[Sliver's Scrapbook of DOOM] Sketches, Chickens, and Wonder

[Sliver]

Sketches, Chickens, and Wonder Because anything important should have DOOM in the title. It makes you take it seriously, because doom is something serious. *ahem* Anyway, I have a bunch of goals this summer: I'm going into my senior year of a New Media art program at my state college, and I haven't been doing the work I need to be to get prepared for it, so I'm hoping if I store my ideas, sketches, writing, and that sort of nonsense here, mayhaps it will aid me in some way shape or form. So I may talk about teen angsty dragons (web comic ideaz), or be posting random snippets of a 15 page artist statement I need to pump out by the start of the school year, if anyone ever feels like throwing critiques my way, I'll be much obliged. I love animals, and live on a farm (when not in my apt.), so there will be animal pictures posted all the time. They are a key ingredient in my life and I always love seeing cute/quirky animal photos, so feel free to spam my walls with them, I find pretty much everything adorable. Anything else of note will be added to this book of scraps in due time, so without further ado, the first addition of baby animals. I told you there were chickens : The guy in the front is an ameracauna, the fella in the back is a golden comet, they are about two weeks old, and you can see their feathers coming in nicely. My father is fiercely attached to aeracaunas and their counterparts because they lay green, blue (and a variety we got in the past few years lay rose) colored eggs. While fancy colored eggs are all well and dandy, the 'caunas seemed to becoming inbred and have had some serious chick hatching issues (at least the ten or so we have had this problem) so we have bought the 'cauna chicks and introduced some Golden Comets, a breed I had never before encountered, but full grown apparently they look like Rhode Island Reds, are hearty egg layers, and so far seem much more outgoing and curious than the 'caunas. These are just two of around thirty chicks.

[Siiri]

Hello, I just happened upon your SB since it's the latest thread in the Resources forum.

I just wanted to say that animals are also key ingredients in my life.

Except when I'm eating salad.

P.S.
Cute chicks. I use to keep a couple when I was little but me not living in a farm sucked for them.

[Sliver]

I came home this afternoon from work and I am greeted by my mother with, "I have a surprise for you." I am instantly curious, but she reassures me that it isn't for me specifically, just a surprise. Then she takes a plastic cup out of the fridge with plastic wrap on it, bringing it to the microwave, and I suddenly am aware that we have a new creature in the house. My Dad has a license for wildlife rehabilitation, so ever since I was very young we've had animals not of the norm in the house. Raccoons, skunks, seagulls, squirrels, various mice, and even snakes have graced the inside of our aquariums or outdoor pens. Today I got to see an animal we have never rehabilitated before: A brown bat. We're not sure how old he is, he may be just an infant (he hasn't been consuming solid foods at all, only been dropper fed), but right now he's in the critical stage. Generally if an injured or young animal makes it past 48 hours in your care, they've made it past the danger zone as it were. This brown bat is still within parameters, and appears to have some injury relating to his shoulder and wing. Since he is in this stage, I'm way too superstitious to put any pictures up right now, but he's being pretty feisty, hissing and trying to bite gloved fingers when being fed, which is always a good sign. Fingers crossed. @ Siiri. I dunno, I like animals on my salad occasionally. Also yeah, I can't imagine it was fun for the chicks or for you, THEY POOP SO MUCH.

[Xiani]

Here have some cute chick-ness ^_^

If you ever feel like drawing a difficult/unique character, let me know! I'm trying to get some more true are done for Xiani. I can't wait to see what you post!

[Sliver]

It's funny because I had such great intentions for this thread to aid in my work flow, and look it has already fallen by the wayside. While stalking/perusing other Scrapbooks I notice that people make these wonderful to do lists that look so fancy with their scratched out text showing that you have achieved something so I think I will follow this trend. Xiani I would absolutely love to draw your character. As of right now I have been neglecting two pictures I sincerely need to complete (If you are reading this Syrah I'm sorry ), but once I have that out of the way I will most certainly hit you up because after drawing one Zith I am eager for more. Listy Thing of DOOM Inked sketch and subsequently water colored image for Syrah Re-do for Kinneas FINISH THE CHICKENS I have nearly all the pics, nearly all the lore, just gotta finish and put it together (I made the prettiest chicken for Alvadas, I am just so excited about that one) Get Sebastion back up again (closer now, poor little clay guy, so neglected) Make 22 more banners so that I will have made 25 and then can feel I have contributed enough so that I can make an AWESOMELY horrible one, teehee Do more artwork for Fallacy, Glass Staircases gotta happen yo. Alright so that's out of the way. What's been going on....hrm. Well school's been pretty busy, we had our first Art Crit for my senior seminar class and we all got wrecked, me slightly less then everyone else (I just attribute this to the fact that I went last and everyone was just too tired to ream me out haha). But despite that I feel pretty good moving forward through the semester. What I am working on right now is a Choose Your Own Adventure Website that will hopefully be mostly or entirely done for next crit. Would you like to see it? Well if you insist. It is horrendously ugly right now, as well as horrendously incomplete, but hopefully if you keep checking back I will be continuously updating it and it will get exponentially less ugly and exponentially more complete. It will be consuming most of my life from here on in so if I am not writing posts its because I'm writing this. Hopefully I'll be keeping this more up to date as well. Note: Sometimes the site may be down because I am switching out pages, so it may be a little more complete than it appears Hrm...I'm missing something. Oh that's it, a good dose of cute! This guy clearly understands how to take it easy.

[Xiani]

Saw this, had to share it with you!

[Sliver]

So in between NaNo, working on a water colored book about crazy mice for an art critique on Friday, and a good dose of procrastinating I just got back from seeing Wreck-It-Ralph. I knew I was going to enjoy this movie, because most any Disney Movie that has come out within the past five years I have loved to one degree or another (animated anyway, that last pirates of the Caribbean? ehhhhh). That being said I was still a bit concerned that all the trailers were revealing the highlights of the film and it would be one of those cases where most of the cinematic adventure had been laid out for me before getting there. I was most happily incorrect about that. I won't give any spoilers or any of that nonsense, but I just thoroughly enjoyed that movie even more than I imagined I would. The animations being fantastic are a given, but the writing was fabulous, and there's no need to have a past with the video games they reference to enjoy their placement within the story. It was a fun ride and I am almost....almost disappointed I didn't go to see it in 3-D. Sarah Silverman and Jane Lynch's performances were especially enjoyable, just imagine Sue from Glee as a commando....wait, never mind. Anyway that's my two cents and I don't want to say much more lest someone claims I hyped it up for them. Hope everyone is making good head way in NaNo, how about this epic race between Eridanus and Kavala? Talk about intense. Anyway that's it for now guys!

[Sliver]

As a completely random side note I don't think I've ever had a problem of having too many tabs open at one time, up until I joined Miz. Generally its a max of five and any more than that I trim down rapidly, now I usually have like 13-20 85% of which have that little signature brown favicon in the corner and I can't even read what the contents of each tab is anymore. I get reading some lore, then open onto a Gnosis or some important NPC, then check my threads and BAM a colony of tabs has decided to have a rave to whatever I'm listening to on Pandora. Its simply madness and I needed to get it off my chest. I think I still can't get over the fact that I'm done with NaNo. Last year I was up at 6 in the morning Nov. 29th writing out 18k words to make sure I finished on time, and now its quite the opposite and I keep on reminding myself that no you don't need to pump out 2k words today, just take it easy. This holiday vacation is the breath of fresh air I get before these final weeks in the semester where I have to create a final series of work to display for a full faculty critique the Friday of finals week. I am relatively calm now, but soon will be the descent into madness from which I will not recover until break has set in...and man I can't wait for break. I am truly unsure whether to try to remain calm and collected or to be worried silly about this final project for my senior seminar class. Our teacher is a real battle-ax who threatens and demoralizes on a constant basis, and all of us have a love hate relationship with her as our teacher for this class. She has told us multiple times in more than one course I've taken with her that she is never afraid to fail one person or an entire class if need be, that she doesn't use grade curves. You put in the time and effort or you don't get the grade. That being said I've never gotten below an A- in the three courses I've taken with her, so her threats alarm me, yet I also see them as a sort of scare tactic to try to get every ounce from us, which admittedly anyone who is paying for an undergraduate degree should probably be giving regardless. So I just end up torn, though I imagine I will do as I always have done, procrastinate up till a point then freak out and do a crap ton of work to make up for my initial procrastination. This is not a flawless technique, but has gotten me through most of my college career with an alarming amount of success all things considered. That being said this final project is something I am more than excited to work on. I was sitting meeting with my professor, discussing the Thesis which is really just a 15 page artist statement as well as a few of my pieces, and she asked me what I wanted to do after college. I told her I wanted to write and illustrate children's books, and she asked me why I wasn't doing that right now. So suddenly where I had been hitting road blocks with my work I was up and out of the gate and simply ecstatic to be able to write, draw, and paint my way through our intermittent critiques. I am still unsure of how I want my final piece to culminate, but the main character is a mouse named George. As I brainstorm I may throw a few pics up of some of my work. Whew, that felt nice to write. For all of you NaNo peeps out there, keep up the good work! I have some Ben and Jerry's to eat and a Siamese cat to cuddle with. It sure is nice coming home for the holidays.

[Naeya]

I just wanted to pop in to tell you how much I enjoy reading your threads & scrap! You're a wonderful writer, and I wish you all the best as a future children's author/illustrator. Also, congratulations on NaNo!! That's a huge accomplishment. I hope you enjoy the holidays! And don't forget to allow yourself time to relax (though I'm sure you won't - cat cuddles sound pretty relaxing to me!). xx

[Sliver]

A Musical Note aka: A note on music I'd like to think I have a rather eclectic taste in the musical area, but try to keep in mind that most people aren't just a one genre sort of person and I try not to get too proud of myself in that regard. I love music. I think most anyone can say that because I've never met a person who was apathetic in regards to the sounds coming out of radios and ipods everywhere. If you hate a certain kind of sound, generally that's going to lead to loving a different one, and there you go. I grew up in the time of Brittney Spears, NSYNC, and Spice Girls, but I was never really a fan. I'm not saying I had impeccable taste when I was a kid, I'm sure if I had a sibling or close friends giving me CDs I would have jumped on that band wagon in an instant, but I was in my own little world back then (ha, like that's changed), so when all my, let's call them friends, wanted to role play the different Spice Girls, I figured it was a television show and had only a vague concept of the musical side of things. The two main sources of musical interest for me at that time were the Propeller heads, and John Williams in the form of the score to Star Wars (We had this three disc set of music where the discs were shiny and mini death stars, iIjust couldn't get enough of them.), and I only took interest in these because they were readily available at home. So when my cousin who had stayed with us for a weekend left Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory behind after their departure, I was completely enamored with that CD and it was like I had opened this trans dimensional doorway into the land of music. I tried to absorb all that I missed at once, and did a fairly horrible job in doing so, but I think I can safely say I caught up in due course. So where does that leave me today? Usually shuffling through Skrillex, Justin Beiber (sad to say, but once his voice dropped that necessary octave I was ashamed to admit his stuff was catchy), Shinedown, and Glitch Mob just to give you the barest hint. I'm sure I will go into more musical depth later, but this little conversation initially stemmed from considering previous conversations about what people listen to when writing, and thus I was struck with trying to figure out exactly what I do. Usually I write while listening to Pandora, and I prefer to keep it on techno/trance (I'd do dub step but Pandora never ceases to turn it into rap which just never keeps me in the writing mood). I have a fond appreciation for movie scores and bands like Two Steps From Hell for some nice epic background noise without any pesky distracting lyrics, and as long as there is a nice beat to keep me going I am content and can zone out and into typing. So I suppose I can't talk about music and not leave with something. I love it when I watch horrible movies, yet I thoroughly enjoy the music they use for the soundtrack. For instance I don't know if any of you have ever seen Reign of Fire? Christian Bale, Gerard Butler, and Mathew McConaughey trying to stem off the human race being eradicated by dragons? Clearly a block buster premise I know, but you may be surprised to hear that it wasn't as stellar as its cast might suggest. That being said I did Mathew McConaughey's role more than in any other movie featuring him...but that's not saying much. This is all besides the point. The point is that one song caught my eye and helped me discover the band Mad at Gravity. The one album I have from them is actually not bad, but the song from Reign of Fire is by far my favorite, and pretty good to get you into an epic story mode, so here's one for you Miz!