Art update- it's costume crafting time!

Time for another art update, methinks! I'm steadily working on horns and ears to get my shops ready for fall- I have about 10 pairs of ears in the works and about 5 pairs of horns that I hope to finish soon.

Here's what my craft area looked like today:

Yup, lots of clay and glitter and stuff going on!


That was before I baked the horns, so they're not all exactly the right color (I think I only changed the spiral color on the gold ones, though). You'll see better (and finished) photos of these soon.

Here are the other horns I finished this week:

These were for a custom order and are larger and heftier than the ones I usually make; eventually I'd like to make more of this style, assuming I can get clay that actually is workable.

I'm having lots of problems with clay lately- all my old stuff is fine, but any clay I've bought in the past year or two or so is rock hard, and that's Sculpey, which is supposed to be soft! My theory is that the clay is partly cooked inside (it's a different color) and was stored someplace too hot- I'm looking for other places to buy it than Joann's since that seems to be the problem store. Next time I'm keeping the receipt so I can return the clay when I find it hard (which I know I will). I've very much annoyed at this because it takes me three times as long to make the horns when the clay is that hard (assuming I can get it to work at all) and it ends up making my hand really sore.

Anyway, more clay things I finished a week or so ago that I hinted at in the last post:

Cat ears for my friend Smiss (she won them from my birthday giveaway).

And purple horns for another friend:



I wanted to show the pile of ears I'm still working on, but didn't have a chance to snap that picture yet, so I'll leave you with my most recently finished and listed pair- these are goblin or orc ears:

You can find these here on Artfire and here on Etsy. I have a special place in my heart for these ears because they were inspired by one of the goblins my fiancé draws. I really love this ear shape so I decided that I'm going to use it for half-elf ears, as well- not orange, of course, unless the half-elf was using a really bad fake tanner.


Writing

I worked a lot on this earlier last week, but haven't been able to for a few days because of a combination of writers block and being busy with art. I did break about 12k words, though! I'm not sure if I should end up breaking the story up into two- the heroes still haven't found the villain and there's still a LOT of plot that I need to include, but I'm not sure if it would work as two since it's really one story. Hmm...


I did other writing today- I finally updated me and my elf-sister's geocaching and adventure blog with the caches my dad and I found in the beginning of July and the ones we found yesterday. Check out the awesome weird Victorian buildings we found!

Upcoming projects
Plan for the week:
~Finish all those horns
~Get a few of those ears done (need to finish a half-elf pair so I can wear it to the renfaire next month!)
~Finish the doll for my best friend (sorry it's so late, sis!)
~Have the main character locate the villain in my story (yeah, carrying this over from last week)

Plan for the month:
~Experiment with ear cuffs and cartilage earrings
~Make circlets and bracers
~Work on 3 WIP dolls (and possibly start one for myself)
~Finish a sweater for my best friend that's been in my WIP bin for well over a year
~Make more runestones (assuming I can get clay to work; see problem above)
~Possibly make a chainmaille belt for my elf costume
~Work on my D&D game

Art update- more video game dolls

Well, this is sort of an art update- they're art, but I made these months and months ago and forgot to post about them. Whoops? Remember the Henry Hatsworth and Cole and Weasleby plushies I made last year? This year I've made three more from that series.

Back in June I made the Captain and his nurse:






The Captain is crocheted from acrylic yarn with felt bowtie and vest, handpainted face, and polymer clay wheelchair and eartrumpet thing. The nurse is crocheted from acrylic yarn in my own pattern. The crosses are felt and the face and dirty spots on her apron are fabric paint. I think she's about 10" tall. (The Captain would be about 6" were he standing, so I think he's a bit shorter than that.) The nurse didn't come out quite as fat as I had planned, but otherwise I'm really proud of these. :)

My fiance helped me sculpt the wheelchair; that was definitely a two person job! Thanks for your help, Josh!


The other doll I made from the series this year is Lance Banson. I made this back in Januaryish, so the lighting was terrible- hence the not very clear photos:





I still haven't played much of the game yet, so I made these while looking off of screencaps and concept art. The characters obviously don't belong to me.

I'm working on a bunch of random dolls at the moment, so there'll be more plushies in one of my next updates. :)

Trove Thursday- Blogfire Summer Sun

Finally had a chance to try out the Collections on Artfire, and wow, it works great! This is perfect for my Trove Thursday posts since it generates its own widget- no more screencaps when I feature Artfire artists! :D The current Blogfire carnival theme is Sunrise/Sunset, so I filled my first Collection up with bright, sunny items from my guildmates.

Blogfire Summer Sun

Curated By: merigreenleaf

ArtFire.com

This collection includes InletImages, Swank, NatureManipulated, essensu, tiltcreations, GoblinsMarket, AndreaDesigns, AliciaMae, withourhands, Whskr, TulipsTreasureBoxJewelry, merigreenleaf. I have no idea if all are active members, though.

And hey, with this you can click the art to be taken directly to the listing- neat, huh? The only downside is that it lost its 4x3 (3x4? Do rows or columns go first?) formatting when I had to fit it on my blog, so the colors are no longer lined up like you can see on the collection page (I had oranges with oranges and yellows in rows with yellows). Ah well, overall I'm quite pleased with this Artfire feature! Now I wish Etsy had a way to widgetize treasuries- then I'd be all sorts of saving steps with these posts. ;)

Art update- "ears" is apparently the word of the week

I've been trying to get back into the creative groove after not being able to make much for a few weeks. Halloween is just around the corner, so I'm trying to get as much costume-y stuff done as possible while it's still summer. I'm a procrastinator even on good health days, so I figure I should start getting a little done at a time. :)

Costume-y bits!
Here's the start of the Halloween crafting- lots and lots of ears:

The headbands are the things on the top, the ears on the left are going to be orc and elf (going to try something new with these- you'll find out about that in probably my next art update), and the ones on the left are goblin, halfling/half-elf, and faun/centuar. I have more colors and possibly other designs in my head, so I'm hopefully going to get all those done in time this year. :)

I realized that the whole reason I started making these ears is because I can't wear the glue-on kind, and then I never actually finished a pair for myself. Since I currently have a half-elf residing in my head as a writing character, those are the ones I'm keeping for myself. ;)

I also made some horns and another style of ears, this time in clay, but it's been too rainy for me to get pictures of them yet. Those'll be in a later post, too.

Jewelry
I've gotten a bunch of fun earring custom orders to work on over the past week or so, too. Oddly enough, the customers all wanted blue ones. I guess because it's summer? Whatever the reason, I like blue, so I approved of their color choice. ;)

Here's the first one:


This may look like a normal double chain cartilage earring, but it's actually made with a loop at the top to slide onto a barbell earring (sorry about that photo being dark- crummy weather this week). I wasn't sure of the size to make the loop because I didn't have any barbells to test it on so I made two- luckily the larger one already on the earring fit. Whew! But hey, now I know the size to make them should I need to make more for barbells in the future, right? :)


Another weird photo, this time because the clip-on bottom post wouldn't fit on my mannequin's ear. I think I like the way the all-silver chain looks, so I may make more like that. What do you think?

And here's the other custom earring I made this week:

This is kind of a combination between my Rohan earring and the sea blue and green double earring, what with the blue, green, and silver and the Pegasus and Celtic knot.

To change things up with colors, here's "Tribal Fire", a hemp bracelet/anklet; I made this a while ago but finally got around to listing it:

You can find this unisex bracelet here in my Artfire shop and here on Etsy.

Writing

Steadily churning out sections (chapters?) for my long story for the Fantasy Big Bang challenge. I'm at something like 8,800 words now; the goal is 10k, but we're allowed to go over, which is good because I think I might reach close to 20k. I'm only just now reaching the main plotline as I'm having a little too much fun tormenting my half-elf. ;)

I'm really glad I signed up for this challenge because otherwise I wouldn't have something pushing me to write and I didn't realize how much I'd missed creative writing! I'm really pleased with how this story is coming along and how humor ties in, which is good because I've always lacked self confidence when it came to creative writing (grrr teachers not letting me write in my preferred genre and then giving me bad grades when they didn't like what I dished out in their genres. No wonder I fell into non-creative essay writing in my college major). I promise once I'm allowed to share it (November), I'll post it to my writing blog. :) I'm just happy my BA in English is finally getting some use. LOL!

Upcoming projects
My plan for the week is:
-finish the ears
-make more horns
-work on a doll for my best friend's birthday
-remake older cartilage earrings
-break 10k words in my story and have the main character locate the villain (well, "villain"; he's rather possessed at the moment)

My plan for the month is:
-experiment more with ear cuffs and cartilage earrings
-make more circlets and bracers
-finish three WIP dolls

Spin, spin, spin the color wheel

I missed this Blogfire carnival last week (still trying to catch myself up with online things), but I really wanted to blog about this theme since it's about color and how we use it.

Cool Colors
By now everyone knows about my obsession with green; that's definitely my favorite color to work with because it's the one that makes me feel most comfortable and creative. It's such a living, thriving color that it's no wonder it feeds me inspiration and spawns art supplies (how else do you explain green beads taking over my craft bins?). And green always wants to hang out with blue and brown, so I'm not stuck only using the one color. ;)

Here are some of my favorite artworks that came from my usual color palettes:



Warm Colors
Dragon-girl, my art muse, is just as into Earth and Water colors as I am, so sometimes it's difficult for me to break away from the cool side of the color wheel. Luckily Cyn, my writing muse is a workaholic and enjoys doing double-duty as a secondary art muse; since he actually likes reds and warm colors (ick!), Dragon-girl and I are perfectly willing to let him be so controlling.

With Cyn's help, I'm able to figure out what to do with my red, orange, and yellow art supplies other than stick them somewhere and forget about them. He also makes me buy those supplies in the first place; before he came along, I'll admit that I was only buying the cool colors that called to me (I'll also admit that I still don't own much yellow). And I also tend to make more masculine jewelry when he takes over, so that's good, too. Pushy though he is, he's a helpful muse to have around. ;) Here are some of my favorite things in the icky warm side of the color wheel:



And girly colors, I suppose?
And the last color combination I tend to work in is black and hot pink; I don't do this one often, but I do enjoy it. (It always amazes people that hot pink is one of my favorite colors since I never wear it and don't often work with it, either; it's just too girly. But remember- I'm a child of the 80s.) My little sister tends to be my inspiration here since she's always wanting jewelry or crochet in hot pink, usually with black thrown in (she's to hot pink the way I am to green). That girl uses up my pink art supplies with unbelievable speed, but I can't say no to my little sister!

Here are some of my hot pinks, made with my sister in mind:



(The muses I linked to were drawn by my talented friend Niere. Figured I should mention that since she's both talented and my friend. ;) )

Tour of my studio, such as it is

Today I sent in my application for the certified handmade artifact on Artfire- I meant to do this sooner, but wasn't up to it (explaining the process for everything I make was quite a daunting task- my application ended up being three full pages). My awesome fiance helped me clean and organize my room this week and I'm so happy about how organized it is- my supplies have never been so easy to get to! :D I still have to sort through the bins with my random supplies, but my yarn, roving (and spinning supplies), crochet WIPs, and finished things are all wonderfully neat and tidy. And since that's done now, that meant I could take pictures of my "studio" to send along with the application.

And to blog about, of course. ;) You can click to view the pictures larger if you want.

Here are most of my art supplies- I labeled this photo:

I say "most" because my roving and some yarn were still under the bed (where all those small bins go) and my beads are on the other side of my room next to my desk. Let's play "find the dorkiness". ;)
-there are about 4 unicorns and a dragon on top of the bins, along with a clay and feather faerie I made in high school pottery class
-the mannequin is wearing elf ears I bought for myself a few years ago
-that weird multi-colored thing next to the bins on the floor is the "trippy trashcan" I made in that pottery class (it's got astrological signs at the top and hearts at the bottom)
-my two favorite D&D characters in plushie form next to my tv
-that grey pointy thing on the far left is the blade of my scythe
-Shakespeare and a pirate ship are sitting on top of the jewelry box next to the tv
-Old time photo of me and Josh on the wall (he was a gangster, I was some sort of barmaid)
-I tried to fit my pirate hat in the photo, but all you can see is the red feather on top of the bins.

And yes, the cat actually moved so she could better get in the picture, then began preening. Ah, cats.


A Link wall scroll (Ocarina of Time, of course!) and some of my books- ye gads, I have a lot of Discworld. Have I mentioned that I'm a geek? ;)


Look down a bit and you can see all my bead bins and yet more books (I have about 400 more books in storage, lol). That thing on my computer tower is the cardboard I use to carry my clay around the house (since I work clay and paint things on the dining room table) and the plastic thing I use as a paint palette (doubles as a caddy to hold my clay and stuff when there's no paint in it). I'm all about cheap or free supplies. ;) That random eggtimer I found in a geocache a few weeks ago (same with one of the rubber ducks on the desk and the horse [you can only really see the red cross on it] that's sitting behind the cardboard). Oh, and a random witch M&M doll. I'm not really sure why that's there. LOL!

Closeup time:

That's what things look like when I'm working on my cartilage earrings; the finished ones are in that clear container on the left, the beaded things under the bin with my small jump rings are the earrings I'm currently working on, and that yellow bag holds some of my finished bracelets that I still have to list. The pink and black thing to the left is an anklet for my sister, the black thing with pens sticking out of it and the blue and green thing on the right are more pottery things I made in high school (someday I'll get back into pottery- I really miss that), a green figure I use as a model when I draw people, a green crocheted D4 (gotta work on that dice design to make it more even), rubber ducks, a tiny wire sculpture of a chick and Easter basket next to the yellow bag (I won this from the Handmade in Europe AF team- it was made by my plurk friend CatsWire), and my plushie of my art muse.

And I had to smile when we had to send along a picture of a work in progress. I have an entire bin of those (and I couldn't even fit them all into the bin)

so I had a whole bunch to choose from. (I think in that bin I had almost finished goblin and orc ears, octagons for a laptop sleeve I've yet to finish, a poncho I never finished [need to frog this and try my own design], yarn for a tunic I haven't had a chance to start, an almost finished sweater for my best friend...)

I picked the ears (not much to look at, so not posting here) and three half-finished dolls:

Like most of my WIPs, these are for me (I never seem to finish art for myself...). Pit (left) still needs a toga, bracers, sandals, and a face; Sheik (middle) still needs his/her clothing and wraps finished, dagger painted and attached, and a face (he does have a hat done, though); and SwampFox (right- my D&D henchman) still needs clay armor and sword. Maybe I'll finish these this month when I work on a doll for my best friend's birthday. :)

I ended up rambling more than I wanted to here, but you now know what my studio, such as it is, looks like. :)