korafox

Oh look, the lousy Smarch weather is here.  : /

It has been *snowing* all day, and I don't believe we've seen the actual sun in over a week.  A bit of brightness outside would certainly help with everything else that's going on, but it seems like it is Not To Be right now.  I feel like I should claim some bit of forward-thinking in picking a house where all the hallways go in a loop.  The circuit is only 20-25 feet on each side, but it is better than having no way to walk around given the weather.

Another reason I want the sun to come out already is that I finished a watercolor and I would really like to photograph it--the scanner is blasting out all my midtones and the digital scan result is not good.  But, the light has not been sufficient.  Alas it shall have to wait.

Slowly I am working on the Judgment Noema card.  Here is a WIP of what I have so far.
( Image beneath the cut )
The colors are not indicative of reality; they are just there so I can make sure the composition is balanced and things layer properly.  I suspect this one is going to have a fairly warm palette actually--reds/oranges and softnesses of reflected colors in crystals.  Everything is still rough but I have a lot of details in my head already.

Tradition represents the force of history and culture in our lives-- the social constructions that shape our families, our governments, and our shared identities. The Ikon represents the support and pressure of our various communities, including both the explicit laws and the unspoken rules we follow. Tradition invokes the expectations of others; we do not exist in a vacuum, and our role within groups is never entirely of our own making.

Image below the cut:( Read more... )

The Visionary is the part of us that creates grand designs and tries to execute them-- that wants to change the world and believes that it can be done. Unlike the Stargazer, the Visionary's plans come from within; but both frequently result in lifelong quests and obsessions. Out of all the aspects, the Visionary is the most likely to create something which will stand the test of time; but in exchange it is also an engine of perpetual dissatisfaction with the way things are.

This is number 16 of 27! Progress is being made! I was hoping to have more done by halfway through frickin' April, but this card was understandably complicated. There was a lot of figuring geometric things out as I went along, and there were most definitely things that did not make the final cut.

I think I will leave the next card up to the random number generator. I've had some ideas for the Courtier, but it needs more time to percolate.

Though sometimes it feels more like crawling.  I was successful at sitting down and getting more work done on the Visionary, which is going soooo slowly and requires so many shapes.  I have figured out the Photoshop shortcuts to make the program do some of the heavy lifting there, but it still requires me to visualize what I want.  This is difficult when I'm attacking a lot of subject matter I'm not familiar with.  And I'm still somewhat worried that once I have all the bits constructed  I won't be able to make them fit right and it will all turn out a mess.

Thankfully, Husband took dinner from the "chicken patties are in the oven" stage to "plates done, ready to eat" while I crashed on the couch and passed out for a few minutes.  Work was very ridiculously busy today, being the first day of classes, and I had a very long day of feeling like I was not at all getting things done for people and they are going to give me the Judgment of Shame. 

Now I'm probably going to do some video games before bedtime; I finished Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright over the weekend (so Masque-y, y'all), so it's either back to FF3 or Gyakuten Kenji 2.  I'm feeling much more confident about the latter since the last time I was playing it; I've progressed to something like 1,300 kanji and I know a lot of the more specialized vocab now.  This is very necessary, since this is the first game in the series to have a portion of gameplay with a timed element.  I could flail around wildly and keep reloading my save file, but I might as well try to do it properly.

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The card of tumultuous change and loss, the Tower describes challenges strong enough to crack the very foundations of identity. Anything we build is fragile; there are forces beyond our control which can take away anything we hold dear. Such destruction is always painful but not necessarily final-- the Ikon calls change down upon us, but we can survive it if we also change.

The random number generator that made me start this card during October must have known something I didn't, because I can't think of a more appropriate theme for the foreseeable future.  I'm so very afraid that everything is coming to a shatter point--if it already hasn't--and I admit that I am a coward who doesn't want to live through that.  I want, most of all, humans to survive the next century without either blowing ourselves up or making the atmosphere entirely uninhabitable. 

It's been very difficult to set those fears aside and get to work.  I think if my religion didn't now viscerally repel me, I would be taking solace there.  In the absence of that, I have to turn to my more fundamental belief in Beauty and Creation, and it's hard to see the point of making things right now.  It also feels like a cop-out, that I should be out in the streets protesting or being a clinic escort or donating my time to some cause, somewhere, that might actually make a difference.  Otherwise how could I possibly be adding to the world instead of taking away?

Hooray, I have finished another card.  This is #13 of 27, so I am very nearly halfway done.  With the Ikons.  I'm not even thinking about Virtues, argh.

Duty is the Ikon of service to something outside ourselves, whether it be a person, idea, code, country, family, or organization. Sometimes the call comes from outside, but the obligation can also come unasked from within ourselves. All incarnations of Duty involve some level of sacrifice, even if only through a limitation of choices; but not all service is repaid and not all Duty is just.
( Large image beneath the cut )

We had a new furnace and a/c installed today, which overall is a relief to finally have done.  It was also a marathon of stress and anxiety because I have no idea how to deal with contractors and was on edge all day waiting for something to go wrong or needing to decide on something about which I know nothing.  Also I am the most awkward person in existence and the only reason I'm not imploding into a little ball of shame right now is because I have convinced myself I will never see those technicians ever again.

On the plus side, hiding in my studio let me work on Noema cards for a ridiculous 5(!) total hours today, finishing the Empress line art and making significant inroads on the Tower, which is thankfully not taking nearly as long.  So even though my brain is telling me "keep working; there are still more hours in the day", I can pretty effectively (exhaustedly) tell it to go f**k itself. 

Now I am going to watch Monday Night Football (I need 16 points from the Denver kicker and Lamar Miller for a win; I will be so embarrassed to lose to a 0-6 team otherwise), and read more of The Fifth Season.  On my new Kindle Paperwhite, both of which were birthday gifts from my parents, yey.

What's that, you say?  After finally sorting out the $#&% mirror (may it still never be spoken of again), working on the Weaver is actually fun again!?  Who'da thunk?

(Actually the mirror is not 100% done.  It has been redrawn and the shape and positioning are now correct, but I still have to figure out the fiddly detailwork of the design around the frame.)

Also it can be spring any time now.  A foot of snow over the last day?  Yeah.  It's supposed to finally start pushing towards the fifties this week, though, so maybe that's the last gasp of a winter that barely got out of the starting gate.

Coloring the Noema is like playing a game of Battleship.  You start a card with little to go on besides the psychology of your opponent, then fling random salvos at the thing until something sticks.  Chain successes together until you start to get a vague map put together for where you're going.  Spend an inordinate amount of time chasing down the damned two-bit patrol boat.  Find out afterwards that you were this close to having the whole thing solved from the onset.  And then mind-numbing cleanup.

That said, the general color scheme for the Weaver is starting to come together.  The fiddly details are going to be murder, though.

(At some point I should really finish Crossroads.  I mean, all I have left is to redo the lion and clean it up.  Just bite the bullet and do it.)

Well, that's great.  My tablet is borked.  It's been doing this thing lately where it hiccups and loses all its settings, including pen pressure and how to move the cursor around the screen.  Which means it ends up making a blobby line instead of being able to taper the width of the pen stroke according to how hard I press down.  This is essentially like trying to draw after suddenly having your thumb chopped off.  Until this point, it was doing this maybe every 15-20 minutes and I could fix it by unplugging the cable and replugging it back in.  Now? Every ten seconds.  I cannot work like this.  

For goodness' sake, right in the middle of my November art project?  Seriously?  I know you've given me ten good years, tablet, but this is just begging me to go all Office Space on your ass once I've scraped together enough money and/or vital organs to get a new one from Wacom.  (Bastards.  No really but I love you guys.  Some day I will own a Cintiq.)

I guess I'll be breaking out the colored pencils and/or Copics tomorrow.  Sigh.  Now all I need is for the scanner to go splooie, too.