dreaming

First and foremost: the bindings!

So, I kinda know someone who runs a small horror-themed bookshop, yeah? She messaged me a while ago asking if I wanted to make some stuff for her to sell, so here's what I've been working on for the last month or so!

The Ars Goetia (1916), edited by L. W. De Laurence

This little guy took the longest because I properly typeset it (and had to fight to the death with Word the whole way to get all the pictures put in how I wanted them!). The text was found on Project Gutenberg and the images are from Le Dictionnaire Infernal (1863).
I kinda based the overall design of the book off a butterfly hand guide I have from the 1920's (here's a scan of it online, if you wanted to check it out). I just thought it has pleasant, pocket-sized dimensions, and I like how the cover is kinda bendy, as well -- I tried to replicate that, but went a bit too thick for it to flex properly. :( Still, I was really pleasantly surprised to see that there was an option on my beloved imposer to make landscape oriented books -- I totally thought at first that I'd have to figure out how to get that arranged properly, but they've got my back like always! <3
Also, the writing on the cover was done with a foil quill. Nice & shiny!

Dracula (1897), by Bram Stoker

Here, I just took a paperback and made it into a hardcover. My first time making an inset (and it definitely shows), but I think the design turned out pretty neat in the end! The illustration on the cover is a woodblock print (c. 1910) by Vladislav Rohling.

finally, In a Glass Darkly (1872), by Sheridan Le Fanu

This was also just a rebinding. I wanted to try and see if it'd be viable to design a cover in Photoshop and print it out, and I think it turned out pretty nicely. Still I put a layer of contact paper over the paper on the cover to protect it, just in case. The cover illustration is by Carlos Schwabe, from a 1900 copy of Baudelaire's Le fleurs de mal.
I also wanted to try painting the edges -- first I put a layer of Payne's Grey watercolor and tried to freehand some flowers to match the endpapers with gold ink... and failed so horribly that I just went over the whole thing with the gold ink to hide it. This makes it so when you open the book, you can see the layer of black under the gold:

Technically, I don't think I did it properly and the pages stuck together pretty badly and took forever to separate, but the end result looks pretty cool, so I guess I'll call it a success, overall!

In the meantime, since the last update...

I've gotten a part time job at a small accounting office! It's mostly just data entry and putting files away, etc, but fine overall. Everyone buys / makes gifts for the boss for Taxmas (aka, the end of Tax Season), apparently, so I was going to make her a sketchbook. [This is a small, family-run office and most of the employees are related: like, it's my boss, her sister, her granddaughter, (and sometimes her daughter comes in to clean, as well), and a few unrelated people. So the gifting isn't, like, that weird.]

also, a backlog of needlefelted projects!

another view:

Thanks for reading and hope you have a nice day! ^^

Oh, I'm seriously so happy with how he came out!!

Production Notes:

• I've been watching a bunch of tutorials to learn different techniques and approaches. Like, here, the body is made is the same way as this video by Sugar Maple Crafts. I didn't quite make the front legs long enough / sew them down far enough, but he still sits nicely, so I guess it's fine. (...if it really bothers me, I might making some little paws and sew them on.) Still, it really is so much easier to make the body like this, with the torso and limbs in one piece, compared to sewing them together separately! That was, like, 90% of the anxiety I had with previous plushes, trying to get everything positioned and aligned properly, and taking it all apart when things were off.
• For the black parts: the sock elastic really came in handy for making his pants! Just put it around and sewed up the inseam. The main mass of black on his head was done in a similar-ish way, taking a blue ball and wrapping it with black fabric, then cutting out the shape of his little masky-thing. The tufts of fur immediately under his ears were little cones that I needlefelted, then sewed onto the blue fabric before putting the black over it, and I think that worked well enough, but then I realized I could use the foam interfacing to make more distinctive shapes. (Also, it's really hard to try to make marks on black fabric! I started by trying to pin a stencil to the fabric, but it kept moving around. A white soft pastel works decently, but isn't very exact.)
• I was worrying so much about how to make the tail and kept putting it off because of that, but I think the solution I came up with works well! The black part of the tail is a pipe cleaner, doubled up and twisted together for a bit of extra thickness / strength, and attached it like this:

• With how stretchy the fabric is, it's a little annoying trying to embroider fine details like the face. I finally just gave up and needlefelted the dark lines above his eyes because my thread didn't want to cooperate....

To be honest, I am kinda worried about how secure some of these things are. Again, I'm just not really familiar with children and how rough they / what they want from a toy, exactly. Hopefully, it'll work out...

Anyway! Still undecided on what else to make, but I'm kinda leaning towards Natu or Spinarak, maybe? I'm still trying to go for a variety of body silhouettes and main colors, while still looking nice together (also, I just think they're very cute, in general!).

Okay, so, my issue here is I keep alternatingly forgetting that Dreamwidth exists and then putting off posting until I finish whatever current project I'm working on... and then, by the time that I finish it, I forget about Dreamwidth again. And the cycle repeats...

Another reason I kinda stopped posting here was that a few months ago I was kinda blogging a lot on other sites as well, and I just thought that it tedious to basically write the same thing in multiple places. Now I've kinda slowed down with that for one reason or another, but I still wanted to ramble about arts & craftsy projects I'm working on... but that just brings us back to the cycle of not wanting to post here until I finish something. See my problem here? So, I'm just gonna start anyway.

But, first, I guess I should talk about the past couple of months:

Personally...

Last time, I mentioned going to therapy. Genuinely, I do think talking to someone and hearing from an outside perspective was helpful -- I've realized some things, but, ultimately, it comes down to: God, I really want to move out and be more independent. A lot of the therapy sessions were actually her reading over my resume and giving interview advice and stuff. And I've had a few interviews in the meantime, but still nothing has really come out of them yet, so that sucks. *sigh* I ended up cancelling the last meeting, though, and I don't know if I'll be going back.

Besides that, I've been leaving the house a bit more, at least. Volunteering with a local musical theater group in return for free tickets, playing Euchre with some relatives, and I've been eyeing a board game event at the library that I wanted to go to.

Art Fight 2024
This was my first time actually doing Art Fight despite hearing about it for several years and it was a lot of fun, drawing different sorts of characters and stuff that I normally wouldn't. I also think I've gotten better at improvising landscape backgrounds and general composition, so I'm pretty proud of that! Highlights below, but I also put all my Art Fight stuff on my site.
cw: mild nudity

needlefelting :3

cross stitch



[Ghastly and Gengar, as well as the cardinal patterns made by @butterberrycafe on Tumblr. Elephant pattern by goldflower on Braceletbook.]

Most recently, I've gotten into making little pins or magnets or whatever (I actually haven't finished them yet, oops). I was trying to do this as a replacement for scrolling mindlessly on Tumblr, and I think it's pretty satisfying! These were all done on plastic canvas, but I've been thinking about graduating up to a larger design and incorporating it into a box or bookbinding-thing. I made a little prototype to see how that would work, using some leftover scraps and perforated paper:



It all glued really nicely, so I think this would work out well! I thought it'd be cute to make, like, a little storage box for my old Gameboy maybe, with a cross stitch of some card art from the Pokemon Trading Card Game GBC on the top. That's on the backburner, though, because...

Currently...

• I signed up for the PokéPod Project here on Dreamwidth. Basically the idea is people write or narrate a short story (or three, in my case) about an assigned Pokémon from the original 151, and they all come together in a cute little set. I don't think I'm allowed to say what I've been assigned yet, but I've been working on writing those. (The deadline's coming a little close, but I think it'll be fine!)
• And also, my aunt suddenly said she'd pay me to make some more Pokémon sock plushies for one of my little cousins. He's like six and I've barely even met him. When I asked which Pokémon I should make, all she said was his favorite is Pikachu, but besides that, "he likes them all! ^^" which is, uh, kinda stressful. I've got some plans, though, that I'll write about once I get a bit further in!

And I think that's all I've got to say for now! Thanks for listening! ^^

I haven't posted here in a while, huh? Here's a round up of a couple of things I've been working on!

• A needle felted Kilala!
  ( pics & info )



• Working on a HaruMichi shrine for my site! I've basically only got the homepage and a couple of doodles uploaded so far, though...



• And just finished a submission for a contest from a forum I'm on! The theme was "haunted houses." (The contest is open until the 29th, btw, if you wanted to submit something :3 )
  
  
  
  Altoid tins are smaller than I thought they were -- I was originally planning on adding a Chandelure and more furniture, but I think it'd just end up looking crowded.. I do definitely want to make more of these in the future, though!

And that's about it! ^^

I got back from New Orleans a couple days ago, and I am really gonna miss it! Like I said before, this was my first time traveling, so I'm not really sure if this is a normal thing or just because I have no frame of reference whatsoever, but I really feel some sort of connection to New Orleans now... Maybe I was too quick to consider travelbloggers weird...

( First, some family-related angst... )

*sigh* Besides that, I really did have fun, though! There are a lot of little specialty shops like a fancy stationery store with art from local artists where they make their own ink in house, and a playing card store where the guy sells both commercial decks and his and other indie artists' designs, and vampire-themed gift stores and cafés where, once again, the employees work together to put out a weekly zine and sell stickers of their art. It seems like almost every street has several galleries selling local artists works and there are frequent events, like in Pirate's Alley near Jackson Park, where local artists hang their works on the fence behind them to sell and talk to passersby. And that's not even getting into the music -- live jazz in parks, parades coming down the streets... They seem to have so much respect and admiration for their artists! Is that what every city is like, or is this specific to New Orleans??

Hearing about the history of New Orleans also really moved me! Like, after a long night of boozing, me and my mom spent a chill day in Armstrong Park, which was across the street from our hotel. (My sister was out cold for most of the day...) As we were getting ready to leave, we noticed a bunch of people gathering near the gates, many with musical instruments. One man, holding a trumpet, was hanging back, so I asked him what was going on. He started to explain how they were having a parade for a wedding -- there used to be parades going through the French Quarter at all times of the day and night, but that all stopped after Hurricane Katrina, COVID, etc, and it made him sick. So he and a couple buddies were trying to revive the tradition. The only reason he wasn't participating in this round was because someone had literally just stolen the mouthpiece to his trumpet a few minutes before and he didn't know where to get a replacement on such short notice. So he started explaining the history of jazz music to us; how when Louisiana was ruled by the French, slaves were allowed six hours of free time a week and they'd meet up in Congo Square (right where were standing!) and play music and dance; and more about the area and places to visit. Apparently, he used to be a tour guide, but decided he'd rather try to make a difference in the community.

( I also made a couple little paintings... )

Again, overall, an amazing experience! It makes me want to make some drastic life changes...

(Note: The first part of this post was originally written a few days ago and posted on my Neocities. This version is updated with a few more paintings and other minor edits.)

I've been sketching and painting a lot the last couple of days! I'm trying to practice drawing quickly and loosely so I'll be ready to do some urban sketching in New Orleans. It just seems so much more personal and more fun than only taking pictures, y'know? And seeing other artist's works is very inspirational!

I started off just drawing random pictures from the r/SketchDaily generator, particularly focusing on buildings and structures, using ink (a mixture of Bic pen and a set of Sakura Pigma Microns) and watercolor.

( And without further ado, here they are! )

I have a lot more to study / experiment with / etc, but that's a big part of the fun of making art, no? In any case, I've really been enjoying making these!

We’re rushing to finish pricing all our stuff for the garage sale — we’ve got maybe half of it done so far? My mom’s coworkers brought over a lot of stuff, too, so our living room and garage are completely full to the top that it’s hard to move around. She wants to start the sale tomorrow, but: a) we aren’t done yet, b) it’s gonna be like 100+ degrees, c) there’s a local sporting event / festival-y thing going on this weekend and I don’t think many people are gonna be out garage sale-ing, y’know? And a lot of our stuff is under a dollar, so I feel like we aren’t really gonna get much and our effort isn’t gonna be worth it…

Also, we’re suddenly planning to go to New Orleans for a week in September. Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely excited! I’ve never traveled or anything before; the furtherest I’ve gone is a day trip to the art museum in Chicago, which was like a three hour drive. I’m just very nervous by nature, though, and worry about all sorts of things — is the weather going to be alright? how are we going to pay for this? and, what all is even involved in travelling??

Besides that stuff, I’ve been working on typesetting and binding a cute little oneshot, to ease me back into bookbinding after not doing it for a couple months! I’ve got the book block all ready, sewn and glued, but, with the garage sale this weekend, I have to wait to finish it. :( I’m trying out a new style of binding (Steifbroschure) and just focusing on designing something that makes me happy. I spent a whole day looking through headpieces and tailpieces and cul de lampes and other little cute old designs on Wikisource — *insert car selling meme here* this bad girlie can fit so much public domain flower art! When I get the time to finish it, I’ll be sure to post pics with more info!

So, here's the robot series! First, the mock-up layout:



And close-ups:





These were made before the other ones and I basically just used the words and pictures from one article for them, so it's a bit different of a vibe / design philosophy.

That article itself was super dystopian, though, honestly! (If you play around with inspect element, you should be able to figure out how to get rid of the paywall... I got it once, but keep messing up in trying to reproduce it for a tutorial-ish-thing, and can't find guides that work online, sorry.)

I have one little scrap floating around my table: "they patrol borders and attack targets they deem hostile." It was treated like no big deal??

Then, there was another section talking about robots being programmed to care for children, disabled people, and the elderly -- after working in a center for disabled people, I realize such places have a high turnover rate, but I really don't think a robot could properly care for vulnerable people like that! In these facilities, basically the only human interaction residents get is with staff and if you take even that away... it's just inhumane!

And beyond that, sex robots?? And how employers are incentivized to have robot workers, even if they're less productive, because "humans are troublesome." And how having robots grab things in warehouses actually makes things more stressful for human employees and deprives them of that little bit of downtime -- the list of unrealized horrors goes on!

I've been surprisingly busy the past couple of days after a long stretch of nothing -- yesterday and the day before, we suddenly started rearranging all our furniture and planning a garage sale to deal with all the excess junk, and today I went to a family reunion (my relatives who moved to Texas a couple years ago suddenly decided to come up for a visit. we're also going on a little road trip tomorrow and various other little meetings through the week while they're here).


Aside from all that, my aunt commissioned me to make her an artwork based on the word, "chaos," and I was planning on working on that this week. I was thinking of making a mixed media sort of collage where it has warning labels with depictions of natural disasters, pollution, etc all over, malware popup-style? I already dissected a couple of old manuals for electronics / appliances to harvest some labels and have been checking out a couple of different secondhand stores to see if they have any old cheap magazines I could cut up, and I'll try to figure out where to go from there...

Also, last week, I made this little guy:He's made from an old desk calendar that I painted over to look like one of my cats, Gus. I do think he turned out really cute (even if he looks kinda sad). My acrylic paint is so awful quality, though! Do you know how many coats it took to do this?! I've been wanting to try Holbein's Acryla Gouache for a while, and maybe now's the time...