All pictures and related stuff will go here from now on
aka_tonbo
(an effort to cut down username variety)

I dreamed a fanfiction tonight, *yawns* a really bad Snupin fanfiction.

The pairing doesn't bother me too much, as it's my OTP slashwise, but the plot was as thin as cobweb. Snape owl-ordered clothes, a dress-robe I believe, but his order got mixed up. Instead of a shining Slytherin green robe, he received a peach one which was much too large. Lupin mocked him endlessly, but on the bright side, Sirius Black was nowhere to be seen.

At least this is what I remember from the fringes of dreaming, mayhap character development and deep insights into the twisted mechanisms of wizarding mail-order were included in the parts which slipped away on waking.

I really want to go. I did not mind missing out last year too much. Las Vegas is slightly too hot and dusty for my taste, but I really wanted to go again this year. Like cunningplan mentioned the time in August is perfect for interesting discussions, I would love to visit Canada maybe even get to meet silent_bunny...

But due to a rather eventful Christmas I completely forgot to reconsider before the registration fees reached final level, I don't know if you can still get cheap flights and with the prospect of moving and stuff it's all a bit much ... but I really would love to go.  

Why, I wonder, is it so inexplicably hard to turn a scribble into a finished layout?

I asked myself the same question about pictures already and the answer was rather simple. A scribble is a guideline not a grid.

You scribble down your idea - several times - and in the end have a scribble you base your drawing on. It helps in a way that you have already made several necessary decisions concerning composition and sometimes colours. But once you start your actual drawing things have changed, dimensions have changed, accuracy has changed, details become important and eventually you might end up with the question why something that looked so swell in your scribble looks so odd in your final work.

You cannot simply "copy" your little scribble, you have to recreate it. You have to find out just what made that little drawing so appealing to you that you picked it above his brethren, and most of the time the magic spell won't be figure A occupying the lower 48, 346223 % of your painting. More than often it's a hatching pattern, a coffee spot, the shadow of the drawing on the previous page which makes a scribble come to life and the real work is to interpret the scribble properly and find a visual correspondence in the final painting.

With layout scribbles it is properly just the same.

My teacher asked me how I could make scribbles and concept sketches like I'd be at it for ages but have such a hard time transferring them into the real thing. The answer probably is once more quite simple: I scribble constantly, there is tons of web pages, pictures and books in my head, but I rarely transform them into the real thing, most of them being nothing more but passing thoughts.



(And, yes, I used to measure my scribbles with all possible accuracy)

When I opened the client to type this - which is going to be a preferably short rant over the noble painstaking act of creation - I briefly asked myself why I didn't take up a pen and note the confused contents of my brain on the smooth pages of my diary/ sketchbook. But while this would certainly be highly poetic, there is a certain limit to the readers of my diary. I can only hope that by writing, my thought will unravel themselves and I will come to a conclusion in the end. If I type the same things in my lj there is a slim chance someone will actually read it and maybe help me out.

There's a strange irony in making a journal, the most private thing, most public, but occasionally I like my lj just for this odd quality. (and for correcting my spelling and teaching me nifty mood-expressions)

The day before yesterday my mom did wash the dirtier curtains in the house, in order to have shiny white curtains to shield us from murky grey weather. When she was done and they had sufficiently dried and she was attaching them to their given places again I brought her one of the small chocolate bunnies I had received for Eastern last year. They are quite tasty, but I don't eat that much chocolate so I have quite a few left still. She did not eat Bunny-chan right away but yesterday, in the evening, remembered that she'd left it on top of her jewellery-box and asked me to get it for her when I brought her tea.

But bunny-chan was not on top of the jewellery-box.

I found it on a little box containing eye-shadow a good 20 centimeters away.

When I asked why it had hopped there, it replied that at first it had thought to prolong its existence by posing as a Steiff-plush toy. You know, those are really valuable (or at least expensive) and can be identified by a button in their left ear. Upon examining my mother's jewellery-box Bunny-chan had had to discover my mom only own ear-clips. She has no use for pins. So Bunny-chan got a little nervous. Its brilliant plan to escape death if only for a little longer had failed. What do next?

Now if you ever read Watership Down you will know there's more to bunnies than being small, sweet and tasty. There's another side to them, a warrior's spirit beneath a fluffy coat. So taking up courage again Bunny-chan hopped to the eye-shadow to put on a warrior-face a la Braveheart .... and that's were I caught it.

I am sorry to say the story ended in tragedy. Bunny-chan in the end shared the fate of its idol William Wallace. Now mercy was shown, it was executed. First skinned, then beheaded its shiny golden paper-hide is currently serving my mother as a bookmark.

I currently am a little stuck. My project book has five chapters, while they are supposed to look alike they still have to be different enough to intuitively navigate the monster. I have got my grid, I have got my font (still needs a little refinement perhaps) and I have a basic concept. Chapter two is basically fixed, chapter three needs a little tinkering but is basically ok, chapter four too, I have a pretty good hunch where the last one is going to go, but the first one is a drama queen.

I am currently looking at my most recent drawing for chapter one and have to realize, while I like it, it will not work the way I have to have it working, it's just too full...... I'll finish it to at least give it a try anyway. *sighs*

I hope none of you riding folks get me wrong, but sometimes I just hate horses. *makes hot chocolate and goes back to inking* I am just so glad I bought milk today.

I' d like to post something again..... *yawns*

( Kindred of the East - Boneflower )

I just don't understand it. First they start raising fees for university because students cost too much. Now that more youngsters choose job training there aren't enough training positions available (the supply had not even been sufficient before) and they want to encourage more kids to take up studies..... Do you even think before making decisions??? Do you ever think at all?