Secondlina's Panels

Life is a bit weird lately...

On the positive side, the kickstarter just got over 400 people, so i'm happy! I'm making plans to rebuilt my portfolio using a wordpress platform, so I can include a copy of this blog on it (in case LJ dies). I'm also designing Namesake ads for the future advertisement push, and the ads are made of pure badass. I took it easy a bit this week and enjoyed Hotel Transylvania, which was better and cuter then expected!

On the negative side, I can't shake off this sick feeling i'm having. Everyday, I always feel weakish and sickly, and I keep getting nightmares. I'm thinking it's stress, but stress doesn't usually do this to me. Link is in a bad spot, since he was let go from work yesterday (nothing to do with his performance though, it was a company structure/budgeting thing). Work is a bit weird on my side too. It's not bad, but it feels a bit... off? Like there's so many unhappy people at work that it's rubbing off on me. 

I'm glad my personal life and art life is lively (all my friends are wonderful)! But i'm a bit worried about my health and about money for our household for the next months. I think we'll do fine, but if one of us is jobless, it always adds a bit of uncertainty. 

For some reason, the mood i'm in makes me want to re-watch old movies like Star wars...

- Isa

 

Adorable punk mom was amazing. I can't believe the people I meet on the subway. sometimes I feel I should just sit in a cart for the whole day and draw all the people I see (probably should exit once or twice during rush hours. It gets kinda crazy).

It seems the San Diego Comic Con is THE place to be this weekend. Tumblr is full of amazing news about upcoming episodes for Adventure time, Korra, My little pony, and upcoming movies and lovely actors, and comics... Seriously, I can see why people love this con. Also, thanks to the SDCC, I learned that apparently Disney is working on an Oz-themed movie centered around the character of the Wizard. Check out the site for the trailer/details :  http://disney.go.com/thewizard/ 

I'm sure Disney himself would be happy to see this happening (he was a die-hard Oz fan). I'm not sure if the movie will be good, it looks a bit... fanfic-y for my taste. But it's got the potential to be really cool. And the visuals look amazing. I'm pretty sure i'll go see this in theatres, if only because Oz is obviously an obsession of mine.



Aside from that, it's incredibly hot today. We keep getting mini heat waves. Gosh, Montreal, if only you weren't a tiny ciment island.

My boyfriend Link just went off to visit Japan with his twin brother for 2 weeks. They are having an epic bromance trip. In Japan. I'm jealous, but I hope they will have a nice time :D

I also FINALLY managed to get enough free time and an appointment to get my wisdom teeth removed by the end of August. I can't wait. I need to remove them all. They hurt. They give me massive headaches (I never used to have headaches). I really, really can't wait.

- Isa

Namesake art! This art will be included in printed form in the issue we'll be selling at Fan Expo in two weeks.

Well, now begins the countdown to my super-busy-last-two-weeks-of-august which have two weddings and a convention. Could ahve bee 3 weddings too, but two happen on the same day in different cities so I had to choose. So yeah. I'm going to be going to work, traveling to Toronto and Ottawa and drawing like a mad woman for the next couple of days. LET THE RACE BEGIN.

Thankfully, stuff is awesome and i'm pretty generally ready for all events. I have a lot to do, but it's mostly taking care of details. Like going to fetch the Jabberwocky re-prints (YAAAAY MORE BOOKS!)

Today, I got a bit of a wind of nostalgia since I picked up the new american McGee's Alice game from a buddy yesterday night. and also discussed Final Fantasy 9  with Link. That was a good game. Gets a lot of bad criticism but I love it. Then again, i'm just a casual gamer. So i'm not much of a connaisseur.

I'm loving that the internet exploded with fanart for the upcoming French movie "a Monster in Paris". It's fun to see French animation get attention. I really can't wait for it!

EEEE!

Tomorrow is work, but it's cool. Go, book peddling!

Have some sexy dwarf ladies in corsets. I drew this for a commission. Man, I love drawing dwarves. My favorite fantasy race by far. no idea why :D



- Isa

 

Behind... on things.... Ack. My job decided to suddenly get busy as hell. So I get home pretty tired. Bleh. 

Yesterday was good. Link got me some cake, some pony toys and a batman shirt. :D

I spent a good part of the day thinking of my parents. Mostly because I went to have tea with some artist friends who spent a lot of time saying bad things about their own. In some cases, justified bad things. It seems a lot of people around me either have bad parents, or a bad relationship with their parents. Which is kinda sad. I'm pretty happy generally with my parents, who are currently roaming the united States (and sleeping in "Jabberwocky" themed hotels. No. Really). My parents are comic book fans and have always supported me in art. They were kinda strict when I was a kid, but I was also spoiled, so really, I have no reason to complain. A few people seem to think my parents were overly strict to me (for instance, I wasn't allowed to play with others on weekdays because I had to do my homework) but in all honesty, I think that made me a very self-disciplined person. In general, I like the results of my upbringing, so I don't really have "horror stories" like many of the folks I know. My parents are even still happily married. No divorces or anything. I was a lucky kid in a lot of ways. They paid for painting classes and comics. I seem to have learned more about comics then painting though *laughs* Oh well. They overly worry, and the overly smother, and I totally have my father rotten temper, but all in all, compared to many others that were beaten and shunned and even just ignored by their parents, i'm a lucky kid. I feel really sad when I hear stories about bad parents, or stories about estranged families. It always seems like a piece of those people are missing I guess. Yesterday, I was overly analytical about a person's parental figures. I sorta regret that a bit. But at the same time, I don't feel you should cradle people who let bad parenting affect their character as adults and flaunt it as an excuse. Thankfully, this person doesn't do it quite as much as before. Improvement. 

Basically - bad parenting sucks. It takes a long time to get over it. But I can't admire a person that just doesn't try to get over it. and I know several of those. Heck, a guy I know outright used the .I cheat because my father did" defense. Uncool.

On another subject.... FRIENDS!!

The brilliant piratecore  has create an epic Tardis-themed shirt. If she gets enough votes, said shirt will be sold on Threadless. Wanna own a Tardis shirt? Vote. VOTE. VOTE!

The humble but unfortunately ill amiraelizabeth  is taking commissions to be able to pay bills and such. She does amazing Avatar - The Last Airbender stuff, so if you feel like lending a hand and getting spazzy art out of the deal, click here.

In other news. I am very frustrated. WHY? Because there's some truly amazing things happening around me at the moment and I. CAN'T. TALK. ABOUT. THEM. YET!! But soon, hopefully. Soon. Still no word from the Canadian Council of the arts to see if i'll get the grant allowing me to go to France next month. It's getting close. At least I got my passport.

Also - DUN DUN DUN. Colored namesake art. Booyah.



Emma always looks pissed off or worried.

- Isa

So, this weekend I visited my parents and friends in Ottawa. I was asked to go with a few friends to a "Wedding show". Since the friend who was actually the bride already had a dress, the goal was to find dresses for the others, bridemaid-ish things, I suppose. We ended up not finding much, but it was still fun to walk around talking. To amuse the group, I was asked to try on a dress (since apparently, it's a must-do to these types of events). It was awkward. To try one on, you kinda have to lie to say you're a bride, and you guys know how talented I am at lying. So I was stuck in a tiny dressing room with a clerk who asked a crapload of questions about the hypothetical big day. That.... was weird. The dress itself was very beautiful. A corset with a big, poofy....poof thing under it. I was amused. Unfortunately, the gown suited me really well, which made the salespeople very pushy and enthusiastic and made one of the girls int he group tear up, which resulted into panic mode on my part, of course. Because I don't work nicely with a) lying, b) Pushy people and c) Crying people. Now that I think back on it, I kinda wish I didn't try it on at all. That was uncomfortable. I didn't really enjoy it. But it made the group happy. So I guess that's good.

This whole wedding show kinda confirmed my idea that I don't like traditional weddings. Not even a little.

That event done, I went back to my parent's house to celebrate my brother's birthday. There was a restaurant with steak and cocktails and chocolate cake. Mmmmh. On the next day, my taxes got done (thanks, dad and thanks, calculating program) and then I got home.

And then I drew and slept for a while. Tired.

The next week i'm going to mostly draw. I have a bit of social activities planned, but most people are quite busy, so it looks like I have a lot of free time for drawing ahead. I kinda want to hit a library for research pretty soon. Here in Montréal, we have the huge library of Québec. References out the wazoo.

My wisdom teeth still hurt massively. I really need to get these out of my face pronto.

- Isa

 


I think that my be my favorite portrait of myself ever. Of course, there's a skull, chubbiness and something causing me pain. I think this proves that I have a low self-esteem and a high appreciation for skulls. Now sure why. I wish I had a full, authentic crow skeleton in a frame I could display. Skeletons are really interesting to me. :D

Sooooooo, mostly i,m doing a post, because I figured I should. I got very distracted on this side and kinda forgot to speak to the internet. Hello internet! 

Things calmed down, but they are about to pick back up! I need to catch up on Namesake, and i've got another secret project starting. I think I just cursed myself to stay busy.

I'm very, very sad that Diana Wynne Jones, writer of many awesome fantasy books, including Howl's Moving Castle, has passed away this weekend. She was one of my favorite writers. I kinda feel like buying and re-reading all her books now. She was a pretty dynamic lady, with a lot of imagination. And she deserved to see her work adapted as an animation.

This weekend, I am visiting my family in Ottawa. My friend Fauve, who is in the process of preparing a wedding, as asked me to accompany her and her friends to a Wedding Convention thing while i'm there... I'm told it's a lot like a Comic Con, but with more loud females (I didn't think that was possible) and more revealing and poofy costumes (again, I didn't think it was possible to beat cosplayers). Hey, at least i'll have comic material, amiright? I'm also going to celebrate my brother's birthday and do my taxes. Woo. I kinda want to download a movie to watch on the trip. Two hours sure fly by when you are watching a 2 hour movie.

Music wise, I am currently in love with Kate Nash's Skeleton song and Sara Bareilles' Fairy Tale. Are my music tastes getting jazzy? Or something?

- Isa

To resume the bedbug issue : my friend Fauve hooked me up with a website saying that according to Montréal law, extermination of certain pests where to be organized and paid by the landlord himself, the list of pests included bed bugs. So despite what them concierge told me, I contacted my landlord directly and voilà, my apartment is going to be hosting an extermination team on Friday. And I don't have to pay for it.

Before the exterminators show up, me and Link basically have to clean EVERYTHING in the apartment and wash everything and anything that may be composed of fabric, even in the rooms that are not the bedroom. So, my apartment is gradually becoming cleaner then it's ever been, ever. Not that i'm usually messy, but DANG, THIS IS REALLY ANAL CLEANING.

I had to toss out a few things, pillows and Megatron, the giant carnival tiger plushy. I'm a little sad about that.

So, I guess I was lucky in my bad luck. Still, we have so much work ahead of us (about 70 loads of laundry. I kid you not).

Art of the day! This one is for putri-nih. It's her own original characters from a comic called "Changeling". I really like her characters because the one with the floaty scarf? That's a kid that is part-fairy, based on the "Tennin" legend.



Tennin can fly thanks to their colored or feathered kimonos, called hagoromo ("dress of feathers"), also represented by something I like to designate as "Floaty wavy scarf of awesome". In some legends, tennin are unable to fly without these kimonos (and thus cannot return to heaven). In a Noh play called Hagoromo, tennyo come to the earth and take off their hagoromo. A fisherman spies them and hides their clothes in order to force one to marry him. After some years he tells his wife what he did, and she finds her clothes and returns to heaven.

Yes, this is similar to the story of the Muses in Greek legend. And the story of the swan maidens in western fairy tales. And it was used in the anime "Ayashi no Ceres". It's also really awesome.

- Isa

You all know i'm awful at cooking. I mean, just awful. I suck. A lot. And it's not about trying harder either. I think i'm genetically restrained.

In any case, I just learned Thinkgeek is selling a mini cupcake machine. Make batter, shove batter, get a cupcake in five minutes.

Behold it right here.

NO MORE BURNING AND LOTS OF CUPCAKES? YES PLEASE.

EDIT : I wish the whole thing really worked like magic, but I guess it probably doesn't. Really, i'm more interested in the gadget and "magical cupcake" aspect then the product itself.

Maybe I should look into pasty fairies instead.

Woah, this reminds me of my childhood. Easy bake oven, anyone?

- Isa

Okay! I'm starting a little something I tried to do last year. It's basically a bit gift-of-sketches for the holidays to my f-list.

I'm basically going to do a little sketch for the people on my f-list as a Christmas gifts and just because you guys are so awesome. There's a few ground rules though.

1) Not everybody will get a sketch. This is mostly for my f-list. So if you aren't on it and I don't know you, you probably won't be getting one (i'm sorry! Thanks for reading anyways! I feel kinda cruel now...)

2) These are gifts, meaning that I get to choose what I want to draw. This is not an open book for requests, unless I ask you what you want directly.  I'm mostly putting this rule down because this is the reason I didn't try this last year. First person I told asked for specific drawings and got angry when I said I wanted to choose the subject. Needless to say, this person is no longer on my list. However, chances are, if i'm well-aware of what your favorite fandom is, you're getting what you want! :D

3) Some sketches will be more finished then others, some might even be colored. It doesn't mean I love some people more. It just means I felt like coloring that sketch.

So, first Christmas sketch goes to chameleon9999  - Some Vidia and Prilla art! Because you mentioned not finding enough! I hope you like it!



I don't draw many female duos/couples despite a large amount of friends asking me to. I wonder why? I seem pretty good at it.

I also drew the Tangled sketch I really like of Rapunzel and Flynn hanging out in the forest. I might finish it. I rather like it. I'm a little frustrated because I find these characters so hard to draw. Their designs are actually quite simple. Maybe it's looking at all the awesome Glen Keane art and the amazing fanarts that makes me frustrated. Those artists and their obvious epic superiority! *shakes fist*



In other news, I think I may need to spend on winter gear YET AGAIN. I think my body produces no heat or something. Winter kills me every year. I get sick all the time and I get massive frostbite. It snowed for the past two days and it made me realize that no matter how good my winter gear is, it's not good enough! The skin on my legs is all damaged, despite leggings, thick jeans and leg warmers. What's a girl to do? I need a coat made out of polar bears who swallowed microwaved sunlight, or SOMETHING. Or I need to move to Florida. I wonder if they have work there? Probably not. Economy is pretty horrible. But at least it would be cheap to buy a house, unlike in Montréal.

I'm starting to think about buying a condo eventually. I'm hesitating between having a house and a condo since it's pretty much impossible to have a house in the city. So I have to choose between not having a yard and driving 45 minutes every morning. Not I kinda understand why my parents were living in the suburbs (as a teen I hated all the bus rides).

- Isa

 Ad designs for Namesake's current ad campaign. These babies are going on the Girls with Slingshots webcomic page. It's basically two frames of an animated ad. Isa likes. The ad mixes a whole ton of various fairy tales. Much like the story. 





Tangled is out in theatres! I'm very happy. I wish I could go see it. But my life just got sidetracked pretty epically. So i'll probably check it out next week. I got the art book anyways. I want to see this movie something like 200 times.

Tomorrow will be long. More on that later.

- Isa