Ah, hell. I've been so busy this month that I'm crazy behind on blog posts. I've been behind for a while, but never this much @_@ But we got the living room floors refinished, so we had to take everything out of the room, and then put it back, and then we had family over, and then we had to clean for a family party.
But now it's over, so things should slow down a bit.
Anyway, all of this is my excuse for doing the worst blog upkeep ever XD
So, through college I developed a bad habit of drawing during class.
Except they learned that doodling can actually help people recall more information!
Yesss!
For a while, when I would take part in writing critiques, people would occasionally mention pacing. And I always struggled to figure out how to deal with that. How did you slow down a scene, or speed it up?
I'm also not exactly sure how I figured it out. I guess part of me was subtly trying to unpuzzle it whenever I read or watched something. Because now I understand it without knowing how I got here.
(You can tell how behind I am with my photos - here are some Christmas ringtail lemurs)
I just watched the special features on the Borrower's Movie. The one from 1997. I really wanted to see how they made the sets, with all those giant objects. And it was freaking amazing. There was some footage of the actors walking around the sets in their normal clothes, and it blew my mind.
Also, can I just say that three of the actors are in Harry Potter? And one actor in the Borrowers had an enemy who went by Mr. Potter, and then his enemy in the later fantasy film series was also "Mr. Potter." Heheh. Random, funny parallels.
Chilean flamingo
Every now and then, theaters rerun Ghibli movies. I've gone to see them when I can, because there's some I've never seen on a big screen. And each time, I notice something I'd never seen before. Especially since I'm already so familiar with them that new stuff catches my eye.
Watching them on the big screen immerses you far better than it does on a little screen (our TV isn't very big because of the spacing in the living room TT^TT ). Granted, I often multi-task when the TV's on. I'll draw or do some kind of craft, so I'm not usually fully present in the movie. I obviously don't do that in a theater. So I come out of the theater feeling lighter, or cheerful, or whatever the movie leaves you with. It's a fun feeling.
Today I saw The Cat Returns.
There were some people in the theater who had never seen it before. It was funny to hear how they reacted. Lots of laughter at hos ridiculous it is (ridiculous, but still fun). It's pretty different than the other Ghibli movies. But then again, Ghibli Movies are often quite different from each other.
I just read an article about sustainable (and biodegradable) pens and ink. Because plastic is not sustainable, and pens and their refills are usually plastic or some other unsustainable material.
The solution? You can get handmade bamboo pens, and handmade walnut ink. It's a dip pen, which I'd never used before. But it sounded cool. So I ordered them. I got two pens. One with a thick tip, and one with thin.
I like it! I still need to practice some more though.
I think you have to take special care of the ink though - I probably should have ordered a smaller bottle in case it goes bad. Ah well. Live and learn.
Anyway, if you have sustainable paper, you can make fully sustainable art! Or writing - you can use them like calligraphy pens too.
So, there's this Japanese mermaid-creature called the amabie. You're supposed to paste its picture around in order to keep people healthy. People started doing so during Covid. I thought it would be fun to design a version of the amabie and join in. They have three fins, and a bird beak.
I switched it a bit, making the fins tentacles. And the colors are those of a cleaner wrasse. Since those keep other fish healthy.
I love designing creatures. Although I almost never post them.
