So with the whole Flickr fiasco I finally decided to use one of my old accounts to upload photos to on Deviantart. I have been trying to decide if I should upload photos and if so how. On my main account in scraps or on my fan art account. Because I will probably quit Flickr I just decided to make an account just for photos and transfer most of my stuff over to there. Sorath-Rising is my name there. I uploaded 80 pics today. I warned my friends they may want to wait before adding me so that they don't get their inboxes flooded and I'll let them know when upload goes back to a normal pace. I'm pretty happy with it except that I forgot that sub galleries is a paid feature.

Popular animals. This is a topic I have been wanting to talk about for a while. I joined a group on DA called something like Unpopular animals or No popular animals. The rules were you can't post art work of wolves, felines, dragons, or horses. It's funny and I never realized but these animals are over done on DA. Almost every fantasy artist draws one of these creatures. Luckily I'm an exception. Malidicus doesn't count because he's not mine. I unknowingly tend to go for the lesser know characters or animals for some reason. But it is funny that I think the #1 drawn animals on DA are wolves. But these aren't what I have been thinking about. Even in the "unpopular" or "Unseen" category you find hierarchy. Not many people draw birds, but since I watch a few bird artists I have a list of popular birds that I'm kind of sick of seeing. If you draw these birds or take photos I'm not talking about anyone on the friends list. I'm just kind of amazed that no one else draws other birds when there are 900 species to choose from. WTF? So popular birds: Secretary bird, Lammergeier or bearded vulture, Peregrine Falcon, Macaws and peacocks.

Macaws I can understand because they are pretty birds, people encounter them in pet stores or bird show and with Rio they became popular birds to draw and make characters out of. I love macaws. I have owned and worked with them. I was obsessed with them for years. But I've never made any macaw characters.
Peacocks are also pretty and well known birds that you see often at zoos and parks. Because of Kung Fu Panda 2 though they have sky rocketed in popularity. Thank you Lord Shen who wasn't even that great of a bad guy. I'm actually rather sick of seeing all the bird artists draw him and draw females for him or other variants in the panda style. Gah!! WHY, please stop it! I'm sick of peacocks. Danphe pheasants are much prettier and they don't even have tails like that.
Peregrine Falcons make sense. They are powerful birds and famous for being the fastest animals on the planet. Lots of people draw them and now I technically have two which kind of bugs me because I admire what they can do, but they just never interested me as birds. Not to the point that I would make them into characters. BUT, I have Sorath who has a falcon form. The reason for that is because he was Ra the Egyptian Sun god who is a peregrine falcon. It's Sorath that inspired his myth actually. When the Egyptians saw him he was so alien they didn't understand what they were seeing. His eyeless head looked like a bird of prey so they represented him as a falcon. Arramon is my other character. Part black mamba part peregrine falcon. I'm not sick of seeing these guys, but I have noticed they are very popular.
Lammergeiers? WTF? I remember the first time I found out about these vultures on a documentary back in the late 80s I think. It was called bone breaker's mountian. They lift bones and drop them to eat the marrow. This is their primary diet. Very obscure bird even among bird fanciers. How is it then that this bird is so well known among amateur artists?
Secretary bird? WTF? Why? It's one of the ugliest messed up raptors. Terrestrial mostly with super long legs for stepping on snakes and scorpions. But these guys are drawn all the time and are usually females. I watch one artist that has a flock of fictional birds three of these species are key characters.
I'd say harpy eagles are a close 6th place bird. I prefer Steller's Sea Eagles. No one draws those of course.

So what would my flock of birds be like if I were to make a story about birds? Before that I have tried many many times to come up with ideas for a bird story and get zip. I don't like making characters without a back story so this won't ever be happening for me. So probably a budgie. Budgies are very popular and I see lots of photos and sometimes even budgie art. But I've never seen anyone have a budgie character they consistently use. Budgies just aren't used as characters. That should change, but I just have no ideas.
Quetzal. Got one. Ophidius is a quetzal.
Turquoise Browed Motmot. It's El Salvador's national bird. Exotic and not well known.
Sword Billed hummingbird. Largest beak of any bird for its body size.
White Throated Magpie Jay. A Blue Jay on steroids.

There. That would be my cast of characters. Possibly a sixth but I can't remember what it was. So yeah, popular animals. The popular birds annoy me.

I didn't get much art done today. I got some inking done. But not much. Worked a little on three drawings. I'm feeling frustrated again because I feel like nothing's getting finished. I've been thinking about Stunt Dawgs a lot lately. I have this urge to draw fan art of them. I have so much to do though and I'm also frustrated I haven't created any other species of Coatls. That's really bugging me. I'm still new as a snake artist and when I try new species they are hard for me and they are not to the standard I would like them to be. Yes they all must be the quality that Arramon was.

Speaking of Arramon I've been wanting to mention this for awhile that's funny. It's funny how I have been ending up with characters I have been trying to avoid. I know have two NF characters. One is a main character. No, one is THE main character. Thagirion is INFJ. That does bug me a little bit. Yes I'd rather he had been a T but he's not. He's angry and explosive. If things don't go his way he throws a temper tantrum. He doesn't think, he just acts on his emotions. And as god who can stop him? Who would dare? I realized INFJ is perfect for him too because he has Ni first just like we T's do. That makes him a strategist and system builder. He easily sees the interconectedness of things. This is a MUST have quality for a creator. And for the master planner and multitasker.

The other one is Arramon. He's...oh gosh...he's INFP. I can't believe I have an important character that's an INFP. My least favorite type. He's shy, nervous and timid. He's not a very good bad guy and he feels too much. Yes Idealistic thinking that Quetzalcoatl should lead and when he does take over things will improve. He totally believes that because he loves Quetz too much. He developed on his own and the more I get to know him the more I see that he is an INFP. That means if he were real, I'd hate him. How did this happen?

Current Mood: Confused
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I'm really annoyed by what flickr has done. Chris told me that while he was on they implemented a new change. I went on to look and it's terrible. Everything's been changed for the worst. Before in the photostream it was so nice, simple to navigate and organized. You had thumbnails of the photos and on the right if you had sets or collections they showed. I had my collections showing like Drawings. And inside those I had sets like my Thagirion stuff, bird drawings, etc. Each set had its own small thumb nail. Now collections are gone. The page is nothing bug giant images. Thumbnails are gone. No more pages. It's now infinite scroll which I loath. And they put these image headers on our pages with random images. Mine was a bunch of doors. You can change it to one of your photos but it's still dumb because it wastes all this space. And all the text is gone so you don't know what the stupid icons are. Like for fave, comment etc. When I went to Chris's profile I couldn't find where the option is to send a PM anymore. Finding your profile page is hidden and not easy. And my sets page has huge images stacked on top of each other because they rolled this out with broken code. Everyone hates it. It's like the comments section here on LJ with everyone yelling to change it back. See all the hate here. My comment is on page 3. I think Chris's is on page 12 or 13. You used to be able to view the images in different sizes. I don't know how to do that now. My subscription recently got renewed and I'm thinking I won't renew for a paid account again. I have over 2,400 photos uploaded there which most will vanish if I don't renew. But this just sucks so bad that like I said this isn't want I paid for. I supported flickr all the way until now. I want my $25 back. To me that's a lot of money. I could use that on my trip. It's worth it just to keep it as an photo dump to link to, provided I can find out where the links are to the full sized pics.

Ok just found out how to view full size. You have to right click the image. That's stupid. If you do it the normal way it puts you in a slide show. I don't know what I'll do yet but I'm really not happy to have given them my money for another year now. And they had never changed. Everything else has changed for the worst (LJ, youtube, photobucket) but flickr was the one place that was stable. Now it's gone the way of these other places. I will not longer be recommending them.

EDIT: I just got an email from Flickr about the "Exciting new changes". Yeah I was excited alright. It excited me to rage. I wrote them back telling them they should have sent this BEFORE they made the horrible changes everyone hates. They won't listen of course. You see the pages of complaints here and I've seen them on youtube. It won't do any good. I hate how the internet changes for the worse and if something is good it has to be "fixed".

Current Mood: Infuriated
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Thanks for all the nice comments yesterday. As the day went on, having lost Cheeper got to me more. I was physically tired most of the day. But I feel much better this morning. I still had a very nice day yesterday. Chris got one call in the middle of the day and then came home and we spent the day together. It was very nice. We also had some funny phone calls. His boss called and asked if we had won the lotto. No I wish. Then later Alex called and asked us the same thing. The winning lotto ticket was bought at the Publix that's walking distance from our house. We saw a news van there. The winner hasn't come forth yet. Probably hiding. I don't blame them. I'm guessing they were interviewing the cashier that sold the winning ticket. That's twice now the lotto's been won so close to home. Last time it was the gas station that's literally three houses down the road. We gotta start playing. Really we do. To think it could have been us. Funny our friends were hoping it was us.

We went to Walmart and got some more of those little hugs drinks I like so much. Chris bought me the movie Rise of the Guardians. It's about the holiday characters. I was very curious because I have seen it all over Deviantart. I liked the look of the Easter Bunny. Very serious though handsome guy. But the movie was ok. The villain wasn't interesting and had such a plain design. When I like a hero more (Easter bunny) it usually means the movie isn't decent but not great. Another thing that was missing was no Halloween mascot. They could have had a Great Pumpkin. That would probably have made it loads better. I liked that Santa was a Russian guy. He reminded us of Zangief.

I planted some seeds under my grow lights yesterday. I will have three pumpkins and one gourd that I hope will grow indoors. So that's the new experiment for this year. I have a little pot tray and I will try to sprout some seeds indoors for growing gourds on the arbor again. suzidragonlady I planted some of the seeds you gave me of the pumpkins and pepper so I hope they make it.

Here is a video update of my nepenthes.



LJ did that weird thing to me again where it lost my cookies and I couldn't comment or anything though I was logged in. I'm glad it works today. And my finger is acting up again. I'm still on the antibiotics. I just forgot to take some. Now this worries me that clearly it's not cured. I forget easily.

EDIT: Forgot to say that the day before yesterday I left Henrietta out until 5. Yesterday I called her in at 7pm and she was already in the chicken coop ready for sleep. YAY!! I let her out today and she's foraging with the flock like normal and isn't literally kicking down my door. I think she's cured of the broodiness. I hope she won't get like that again. Omega seems broody, but at least she used the coop.

Current Mood: Tired
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The Cheeper died this morning or last night. I've always had problems with her being sick on and off. I had her in the patio for a time on medication but she just wasn't eating enough. She was getting poops stuck in her tail. I few weeks ago I washed her and cut off all her vent feathers so that didn't happen anymore. She was getting better and even escaped outside. So I let her stay out. Last night Chris went to do a chicken count and there were only 6 and not 7. Henrietta sleeps in the house for a total of 8. He told me Cheeper was missing. So we went out with flash lights. I was afraid the dogs got her but the fence was still up and I would have heard that if the dogs had gotten in. After much searching in the dark I found her by the bedroom windows hiding in the grass. She was hunched over, coughing and throwing up. I knew she wasn't going to make it and I know when birds are ready to die they like to go to a secluded spot to go under and die. Still I picked her up and brought her into the patio. I knew she wouldn't make it, and thought about putting her down, expect I don't now how on such a big bird. Later in the night she woke us up because she was making noises and scaring all the other birds by moving around so much. So we put her in a box on the front patio. Chris got up this morning and told me she was gone.

I know I did all I could and I gave her a good life, but it was too short. She was only 3. Chickens can live 10-15 years. She always had all kinds of problems both behavioral and physical. I've never had a chicken die let alone such a big bird. They are bigger than macaws. She was really heavy too. I guess 4-5 pounds and she was under weight too. Rhode Island Reds are big birds. She wasn't one of my favorites so I wasn't too attached to her, but I still feel sad about it. I haven't cried but probably because we weren't that close. I'm just so glad it wasn't Henrrieta, Zucca or Raptor. I dread the day they go even if they get old. So we buried her next to the house. Poor chicken.

Chris has been worried about me. He's so sweet he got the morning off and took me to eat at Subway. It was yummy. Then we went to Lowes and he bough me some small brass hooks and a bag of dirt. Yes bags of dirt make me happy. I feel both happy and mildly down at the same time right now. I appreciate the lovely day that is today and the weather feels good. And my plants are all lovely. My other chickens are happy and healthy. Here are some pics of The Cheeper.



They all love to drink the water that drips out of the hose.



In the window begging for food. Cheeper is the one on the right.

( Chick picsCollapse )

I do feel that nagging feeling to replace and fill the void. But I can't. Not yet. I really need to build the new chicken coop. Then I want to order some chicks of the breeds I have been wanting.

Current Mood: Sad
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A fun flame on DA

( I win AgainCollapse )

Current Mood: Triumph
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I'm very happy to have gotten in my N. khasiana. It came in a tiny box. I was surprised because it wasn't priority mail, but first class. It still made it in time. Here are some pics.



It came with sphagnum and that pot. I ordered it bare root but they sent me a pot anyway so that's nice. I don't use net pots on nepenthes because they dry out too easily. BUt I can use it for other plants. So yes, I'm pretty happy with the service from Predatory Plants. I just wish they had more plants.



It's so tiny. I have another one that's older and much bigger. I'm hoping that I'll have a male and female this way. What's special about this plant is that it's very endangered in the wild. It's also the only Nepenthes from India. So I want to breed them. I hope I don't have two males. For an endangered plant it's supposed to be super easy to grow. I'm working on a digital painting again. I'm making a jungle/rain forest background for my next coatl. It's going well so far. I also started to ink the Ophidius vs Solan as birds pic.

Henrietta's been living in the house in a box for a long time now. More than a month I think. She has a fake egg and is all broody. I like that she's safe in the house and because she's not with the others I haven't had the hens jump over the fence. She's the one that leads them over. But at the same time I don't like that she doesn't eat, drink, or use the bathroom much. She needs to be out being a chicken not sitting in a box for weeks on end. So today I forced her outside. She was NOT happy about it. I let her out this morning and let her back in at 5pm. She went straight back in her box. I hope she got some food and bugs. Her comb is all pale because she has no hormones right now for egg laying since he's broody. I think I need to break her of that. All she does is try to get back in the house. She'll find the windows I am and and jump on them and yell to be let back in. Poor chicken.

And I forgot to mention that the other day I ate a mango. It was so good I want to grow it. So I opened the seed and got the embryo out. UGLY. It looked like an alien. I put it in some soil, so here's hoping it will sprout.

I'm sleepy. I didn't get any writing done today. Bad! Note to self. Talk about popular animals next time.

Current Mood: Sleepy
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Things are going well, but first let me get one annoying thing out of the way. Puppy dog Mike again. He screwed up his second chance which doesn't surprise me really. He was stalking Chris's truck in that he'd wait for Chris to come home then come ring on the door. Even when we had a day off and told him we'd be gone he came over during one of our rest stops because he saw our truck. We usually go out for breakfast and do morning errands on a day off, come home to recoup because we're introverts, then go out again to do whatever we had planned for the rest of our day. So he wanted to work on our day off. No, we weren't going to be here and we're trying to rest go away. We told him Friday. He kept coming over asking if he could do it early. Even though we won't have money til Friday. But he kept wanting to change the date. So Thurs he comes over early again and he's all excited about his new stupid lawnmower. Fine, I let him start. He didn't even use the lawnmower. He was weeding under the peach tree and I told him that wasn't a priority my gourd arbor was. He started that then told me he had to get some tools and he'd brb. Never came back. Fine. Comes over yesterday and gives me a BS excuse his dad was sick and he had to take him to the hospital but he was ready to finish. I didn't want to hear excuses, just get to work, stop talking to me. If you're talking you're not working I told him. So he goes in the back and starts working. But after a while he vanished. Just gone without a word and he left the gate open. The chickens could have gotten out. That's what tore it for me. He put my birds in danger. He's irresponsible a liar and untrustworthy as a friend and as an employee. If he comes back to apologize I'll send him on his way. At least I didn't pay him this time and got free work out of him. Though it wasn't great work and he'd been bragging about how he works so hard. No he does not and this is why he does not have a real job and can't start a personal lawn business either. I find it funny too that he had been waiting for Chris and talking to Chris more. I know why. Because of the two of us Chris is the "nicer" person. No, Chris just isn't vocal about his dislikes like I am. He was getting pretty annoyed again. Like last time I don't like it when he gets annoyed because he's pretty easy going and it's hard to ruffle his feathers. INTP's don't get as annoyed as INTJ's do so if he's annoyed then I'm ready to kill someone. I can handle it, I don't want anyone or anything upsetting him.

Now other than idiot ESFP's (oh gosh his S type BS was annoying too. I'll rant about that some other time), the days have been good. I haven't worked on any art and I feel my energy shifting though I don't want to stop I know that awesome productive spree I had was abnormal for me and I think it's toning down now. Sad, I wish it could have kept going. I'm still working on my stuff just probably not as much. I cleaned the kitchen the other day and it looks great. I may start to decorate early for 4th of July just because I'm so slow to get everything up. I don't have much in the way of decor for it and it's something I hope I can buy more of soon. But not likely. Right now I'm just dumping everything into savings. It's hard when I see things I want but can't buy them. But I have a few things I can put out. With Easter being in March it did mess April up with no real holiday so it's been a long haul to the next one. Also you need to put stuff up in June be being so early in July you don't get it for the whole month.

I have never ordered from Predatory Plants before. I am surprised though because the website said they ship on Mondays. But they shipped my plant on Wends which made me happy. I think it will arrive today. I hope so. I can't wait. I filmed my next garden update and need to render it and put it on youtube. Yesterday I took a bunch of cuttings from my ventrata and miranda. The last cuttings didn't do so well. I had them indoors too long and they all mostly died. The few that made it are outside acclimating, but not doing too well. They are not in sellable condition. That sucks. So I hope this batch will all survive. So my focus is shifting to my plants and getting the place nice. I still need to write though.

EDIT: Oh almost forgot. The seller of the book got back in touch with me. She couldn't track the package either though she did send it. Seems it got lost which is very rare here. I suspect it got stolen by a mailman somewhere along the line. "Hey my kids would love this!" I got refunded luckily. So I ordered it again from another seller. It's been shipped no tracking number this time. The annoying wait begins again. Media mail so it's going to be slow anyway. But the good things is I got this one even cheaper than the last one. I didn't loose any money and saved some.

Current Mood: Hi Everyone
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loveabomination, I got your PM a while ago. I hope you see this because I can not respond to you because you annoyingly have your journal and your PM's set to friends only. Yes I still have those plants. No I am not willing to part with them. They are still young and I am waiting for them to mature in hopes that I have a pair I can breed. I'm sorry for your loss. I would have been very hurt by loosing all those plants. No I do not go to the forums anymore.

Now that that's out of the way. crazybirdlady14 and silvolf I sent off your packages today. Hopefully they won't take too long to arrive and will work.

Day off and it's been very nice and relaxing. We went to the dump and I saw at least three alligators. Very cool. Sunflowers and phlox are out everywhere. The roads look so nice in pink and yellow. I LOVE this time of year. We had breakfast at IHOP, came home to rest a little then went out to Best Buy. I saw a camera there I wanted. I want to upgrade the one I have with the newer model. Would be nice to have a new camera this year but I really can't afford to spend anything this year. We then went to the sporting goods store. They had so much colorful stuff out. There were bright shoes everywhere. I was so giddy. I took pics of them, but need to fix them in photoshop because I didn't realize the over head lights were yellow and everything came out with a yellow wash and wrong colors. I wore a pink and a green sock today with my yellow scrunchy, purple watch and turquoise shirt. I was very colorful and pretty today and all those neat shoes would have matched me nicely. But my gosh everything is so expensive at a sport store it's ridiculous. Then we went to Michael's and Chris bought me some cute clear cups. One had rainbow flowers on it and the other watermelon slices and seeds. Soo cute!

While I was at Michaels I had a great idea I really want to try. They had a bunch of fantasy figures. I want to make my own traditional Quetzalcoatl by butchering them and putting all the parts back together. I would buy a Chinese dragon, chop off his head and limbs. Buy a Pegasus and chop off his wings. And buy a hydra and take one of his heads. Yeah, I know right? So put all those together and repaint and I have a traditional Quetzalcoatl figure. The hydra is the most expensive figure though. I'll have to buy them one at a time. I could actually use the hydra to make my three headed Quetz perhaps. But for now I'll settle for having a normal one. Only the crest feathers would be missing but it would look cool still.

I repoted some of my nepenthes and put them outside today. I found an N. khasiana for sale. It's one of the ones that got sold I was upset over. This one was on another site I have never shopped with. I registered with them and ordered it. They said they ship on Mondays so the wait begins. Speaking of waiting, I still haven't gotten my Rango book and the tracking has never worked on the darn thing. I sent an email yesterday and got no response. I sent another one today after getting nothing in the mail and still no response. They gave themselves until the 22nd and they have good feedback but I'm annoyed at the lousy communication. I'm worried I may have to file a claim on this one. I hate doing that, but I will if I have to.

So other than that it's been a nice relaxing quiet day. Oh one bit of bad news I was a bit down about. That pretty mini orchid Chris bought me a while back died. It got root rot and stem rot. I don't know how when I had repotted it. Perhaps it was in the old store media too long. This wasn't a rescue. We paid full price because I wanted one I knew what the color was. I chose it out of all of them because it was yellow and orange. They haven't gotten anymore in. This was the orchid. Loosing this one really bugged me.

Ok question for you budgie fans. How would you spell a budgie chirp? You know the normal budgie contact call. Not the screams. I was telling Chris that field guides spell out the bird calls and it's funny but I've never seen a budgie call in these books. Here are some budgies making that chirp. You don't have to watch the whole thing, the sound is at the begining. I think it sounds like Chi-roop or du-roop Chris suggested Ji-deep hum, they all could work. I said next time they update National Geo's Birds of North America they need to include one of these in there. Haha.

That's all for now.

Current Mood: Relaxed
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Got another pic done. I love the feeling I get when I finish one. I love how nice this turned out for a more simplistic fast drawing. Check this out.



Click for full size.
Quetzalcoatl makes it through the storm. He lands on the beach and gently sets Owen down in the sand. The storm is passing and basically over. Owen opens his eyes long enough to see the winged snake speak to him. He thinks he's dying and that this is his last dream. The last thing he sees before he passes out again. Quetzalcoatl wants a new friend and someone to oppose Thagirion with. They are already enemies so this would be great. He's very excited about the prospect, but has no clue how nasty Owen is. When Owen does finally come to it's Ophidius he sees. A more believable sight. Though when he tells him he rescued him, he doesn't believe the scrawny man.

This was fun to color up. So nice I didn't have to do all the complex colors and crazy scale patterns.

Current Mood: Accomplished
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I updated my sidebar the other day. I forgot to mention it. I haven't updated it in ages. I added some things to my to do list. My more up to date and daily changing list is on my DA though. I just have more room there than on this skinny sidebar. I got rid of my Dragon@dopter links. My dragons all grew up and I just don't give a dang about that place anymore and their crappy rules. I had my fun and between Chris and I we had like 10 accounts and almost 14 dragons on two of them. The art there got worse and worse and it was less about dragons and more about putting wings on other animals and calling them dragons.

I have basically finished the pic of Sorath on my nepenthes arbor. I just need to add the red shapes to his face and define his eye bulge a little. So then the next pic will be painting a budgie on there.



This is so nice. I love it.



I got all his planets except Uranus done. It was still wet and it got hot so I went back inside and will shade it later.

( Pot ringsCollapse )

So that's been what I have been working on plant wise. So I really want to paint a budgie on this and Quetzalcoatl along the top somehow. I think this will be an on going work in progress as far as the paint job goes.

Remember how I said I felt satisfied with nepenthes a while back? That was crazy talk. I don't. I want more now. I went on the websites like I shouldn't have and saw some I want. And of course one that I was watching got sold. It's so annoying waiting for payday sometimes because things get sold like that. I hope I get some commissions soon. I really need the money to help pay for the trips too.

I started coloring the Believe pic yesterday. I will work on it some today and hope I can finish it. We'll see how far I can get by tonight.

Current Mood: Good
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I was looking through my tags for bass guitar today. I can't believe the last time I played my bass was March of last year. So yes I have not played for just a little over a year. No wonder I forgot everything. I didn't play today because I was inking some art and I squeezed the tablet pen too hard and my fingers started hurting and itching. So I switched over to writing instead. But before I get to that, I have started working on a piece from Innocence Lost called "Break In". I think once this one is done I will post it publicly because it's not a big spoiler. I'm happy that my thoughts are turning towards Cope and Owen again. I need to finish the art for that and I finally feel motivated to do that. It's the only thing holding my book back. Plus I forgot Ophidius is in it. I need to draw the few scenes he has. Especially with Cope since that's such an unusual combination. I also am almost done inking the bar fight scene. And I started inking the Believe pic. It shouldn't be too hard.

As far as writing goes, I got a little bit more done of Ophidius's Lost Memory. Not as much as yesterday but a paragraph and a half is better than nothing. I have other short stories with him too but this is the only one my mind seems to be concentrating on. I wanted to start the others but nothing was coming to me even though I basically have them worked out.

Here's that pic of my cute socks.



I like the top set best because they are like the socks I had in the 80's. Flourecent blue, pink and green are my faves. The bottom ones are pastels. That brown one is the only ugly one. Wish they had been black. Next time Chris and I go out I will wear colorful stuff and mix some of the socks. One blue and one pink maybe.

I can't wait to get my Rango book. I've been waiting a long time. It's not late. They gave themselves a big window saying between the 5th and the 22nd I think. I'm just impatient and can't wait to get it. I also ordered a bunch of bird food again. I had a great idea for my nepenthes too that involves bird bowls. But I won't say anything else until I test out my plan and see if it works. I also ordered three blue shirts like the ones I love to wear. They don't make them anymore so it's hard to find stores that still have some in stock. Got them on Amazon. I hope there won't be a problem like them saying they forgot to take down that sale and they don't' really have them because they are discontinued. I'll need some new clothes for our trip which I'm still very excited about.

Current Mood: Busy
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This is a list for my own reference. I forgot how to play everything and what I can play on bass. So I'm logging this so I can relearn and in case I forget again in the future.
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80's
Anyway You Want It
Jessie's Girl

Rock
Breaking The Law
The Final Countdown
Would You Love A Monster Man

Metal
Eagleheart
The Hero
Tattered Banners Bloody Flags
Moscow After Dark
Catholic In The Morning Satanist At Night
Varyags of Miklagaard
Under Bergets Rot
Bullets Are Blind

Misc.
Budgie Song

Current Mood: Learning
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I mentioned yesterday was a great day. I even managed to squeeze in a flame war and finish it before going to bed. Not that I wanted to get in a fight but jerks like to pick them with me for no reason. This was on Deviantart.

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Current Mood: YAY!
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I've had a very good day today. But before I get to that want to say a welcome to crazybirdlady14. I'm very glad to have you on my journal and hope to see you around.
I want to share some neat pics that were kind of inspired by earthmother45 but a coincidence that I did this at the same time. She got a new hanging sing for her yard. I've had one since we moved to the house. We never used it and it's old and weathered. I don't trust it one bit for sitting on. But I though why let the spot go to waste. It would make a great hanging spot for my plants and a good shelf. So I have started to work on that. Nepenthes grow under the canopy of rainforests so I think this should be an ideal spot where they won't get burned by the sun.



I don't know why the camera made it look so sunny. This was this morning. It's not that sunny really. I must have had it on a wrong setting or something because it's shady with dappled light and this makes it all over exposed. But look how nice. There is lots of room for more small plants. Mostly these are cuttings of ventrata. I hope they will pitcher and then I hope to sell them. The rest are seedlings for my own collection and one orchid. I plan to hang hooks for hanging baskets and make a shelf along the top and sides and just have nepenthes stick out of everywhere on this thing for as long as it lasts.

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I did something I haven't done in over a year today. I played my bass!! It was both great and terrible at the same time. I loved that feeling of holding my bass. It's so powerful and badass. But I haven't played in over a year. I knew I had forgotten everything and I have. I mean EVERYTHING. I don't even know what the notes are anymore. After tuning up I just sat there playing chromatics up each string and saying the notes out loud. I don't remember how to play any of the songs I worked so hard on. It's like I did nothing and have to relearn everything. I feel bad because I feel I wasted my talent. I was getting so good and now I'm at square one again. Granted I was very sick for a few months last year and part of the reason I stopped. And I did have to stop because I did feel some pain in my fingers after a while and when electricity shot down my left leg it was time to stop. I'm not happy my session was cut short because I didn't feel like stopping. I was trying to figure out Summer of 69 which is a great 80's song about having been in a band. I kind of know that feeling because I remember back fondly being in the string ensemble. We all went our separate ways for different reasons. I miss playing in a group. It's the only extroverted thing I like to do. I don't like playing alone.

AND I started writing Ophidius's Lost Memory. I've got most of the intro down now. It's coming along pretty well. And I'm thrilled with the new friends and feed back I have been getting on DA. I'm having so much fun. And it was payday. Yes it's been a great day today.

EDIT: Oh almost forgot. I painted outside too. I basically finished Sorath. I just need some black paint for touch ups. I got his details done and his plants are mostly done.

Current Mood: I'm awesome!
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Chris and I had the day off together yesterday. We got a lot accomplished. We went out to eat which is always nice. We got some stuff we needed at Walmart. I got some new colorful socks. I will post pics of them because they are so cute. He helped me with the nepenthes poll. All the white hooks are now on it. I just have to add two hanging hooks to the back and my invention will be complete. It holds 20 hanging baskets which really rocks! I want to build one more for the side window but it will be a mix of nepenthes and bird feeders. Unfortunately I haven't felt like doing the art for it. Sorath is unfinished and I just don't have the feel to be out there painting anymore. But it also bothers me he's not done and I'd like to get at least a budgie on there and Quetz.

I'm in one of those transitional stages for my art right now. Everything's in the inking or pencil stage. I started three new pics yesterday with pencil but didn't finish any. Felt frustrated with them and worried that I may not be able to pull them off. I always worry that I've temporarily run out of power especially when I've been cranking out so much. I hope that's not the case. I always struggle with my art when I start it. I hate that and don't think it should be the case. It should just flow out, but it's always fight for me which makes me wonder if I can do it. But that feeling is only in the initial stage.
I should write then. I came up with some great new ideas for Quetz yesterday when we were in the restaurant. I come up with some awesome stuff while there. I don't know why it's such an inspiring place.

Got off the meat and veggie diet for a few days and had some good stuff. I've noticed when I eat junk after eating healthy for a while I get better. Go figure but that's always how it is. So I'm back to it having started yesterday and will try to go for another two weeks. I'm doing great actually. I wonder if I can reach my goal? Looks very possible right now.

Speaking of goals, I am thrilled I have met my goal of 12 finished Thagirion Realm drawings. This year is a record for art for me. I have never drawn this much finished stuff EVER. Actually I have way more than 12 finished works thanks to all the facial expressions. I colored those up as big 900x900 images then shrunk them down to icon size.

I looked through all my seeds and picked out stuff I want to grow. I'm so busy with other stuff I really don't think I have time for a garden this year but I will try to at least squeeze in the cucurbits. I need to choose three types of pumpkins and may-be one gourd to try to grow inside. This won't be easy and I haven't quite figured out how yet either. I just know I want to set up lights on a shelf somehow. Also it's hard for me to choose just three. I know Connecticut fields at least because they are the traditional jack o lantern and Chris loves those. Would love for this to be the year I grow a full sized pumpkin. I'm glad I succeed last year but so much effort for so little pay off. And I can't find my turkey gourd seeds. That's really annoying.

Current Mood: Silly
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I've had this idea for awhile now. Check this out. Just penciled it out today. The poses gave me a hard time but I finally forced them to work the way I wanted.



Click for full size
Ophidius and Solan in their bird forms. Quetzal vs Peregrine falcon. Ophidius is at a huge disadvantage in this form. I'm not sure what the story is here, but he probably said or did something to piss of Solan. Was probably teasing him about being a sun god and how this land was no longer his. I'm sure I'll eventually come with a good story for this. There's more sky and wall to this, but I cut out the excess so you could see the characters better. I think this will be so nice colored up. I like that Quetz has been caught on top of one of his own Quetzalcoatl statues. So Sorath's bird form is a peregrine falcon because he used to be Ra in Egypt. Thagirion has a bird form too, though he can take just about any form he wants. I've been giving it much though and think his will be a decrepit raven. Neat fact. Quetzals have weird feet. They have two toes forward and two back like parrots. But they have the short toe on the outside. So it's backwards from parrots. That is called heterodactyl. Parrots are zygodactyl. Song birds, what everyone is familiar with three toes front one back is anisodactyl.

I'm glad everyone liked Gallemotch so much. I got a lot of nice comments and the common thread everyone said is they don't want to run into him. I know I created him to be scary but I didn't think it would be that effective. I still need to come up with seven more monster designs for my ruling class of 11 demons.

Day off tomorrow. Yeay, I hope we do some fun things. I'm looking forward to it.

Current Mood: Creative
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Got another one. This one only took me one day after I got him into the coloring stage. That's pretty fast for me.



Click for full size.
I'm very pleased with his design and colors. Gallemotch is part plant part centipede. He's 4th in command after Quetzalcoatl. He's 20 feet long. His mouth opens into three lobes. I will have to show him from the front sometime with his mouth fully opened. He has venom and poison. He's able to poison the ground and cause death in his immediate vicinity to other plant life. You saw his human form as George Smith. This is his true form. New character so I still haven't figured out everything about him. He's quiet, usually keeps to himself but deadly once he's ready to kill. He does not like Quetzalcoatl but gets along well with Sorath.

The background is ok I think. I like the colors and was going for that American desert feel. I think I sort of got it. I'm experimenting with new backgrounds and it was a rather rushed job. But it's not the main focus here.

Current Mood: Accomplished
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Ok so at last here are the pics of the Red Shouldered hawk that came to my window.



Big cute brown eyes! See the red shoulder? That's how they get the name. Though red wristed hawk would be more accurate as that's the bend of his hand.

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Current Mood: Creative
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Finished another drawing. This is Malidicus and Quetzalcoatl's first meeting.



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...the feathered rattle whipped around and swatted him in the stomach. The blow sent him flying back first into the bushes. The snake laughed.
"I am Quetzalcoatl, creator of the universe! First in command of Hell! God of the new world! Venus rising! The plumed serpent!" The voice was the same but each head took a turn after a sentence was completed. He paused. "...And, I want to be your friend."

Malidicus stepped out of the shrubbery; twigs and branches lodged in his fur. He approached cautiously. He could now feel the power emanating from the giant snake. He stared at it a moment curious.
"You...want to be my friend? What are you?"

A little excerpt from the story. I left a lot of stuff out so it seems a bit rushed and odd. After making a nuisance of himself at a French tavern Ophidius was thrown out. The little man was so annoying that Malidicus decided to do the world a favor and end him. He hunted him down in the woods, but the tables were turned when Ophidius had been expecting this and revealed what he really was just as Malidicus was about to kill him. Oh and all that stuff he ranted about? It's mostly BS. He's not the creator of the universe nor is he 1st in command of Hell, nor is he from Venus. But Malidicus doesn't know that and he wants to impress him.

Current Mood" Accomplished
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I have been taking the antibiotics and they are working. Hurray for modern medicine! I could not type with my left hand for a few days and when I did I was making some really bad errors. One was funny. I was talking to someone about sharks and snakes and I said "Shakes" instead of sharks. That was so funny and wrong. I could not make a closed fist for a long time. Now I only have a red spot in the middle knuckle and can close my fingers most of the way. I'd say 98% of the swelling is gone. But my hand itches in the mornings. I have also been soaking it in hot water. That's part of the treatment. I'm so glad it was that and not ice because the cold hurts me. I have to go in for a follow up next week. Probably on Weds. I'm so glad this is working and no other stuff will need to be done. Oh and I'm also eating yogurt to make up for loosing good bacteria. Lactobacillus are cute.

Today is an anniversary, but Chris has to work. I hope tomorrow will turn out to be a day off with no calls coming in.
A hawk came to the window yesterday and scared all my indoor birds half to death. Poor Abigail crashed into a wall trying to get away. It was a pretty red shouldered hawk. I got some great pics of him with a mean bluejay. I'll post them eventually. I put more plants outside. That was great. Nepenthes are slowly starting to get pitchers in. I think this year will be a good one. I'm also happy that I don't feel the urge to buy lots of plants this year. There are still some I want of course but it's not like it was the past two years.

I ordered two books from Amazon. One is the Birds of Mexico, Belize & El Salvador. I can't wait to get that book. It shipped a few days ago. It's coming media mail so it will be slow, but it's killing me. I want it now. I hope it has decent maps next to the birds. I don't want to pay more for shipping though so I got the cheapest one. That makes the wait hard though. I also ordered the art book for Rango. It shipped yesterday.

I am about half way done on my next pic. I have been using the tablet mostly because it's all right handed work. I am in the shading stage now of the first meeting between Malidicus and Quetzalcoatl. I need a better name for that piece. I hope to work in it today and since my hand is better get some writing done. Yes, there will be a lost memory story for Ophidius. That's the one that's on my mind the most lately and I need to start to write it. I think I have all the parts worked out for it. I need to finish transposing the first story as well which is what I was doing when my hand went bad. I have a friend on DA that's actually published books on Amazon and she has been inspiring me to work harder on my own stories.

Current Mood: Busy
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My finger got worse. It is very painful at certain times of the day. if i make a lot of spelling errors, use net speak or not capitalize words it's cause i'm using my right hand only & it's really slow. Went to the went to the walk in clinic today. Not a bug bite. There was no break in the skin. Had an ex ray & bones are fine. But the doctor doesn't know what it is. He suspects it's an infection and gave me antibiotics. I hope it does not get worse but it hurts a lot and it is pretty swollen up.

Despite that, Suzi made a cool tutorial for me, and I fixed the water background. Check this out!



Click for full size.
Please comment if you did not comment last time.
PS: Chris typed this because he's sweet.

Current Mood: Hurt

I got an email from Royal Caribbean today and the right booking number for our trip. I put it in and it worked. It was nice to see our names and now I can access and look at what shore excursions to buy. But I was shocked how expensive they are. They are about $100 per person. That's three islands so for both of us that would be $600 if we did those for each one. Shoot no way. Since Mexico is the priority that is the only one we can probably do. I thought perhaps if we took a taxi somewhere and did things on our own it might be cheaper. But looking online even other tours run about the same. It's crazy. I'm going to have to do some research and see what kind of natural parks are on each island. And I'm a bit disappointed that we won't be able to do Chichen Itza in Mexico. It's expensive, it's far inland. Most of our day would be wasted driving. That's something that I think is best if we stayed on in a hotel and did just the Yucatan for a week. So it's down to Tulum or Xel Ha. XelHa is like a nature preserve you can go snorkeling. It's lovely. I've been there. Tulum is ruins on the beach. Also lovely. I think Chris liked Tulum more. That may be what we do. I'm hoping we can get back since it's closer and perhaps I can bird watch from the docks and have time to look at stuff on our own without a tour. The other islands are Labadee Haiti and Falmouth Jamaica. I wish we had more time at each location. And we seem to be the type to not like being guided around. When we went on the tour to Ben's Cave we broke away from the crowd and that and going to the beach on our own was our favorite part of the whole thing.

I updated my Trav buddy account that I'm going on this trip. I'll look on Google Earth since that's how I sometimes find parks and nature preserves that normally tourists wouldn't know about. Oh and then the Royal Caribbean website went of line just when I needed to look at more info. Just my luck. I finally get in and it breaks.

Today was a nice slow day. I didn't do anything. Chris had the day off so it was nice having him around. I customized some of the widgets on my Deviantart so I'm happy everything's looking more blue there.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I bought a book from Amazon today for birds of Mexico. Woo hoo!!
Current Mood: Dizzy
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Ok, now for a real post. Here's some art because I "Can't draw" right? Heh hehe.
Seriously I'm very pleased with this except for the waves. They're the best I could do. Wish they were better but gah!! I actually do suck at angry storm waves. Other than that, I'm thrilled with my clouds, rain, lightning and my two characters. I'm open to any advice anyone has on how to make the water better. Gosh, I think I hate water now more than plants as far as art goes.

Pic re-worked. See new post.


At full view you can see all the little details like the rain running down them. So the story starts with This older pic as Owen's thrown overboard for running his mouth and just being a jerk. Ophidius happened to have been on the ship at the time. He was actually looking for Owen. He knew that he had become a gifted and that Thagirion wanted him dead. Those were two good reasons to keep him alive and befriend him. So he casually leaps overboard too, takes the form of Quetzalcoatl and pulls Owen out of the ocean. Next move is to find land. Flying through the storm is not easy. Quetz isn't designed for it or long distance flying. He has the rounded wings of a forest bird. He'll do his best as he makes his way towards Iceland.

Current Mood: Accomplished
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Oh no... an art critic. I'm sure you imagine how this went.

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Current Mood: Devious
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The neighbor got bit by her own dog today. I really don't care anymore so long as those stupid dogs don't come near us or my birds. I heard her say something like, "It bit me, now I have to get rid of him." I really hope so. I hope they get rid of all of them. But the way things are going they'll just get killed by those dogs and problems will be solved.

I got an email today from Livejournal telling me one of my accounts would be purged if I didn't log in because I had less than three posts. I forgot about that. So I looked up all my accounts and logged into all of them and posted at least four posts. They will be purging inactive accounts in 14 days so if you have extra accounts you haven't used log in and post whatever so you don't loose them.

I came across a fanfic on DA today that other artists had been making drawings for. The author can't draw well, but people liked it and were making pics. So I got curious and checked it out. That was disappointing actually and I didn't see why her friends thought it was so great. It's another case of a girl falling in love with a villain and creating a female character for the villain to fall in love with or make friends with. The writing wasn't that great. The female was annoyingly emotional. And she made the bad guy too polite. I already know where it was going because it was in the little description. The girl turns him around from his evil ways and teaches him to care. Oh gosh don't make me puke. First you picked a crappy villain, you wrote him out of character and just to make him even more out of character. I hate it when girls fall in love with bad guys to "save" them. First of all you can't save them if they were real. Second of all if you have to change them you haven't fallen in love with them for who they are. You know what they say about if you love someone you don't change them. The power that bad guys have is alluring for sure but good girls also fear it and don't really want it. Therefore they try to change them which means they do not accept them and there in lies the problem. Make up your own character based on them then, but don't mess with what was there. When I fall for a bad guy it is because I like everything about them. I also do not fear their dark nature because I am of that same nature and it does not frighten me. I like characters that I see a lot of myself in. A lot of characters leave me disappointed, so I took my own advice and made my own.

Another interesting point that Chris brought up the other day was that I am repulsed by most romance. I do not allow my characters to have happy love lives. Never because they are dysfunctional, unfaithful or anything like that. The rare times I have had couples they have no problems when it comes to the relationship. Just look at the Copes and what a joyous family that...was. But that's the thing. Something in their lives prevents them from having that for long. Usually I kill off the female somehow or both. I do think having all these kissing scenes and Disney like happy endings is gross and interferes with the much more fun and interesting action. Also, I don't want to ever end up with any mary sues and bad writing because there's too much love. If I keep it to a minimum or none at all there's not chance that will ever happen. When I was a teen I did used to make comics with myself as a character with my favorite cartoon baddies. I've ripped most of those up. Thank goodness there was no internet back then. They were terrible. No one in their right mind wants to read about that. Boys don't have these problems. They have other problems but at least nothing so unrealistic as this. It just irks me how many good girls fall for bad guys and then try to change them. You don't accept them and you're not really in love with them. You know the real version would never love you and turn on you.

Well I didn't finish my drawing today but I did make some major progress on it. I think tomorrow for sure I should be done with it. It's looking awesome already. Photoshop has been so annoying lately giving me problems. Like it thought it would be funny to change the opacity on the layer without my noticing. I don't know how it got changed and I thought the opacity was messed up on the brush itself. I checked everything and thought something was wrong but then I figured it out. Then today the gradient set on overlay didn't work anymore. Every setting I tried made it look like normal and I had to use an overlay layer to get the same effect when moments ago that feature had been working. I shut down photoshop and reopened and that didn't work. I shut down the whole computer. Nope. It's been doing annoying things like this. So after just not knowing how to do something now that I know what to doing it's just doing stuff like this to aggravate me. Well I'm aggravated. At least I know other way around it but I shouldn't have to. Anyway, I hope tomorrow I can finish this. I think it's going to be an awesome drawing for all the pain it's given me.

Current Mood: WTF?
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