Today I found out my first mid term marking for a course.. (I've had marks back for smaller assignments) ...and I got an A in sculpture! The Hermione is me is fretting about not getting an A+ but I have decided to give her the night off. Funnily enough the sculpture I thought had the least merit (my chocolate easter bunny covered in hot pink icing) was the one work the teacher singled out (as good!)

..It just shows something I have always commented on- people always like the thing I don't.

The evidence is surely true in the case of The Girls and The Girls II:



..these two have amassed over 170 favs (something unheard of in my gallery ). While I love getting favs and also being featured several times for these works, it still baffles me. Sure I get the whole "Two girls in bed together" shtick, but I personally can't look at these images without thinking "Ugh, they're just not right / not good enough / badly set up..." yada yada. I'm seriously not trying to fish for compliments - it just amazes me that whenever I really like an image, it doesn't get as much kudos as images I'm particularly not fond of.

Take these images for instance:



Between them they still fall very short of even making 20 favs combined, and they're two of my favorite portraits!

It makes me think that I should submit a few more images that I personally "dont like" to see if other people do. Or is it just the DeviantART audience? Is it just that it was two girls in bed?

I must say though, thank you again to the people who have seen fit to feature The Girls in their news items, journal entries, and thank you to all the people who fav'd them, and more especially to the kind souls who commented when they fav'd. I know to some people that many fav's is not big deal but it's a real compliment to me.



I'm three days or so into my first week of a two week mid term break which was sorely needed (I haven't updated in almost a month due to being seriously tired/overworked/brainfried). I've spent the last few days reading so many wikipedia entries I swear at some point my brain will melt and I will start spitting out random information about Charles Baudelaire, H.P. Lovecraft, The collected works of Stephen King or maybe even the finer details of Phillip K Dick's suspected schizophrenia. At one point I had such varied tabs opened I wanted to screencap them to show you...the current selection is:
The Master and Margarita, John Dee, Evelyn Waugh and The Loom of Youth.
I've recently closed on: Lovecraft, Harlan Ellison, VALIS, and The Shining (Novel).

I was recommended a series of books by good friend ~arucarde called The First Law by author Joe Abercrombie [link] (I won't tell you how many links I went to from his website), and whilst on his website I found this great paragraph on epic fantasy, (written as an introduction to his trilogy):

"Epic fantasy. Its all the same, no?

There's a grumpy wizard, a deadly barbarian, a jumped-up nobleman and some feisty girl, more than likely. They're all engaged in a mysterious quest to bring that from there, and they're all made out of cardboard. Probably there's a dark lord of some kind involved. They talk like extras from a bad soap opera. They fight like extras from a bad cop show. Probably there's a prophecy, and a farmboy with mysterious parentage, and if not a magic tower, then certainly a strange tall building of some kind. There'll be battles, there'll be intrigue, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if a magic sword came up somewhere along the way.

I don't need to read that again.

I want to read a fantasy with all the grit, and cruelty, and humour of real life. Where good and evil are a matter of where you stand, just like in the real world. I want dialogue that actually sounds like people talking, and action that actually feels like people fighting. I want magic and adventure, sure, but I want it to hurt. I want blood, sweat, and tears, and plenty of them. I want to read about characters as selfish, as flawed, as complicated, and as unpredictable as real people. I want a fantasy that can shock and surprise, amuse and horrify, delight and excite me, all at once."

Doesn't that just get your fingers working, itching to write something like that? I know it did for me...still can't seem to make myself sit down and write though. And I've got a perfect opportunity! So many stories going round in my head too, I've got to write a script for a possible comic work with a friend, got to someday get out of my head all the airpirates and deadly priests and telepathics and jaded rockstars... does anyone have any tips for getting started?

Aside from school (heavy duty) home life (sometimes aggrivating/worrying) and personal artwork ideas (time consuming) I'm spending most of my small snatchets of free time chatting to *tayz2k and waiting till June 26th when he arrives in Wellington to visit me I am so stupidly excited I will probably have the most amazing migraine the day he flies in....

...by the way, if anyone want to organize a photo shoot for that week (26/6 to around 2/7,) feel free to contact me as I'd love to do some old school Wellington work.

I am sorry I don't deviate more often but most of my school work either isn't up to par with what I have on here already or I just don't know whether I should submit it. That and being at school leaves little time for any personal artworks (my mind can only give me so many ideas every day and art school takes the majority of them!) I may scan in some of my final two tone screenprints when I get them back (I was dead chuffed with how they turned out)...and I will definitely let you know more about my next sculpture project - an installation piece/architectural based art work inspired by Carol Ann Duffy's poem "The Devil's Wife." (I'm really excited about this)...

For now though I give you some recent favs and an apology for no artistic review.

and for upcoming ANZAC day.