oh, mama raised me well

Things I want to do this summer:

• picnics!


• go to the ledges - nelson ledges and/or kendall park


• heck, go to kendall park and the cuyahoga valley nat. forest


• train rides at peninsula!


• great lakes medieval faire!!


• swimming, maybe?


• bjd zoo meet? might happen in june


• more bonfires


• more random shenanigans

Yesterday was really crazy, but in a good way!

In the morning, Tony and I got up to go down to the open farmer's market a block away from us. There wasn't much, since it was the first outdoor weekend they've had, but we bought some kale for Jackie, our uyromastyx, and we ran into Lysa! Then, we walked up to Gaming Grounds (which is run by Noir, who we know from Warren years ago) to see if he had any swag for Free Comic Book Day. We got little Iron Man Heroclix and talked about maybe running tabletop games and stuff like that. Tony hadn't been up there before (I'd been there once prior), either.

After, we came home and I went up to work. I thought I was going to be working from 3-9 (instead of my usual 3-6), but there was a miscommunication with picking up someone's shift and another kid came in to cover the shift I was going to take after mine. I didn't mind too much, because that meant I could go downtown and catch up with Tony and Jevin at BW3. We hadn't seen much of him all semester - due to conflicting schedules and stuff - and he wanted to hang out a bit before summer break, because he's going out of state to see his partner. So we hung out for a little bit, then he dropped us off up at campus and we met up with some of the local furries that we actually enjoy the company of (Bass, Malik, Willow, Jeff, Savanna, and Malik's girlfriend, who we hadn't met prior, but was pretty cool!). We ended up going out to Jeff's place in Streetsboro and having a bonfire and generally hanging out and bullshitting until about midnight.


(they had a really cute cat with a nub tail at Jeff's place)

It was just really nice to do something completely spontaneous and have an enjoyable day spent with friends after stressing over money and stuff. I mean, money troubles are still there, but I feel a lot better about them now, I guess? My mind's in a better place than it was two days ago, at least. Shit will work out, it always does.

Other than the money issues, I've been feeling good otherwise about a lot of things.

I've been drawing a lot more, taking my tablet to work a lot to just sketch on the larger monitors at work, and spend time doodling when I'm stuck inn the photo studio with nothing else to do. I'm feeling a lot better about my art, taking more time to tweak things and make them look better instead of sort of half-assing it or not paying attention to what I'm doing. Faces are looking better, less weaboo. Eyes are looking nicer and less anime. I still need to work on things like hands, of course, and feet. But loose gesture sketches are coming out faster and nicer and I like that.

I've been working on a set of digital pieces for Anthrocon - the main six characters from the new My Little Pony show. As much as I loathe the fandom and the bronies, I do love dumb, colorful designs. I'm basing most of the designs I'm drawing off the Equestria Girls spinoff they're going to do, which a lot of people don't like?? I like the basics of them, so whatever.




I've only inked Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie so far. All six are sketched, though the three I did after the ones above are kind of half-assed, so I'll have to clean them up and make them nicer. I'll probably make mini prints of them (4x6 or 5x7) to sell, and then maybe make some larger prints and paint some colorful frames and put them in the art show if I'm able to.

I might also one or two personal (my own character) pieces in the art show, if I can hash something out this week and maybe use the printer at work. We'll see. I really don't know what sort of merch to take/make to AC because I don't want to be stuck doing commissions all weekend. I've still got two months, though, so I'm sure I'll figure something out.

I'm also thinking about trying to do basic reference sheets for my main characters that I use/draw frequently (Phe, Gwen, Max, Tegan, Poe, Sahariel, etc.). Probably just a ref for their markings and body shape without clothes (because none of them have the same body shape - Gwen is pear-shaped with big hips, Poe is slender but busty, Phe is somewhat athletic, Tegan is thin and doesn't have a lot in the way of hips and boobs, etc.), and then what they normally wear - something to show the style of clothing they dress in.

I'll probably use stock photos for them - cause I want the pose to reflect their personality/character a bit, and it's a bit faster to sketch over stock photos and keep everyone looking similar-ish when it comes to the style anyhow. I've only started on Phe so far, however.



And, for good measure, two other little doodles from recently:



Alexis and Phoenix Shepard - my Mass Effect Shepard who's based on Phe, which is kind of self-explainatory by the name! I'm pretty proud of her face. I need to go back in and do some tweaking and fix her ear, but she's coming together pretty well so far!

I've been bad about updating! Which totally defeats the inital purpose of, you know, using my journal again.

I'm sitting at work in the MACC Annex, listening to the wrestlers (I think) in the next room over have practice or something. They're making a lot of noise, is all I know, and I'm trying to counter it with music, since there's no one in the Photo Studio right now.

My laptop is back in working condition! My power cord eventually went completely kaput and I snagged another one for, like, $10 on Amazon. Looks like that was the problem, which is nice. I mean, I still can't use my laptop without the cord, because my battery is shot, but that doesn't bother me. I also reformatted it and it runs a bit better. But it's also something like three years old, so it's to be expected that it's lagging behind a little. I don't know if I want to buy more RAM for it, or just buy a new laptop. I'm so attached to my stupid sticker-covered laptop, though.

I was sick over the tail end of spring break last week. A head cold was going around work at the library and I'd avoided it until the weekend or so when kicked my ass. I was congested and couldn't breath or swallow well and all I did was sleep. I couldn't keep myself awake and I was just constantly tired. There's a little of it lingering still, but it's nice to feel human again. Especially because the weather's finally warmed up significantly and I've been wanting to spend time both outside and cleaning the house.

We're planning on pulling almost everything out of Tony's craft room downstairs and organizing things to be easily find-able and accessible. I wish I had the extra money to get some nice organization things, but I don't right now. The biggest issue is finding the best way to store all the bolts and yards of fur he has so they don't get dirty and the cats don't lay on them and them still be easy to pull out and use and put away. But we'll see what we can do. Worst case scenario, we buy some more of the plastic shelving things we're using for fur now.

I just want to get all the mess/clutter organized and cleaned up. I want to put away fall/winter things and pull out spring/summer stuff. I'd like for everything to be nice and neat and easy to find, really. I want the living room to be nice and neat because sometimes I'd like to spend time downstairs or have a second television where we can play games or invite people over to hang out with. Our main TV is in the bedroom and it's always a clusterfuck (mostly clutter, let's be honest here) and small and not exactly condusive to having people over or anything.

I'm also thinking about pulling everything out from my office and re-organizing it. But everything's so precariously placed in there right now that it might not be worth the trouble?? i have two desks and my desktop comp in there and I'd like for my one window to be fully accessible (there's a desk in front of it right now and I can open/close it, but maybe I'd just like to, I don't know, toss the papasan cushion down in front of it and nap in the sun or something?

I don't know, a lot of brainstorming needs to happen before I do anything with that. I can spill some of my stuff out into the landing (like my bookcase, for example), because there's plenty of room out there and I'm probably going to put the cat's stupid cardboard house into the extra bedroom - which is basically their room anyhow.

I also need to plant my veggies and stuff! I don't want to procrastinate on it forever this year because I'd really like to get a harvest out of them.

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I've been trying to draw a bit more (and get some commissions to help with rent/whatever).




Two requests I did and one commission and a gift for a patient commissioner~

I've also been working on my dolls! Well, mostly on Poe. I want to blush Desma's body with pastel, but it's not working really well, so I'm putting her on the backburner for now. In the meantime, Poe's been progressing nicely.




I've been writing a lot about my progress and such over on my doll blog, so I won't rehash it all here. I need to pick up some better acrylic paints, but so far she's coming along well. I haven't done the markings on her body yet, though.

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And now, some Instagram spam~



I also made a seperate flickr account for all my book cover photos, as well: raggedpages

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So a bit back, we switched Finnick over to some Taste of the Wild cat food, because he'd been breaking out in scabs and we couldn't figure out why. It wasn't hurting him, they were just a bit itchy and never seemed to go away, even with baths and such. We thought he was allergic to the flea meds, but then we thought it might be a food allergy.

Which is pretty much exactly what it is.

Since we've switched him over to a higher quality food, his scabs are almost completely gone and no more have broken out at all. He's probably allergic to something stupid, like corn or whatever they use to fluff out the standard cat foods. He doesn't eat the other food at all anymore, but we have to feed him by himself because I can't afford to switch them all over to the more expensive food. But at least he's smart enough to come and let us know when he's hungry.

The other cats are doing well, which I'm thankful for. They're all stoked about the warmer weather, too. The other animals are good, too. I have to pick up some more food for the ratties and clean out their cages (and pair them up, which I've been procrastinating on) this week.

I'm sure there's things I've missed that I'll remember right after posting and go 'why didn't I write about that??'.

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See, I knew I'd forget something!

I'm going to be making a Commander Shepard cosplay for Anthrocon (yeah, I know, that doesn't make a lot of sense) because Tony is going to try to do a Geth or a Turian and I just want an excuse to wear awesome armor, dye my hair red, and yell at people.

I'm pretty happy that I found great pattern templates for the armor, too. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how much EVA foam I'll need and then, you know, actually piece things together. I don't think it'll be too difficult, just time (and money) consuming. Especially since I'll need to get a decent undersuit to wear and, likely some kind of compression/spanx thing so I don't look like a fatty. I mean, I have a spanx thing, but it's prone to rolling up. I might buy one of the bodysuit-ish ones, with the shorts or whatever that's all one piece.

But hopefully we can also cobble together what we need for whatever Tony decides to do. The biggest obstacle for him will be a mask, I think. Or, if he does a turian, that damn collar thing.

Instagram annoyances, because I'm feeling catty this morning.

• People who tag photos with #instagay, #gayboi, #kentgay, etc. No one care that you're gay and I'm pretty sure intagram is a terrible way to try and pick up dudes. You also don't need to tag these things on EVERY. PHOTO. IN. YOUR. GALLERY. It's bad enough on your selfies.


• People whose galleries are ONLY of self portraits. Do you have anything else going on in your life? Or does the world revolve around you?


• Gratitious tags. If you've already stated your little sister won first place in a competition, you don't need to tag it #firstplace ir #littlesis. Also, #girl, #boy, #hot, #swag, #shirt, #love, #cute, etc. are all equally redundant. Long tags are dumb, too. This isn't tumblr.


• Bar 145, you're not #noisyneighbors if you're in a metro area where few people actually have their residence, nor are you #noisyneighbors when you're a bar that's open after other businesses have closed.


• People who have PARAGRAPHS of tags. You're not going to get your photos noticed any quicker like that.


• Duckface. From anyone. I hate you.

And, sure, my tags might look stupid on first glance before knowing I use them to tag on the sites my Instagram is linked to and, sure, a lot of other people's tags might be for that same purpose. But still, it's unlikely in my book. I'm also sure people on the #kenstate tag sit back and bitch when I spam my book covers, but I don't really care. Just like those people I'm bitching about don't really care. Likewise with my #instagram tag, which tags my posts as such on tumblr so people can ts them. Personal annoyances~

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Okay, in things that aren't bitching, which really isn't a great way to kick of an entry, but I swear I'm not all cranky and moody, haha.

Been playing catchup with classwork. Out English teacher gace us all a week to catch up with what's been going on there (which I flaked on all week - go figure - I'm going to have fun cramming three papers into one evening tomorrow). I think I'm caught up on my Media work, except for this week's stuff, but we always do that on the weekend when it's due anyhow.

I reformatted Tony's old laptop to use for myself temporarily. Either my power cord or my battery is on the fritz. Well, actually, I know my battery is going, but recently when I've unplugged and taken my laptop somewhere, plugged it back in, it doesn't want to charge. It'll run on what power is left in the battery, then shut down and turn off. I can try removing the battery and running off just the power cord, but it won't do that. I have to do a song and dance that has absolutely no rhyme or reason to it before the computer will suddenly decide to power back on.

So I need to figure out what that's about.

After I'm done with Tony's old comp, it's probably just going to be used as a place to store movies/videos and stuff.

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On Wednesday, we went to see Howie Day at Musica in Akron. Tony wanted to go, so he had picked up tickets a bit back when they went on sale. It was quite nice! He played a lot of songs we know and Tony's pretty much convinced he played Bunnies for him after he shouted it out amongst the sea of voices yelling for Africa.

I only got one good photo, sadly.



Afterwards, we went to Mr. Zub's (which is amazing if you've never been there - all their sandwhiches are based on characters from movies). We try to have something different each time we go (though I often fall back on The Ren McCormack - chicken shawarma) and my post-errand and concert fatigue was craving something ridiculous, so I tried The Duke (roast beef with onion rings, jalapenos, bacon, cheddar cheese, and bbq sauce). I though it was going to be wayy too much of everything, but all the portions within the sandwhich were perfect. The jalapenos were insanely fresh, the BBQ sauce wasn't too sweet, the roast beef was tender and tasty.

Tony got an Ernie McCracken (pastrami, salami, swiss - bit provolone in place of swiss and on a wrap instead of a bagel) and we split it (he got half of my sandwich) and I said eating it was like a religious experience. Their pastrami is so freaking good.

Then we went home and promptly crashed for ten hours. It was a good day.

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Tony's stupid Garrus love pillow came today and it's horrible and awful and ew how could anyone like that at all gross.



I'm fully expecting it to be lovingly laid on my side of the bed when I get home from work.

>:|

I'm waiting on my white Hujoo Freya that my mom's getting me as an early birthday gift!



Now I'm going to actually have to learn how to do faceups properly (I practiced a little on Desma - the grey Freya I have), because I have a long way to go. But I have all the supplies I need now, so it's just a matter of teaching myself and practicing a whole lot. I also got a pair of Hujoo high heel feet because I want Poe to be able to wear boots and cute shoes. They're the normal flesh color, but it won't be an issue since she'll have stockings or shoes on anyhow.

The white one is going to be Poe and she's going to be just as difficult to paint at Desma is. Because Desma is actually supposed to be black, so I'll have to tweak her design a little so I don't have to completely re-color the Freya body, and she's also supposed to look malnourished and such. Good times. And Poe, well, it's obvious to see the issues with Poe, but I think I'll just have to take her markings on layer at a time and teach my hand not to shake so damn much.

I also have a doll blog for all my ramblings, so I don't spam them on my main tumblr or here: http://ivegotabrandnewkey.tumblr.com/ I'll probably post nice stuff here, when it happens, though. Like it I ever succeed in a faceup...

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Now, here's some photo spam in two parts:


[ more at my flickr ]

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So the drama tale of Creeper Cat is continuing. A few weeks ago, some folks from the Kent Area Furs list did a little meetup downtown for fursuiting and stuff. I wasn't able to go, but Squeeji went and returned with the verification that Creeper Cat has not changed at all. While there, apparently he:

• Jumped on her while she was in fursuit. She responded by elbowing him in the stomach.


• Talked about porn slash fiction from children's shows such as Bear in the Big Blue House and the like.


• Yowled loudly at people on the streets.

We're having a small art jam/social meetup tonight at Tree City. He's showing up. We've been, on Facebook, trying to press the issue that there's going to be no stupid murry purry bullshit without actually naming him as the issue. I posted a comment that all but calls ( Also, Tree City is a pretty low-key, quiet sort of establishment. Which means no yowling like cats, talking about things you shouldn't be discussing in polite conversation (incest, fetishes, slash fiction, the like...), and no jumping/pouncing/glomping/touching people without their permission. I feel like these things shouldn't have to be stated, but they do. So don't do this crap and act like a normal person.) him out by name, but I know we're STILL going to have issues and after today, NOPE. Not putting up with it at all and he will not be welcome at any meetup things we put together.

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Okay, aside from that and to wrap things up, one more thing!

I didn't complete LetterMo, but that's okay. I sent out replies and I still have some to send. I'll probably keep sending out letters to people as I work through my address list and when I have a little time to spare to write letters. I got some lovely letters and it's really such a fun thing to do anyhow~




I had a lot of fun making cute envelopes and decorating them, as well as putting little photos into each of the letters and stuff~

[ junkyspot.com hujoo freya ]

Over the last couple months, I've been researching and reading up on ball joint dolls (BJDs) because I really want to purchase Tumnus from 5StarDoll and make my angel character, Sahariel. It's a lot to spend on a doll, admittedly, so I'd been procrastinating and just taking my time learning about modding dolls and doing faceups and all that jazz.

Well, near the end of last year, I was looking at anthro dolls and came across Hujoo's Freya. At only $50, she was remarkable inexpensive for a BJD (her being vinyl instead of resin probably has something to do with that, as well). I was going to purchase both colors (originally dark grey and white) at the beginning of the year, when I got my refund money, but they sold out.

I assumed I wouldn't get the chance to get one, let alone two, because I figured they wouldn't be doing any more orders. I forgot about it and went about my business.

Yesterday night, Tony sent me a link for a review of the doll, asking me if that was the one I'd wanted a few months ago. I told him it was, and then he asked me what color eyes I wanted with her and what color I wanted and lskdhgfslkgdhsf she shipped today and I can't want to get her.

He bought me the light gray one (which is pictured above) and, I was going to do Poe (since Tony suggested it'd be easier to add the white in her markings instead of coloring over all the white with her other colors), so I had him get silver/gray eyes for her. Well, now my mom said she's going to try to get the white one for me for my birthday.

Originally, I'd intended to get the black one and make Des (or, Desma, as I've been calling her lately) and the white one would be Poe (since she has white markings). So I don't know if I should just play around with the black one until I'm sure I'll have the white one in my hands and can buy the parts I need (Des has green eyes, for example).

ldkfhglkdhgd tough decisions.

It's also been tough to find wigs I like. Especially for Poe. Des would look fine with a fur wig, but I don't think Poe would at all. And, oh gosh, clothing is so expensive. I might have to learn to set tiny doll clothes or something if I can't find other clothing to fit them. I guess some Bratz clothes will fit them (they're 24cm/9.5in tall). Maybe I'll just have to experiment.

Aaah, but I can't wait for her to get here and play around with her!!

For the fiance for Valentine's, I got him this stupid space locust that's his ~space boyfriend~.


[ Moe Moe Garrus Chan Body Pillow Cover ]

I'm going to glare at it profusely when it arrives.