Dear self:

Oct. 2nd, 2011 05:53 pm
motetus: (father ted / a lovely cup of tea)
Go away and write out 500 hundred times: "I will not use that [livejournal.com profile] ninth_eagle fanmedia challenge bread prompt as an excuse to draw Tribune Placidus in his pyjamas having tea and toast in bed with Centurion Teddy Bear."

I am getting really annoyed with that challenge. I have multiple big WIPs already that I should be working on instead and I have a long list of other stuff that I would love to draw, but noooo. As soon as I see the word "challenge" my extremely aggressive competitive side declares nothing else matters and I MUST DEFEAT IT. Which... wouldn't be such a big deal if it wasn't always such a headache to come up with something from the prompts, despite usually having no problem coming up with far too many things I want to draw. Oh, I have no problem producing ideas for it, they just happen to be so utterly stupid and ridiculous that even I am too ashamed to go ahead with them. Want an idea of what I mean? This morning I had to gently talk myself out of turning the airship prompt into Steampunk Pirate Uncle Aquila.

Ack. Work brain, work, and come up with something sensible. This would be much easier if two of the prompts weren't off-limits to me due to complete non-interest/already working on something with multiple Centurion helmets.

...okay, here's my compromise. Toast and tea in bed, but with happy gay modern farmers Marcus and Esca. NO CENTURION TEDDY BEAR.

How will everyone know that they're farmers as opposed to any old modern couple? I shall put their hand-reared baby goat in bed with them. Yes, they farm goats as well as sheep now. Fuck off, it's my cracked out AU, I do what I want.
motetus: (people / jamie bell)
Well crap. I think my internet is, to phrase it in the most accurate and technical way possible, fucked, and according to the engineer who spent 8 hours here today, might not be fixable (it's alive, but makes dial-up look cutting edge). No-one post picspams or art or shiny imagey things until it starts behaving. THAT IS AN ORDER.

Anyway, assuming I can get the sodding thing to post, this is something small I did for [livejournal.com profile] tracy7307, who is (hopefully!) back home now and feeling better. Tracy, you have been so incredibly brave lately, and I am in so much awe of how upbeat and positive you've managed to remain. I hope this cheers you up a little, and that you recover quickly!

Esca/Marcus - university AU illustration for her charming little drabble Fine in My Toes



Esca shakes Marcus’s hand but doesn’t let go. He holds it and leans his head on Marcus’s shoulder. His fluffy hair tickles Marcus’s neck – a feeling Marcus thinks he could get used to. )

Um... what else? Oh yeah - I visited [livejournal.com profile] ainsoph15 last weekend, there was much Old Roman Shit and Boozing, and I had a lovely time because she is AWESOME. Everyone, you have to visit her at least once - she gives you cake and tea and mojitos and books and plum crumble! I rated her very highly on Tripadvisor when I got back. I should have my photos returned in a few days (film! how quaint!) and if you get really turned on by endless Roman walls, you are in for a treat.

I am currently all "WAAAH my entry for the [livejournal.com profile] ninth_eagle fanmedia challenge, while sort of pretty, is utterly boring and uninspired and YELLOW. WAAAH." So I decided to scrap it and instead I will now attempt to draw Placidus. In the bathtub. With a rubber Centurion ducky. Why do I have all the stupid ideas? :(
motetus: (star wars pt / obi-wan smiling)
I am so sorry for being Spammy McSpamalot lately! I will shut up and fuck off after this.

How people in science see each other. Not far off, actually. )

-

I was nosing around the last Inception Reverse Big Bang and came across this brilliant lab AU art by [livejournal.com profile] distracterisey that I want to marry. Eames and his delightfully awful wolf shirt and mouth-pipetting! ♥ Oh Inception Fandom, you have all the awesome things! Makes me wonder what happened to my plans for a lab AU with PhD students Esca and Marcus. Oh yes, that's right! They and Happy Gay Modern Farmers are gathering dust because my Ideas are being most un-British and are refusing to queue up patiently like I told them to.

-

Okay, forget scientists Arthur/Eames or PhD students Esca/Marcus. The best labfic ever would be a Star Wars prequel AU, more specifically the one I came up with at 3am this morning (insomnia: not the best thing to have when you are spending the week getting up at 6.30am and spending 2 hours on the bus/train each way to learn super-confusing new techniques in Liverpool). Here is some background on the main characters. It is really dreadful and should not be read by anyone.

Dr. Jinn (promotion to Professor is out of the question after his many feuds with Prof. Windu - see below), principal investigator in the area of mitochondrial (geddit?) research. Has slightly New Age-sounding, rather unscientific ideas for research directions that make his post-doc (see below) weep into his tea during lab meetings. Is a total ass.

Dr. Kenobi, Jinn's long-suffering post-doctoral researcher. His research is going nowhere, he hasn't published anything in years, funding is running out, and his career is circling the drain. Not because he's a bad scientist, but because he made the mistake of accepting Dr. Jinn's job offer. Lies awake every night worrying that their new idiot PhD student (see below) has left the bunsen burner gas taps on again.

Anakin, the Jinn group's idiot PhD student. Sets the centrifuge on fire every Tuesday without fail. Blames Dr. Kenobi for all his many screw-ups, yet for some reason Dr. Jinn considers him the golden child. Has infatuation bordering on creepy and stalkerish with Padme, the next lab's precocious final-year PhD student who already has two Nature publications.

Prof. Windu, the Head of Department. Has huge stick up ass because Mace Windu wouldn't be Mace Windu without it. Constantly infuriated by Dr. Jinn and how his poor publication record is going to drag down the department's RAE rating.

If I wrote this, Dr. Kenobi would have the most horrible life ever despite being the only non-asshole in the story. Also, it would be epistolary fic in the form of email, lab books and the qPCR machine booking sheet. I tell you, if I could write fiction the world would be both a more wonderful and more terrible place.
motetus: (films / indiana)
Every time I make a post that doesn't contain art I feel that I should be terribly apologetic about it, like most people aren't following me for anything other than shiny drawings. Sorry, no art in this post either. But that doesn't mean I've been slacking off lately - so far I have 3 completed things and two more that are halfway done. All are illustrations for the same fic, because I'm being terribly slutty about it and the settings are so much fun to draw. Might even try to squeeze in one more before it gets posted. So, you might have to wait a few more weeks before I make a worthwhile post, but the elephants are awesome and well worth waiting for.

Ha, I have become so smug and conceited lately. Someone needs to smack me and then compile a list of everything I can't draw for shit.

-

I am a horrible entitled hypocritical cow. I make all sorts of grumbling noises about how there are so many AUs in Eagle fandom and even though a lot of them are amazing, I wish there was more canon stuff. And then I go and come up with AUs of my own that will not leave me alone.

So er, I kind of want an AU that's in the Red Dead Redemption setting. For those of you who don't spend as much time glued to video games as much as I do, it's about an ex-outlaw in the dying days of the Wild West, but it's less spaghetti western and more gritty and dark-humoured. The world is just fantastic: outlaws, lawmen, cattle ranches, horse-breaking, Mexico, anti-Semitic shopkeepers, hunting, gunfights, prostitutes (that your character is far too gentlemanly to sleep with, but hogtieing them and leaving them to be devoured by coyotes is quite all right), grizzly bears and train-robbing. And then there's the outfits. Man, do I have a boner for cowboy outfits.

Here, have some pictures to get a better idea of what I mean )

This is ridiculous. Why do I get the feeling I am going to be drawing all this myself because no-one else will touch it? Crap. I don't even know what the hell Marcus and Esca would be in it. Rival outlaws? Outlaw and lawman? Happy gay ranchers? WHY AM I CONTEMPLATING THIS?

Wife's response to me gibbering about this idea:

Wife: Why don't you just draw plain old Red Dead Redemption fanart? Why do you have to make it all gay?
Me: BECAUSE NO-ONE WILL GIVE A TOSS ABOUT IT IF I DO THAT.

-

I was really, really tempted to sign up for the Inception Big Bang but had to be sensible and give it a pass, because I've got the Journeystory one and really want to provide illustrations for both the Eagle fics that will hopefully come out of that, and then there's the Eagle Big Bang I'll probably sign up for as well. Oh yeah, and maybe I should spend more time on that thesis. But dammit, I really wanted to try drawing some Arthur/Eames. SULK.

-

I had a craving for Vietnamese food this weekend so went looking for the first place I found on the internet. It was a small, shabby place in a slightly dodgy-looking location, with a tiny menu and meals costing only £6. And it was INCREDIBLE. Best Vietnamese food I've had outside of Asia. I'm going to live there from now on.
motetus: (people / buster)
What I should be doing: reading a PD-10 desalting column manual to work out how to use it before my protein precipitates out.

What I am doing: Reading about Rani Lakshmibai, researching Indian mural styles and trying to work out how to imitate it for a tiger-hunting scene, and wondering how on earth I could draw faces looking European but without being too out-of-place for the style and-

GODDAMMIT.
motetus: (random / poopin)
Me: You know, brain, it might be a good idea to take a short rest after finishing that massive time-consuming painting. Read a book. Take a walk. Just watch some mindless drivel on TV.
Brain: No no no no no DRAW STUFF.
Me: Okay, fine. Why don't you finish off that Morgana painting you've had sitting on the desktop for months? The deadline for that is coming up.
Brain: NO. MAMMOTH HERDING.
Me: What? No! There already is an awesome and hysterical mammoth drawing!* You don't need another one!
Brain: Yeah, but BAAAABY mammoths.
Me: But we agreed we had a list and were going to do things in order. Morgana, St. John/Marcus, W is for, HG(M)F mkII. You promised to stick to it!
Brain: This baby mammoth is going to be so adorable, it will trigger everyone's vomit reflex.


Yeah, the reason I have been churning out so much art lately is because work is going shitty (I used the word "motherfucking" a bit too much in my meeting with my post-doc today; luckily she is awesome) and flinging myself at the computer and tablet every night stops me from thinking about it. I am going to get started on the introduction for my thesis, which means I'll be sitting at my computer this weekend making noises like I'm constipated because for me, writing is extremely similar but without the feeling of satisfaction you get afterwards.


* You should all LOOK AT THIS ART that [livejournal.com profile] the_little_owl  drew. Stone-age famers Marcus and Esca! Angry rock-throwing dwarf mammoths! It is hilarious and adorable, and you should all bully her into drawing more Eagle stuff.
motetus: (nature / forest)
The wife and I are off to London this weekend, mostly to spend it at the British Museum and the National Gallery because we are epic nerds. I was about to say "old people" instead, until I was reminded that when my 60-something parents visit London, they do things like stay in youth hostels and go see Avenue Q. But tell me this exhibition doesn't look fantastic.

Task for this week is to finish the current painting by Friday, which is now firmly in the "this is not anywhere near as awesome as I'd hoped, just get it done before I get any more insecure about it and delete the file" stage. I think I'm going through another round of ugh-I-hate-everything-I-draw-look-at-all-these-other-amazing-fan-artists-why-am-I-not-more-like-them-waaaaah, and I KNOW, I KNOW, that shit is irritating to read about, so I'll give myself a good smack and try to stop being such a crybaby (or at least not bring it up on LJ). But - I think I need to try to move away from (attempted) realism unless I have references for everything I'm drawing, at least for a while, because it takes way longer than I like and I'm never that satisfied with the results. Stuff with lines it is then, until I realise that I also hate how I draw line art. Maybe I'll treat myself to a new sketchbook and a scanner if I snap out of it and put on my big girl panties.

...I think my moodiness and insecurity has been brought on mostly by blankets. Fucking blankets.

Here, to apologise for being whiny and to encourage my happy gay farmers II idea, have a lamb trying to get milk out of a cat's ear.



Should I be even more embarrassed than I already am about how much I want the Coalition AU prompt filled? FFS, I hate most politicians and anyone who witnesses me watching Question Time would probably diagnose me with hypertension, rabies and Tourette's, but I think it would be awesome and that makes me feel rather dirty. I'd prefer it if someone else wrote it, but I can't help picturing Marcus and Esca in lovely suits and respective blue and yellow ties, looking irritated with each other (BUT SECRETLY ATTRACTED), and the lovely purple/blue Newsnight studio as background, and Jeremy Paxman, omg I could draw poor Jeremy Paxman getting confused about all this sexual tension in front of him... NO I AM NOT DRAWING IT AND I MEAN IT THIS TIME.

STFU brain

May. 31st, 2011 07:02 pm
motetus: (the eagle / prisoner)
1. Screw you LJ, I was writing this huge post all sodding day and then you eat it right when I'm about to hit post.


2. If I write down some of the stupid ideas I have rattling around my head, do you think they will leave me alone for a while so I can concentrate on doing sensible adult things like going to work and remembering to cook dinner before midnight? Probably not.

(anyone caught encouraging these will receive a good spanking)

Fecking Eagle stuff first:

Hibernia face-painting illustration.
[livejournal.com profile] carmarthen has discovered that the way to get me to draw something is to simply tell me to, for I am as biddable as Marcus in the bedroom. Getting the two very different types of lighting (fire/moonlight) correct is going to be HARD, but at least I can hide all the tricky background stuff in darkness. And I can finally put my giant costume history book to use, for it has lots of super illustrations of Celtic clothing. *dances*

Happy gay (modern) farmers part II. S is for Sith Academy convinced me that I can just about draw interior perspective and clutter, so I'm thinking of a kitchen scene full of shameless farming stereotypes with an Aga, a cat on the Aga, Kath Kidston teatowels and old battered inherited Le Cruset pots (yes there may be some fantasy-fulfilment going on here, but in my defence I didn't come up with half of that list). And Marcus making tea and trying to be affectionate while Esca's all "piss off Marcus, can't you see I'm trying to read my Classic Tractor magazine?" Um, I may be a little in love with this AU.

Centurion Marcus. I just really want an excuse to draw Marcus in that gorgeous armour, because I've had a Roman uniform kink since I was 6 years old thanks to Asterix (seriously. I even had a crush on the crocodile from Fantasia because he had a swishy red cloak and then he took it off and I was SAD) and I really want to paint a big epic landscape with Marcus gazing into the distance with his cloak billowing around him and thinking YES I AM A MAGNIFICENT MANLY ROMAN. If I can work in Esca somehow, even better, though I might have to poke [livejournal.com profile] sineala until she lets me illustrate her Army AU for that to make sense. I think I'll put this on the back burner for the moment while I sort out exactly what I want to do with it, and in the meantime I'll doodle Roman armour at work and claim they're preliminary sketches.

Marcus being ruled by Esca's thighs. She who is responsible for this knows who she is. Stupid Alexander/Hephaestion comment. At 3am this morning I came up with an picture in my head that would suit this, and it's also the reason why my performance in our 9am lab meeting went along the lines of "Uhh... this week I'm doing... something with proteins? I think? Btw, what's a protein again?" So, the idea was Esca all sprawled out and Marcus curled up between his glorious thighs, worshipping them as he should. Might be revised depending on whether I can find the anatomy references I'll need - while I'm getting better at not having to rely so much on references, the amount of nudity I have planned means I probably shouldn't try pulling it all out of my head unaided.

Biology PhD students!Esca/Marcus AU. I swear to Mithras I have not been looking around my lab for places/equipment they could do hot, sweaty things against. I SWEAR.

Something gen with Uncle Aquila and Stephanos, because I may be a little in love with these two. Latrunculi?

Also. I am a little smitten with with this photo and want to do something similar. Problem is, the setting is too similar to the current cuddling painting, so either I wait a few months or I use it in another fandom. Dunno what, though.

This fandom, WHAT IS IT DOING TO ME? It's a really good thing that all the prompts on the kink meme that interest me have been filled already, or this list would be even longer. Okay okay, here are some non-Eagle things:

Padme/Breha for the alphabet challenge prompt W. Those naughty girlies again, this time rolling around in bed half-naked. I kinda want to give them big fancy hairdos, or at least half-undone big fancy hairdos, but I doubt that would make for comfortable sleeping. But then again, Padme's nightdress in ROTS was that ridiculous blue thing with strings of pearls along the arms, and that couldn't have been comfy either. Maybe she's used to it.

Mark Antony/Lucius Vorenus. I have no idea where this came from, but I really want to draw lecherous!Antony (uh, is there any other kind?) eyeing up poor Vorenus (in his lovely armour that he gets after being made Evocati, because did I mention the uniform kink?) with a smirk on his face, and Vorenus is looking very worried. It's rather sad that that out of all the things I could do with these two (I mean, I love Vorenus and Pullo as much as the next person, but I have such a hard time buying them having a more-than-brotherly-love relationship because Vorenus is just so damn Roman. Vorenus/Antony however - Antony is much more depraved and has more power over Vorenus than Pullo does so yes, I could see that. Um, this parenthesis is getting awfully long) I pick something so tame and family-friendly. Hm, Antony in toga, Antony in uniform, or Antony in Egyptian clothing and eyeliner?

URGH. And the second I complete one of these, another dozen will spring up to take its place. I suppose I don't really need that masters anyway.


3. The state of the WIPs.

Qui-Gon/Tahl. Looking awesome, even if I do say so myself. If I can convert just one person to Tahl or carrots, I will be a happy girl. With the exception of two hands, most of the hard stuff is done and I just need to tidy up the bodies and paint the vegetables. Hopefully I should get this finished some time next week.

Sappy Esca/Marcus cuddling. FINALLY got Marcus's face looking how it should - he's a bit less handsome now but that is all Channing Tatum's fault, not mine. Now watch me attempt to paint all those blanket folds without having a brain haemorrhage.

Nekkid Morgana. This stalled at the initial colour blocking stage - I'll probably return to it once one of the above are finished. The deadline isn't until August so I'm going to take my time with it.


4. Barely in time, but happy MMoM!

Bet you thought I'd forgotten, [livejournal.com profile] swcajolings. Perhaps next year I will be a little more organised and offer you something more than a 5-minute photo study.

Very NSFW sketch )
motetus: (star wars ot / han solo)
1. I've been good about sticking to my alphabet challenge prompts so far, but I'm changing some of the last few letters. Don't worry, there are still tentacles. I'm dumping them down here, mainly so I can remember them later.[Poll #1727719]
4. No drawing over the weekend, Zoe. Painting slash and entertaining your mother are activities best not done together.

5. If I thought the drawing I found yesterday of Yoda spreading his cheeks while being screwed by Mace Windu was bad enough, today I came across this gem:

NOT SAFE FOR WORK/LIFE/ANYWHERE/ANYONE

Genius. I fucking love the internet.
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