I’m running two communities on Dreamwidth that you should check out.
I was given the Writers Cafe from the previous admin and I made Just Create. Every Friday I post a check-in to share what people have done, seen, made, or read and then Saturday or Sunday they each get a session for making stuff.
If you’d like a community to encourage you on, come check them out.
We had a roadrunner in the yard. If you haven’t seen them in person, they’re pretty large birds – probably the size of a parrot.
I also finally finished the sampler I started before I went to the Netherlands! (I worked on it very intermittedly). The plan was for every line to be a different stitch, but one of the ones I planned didn’t look good as a straight line so I reused one.
As I said before, I’ve gotten into papercraft models. I also decided that as much as possible, I wanted to do a custom for each model I have (or at least a lot of them) – thus the Papercraft Challenge!
I showed the WIP of ex-tyrannomon before which I only need to build now. (It’s the pink thing to the left up there)
I altered the template in Adobe Illustrator and I think it’s adorably creepy. Because the Made in Paperland said for personal use only, I kept they’re label on it and I won’t be sharing the template.
I’ve wanted a captain’s bed ((also known as storage beds, chest beds, or cabin beds)) for a while now, but never bothered because I had a perfectly good futon and no money. New ones go for hundreds to over a thousand and the ones I found cool take up a lot of space.
So cool. Look at all that storage!
I had never thought about it, but my parents’ bed is a captains bed – my dad had built it and they had moved it with them from Ohio to California and through three house’s there. (It comes apart into three pieces, so that helps).
Once I moved back in with my parents, I was using their futon which has free floating drawers underneath. But the cats loved to sleep in the drawers and I was afraid to let my rats run around in my room because I wouldn’t be able to get to them behind the bed. Mom was also getting frustrated with the cats always sleeping in the drawers where we couldn’t find them, so finally she said she’d buy me a new bed at Ikea.
Space to shove stuff you never need to see! Bookcase!
I started looking for Ikea Hacks to make a storage bed, then figured, if I’m looking, let’s take a look at Craigslist. Which is where I lucked out!
I don’t have a pic of the ad, sorry. The pictures were awful. It was shoved into a corner, with two much stuff so you couldn’t really see much. But it was a captain’s bed, for 80 bucks, that could go from a full-size to a queen, ((I have no plans of ever having anything but a full-size bed, but, y’know, features!)) so why not go take a look? So me and my dad went off in his truck.
It was beat up, but made of real wood and the guy accepted my offer of 60 bucks. Score!
I figured I’d fix it and repaint it and be good. Yeah…
When I started taking a look, it turned into a bigger project than I figured. Some of the drawer fronts were beat to hell. The hinges were all either busted or frozen. Worse than that though, was the body of it, which seems to be made of the cheapest, splintery-ist, knottiest pine plywood the builder could find, held together with staples, half of which missed their mark. And I didn’t want my dad to help, because he’d take over and end up doing all of it.
The two pieces of the body of the bed. Already did some sanding on the one.
Quality manufacturing!
I removed all the hardware and decided I would try it without any handles so it’d be lower profile. So I started filling holes. And sanding. And patching. And sanding. And patching. And sanding.
Two weekends in, I’m still sanding. (Part of this is getting started late in the days and taking breaks, but still).
Did I mention the quality craftsmanship? Because look at this:
Yeah, that’s a place the wood split from one of the staples.
And a ton of the staples on the body stick out a half inch from the wood (as seen in the two pictures above). Which means anything put in the center space – which closes with a door (sorry about no real before pics) – would snag. So I cut those off with wire cutters, then used my rotary tool to smooth them, then covered them with wood filler.
Better no? I also filled in big knot holes, cracks, and all the places the even longer staples split the wood.
But mostly I’ve been working on the drawers and doors. I have most of them done now. There’s three drawers left to do, all of which have been puttied and sanded to some extent, and then the two body pieces.
Making progress!
But look at this poor wood!
Sorry about the crappy picture. I was really tired and in pain by the time I was taking pics. This is the worst of the drawers.
Doors!
I’ve still got plenty to do (finish sanding, prime, paint, put hardware back, figure out how I’m handling the mattress surface), and Mom wants me done by Saturday so she can have her garage back, but as long as my bosses don’t expect me to work five days this week, like last week, I should be able to get it done!
This drawing challenge is going to take me WAY more than 30 days, but I’ve finally started the inks for the second one – Daisy and Wild Rush holding hands. And yes, I still need to actually draw the mini-comic I started.
I have a little bit more than this done (Wild Rush’s head is done – and his hair is always kind of a pain). Planning on not coloring this one.
In the further chronicles of me not being able to get anything done in a timely manner: I finished this project over Christmas. And started it around Thanksgiving. And now you get to see it.
Anyway. I had this old boring bulletin board:
(Sorry about the crappy cell phone pictures. I did this all at my parents’ place because they have a sewing machine and more space and stuff).
And I had an old reversible robe thing that had already had pieces cut out of it. But the fabric was pretty and soft and I wanted to use it. Thus, it’s now the colors of my office area.
The fabric, cut out and ironed:
Laid out on the board:
Sewing! I can sew a straight line! (Look, this is an accomplishment for some people, alright? Just because you’re handy and have been sewing since you could count to three, doesn’t mean all of us have.)
The pocket cut down and ironed:
And sewn in place:
Detail:
I admit, I had my mom help with some of the sewing. A straight line is about as far as I can go. I don’t want to try for parallel lines.
The whole thing stapled to the board:
(I went back and trimmed it later).
Lots of staples for the corner, bunching it and pulling it tight so the corner is smooth:
Front view:
Next I had to figure out how to hang it to the wall. Or rather, ask my dad. Because Dad knows everything. Previously I had just screwed it in. I wanted something that looked a little nicer, so my dad found some brass grommets and copper channels (no idea what they were for). This mostly involved me standing around watching him work as he fiddled with it. Because while Dad knows everything, he’s also not so great of a teacher. It ended up like this:
Detail:
And the back:
And finally:
Yay! And now I don’t have to go digging through the giant pile of shit on my desk to find my bills. Or try to remember if I put them on the table… or maybe the sideboard… or the coffee table…
Many came to visit Conya when she was free, for the witch woman wasn’t needed to heal often. She passed her time preparing herbs and collars, sharing stories with anyone available to listen. When they drank, they were merry. He had seen fights spill into streets in the Empire and the fighters hauled away by armored police. He had seen wealthy men drinking, staring sullenly into their glasses.
This reminded him of home, of drunken warriors holding trials of strength in firelit rooms or dark fields lit with wavering touches. Or of hearing the songs of farmers weaving their way home from the fields and homekeepers singing in front of their homes. The Thurzin were free people, free from the Empire’s laws. The homekeepers and farmers worked long hours and rested equally well, while the warriors fought in the Rajah’s wars to keep them free.
He wanted to go home, to his mother’s warm kitchen, where his grandmothers helped her cook bread-wrapped meat and the thick stews that kept the warriors and farmers working. To the longhouses of the warriors, where it smelled of steel and leather and wool, where there was always the clang of weapons and curses. To the trees where the young warriors would perch to watch the farmers work and trade stories of their training and compare wounds.
He could go home. If he was strong, if he was brave, he could go home. They would conquer this place, sell it to the Rajah or build warrior longhouses and family roundhouses here, and he could go home. Even with no honor, ever if he’d be reduced to a farmer or homekeeper, when the Thurzin conquered here, he could go home.
I reduced my goal to 15k words, but I’d still like to make it to 25k. My current count is 5k, but I have more to get typed up today.
Here’s the last of my entries for the 30 Characters Challenge.
Name: Lee DeLoreo
Hair Color: Ash-blond (with red dyed stripes)
Eye Color: Grey
Skin tone: Pale
Lee DeLoreo is the events organizer for several charities, including the Friends of the Greyhound. He has the annoying tendency to name drop, usually unnecessarily, but all the publicity he gathers is for charity.
DeLoreo is a minor character for my comic series, The White Knight, but may show up more than I planned since the main character does a lot of charity work.
Gimmick is one of the more subtle Name Criminals and a great deal of his fame is self-promotion and bragging. He’s a classic bully and narcissist, and somewhat of a loner, choosing to spend time with very few people. He has no real friends, but the people he spends the most time with are those that can compete with him intellectually, like Techrat, or that will flatter him, like Jill. He’s intimidated by many of the other more dangerous Name Criminals and tries not to show it by upping his bragging.
He’s usually hired by another criminal to plan jobs for them, and uses a different gimmick for each client. He’s liable to spend more money to do the crime than it brings in, but since it’s all for show for him he doesn’t care.
He has profound hearing loss from childhood and wears very discreet hearing aids of his own design. He makes a fair amount of money off the patents for them. He also wears glasses for reading. He has multiple sclerosis and finds the flare-ups very frustrating, and smokes both tobacco and marijuana. He won’t admit how badly he’s addicted to cigarettes, but he comes close to chain-smoking when frustrated, nervous, or bored.
Gimmick is a villain for my comic series, The White Knight. He’s half black, half the local equivalent to Native American (the world the story is set on has no America.)
Name: Leon Smith / Lenxoli, aka Swordcat
Hair Color: Red
Eye Color: Yellow
Skin Tone (fur): Gold
Leon Smith was a fairly ordinary man. Divorced with shared custody of his daughter, Melinda. He preferred to spend his time camping, hiking, and fishing, well away from people. It was on a camping trip that he found a strange sword in the debris from a recent landslide. He made the mistake of picking it up and found it had a personality of its own, Lenxoli.
Lenxoli had gone somewhat mad after the destruction of its home planet, floating in space for countless eons, and laying buried on Earth for millions of years. It wants nothing more in the universe than to recreate the civilization it came from. The first two steps, in whatever order necessary, are to destroy the hairless beasts and uplift the felines, the creatures that are most like its makers.
It meant to completely overwrite Leon’s mind, but didn’t quite succeed. An unexpected side effect was for Leon to change from a grumpy misanthropist to someone who wanted nothing more than back scratches, good food, and a nap in a sunny space.
The sword itself grows from dagger size to full-length sword. (The two swords as drawn are in scale to each other, I believe). Lenxoli’s mind is connected to the sword which is usually kept in the mental institution freezer, which helps quiet Lenxoli. The staff otherwise find Leon quite pleasant to deal with, especially compared to many of the other inmates.
Swordcat is a villain for my comic series, The White Knight.
I was trying to find a way to make him look fuzzy without having to draw lots and lots of hair, because I’m don’t draw that fast and I need ways to get out pages of the comic (when I make it) without each page taking forever. I use Manga Studio. With Swordcat I tried using the Brush Pen which has a little bit of texture for his skin. It showed up better in the giant version (duh, I know). It wasn’t a successful method from the time saving stand point either, because to preserve the texture I had to paint in all the blacks – without completely blacking them in – instead of using the Fill tool. Oh well, I had fun.
The swords on the bottom were drawn several years ago, which is why they’re shaded. I’m trying to get away from that shading style because, again, it takes too long. And, yes, the eye on his back is correct. It shifts to stay upright. And it’s watching you.
Ronnie heals twice as fast as normal with no scarring. Aside from that, his supersuit makes him nearly invulnerable. He was given an old, worthless but pretty blanket by his archeologist uncle. When he wrapped himself in it, it transformed to a rubber-like suit that acts as a second skin. He added boots, a belt with pouch that holds essentials, and goggles with night-vision capabilities.
Ronnie is from a so-far untitled superhero romance I started in October. No idea when it’ll be finished, but one other character from it will be showing up for this. It’s been kind of frustrating, as my friends have heard, because I’m not going to do anything major with the story – I might put it up on the web somewhere, but that’ll be it. And yet it wouldn’t leave me alone when I should have been preparing for NaNoWriMo.
The images were made in Poser 7, using Michael 4, the free Nadino Mask, various other props, and a custom texture for the suit. Which isn’t perfect, but I ran out of patience to fiddle with it.
I’m to the point where weekly updates aren’t really viable, so that’ll be slowing down. I’ll try to still get a weekly apartment post up, but it may be very short.
Anyway, week 4 was about projects! Specifically painting:
I didn’t do much the third week, so this’ll be a short entry.
First was actually something my awesome dad did. I didn’t show you a picture, but my closet is very small, narrow, and not really enough to store all my various junk and my clothes. Therefore, Dad did this:
As you saw before, there’s a little room between the main room and the bathroom. On one side of that is the door to the main room, on the other is the closet (I’m standing in the bathroom to take the picture). Originally I was just going to put up two clothes rods, but there were no studs available, so Dad built a free-standing thing that was then secured to the wall. So this is my ‘dressing room’. (It has clothes on it now).
Next, I finally got a microwave.
Yeah, that was terribly exciting, but incredibly necessary.
I also got a sideboard to hold my table linens, bathroom supplies, and whatever else ends up in there. I got it from a great vintage shop in Ventura called Attaboy Vintage. Two of my awesome coworkers helped me get in my place.
Apparently at one point it was painted white, and then stripped before Attaboy got it. You can still see white paint in the crevices, as well as inside behind the drawers. They only refinished the top. I’ve oiled it and it looks really nice now (although it could probably use more oil). I should probably get a piece of glass for the top (it’s got some scratches and a gouge, but it looks nice).
That’s it for the week. Next week will be light as well. Things are slowing down. I’ll have to get on making some other content for the site!
