Motetus

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Belgian waffles, nutella, clotted cream, berries.



Yes, I am a greedy, greedy bastard.

I had planned to make cupcakes for the stupid wedding - plain vanilla ones with white and milk chocolate frosting. The boy is making the most heavenly Baileys tiramisu that for the past month I've been forcing him to practice again and again (y'know, just to make sure it comes out perfect). Then yesterday I realised that I'd have to frost about 50 cupcakes (and my frosting skills are bad) the morning of the wedding, while simultaneously being physically restrained by my mother as she attempts to smear my face with make-up. So uh, no, I don't see that happening. And given there's already going to be cake* (not that I actually wanted a traditional wedding cake, but mother has already made one and at least it's a super boozy cake) I think cupcakes are a bit redundant.

Instead, I'm going to make pavlova. So this is my first attempt making it, and I think it turned out pretty good! Visually, at least - I haven't tasted it yet. I'm sure I'll need to make it again and again... to practice, of course. Yes, practice.



(I don't own a gravity-defying plate, it's just on a glass table!)

( The recipe )

*talking of wedding cake, which of my Star Wars figures would make the most appropriate topper? Obi-Wan and Kit Fisto? Dooku and Yoda? Indiana Jones and Mola Ram?

I'm surprised my keyboard isn't smouldering given the amount of writing I've been doing this weekend. I'm feeling much, much better about this literature review now I've got a half-dozen pages of notes and a few vertebrae of the backbone planned, and getting back into some serious writing after a break of two years isn't as difficult as I was fearing. It's an improvement on Friday when I was going through the "Oh god, I have no idea what I'm doing!" stage, which ended up with me having a little sob (my first of this degree!) and snarling at my mother on the fourth phone call she made about the stupid wedding invitations. My reward for this weekend's work will be another viewing of Clash of the Titans this evening - I was tempted by Agora, but I think I need something that will require as little brain activity as possible.

Anyway, this is my weekend baking attempt: buttermilk scones with clotted cream and raspberry jam. It was utterly delicious - the scones were beautifully light and airy, nothing like the stodgy ones from the supermarket. My first time cooking with buttermilk too - I always imagined it to be thick, creamy and buttery, but nope, it's like thin sour cream.



( The recipe, courtesy of Delia Smith )

I took a long-overdue trip up to Scotland this weekend to seephurie_dae and thrash her at 100-pin bowling on the Wii. Also, we made chocolate mousse cake with morello cherries, making a complete mess of the kitchen in the process.

It was looking rather good at this stage:



Unfortunately, the final presentation left a lot to be desired, as we found out the hard way that a) coulis is not a suitable replacement for jam, and b) making chocolate curls is nowhere near as easy as Delia Smith makes it sound.



But who cares about appearances - it was AMAZING. I'm kicking myself not nicking the rest of it to take home, but my brain wasn't working very well at 5am on a Monday morning.


I miss Scotland, and I miss seeing my friends more than a couple of times a year. :(