Motetus

In meeting strange creepy people off the internet news, I had bauble come visit me last month and she was every bit as delightful and easy to get along with as I'd hoped, and now I miss her terribly. I took a few days off work to drive her all around Scotland (islands aside, very nearly literally - I'm not sure there's much left here for me to see now), only coming close to killing us both with my wobbly driving once or twice, doing all the touristy Scottishy things while she pronounced everything to be "adorable!" which was very charming, at least until she accused me of being adorable too because I'm aiming for scary and intimidating, dammit. Stupid dimples of mine. Alas, she managed to escape my nefarious plot to imprison her in my attic and force her to write perverted filth for my entertainment, but now I know where she lives and can track her down later this year and make her drag me around all the NYC shows that have copious amounts of male nudity.

And talking of male (semi-)nudity, on Saturday I'm going to Edinburgh to see Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake (yes, again, shut up, it was that good) with goblin_dae! I am very very excited because it was one of the most amazing things I've seen when it was on in Glasgow a few months ago, and also because this time I've got seats on the side that has the guy who gets completely naked when pretending to be a statue, yes, yes I am shallow and an embarrassment to everyone.

In PhDing news, it is continuing to be not so disastrous! \o/ I can sort of see little green sprouts of data starting to pop up and bring life to the vast wasteland that is my handful of results chapters, and so the panic over not having enough to churn out a thesis is starting to fade. In its place, however, is panic over somehow managing to juggle the vast amount of things that need to be done in this final year - holidays and free weekends/evenings are going to become scarce - but it's a panic that feels manageable so far, I think. And I like being kept busy, for now. I don't mind having to work until I'm exhausted and only have time to go home, eat dinner, shower, fall into bed and start it all again the next morning, because at least it's work that is producing something rather than the stuff where you work for weeks and months and nothing comes out of it at all. And some of it is even exciting positive stuff that can go towards a publication, hopefully! I showed my supervisor some of my lovely data this week and for the first time in a long while he seemed really pleased by my work, and dear lord it was embarrassing how internally I was all YES I HAVE BEEN A GOOD DOG, RUB MY TUMMY. :D :D :D I am so shamelessly needy.

Anyway, it's another eight days left of another epic, exhausting mouse experiment, and therefore eight days until I can stop thinking about poo so much that when I go for a bowel movement of my own I'm unable to stop picturing a giant labcoat-wearing mouse looming over me as I sit there with my trousers around my ankles, a look of mild irritation on its mousey face brought about by my inability to defecate promptly. Sometimes I wish my imagination wasn't quite so visual.

In fandom news... well, I have none, really. I'm still very much married to Inception and Sutcliff and Eagle (I rewatched Eagle a few days ago and have been re-smitten with feelings for it, and the wife summed it up very nicely with his comment of "Jesus, this film is more gay than those gay internet stories where they have buttsex"), which I suppose is a good thing given I don't really have time to be taken over by a new fandom. Though I have tried! I even reluctantly went to go see the new Captain America after the fuss about it on my LJ/tumblr feed, and... I was so bored. The only things keeping me awake were Anthony Mackie's very pretty eyes and Frank Grillo being extremely hot and bad, but I couldn't see the appeal of everything else. I don't suppose fandom is ignoring all the Bucky/Steve in favour of writing Sam and Rumlow's fight scene ending up with them making out, and then punching each other a little more, is it?

And in arting news... well, see the PhDing news for why my output this year has been so dismal. I am drawing! I'm just drawing super complicated challenging things and drawing them very, very slowly, and I think I'm maybe far more interested in improving and pushing myself as an artist this year instead of being active in fandom and churning out things that will make me popular. Right now I'm trying to focus on Sutcliff Swap and up until yesterday I thought it was a terrible idea for me to sign up, what with my current glacial rate of putting down 3 pixels a day, but I've had an Idea and managed to get it down in rough sketch form, so fingers crossed it all works out by the deadline! When that's done I've got a commission to finish, and then two stupidly complex and detailed Inception pieces to finish off. Here, have proof that I'm not lying about still working on things with this small section of the mess of scribbling that one day will be Dinoception:



Whoops, this got long and rambly. Sorry.

So it turns out trying to paint a cuddling scene without making it too sappy is not made any easier if you attempt it while listening to the Rob Roy soundtrack. Sheesh, it's not even that hormonally-unbalanced time of the month and yet I'm blubbing like a big wet emotionally-incontinent girl. NO, ZOE, NO NICE FUZZY HAPPY CUDDLING.

*paints frownier eyebrows*

BETTER.

I don't usually like posting stuff when I'm halfway through them because they're messy as hell, but I feel the need to show off after spending ALL SODDING DAY trying to get Marcus looking like Marcus (not 100% finished with his face though, needs more facial hair). Ugh, why is it that Channing Tatum has these super-distinctive features and yet I still struggle to get him looking recognisable? Stupid man. On the plus side, I think I've finally overcome my issues with drawing closed eyelids, so yay for that.

( Exceedingly messy thing in progress )

I'm going to give this a break for a while and return to the Qui-Gon/Tahl WIP. I wish I could say that will be more relaxing to work on, but I'm having such difficulties with Qui-Gon's stupid mouth that it really puts me in the mood to hunt down some nice non-con fic where he's forced to do all sorts of filthy, degrading things with those soft pink lips.

Went to the shops to buy new clothes so I can stop looking like a vagrant, bought A Passage to India and Heart of Darkness instead. At least I'll look like a well-read vagrant. Booked a hotel room in London to see the Afghanistan treasures exhibition at the British Museum in June, and am now buying tickets to see the Hallé Orchestra play Beethoven, Bruch and Tchaikovsky. I feel so very grown up.

All of which makes me feel slightly less guilty for painting smutty trash. I've got three penises going at the same time (in two different pictures, before you start wondering exactly what vile perverse thing I'm drawing) and no I've not changed my mind about them being horrible ugly things, I'm just getting tired of finding ways to hide their junk.

( NSFW work-in-progress )

Spent the weekend with goblin_dae being force-fed waffles with nutella and clotted cream and strawberries. Ugh, being her friend is such a chore.

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Also, my grandmother died at the weekend - it's okay though, I'm not upset. She had severe dementia and there really wasn't much of her left, so I'm just glad it was a swift and painless end. Mind you, that makes it four grandparents who have died without me shedding a tear, so either I'm good at accepting death when the person is old or I'm a really heartless bitch.

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Hm, maybe I should find a better way to paint than zooming in to 100% and working on one small patch at a time, hoping that they'll join up at the end. Are the horse and rider the right sizes relative to each other? I am craptastic at proportion. Last time I drew a horse, I made it look the size of a woolly mammoth.

Despite the fuckwit neighbours screwing up my sleeping schedule by throwing parties where they don't have the decency to pass out in a puddle of their own vomit at a reasonable time (it's enough to make me miss the old neighbours with their 4-am window-rattling sex sessions), I was surprisingly productive - all 5 out of 5 tasks accomplished. Okay, maybe a bit more time spent on the PS3 than the literature review. Just a little...

I'm back in a drawing phase, and it's funny how much happier my overall mood is when I have a piece or two that's going well. The painting I finished yesterday I'm keeping under wraps for now, so here's a rough sketch of the next one.

( Merry Amelie's professors )

Go ahead and tell me if anything looks dodgy - I had references for faces and hands, but made up the rest. Which is always a bad idea.

And argh, bloody Ewan. There's something about him that makes me struggle to get him looking right - he always ends up more feminine-looking than I want him to be. Liam's so much fun to draw, I never have a problem with him - must be all those sharp angles and distinctive features. Hurry up and get old, and thus easier to draw, Mr McGregor.