get 25% taken off my insurance. Wooo!

I got this the same day Dad crashed his car and probably gained about 25%.

Karma has been good to me lately. :3


I also got approached by a French rock band asking me if I could do the cd jacket of their debut album. I think I'm going to have to decline though, on the basis that I don't really trust anyone who would actually approach me over the gajillian number of better artists on DA. And I don't particularly have enough confidence in my own ability to produce something on time and to their expectation. Cool offer though.

Today I was contacted by a guy named Tom Greenway, the editor for a book called "Digital Art Masters" and he asked me to submit my art to the selection process for the second book in the series.

Here's the first book.

Dad was an asshole about it, but it appears to be legit. So I'm thinking of sending some pieces off. :3 Probably won't get picked, but meh... worth a shot. My only concern is that you have to produce the rough drafts in a sort of 'making of' description. I never keep that kind of stuff on hand so I may have to just... make it up if it should come to that.

I don't know why, but all of a sudden I seem to be getting a lot of spam mail asking me if I want to enlarge my penis. Methinks one of my enemies hath signed me up to something... *shifty eyes*

Speaking of which...

How do you make something like this for kids and NOT realise what it looks like...?

Bah. It's very annoying when people ask me what my accent is, because I have to say 'Manchester' even though I know I sound nothing like a Mancunian these days.

THIS IS YOUR FAULT, JJ! I don't know where the hell you got your accent, but you've given it to me now. Everyone thinks I'm Australian. T_T Or I've been watching too much Neighbours lately.

In other news, I sent off an email to ff.net about the plagiarism. It is in the TOS that, should you feel another user has violated your intellectual property copyright (that sounds fantastic, BTW), ff.net should be emailed with the appropriate links, dates and evidence. So thar we have it. No action as of yet, but this is ff.net so I'm not expecting anything efficient.

Amazing. The bitch is still updating my fic.

Only she's put an original A/N at the top of chapter 4.

AN: Hey guys I want to thank you for your lovely reviews. But can I give you guys a little assignment? I would like you guys to think long and hard about why I am posting this story, just think and tell me why, thats all you have to do, and I really mean THINK. There's an answer and I will tell you.

Now I will happily await for your thoughtful reviews. Thank you again for everyones earlier reiviews, Bubbi.

The only reason that is coming to my mind is: attention whore.

Seems to be taking an oddly long time to get deleted. Ah well. I was motivated enough to leave a review, but frankly that was three minutes of my life that I wasted on her that I'll never get back.



Anywayz... OMG I WANT A PS3. But Europe gets it last at an even more jacked up price. Boo. T_T

I might have to wait a few years.

The Real World ~ by Hathor Aurora

- Or Dead Famous ~ by Rozefire (as some of you might know it as).

I sent an abuse report a few days ago, but still nothing has been done about it.

I can hardly be bothered anymore...

Stolen arty stuff... NOT HAPPY.

I wouldn't mind so much if a) I'd been credited and b) they hadn't fucked up the colours by oversaturating it. Yuck. I've tried contacting both the site and the thief in question, but so far have had no response.

I'm currently absolutely staggered at the response to the new deviation I put up on DA. o_o I mean, like... whoa...

I checked the site a few hours ago and I had about thirty odd comments on it and about 300 favs. Which was great and higher than usual! But then I just checked it again a few minutes ago and...



And two notes offering work. :O (But no pay, damn you...! XD)

I'm absolutely blown away! I guess it's because the piece is currently the #1 most popular deviation in the last 24 hours (but only for another hour or so when my 24 hours is up XD) so at the moment it's very visible. But I don't understand why it suddenly just blew up like that while I was away. (I guess I should thank all three friends who spammed me?)

Wow... just wow... I've never had such a massive response before.



In other news, Cornwall was hit by a meteor today.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

That is all.

Dad's birthday today.

We pulled christmas crackers at tea in his honor (um, don't ask). One of the inanely bad jokes that came out of the cracker was read out by Mum.

Mum: Who is the most famous married woman in America?
*pause as people frown and contemplate just how bad the joke will be*
Mum: Mississippi!
*everyone groans - except Grandma who's still contemplating*
Grandma: Oh, I know! That man - Lincoln's wife.
*crickets chirp*

CLASSIC Grandma. XD