Exquisite Turmoil

So, apparently as of tomorrow I will likely have no internet for some time. It seems that Sprint is discontinuing microwave internet service in this area (and there is no cable / DSL out here in the boonies) as of… tomorrow. Our “landlords”, such as they are, decided not to inform of us this fact until it was too late for us to find a solution to this problem before the internet actually cuts out.

I’m not sure what time we’ll be losing it tomorrow, nor when we’ll get it back (especially given that we will have no internet with which to search for another provider x.x), so this may be my last blog for an unidentified period of time. People begin arriving tomorrow for the big party and remain until the sixth or so, and I find it unlikely that we will have much of a chance to research internet options while anyone is here visiting.

Soooo…. this is goodbye for now, and hopefully not for too long!

Well, after some more fiddling and cursing, I think I’ve gotten the eyes to a point where I am happy with them. With the pictures blown up like this I can see a spot or two on the lower rims where some clean up is needed, but they’re mostly done. The skin is pretty much done (although I may consider highlighting a bit more reddish once I’ve got the fur painted).

The fur, of course, still needs to be done. I thought that I was fairly pleased with the color of it, but once I painted the skin in the red tones, I decided that the fur really doesn’t match. Dan thinks that I should take the fur more toward white (to tie in with the pale wings), so I’ll give that a shot tomorrow and see what I think about it.

Other than the fur and a whole lot of touching up (this thing chips if you sneeze on it, I swear), there isn’t too much left to do. The talons and teeth need to be painted (they’ll be a dirty kind of ivory, with a darker color at the base), and the bony protrusions of the back need color as well. I haven’t decided if I’d like to go ivory like the talons, or the reddish-brown of the wing bones. That will also need to be decided after the fur is finished, I think. If the fur gets really light, the back bones will pretty much have to be red not to look washed out, but I almost think that they’d be better off white since there is already so much red on the model. Ah, decisions, decisions.

Ugh, I hate this party already, and it hasn’t even happened yet. I’ve gotten next to no time to paint while preparing for everyone coming in from out of town, cleaning, etc. Thankfully today I’ve been able to sit down and get a bit of work done.

Most of the fur on my Varghulf is now done — it just needs a final highlight, but I think I’ll hold off on that until I finish the skin. The skin needs a few more highlights (especially around the face) and the talons and other bony protrusions (teeth, back spines, etc) need to be painted. I just finished painting the eye and now I’m pondering whether or not to give a glow to the skin around it (like the masterclass Varghulf). I’m also not entirely certain that I like the coloring of the eye. I had originally wanted a red, but it just blends in too much with the rest of the model so — green. I tried to go for a catlike appearance, but I don’t really think “cat” when I’m looking at what I’ve done. Maybe it needs to be greener?

Also, I’m pondering the bony protrusions of the back. I’m not sure if I should paint them the same reddish brown as the wing / chest bones, or if I should go the same color as the talons (that’ll end up being a dirty, brownish ivory). Any opinions? ^___^

Edit: I started adding in some green highlights, and I don’t think I like it very much. To me, it looks like I was just messy with the brush when doing the eyes x.x

So we finally, finally get a night to ourselves, and what do we do? We go out to our favourite restaurant, of course.  Then we sit around and talk about how we can’t think of anything to do :p So finally… we drive down to the gaming store to get some movement trays.  Talk about all dressed up and no place to go.  I think everyone in there thought I was a whack job or something.

But seriously, I can’t believe we couldn’t think of a single thing to do (rather, a single inexpensive thing to do, since we’re saving money for the move right now) when we finally had a night to ourselves.  We ended up renting some movies at Blockbuster and then snagging some ice cream and going home to lie around on the couch.  We watched “Definitely, Maybe” which was cute up until maybe the last thirty minutes or so and after that it sucked.

I wish the kids hadn’t trashed the house so spectacularly this week.  We rented “The Karate Kid” as well, which I haven’t seen in ages and I want to watch it with Dan today, but he’ll be cleaning like all day with the way the house looks right now.  I suppose that sounds kind of off.. “he’ll be cleaning all day” rather than “we’ll be cleaning all day”, but I’ll admit it — Dan does all of the cleaning around here.  He actually does like.. all of the everything around here except for cooking.  How did I manage to get so lucky?

Well, today is our sixth anniversary! I’m 24-years-old, so by my math.. that means that I have been with this man for a quarter of my life. It’s amazing to think of how quickly and slowly the time goes at the same time. On one hand, it honestly doesn’t feel like six years have passed, but on the other hand — it feels like Dan and I have been married forever.

It’s probably wrong and unromantic or something, but each year when an anniversary rolls around I can’t help but feel self-satisfied and a little smug. We got married quite quickly after we met (a matter of a few months — three, was it?) and we gave our families about a weeks notice that we were going to tie the knot. We’d originally been planning to get married in October (2002), but found out that we had exactly one week to get married or we wouldn’t have enough “time left in station” to move out of the barracks and into a house together. So we figured, “hey, why not?”. We were going to get married anyway, so we just pushed it up and tied the knot. I think just about everyone who flew out for the wedding was in tears, and not wedding tears. These were tears of “why the hell are they doing this?” and I can’t count how many times we each got told that it was stupid to get married like this and that it would never last, etc, etc, etc..

So yes, I always feel smug and self-satisfied when we have another anniversary and all of those people who told us that it wouldn’t last have to send us ANOTHER happy anniversary card.

I should probably just be feeling all gushy and romantic and in love today, but there you have it. I feel gushy and romantic and in love every day (in fact, my family makes fun of me for it all the time :p apparently I am “obsessed with Dan”), so I guess it is hard to feel different on our anniversary, aside from being surprised at how much time has passed. Before I know it, all of those people will be sending me cards that say “Happy 10th Anniversary!” and then I can really chuckle to myself.

I love you honey, and I’m looking forward to many more years of self-satisfaction with you!

School starts so early here.. Anya’s first day of Kindergarten is August 7th! Gosh, in Connecticut we didn’t start school until the very end of August — sometimes not until September, even. I know that they start early here to get the kids out of school before the really hot summer rolls in, but honestly, this seems kind of stupid to me. It is MUCH hotter now in the beginning of August than it is in the beginning of June. I can only think that it would be better to start school in late August and end in June, rather than ending in May. Ah well, no point complaining about it.

Anya is ridiculously excited, and can’t wait to ride the school bus. I always drove her for preschool, of course, and now she’s going bonkers over the idea of riding the bus. Now if only I could get her excited over the idea of waking up before 10am :p School starts at 9:10 (ends at 3:40) and the bus arrives at the bus stop at 8:48. I have a feeling the first few weeks of school are going to be one big fight over bed time and waking up.

There is another thing that confuses me.. school ends at 3:40 and the bus won’t be dropping her off until 4:06.. but we literally live like.. a mile from the school. How can it possibly take 30 minutes to drop her off here? Dan thinks that they drive all the way out and drop off the furthest kids, and then work their way back in, but again — that seems ridiculously stupid to me. Why not drop off the closest kids and then move out? Once the novelty of riding the bus wears off, I imagine I’ll end up picking her up from the school rather than waiting for her at the bus stop.

Anyway, off to actually work on that Varghulf x.x I don’t know why I’ve been slacking so badly lately with my painting. I think it’s because I’m not happy with how the model is turning out, so I keep putting it off…

If not, you should be. I swear to god, at least three days a week my mom calls me at 8:30 and wakes me up, and then tries to sound like she feels bad about it “Oh, did I wake you up..? I’m sorry..” and every freaking time I tell her “Yes, you woke me up. I wake up at 9:30 every morning.” She isn’t really so stupid that she can’t remember this after a week, let alone like two years. I think next time I’m going to hang up on her, as this is really starting to piss me off. I don’t really care who thinks that I should be awake earlier than 9:30. 9:30 is when I wake up. It is before the children wake up, so who the hell cares?

Anyway, it is my dad’s birthday today and I’m already supposed to be making some cake that my mother wants and getting balloons and the like. Now I’m supposed to go to my parents’ house and wake up my sister and get us all out the door by 12:30 so we can pick up my mother and drive a freaking hour downtown to surprise my father at work. Apparently they’re having cake for him at the office and my mother wants to crash the party (which I don’t think he’s going to be happy about by the way).

When the hell am I supposed to make this stupid cake? I asked my mother this and she tells me “Well if you don’t have time to make it, you can just buy one.” Since when is it MY responsibility to pay for everything? Seriously. I get to buy the cake (if I don’t have time to make one with the mound of ingredients I had to buy to make her special cake), drive everyone around for two hours with MY gas, and Dan and I get to pay for the food that my mother wants Dan to pick up on his way home from work (from my dad’s favourite ridiculously expensive restaurant).

I know I’ve told her that money is tight for us right now because of everyone’s birthday being in rapid succession and our anniversary being on Friday. But does she care? Of course not. My dad makes a fucking fortune, but I’m going to get stuck with likely a — $200 bill today (that I assure you they will not compensate me for) because my mother is too lazy to run her own fucking errands and buy her own fucking cake. I may as well kiss celebrating our sixth anniversary at our favourite restaurant goodbye.

Just.. GAH. I didn’t mind at all being asked to make the cake. I like to bake and everyone knows it. But it is not fair to ask me to buy a bunch of things that I would never normally have around my house (she wants a Red Velvet Cake, btw) and now tell me that I should go buy a cake because she wants to drag me out of the house at the last minute to go downtown. This seriously couldn’t have been mentioned to me last night so that I could bake the cake before bed and only need to ice it after we got back?

Oh yes — and I’m also supposed to find time to do some “game” that they are sending around at her work because she can’t be bothered to do that either. This will be the third such one that I’ve done in the past two weeks.

Alas, the poor Dire Wolves have received no love today. I really was intending to get around to them, but as I was cleaning up my painting area, I caught sight of Dan’s quarrelers and decided to surprise him by greenstuffing them for him, since he had been dreading doing it. Anyway, that actually managed to take most of the day until he got home and then after dinner I went and took a nap (stupid effing migraines).

Now my poor little wolves will be relegated to the “complete at some nebulous future date” category since the Varghulf will be all dry and ready for more paintings tomorrow ^_^ Ah well, I’m sure they’ll get some more love when it comes time to attach the left arm.

While it’s not exactly gourmet, sometimes after a long day of painting all you want is a bowl of ramen! The cat loves it too, though. She’s so weird — her favourite food in the world has got to be spaghettios, but she has also been known to stick her head in a jar of black olives, lick lemon juice off of the cutting board, and enjoy a nice helping of salsa con queso. Anyway, I thought she looked so cute drooling after Dan’s ramen that I had to take a picture.

Please pardon my messy table, by the way — it’s covered in painting crap and dinner crap and looks like crap QQ Anyway, last night I finished the wing bones on the Varghulf and added more pinky tones around the rips in the wings. The cuts along his back and legs have been painted and I’ve updated the color of the flesh (just a basecoat). The right arm has been glued on and packed with greenstuff. Once that finishes curing, I’ll greenstuff up some texture for where his arm / fur are supposed to be. Then he’ll be ready to have his fur painted. Once all of his fur is painted, I can glue / greenstuff the left arm. Then I’ll just need to paint the flesh, the talons, and all of the facial detailing. A few more days, in any case. Think I might actually go for a scenic base with this model since he’s so big and pretty and all of that.

Anyway, while his arm was drying last night, I also got a bit of preliminary work done on my dire wolves. I think I’ll get a little more work done on them today as well, since I’ll need to let the Varghulf dry again after I add the texture to his right arm. Perhaps I’ll get the muscles painted up, and get in a start on the clean bones. Anyway, if I do, I’m sure I’ll post it here.

Yes, yes, I admit it — I’ve been slacking on the posts and on my painting. I got next to nothing done on the Varghulf yesterday, although I claim to have a very good reason! In an absolutely unprecedented show of compassion, my sister offered to watch the kids so that Dan and I could go and see the new Batman. I guess she went to the midnight release show and had such THO (Titty Hard On) from watching it that she decided that I HAD to see it so we could drool over Christian Bale together.

All I can say is.. Oh. My. God. I made Dan say things in his “Batman voice” the whole way home from the theatre. Can we say “take me now, please, Batman”? Even without Christian Bale’s complete and total sexocity, the movie was fantastic. It makes me ridiculously sad to think that Heath Ledger’s Joker won’t be making any appearances in future films.. he was absolutely outstanding.

Anyway, stupid Batman and keeping me from painting my Varghulf x.x I spent forever (okay, maybe not forever — in truth, the lure of Christian Bale Batman was too strong and I had to watch Batman Begins again) today trying to come up with something, anything to make the stupid wing bones look good, but I just can’t figure out what it needs. My first attempt was going to be a grayish color but I just kept ending up with some sort of purply.. blah. Combined with the pink fleshiness of the wings, it was making the model look very.. pastel. I don’t think that pastel is a term that can be applied to “blood-mad killers that exist only to feed”. I mean, I’m all for unconventional paint schemes and techniques / colors that showcase my femininity in my models, but a pastel Varghulf is just WRONG.

Anyway, I moved on to experimenting with shades of red, but still nothing is looking right. I do, at least, think that red is what I’m going to go with — I just need to find the right red. I’d like the very tips of the wings to be the brightest red, and then I’d like them to fade down to a brown until they finally meet with the model’s flesh. Unfortunately, however, I can’t quite find the right red.. and the right brown. Hopefully a day at the drawing board tomorrow will result in some wing bones that don’t look like complete crap. Once those are finished I will also, by necessity, have figured out the color that I’d like the flesh to be which will, of course, lead to an obvious choice for the fur.

The fate of my Varghulf rests on some teeny little ridiculously pointy (my finger still hurts, dammit) wing bones.