mistressofmuses

I am NOT looking forward to the "arctic blast" we're supposed to get tomorrow. ;-; Sounds like we may have a couple of days where the high temperatures could be below zero. I hate it already! At least the heat is fixed, and we still have the forbidden space heater from my mom. Dreading having to get out to go to work, and dreading the night-time dog outings. Ugh.

Cy was sick for a couple days early in the week, which wasn't fun. Somehow, for better or worse, he seems to time it for my exact weekend - he's done it a couple times now! At least that means it's not the worst hardship when I have to get up with him several times overnight and end up with only a few hours of sleep, but it sucks that it means I spend a chunk of my weekend napping.

This time was just some sort of stomach trouble. Couldn't keep food down, obviously uncomfortable, wanted to go out more often than usual. It started with an emergency bathroom trip at 5:00 on Monday morning, and then it was pretty clear when it finally stopped for him around 4:00 on Tuesday morning when he stopped grumbling and fell asleep. Glad it ran its course pretty quickly, but man is it not my favorite to stay up all night for it. (Alex sleeps through everything. I always get up a couple times a night to tuck Cy back into his bed, because he's a spoiled monster who wants to be under a blanket and still doesn't like having to sleep on his own bed. Usually I fall right back asleep within ten or so minutes, but if I have to take him outside, I'll be all the way awake, and it's usually a couple hours at least before I can get back to sleep.)
I'm also just always worried that any illness or injury could be The One. He's old, and doesn't bounce back like he used to. (Plus he had the big mystery illness that nearly killed him many years ago, so I'm always afraid the instant there's a Symptom, heh.)

On a more positive side, writing and reading have been going really well this week! I've actually now finished three books and am working on a fourth! Granted, one of those was one of the ones that was incomplete from last year, and one was a novella, but I'm actually on pace-ish for a much more ambitious total than the original goal of 25. I don't know that I will manage to stay at that pace, but I'm riding the enthusiasm as far as I can.

I already mentioned a tentative plan to alternate novels and Wayward Children novellas, at least until I get through a few of the books that were "high priority" for various reasons. After completing those "high priority" books (Somewhere Beyond the Sea, Never Say You Can't Survive, and Trouble and Her Friends), then my plan is to alternate novel - Wayward Children novella - ebook, all from the TBR list. For the ebooks, I'm starting with the humble bundle of horror books. We'll see how I do once I'm trying to read more serious ebooks, since ebooks have historically been a struggle for me. (I've done well enough with the lighter romancey ebooks, but partially because it's not terribly hard to reorient myself in the story/remember where I left off, and I'm less concerned about forgetting minor details that could be super important. With some of the denser novels, I'm a little more concerned about missing details, but hopeful that I'll maintain my focus!)

While the goal I set at the start of the year was to get through 25 books, mixing my TBRs with fluffier ebook fare, that would barely put a dent in the TBR list, so I've set a "stretch" goal of sorts. I'd really like to get through 44 of my TBRs. 40 that I already have, plus the four new releases that I'm most excited for this year (which will jump the line as soon as I get them.) That's just under a book a week, which is not historically a pace I'm good at maintaining by any stretch. Though some are novellas which may go much quicker, others are longer and denser. That also isn't counting any of the fluffier ebooks that I still intend to use as time-fillers, or any of the books I read with Alex or Taylor, which wouldn't be part of that 44 book goal.

I've also written almost every day for the last week, and while I don't think I'll finish the rough draft of the current WIP, I also can't be mad that I'm moving along at a steady clip.

I'm trying to decide about participating in NaMoPaiMo next month. (National Model Painting Month.) The woman who organizes it has had a really rough year, and the last couple months have been especially terrible. Her horse died just a few weeks ago, and her family home is in Altadena. While it's still standing for now, she's watched a lot of familiar places burn down. She's still planning on running the event, though. That makes me want to participate, because I want it to feel worth it to her, and it's often a big fun social thing for the hobby, but... I also know that historically, putting my energy toward that means that it is the ONLY creative thing I end up doing. I'm doing so well on my reading and writing goals that I don't want to put those on hold for a month (also knowing that such a long break means I often struggle to reestablish the routine.)

My project from last year - the art deco/stained glass peacock horse - has also done well at a couple of shows (including getting first place in his class from a really well-known artist), which is super flattering, and makes me want to do another. (Alex suggested I do something in reds, since I have blues/greens with the peacock and purple with the wisteria one... maybe roses? I could try and put together a stained glass-ish rose pattern... It's a little tempting to do something really dramatic like a dragon, but it's also relatively common for people to do dramatic resculpts of horses into dragons, and so I'm afraid one that just has a dragon painted on it will look quite basic in comparison, haha.)

I should decide soon, since ideally I'd get whatever I need to prepped before the challenge starts on February 01.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: my apartment

I'll make this post *a little* less pic-heavy.

( The remaining progress shots (3 pics): )

Yesterday night, I finished the last part: glossing the peacock part of the design. :) I used Liquitex varnish. We bought a gloss medium that was our plan to try and out and see if it was glossier... but then the tub says in all caps NOT to use it as a topcoat. I couldn't find a reason WHY it's not suitable for a topcoat, but didn't want to risk it, ha. (A different gloss medium by the same company does not have that warning on it, so it remains a bit of a mystery.)

Show side.

Off side.

Tail angle.

I'm pretty happy with him! I doubt he'll be a show piece, though maybe I'll give him a try. At some point I'll dig "Tiffany" (my project from a couple years ago) out of her storage box and see how the stained glass ponies look together. :) Leaning toward naming him "Longfeather."

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: my apartment

Today was a 10.5 hour day at work so we could do a center meeting, so I am tired!

But the tiny plastic horse has color! Pics of each days' progress under the cuts, plus details about the colors and such. That's more for me than anyone else, so I remember what I did, ha.

( Wednesday was blue (3 pics): )

( Thursday was doing the wings (3 pics): )

( Friday was finally getting to do the back and the tail! (3 pics:) )

Still to-do:
- finish the peacock feathers in the tail
- paint the mane and the parts of the tail that aren't feathers. With my previous stained-glass inspired pony, I did the mane and tail in the pewter-black color that I used to outline the "glass" pieces. This time that remains my plan for the mane, and I'm deciding on the tail. Because the tail HAS been incorporated into the design this time, I'm not sure if I want to do the non-feather parts in the lead color, or the darker "negative space" black for more contrast.
- face details. The mask will be black and white, and the eyes gold. The beak will probably be a tan color. I think I'll do a bit of blue on the ear as the "crest" that peacocks have.
* maaaaybe do a sealant layer after this. I don't want to risk doing something to mess up the work I've done, and having a layer of sealant to protect it might be helpful. Then again... curing time.
- go back over aaaaaall the tiny little outlines in the lead color, because those have pretty obviously worn away/lost definition.
- paint the rest of the body that isn't part of the peacock design as dark and matte a black as I can, to try and make the design part stand out more. (Probably last, since I have to hold the legs to do the rest.)
- gloss the "glass" parts of the design.

Phew. Still quite a lot to do to try and be done by the end of the month! Though if I can do one listed thing per day, that will get me there... though I'm hoping to be done EARLY, if I can get multiple sections done per day over my weekend. (Though it is also very possible I won't get to anything tonight. Late at work, plus haven't slept more than a couple hours for the last few nights.)
Things like the gloss are semi-optional - it's a bit out of the spirit of the thing to work on it after the month is over, but the project will still be "done" without it, and it won't morally destroy me to do that kind of thing after the fact.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

This is what I got done last night:

I got the pencil lines painted over. The color I chose is about a 50-50ish mix of "pewter" and "carbon black", to mimic the color of the lead between stained glass pieces. It's a lot of tiny lines! I'll likely go over these a second time at the end, once the colored sections are done.

Verdict on the longer fine-tipped brush that I was using? Mixed. It did hold more paint, but even quite thinned, the paint didn't "flow" well through the brush? The paint higher up the brush would just stay there in a droplet about halfway up, not coming down into the tip, unless I used so much pressure it lost the fine line (at which point it would blob out, and I'd have to stop to clean it off.) Not sure why that was as much of an issue as it was. It's not one of the ultra-nice (expensive! so expensive!) sable brushes or whatnot, but is a mid-quality brand. It's a brand new brush, so not at all worn, and I made sure it was clean, so not getting caught on anything coating the bristles or anything. Possibly it's just because I am using cheap craft paints, which can have uneven pigmentation, but I did thin them, and the paint that was going onto the model didn't have any gritty or goopy bits. Ah well. I may go back to a shorter brush.

Going to hopefully work on colors for an hour or so tonight!

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Spent my weekend with Taylor. We finally finished all of the "A Realm Reborn" base game for Final Fantasy XIV. We'd finished the main quest line a while ago, but there are two additional "parts" after that serving as a sort of epilogue/segue into the later expansions, plus they wanted to do some of the "optional" side material, either because it's fun or because it's only technically optional, but leaves gaps in the lore if you skip it.

The writing quality definitely started to climb as the game went on, and I appreciate that it did sort of... explore some consequences of things that were initially played straight. (Hey, maybe building your own extrajudicial militia force that answers to no one is... not a great idea, even if it's dressed up as "putting together a force to support your good intentions to help the kingdom!")

We also got through the first part of the "Heavensward" expansion, which is quite good so far. (I definitely appreciate that monsterfucking is a canon plot point. Get it, Shiva!)

(Lots of Realm Reborn feels fairly generic fantasy RPG, but I will say that watching the documentary on how they did this full reboot of the game from the ground up really makes me appreciate it more, haha. The original incarnation of the game was *rough* from all accounts, and having to support it while also rapidly trying to just build a new game from scratch [but good this time!] in secret was quite a thing to have to do, haha.)

We also finished watching Bodies, which I quite enjoyed, and I think Taylor did too. We did our usual insufferable mutual bit about comparing it to comp titles in a snotty film snob voice. "We *get* it, you watched The Prestige, Predestination, and Cloud Atlas, and you played AI: The Somnium Files. Wow, how original. *eyeroll*"

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

I mean, we're just over halfway through the month. This is fine, right? RIGHT?

Tiny plastic horse is primed!

We tend to use Duplicolor primer. It's automotive primer, but it makes for very nice, thin layers that don't lose much detail. Alex did give mine another blast of primer after I had to resand part of it.

And I've now gotten a design penciled in on him:

I am... very unsure how I feel about the pattern. The intent is a stained glass/mosaic peacock design. (Everything "outside" of the design will be black, so that the design is the focus.) I like it (and am actually quite happy with the tail feather eyes and how I drew them) but... this is a LOT of little tiny sections. I'm very afraid that's going to be a MISERABLE time to try and paint, but I also don't want to start over, ha.

Next step will be to paint over the lines, which I'm planning on doing in a sort of pewter color to mimic the lead between stained glass segments. This is the part I expect to be difficult, but I'll do my best. I'm going to try a longer but still very fine-tipped brush for such narrow lines... I tend to want extremely fine, but also prefer very SHORT brushes, because it feels like I have more control. A lot of artists suggest using a longer brush that holds more paint, which allows you to get more done before you have to "refill" the brush, which leads to better texture and faster painting. As long as the point is fine, it should work, but I always feel like longer brushes are unwieldy. I've certainly SEEN artists use them very precisely, I just don't feel like I have the knack. Giving it a try, though!

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: my apartment

Valentine's Day is usually pretty mellow for us.

I got Alex a plastic horse, a plushie and some candy. He got me a fancy mug I'd admired, a plushie, and a box of candy. <3

For dinner we got carryout from the Indian restaurant near us. It was delicious as always, but the butter chicken was spicier than usual! It was still very good, but hotter than I expected. (Honestly... still probably barely inching into "medium" heat; I'm just a wimp, and usually it's very mild.) We also got samosas and garlic naan.

Now we're watching a pretty average-quality Tubi-original horror movie.

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I am not thrilled that my cough got quite a bit worse last night. It's been fairly steadily improving, but last night it woke me several times and kept me up. This morning also had that hint-of-hint-of infection flavor to it for the first time in a couple weeks. I don't want the original bronchitis to be having a resurgence, and I also don't want some opportunistic secondary infection. No thanks!

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Yesterday I got my NaMoPaiMo model primed... which revealed seams that I missed sanding off. So tonight I tried to file those down, and if possible I'll try to get it reprimed in the bathroom tonight, so I can actually start working on it tomorrow. Only halfway through the month! It's fine!
(I'd rather prime it outside, which we were able to do yesterday, but I won't have any warm-enough daylight hours outside of work for another week, and that definitely won't leave me time to finish. So cardboard box in the bathroom it may have to be. Or maybe Alex will have a chance to do it during the day.)

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Writing is still not happening. I feel like a bird hitting a window.

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Dreading Saturday at work. Really terrible new class procedure that we have to do, and it'll be the first time we're closing a series with it. I DO have help, fortunately, but I am not looking forward to it.

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Sunday night might be going over to Taylor's again. They get a lot of comp time for being on-call, so are able to take periodic time off and will sync their ability to get a three-day weekend with my regular days off. Looking forward to it!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

Weird hobby time!

There is a surprisingly robust hobby scene for people who take tiny plastic horses very seriously.

One, though by far not the only, aspect of this hobby is artistic: people who do custom paint jobs for these tiny plastic horses. Some people are also sculptors, but many people just do new finishwork on existing models. These existing models range from cheap toys (Breyer being the most common mass-produced brand, because they're mostly relatively inexpensive but also often very good sculpts that are very realistic in terms of biomechanics), to extremely high end artist resins (often extremely finely detailed sculptures, sometimes priced in the thousands of dollars for extremely sought-after ones.)

One very well-regarded hobbyist (who also lives in Colorado), started an event called "NaNoPaiMo" several years ago. In the style of NaNoWriMo, NaMoPaiMo stands for "National Model Painting Month." The rules are pretty simple: in the month of February, use the artistic medium of your choice to customize the finishwork of a 3D model equine of your choice.

I've participated for... some number of years. 4? I think? 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 sounds right to me. The event was held only informally last year, as Jennifer had too much going on in her real life to run it. I'd intended to participate in the unofficial "International Model Painting Party" replacement event, but I crapped out majorly and never even finished prepping a model to *be* painted.

So I'm giving it another go this year!

This guy is partially prepped: the white areas are where he's been sanded to remove seams and such. That's usually the first step for customizing: sanding the model down, removing seams and logos, so you have the "cleanest" model to work on. The next step after that's complete will be a layer of primer, and then the actual painting!

I am planning to use paint: acrylics, applied with a brush. Other people use oils, or use acrylics with an airbrush. Alex is also doing one this year, and he'll be using pastel pigments.

My intent is to do this one as a "decorator" (an unrealistic color.) My plan is to do a peacock stained glass/mosaic pattern. (My horse in 2022 was inspired by Tiffany's wisteria stained glass patterns.) This time I want to do a similarly-styled peacock, and I have NO idea how well that will turn out!

(I'd waffled on whether I was going to try this year or not. I already lost a huge chunk of January to being sick, and I know this will take up a good chunk of my free time for February. There are already other things that feel neglected! But it's also a fun chance to do artistic/creative things OUTSIDE what I ordinarily do, so I'm hoping I'll be able to do it!)

Current Mood: sick
Current Location: my apartment

It was a successful day at the model show! Alex did very well. This particular show only allows each competitor to have 50 total models they bring, and Alex had 21 of his place (for this show, ribbons are awarded 1-6 in each class), which is honestly nearly absurdly good. This is a competitive enough show that having anything place is pretty good, so near *half* of them doing so? Some of the classes were enormous, and it was a LOT of high-quality competition. He also had two division reserve champions, which is even more impressive!

Two horses I was particularly proud of:

One was a horse I did a "restoration" on... someone had taken a very lovely old vintage model and blobbed whiteout onto it to give it face markings. I was able to remove the whiteout without damaging the rest of it, and it wound up winning a rosette (and a pair of prize models!) as the reserve champ of its division. :)

The other was my little NaMoPaiMo model from last year, which came in 4th in the fantasy class. That's not an amazing placement, but there was some REALLY nice stuff it was competing against, and as a very amateur artist that still made me feel quite warm and fuzzy. (And again, any placement at a show like this is worth being glad for.)

My back was surprisingly unhorrible for most of the day... until about the the last hour and a half when I could barely stand up (yet sitting was actually more painful.) It's lightened up a little bit since, which is a relief. It's definitely some sort of pinched nerve, because the wrong angle makes the entire leg go numb, and both the hip and knee joint *hurt*.

I didn't sleep terribly well - combo of my back and the "pre-event" excitement. I'm always like that - a show, a vacation, a holiday... any of the above tend to make it hard for me to sleep. I wake up constantly both because I'm excited and because I'm afraid of oversleeping.

So... I think tonight is a fall right into bed night. I am VERY tired.

Tomorrow we plan to go back to the Horse Expo and try to catch a couple of the demos or training clinics. While it won't be as early a morning, it could very well be another all-day thing. We'll see!

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: my apartment

My manager rearranged the whole office. My desk is about 18 inches shorter due to help from an instructor who is also a contractor, but while that's a mild bummer, our office area feels more open with the desks rearranged. (Instead of facing toward the door, the manager and I both face into the lobby, and instead of his desk being directly behind me, they're now next to each other.)

Still dead-ending on writing, and I know that I'm the only thing in my way at this point. (I mean... I have other reasons, but I'm afraid they're tipping more toward the excuse side than the reason side.) My back has been extra bad, which means I'm sleeping poorly, so I'm struggling to stay awake or focused. I've been annoyed by things like persistent typos and forgetting where a sentence is going, which makes it hard to want to try and write. I know that I've got to push through, because times will never be perfectly ideal, and I did a GREAT job of pushing through quite a bit last year... I'm just having a harder time doing that now.

Still working on reading City of Saints and Madmen, which I am still very much enjoying, but the whole pain and poor sleep thing has kept me from having much reading time, too.

Alex has had a few more PT appointments, but they don't seem to be helping much. The disks have been bad enough that the therapists haven't wanted to do much for fear of aggravating them, and he still winds up in more pain rather than less after almost all of the appointments. :/ They've been trying to help at least relax the seized muscles in his back, but it doesn't seem to do much, and then he just has knotted muscles that also feel bruised.

I had a mango start to ferment on the counter, and it makes me sad because they were really good mangoes. :(

I did *not* post to Dreamwidth yesterday for the first time in a couple years. I'm trying to prove a point to myself that breaking the streak does not mean that I will go on hiatus for years at a time again, lol. :p

Today was the first nice day we've had in *weeks.* I had to spend the entire nice part of the day inside at work, but we did get to open the door for a while, and that was very nice.

Next month is shaping up to be busier than I generally prefer... mainly because there are three concerts happening in a two-week span. Combichrist, Solar Fake, and Covenant. Alex of course very much wants to go to all three, which is already pre-exhausting me, lol.

I need to finish prepping my model for NaMoPaiMo. (National Model Painting Month. Which this year is not actually as formal event, as the friend who has run it for the last six years is deeply burned out from how big the event got. So this year it's actually "International Model Horse Painting Party" which is just a low-pressure "do a thing if you want to do a thing" month.) Still, I want to do it... but it's one more thing that takes time and focus and the ability to sit upright without crying!

Current Mood: sore
Current Location: my apartment

Previous progress pics here.

And (as of last night) my NaMoPaiMo [National Model Painting Month] horse is done.

Progress pics from Wednesday - Sunday:

Wednesday: completed the branches and leaves

Thursday: completed the wisteria flowers (four shades of purple)

Friday: painted the mane. (These pictures probably show the color of the flowers the best.)

Sunday: finished!

Forgive all the doghair on the blanket, lol. Tentatively I'm calling her "The Tiffany Problem".

It's the term in media (mainly writing), where something is viewed by the audience as ahistorical or inaccurate based on their own beliefs about history, even if the thing in question is well-supported. The original example, given by author Jo Walton, is that the name "Tiffany" sounds like a pretty modern name, despite dating to the 12th century. Despite it actually being a very plausible name for some historical times and places, readers still feel it's an inaccurate name to include in a piece of historical fiction, and it can feel jarring and out of place to them.
More commonly/seriously, there are criticisms of things like racial diversity in historical fiction set in Europe (especially England), because many people *think* it was homogeneously white, even though it often wasn't!

That doesn't apply to my silly little horse... but she is based partially on the famous Tiffany wisteria lamp, and I had problems with her, lol.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: some investigative show Alex is watching

I think my NaMo model is Done Enough. There are some parts that could use another layer, but... there's also the possibility that extra layers would fuck it up, so I think I'll leave it as-is right now.

A couple bits still drying, so I'll look at it tomorrow and make sure there's nothing obvious that needs fixing, and then I'll share some progress pictures.

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Today was as rough at work as I thought it would be, lol. It was better than yesterday, but there was a lot of stuff I wasn't completely able to get done. I feel bad, because I think it looks like I didn't do much all weekend, when I actually had two super stressful days that were overwhelmingly busy.

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Tomorrow I have to go to the DMV to renew my license and I'm already dreading it, lol.

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I'm beyond ready to try and get back to my WIP, before I totally lose momentum, but the last several days have given me no opportunity! Maybe tomorrow. (Got a week to finish draft 2 of Chapter 3 to stay on track.)

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Finished reading Upright Women Wanted. I enjoyed it. May write more about it, but not sure.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: some investigative show Alex is watching

Hit the point where I was making more mistakes than good choices on my NaMo model, so that's that for the night. Got the branches and leaves painted - tomorrow, flowers.

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I think that last night I finally finished the rough draft of my current fic WIP! *confetti* This damn story has been fighting me every step of the way, so I am SO GLAD to have the rough draft done. I'm going to start on the second draft/rewrite next. I enjoy the rewrite stage the most, which is apparently mildly weird. (Though again, I usually do relatively soft rewrites - not the hardcore "cut at least 80% and completely redo it" kind.)
I have the feeling that even after a second draft, this will be one of those "eh, good enough" projects. It was a bit out of my comfort zone in terms of genre... not totally dissimilar, but a bit, with a relatively straightforward romance as the A-plot, and written to follow a pre-existing summary. I don't regret writing it, but if it hadn't been for a challenge that I'd promised to complete, (and if I hadn't posted part of it already), I would almost certainly have dropped it. :P

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So uh... how about the bombings in Kyiv (and elsewhere in Ukraine)? Alex is listening to coverage. I know it's been a known threat, but it seemed like an awful lot of people were very insistent that of course Russia and Ukraine wouldn't go to war... surprise. I don't have any great or insightful commentary on it, just... yikes, wish it hadn't come to this.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: news coverage

I actually had a pretty productive day (by some measures) today! I didn't sleep very well, so I woke up pretty early, but both read some and played a game for a while, which was better than dicking around on my phone.
It was miserably bitterly horribly cold today (I guess the high was 9°, though for a while it was 2°, on Tuesday, 2/22/22. Ha.
Despite the temps, we had a couple brief errands to run, so we did that. We'd considered going to a movie, but decided we didn't really want to be out any more than we had to be.

And I finally got to start on my NaMoPaiMo model. Only... right before the deadline, ha. Maybe I can get it done by the 28th.

Some progress pics:

Finally got a coat of primer! (It could maybe have used another, but there's no color underneath that's going to give me problems, since most of it will be either purple or black.)

My design idea this year was to do a stained glass pattern, based on various wisteria designs.

So I sketched that on in pencil.

This is the first time I've ever attempted to draw a "stained glass" type pattern, so I was pretty happy with it! I referenced a couple different art pieces I'd seen pictures of, including the famous wisteria Tiffany lamp, but mostly looked at a picture of an actual wisteria tree.

(Angled view because I like the way the "branches" look along the back.)

Having decided on the pattern, I painted over my pencil design with a dark grey-black to simulate the lead borders between the glass pieces. That's way too many tiny small shapes, and way frustrating to try and fine-line that using crummy craft paint, but I did it! Why did I do this to myself!

(Extra frustration: the box of "my" art supplies - the brushes I usually use, a few paints, a plastic palette, toothpicks for mixing paints - has somehow gotten lost, a victim of one of the cleaning sweeps through the apartment. Alex had stuff I could use, but it wasn't ideal. :P My stuff will turn up somewhere... just not sure where it could be.)

Now hopefully I can try to devote a little bit of time after work each day to getting color on. Two shades of green for the leaves, four shades of purple for the flowers, and then black for everything below the pattern. I think I may do the mane and tail in the same color as the "lead". (Maybe the horn and hooves as well.) At least I'm trying!

Not sure if my back is screaming because I sat on the floor to paint, or because of the cold, or something else...

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

Writing:

I am finally closing in on the end of this WIP! I should absolutely have it done this week. (I say, trying not to jinx anything.) So I'm not really getting ahead of my hoped-for schedule, but I'm not behind either.
Now part of my struggle is feeling like I'm setting this story up for a sequel... that I have no intention or desire to write. I think the arc of the fic closes out pretty well, and dragging it on any longer wouldn't feel right. But there are some loose threads for the characters. At the moment, I don't intend to write more, but I guess it's not the worst thing to leave it open for the possibility.

Once I finish this final chapter, I'll start on the second draft/rewrite. In order to keep up with my schedule and have it done by the end of "Crack the WIP", I'll have to finish a chapter a week... which I hope I can do.

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NaMoPaiMo:

Still haven't started, so it seems unlikely I'll succeed this year. Alex keeps saying he'll prime my horse, but then he forgets to. But then he says he has others he needs to do, so he wants to do it... so it's sitting in a pile, lol.

His looks great, though!

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We are supposed to get a horrible cold snap starting tomorrow. It was beautiful today, 60°, and I had to be inside at work. Now we're heading into below-zero temperatures and snow and I don't want it. :(

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Today has been a struggle all day. For some reason I'm just exhausted, despite having gotten an okay amount of sleep. Alex said he felt the same all day. Bleh.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: The Whole Truth - Thai horror film on Netflix

- On the last chapter of CotH:
Both better and worse than I feel like it should be? The chapter has so far gone smoother than the last, and so it feels like progress has been better. Yet I also feel behind where I'd hoped to be. I'm *not* actually behind; the "deadline" is the end of the month, and I'm definitely on par for that. But I guess I just WISH I had more done

- On NaMoPaiMo:
Heh, still haven't started. ^^; I need to prime my model, and then figure out the exact design, and then actually... paint.

But yesterday morning I tripped in the bathroom and knocked Alex's NaMo project over, and it wound up with a huge gouge in it. (He's doing his in pastels rather than paint.) It was looking so good, and I feel just awful that I screwed it up. He did work on it a bit yesterday and has it looking almost back to how it was, but the spot that got gouged is still visible. Hopefully a couple more layers will fix it, but I really do feel awful.

(That may be part of my reluctance to even start.)

- On everything else:

I cracked my forehead against my desk yesterday and boy does it fucking hurt. It's swollen but at least doesn't look bruised. But it huuuuurts.

Still playing my Pokemans. I'm about to do the first challenge, and have caught everything available up until that point, so it's going well.

Looking forward to going over to Taylor's tomorrow!

Yesterday was my mom's last official day! I called to congratulate her today, her first day of actual retirement. But turns out she will be going back next week to help train the person they hired for her position... as a contractor, billing them at $40/hour. So... good for her! (And it sounds like the new owner might want to hire her in the future for things occasionally, at that rate, and even allowing her to work remotely when possible, so... win/win/win for her!!)

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: The Ring 2

Dentist appointment today, always the most fun. Everything was good, which is a relief. I had to have a lot of dental work - fillings, primarily - done back in 2020, so it's a tremendous relief that everything is better now.

-

Yesterday I FINISHED (the rough draft of) CHAPTER 5 OF MY WIP. Fina-fucking-ly.

My "deadline" for it had been January 31, so I'm technically slightly ahead of schedule, but I'd been trying to get it done sooner!

My next "deadline" is to finish Chapter 6 by February 28.

...

But now I'm possibly reconsidering that nicely planned out schedule.

crackthewip has started up for this year. (A community focused specifically on finishing a work in progress.) Posting dates this year are April 1-7.

That nicely syncs up with when I'd planned to post the first new chapter of this WIP, on April 5! The hope was to have the second draft completed by the end of March, and then to post every couple of weeks through April and May.

But in order to officially post as part of Crack the WIP, the work has to be COMPLETE and posted during the posting week. :/

If I keep on track with my intended schedule, everything would be completed by then... but I'd have to dump all four remaining chapters by April 7.

Two maybe possibilities that I'm leaning toward:

- Just stick to my intended schedule and "join" unofficially. I can still follow along and get my fic *finished* with the comm, and just not post it at the end.

OR

- Post second draft chapters the week after I complete them. If I complete a second draft each week in March, this would have me posting on or near March 15/22/29 and April 5, which lets me post the final chapter during posting week.

On the plus side, I get to post something sooner than April, which would be nice, since everything has been on hiatus since October.

The downside is that posting so quickly means that I don't have a cushion to cover for me while I finish WIP#2, so there'll be another gap of a couple months before I hope to have that one finished in June. I wanted to have a fairly steady update schedule so that there would only be a few weeks without something to post.

Weighing my options between the two. I still have some time to decide.

-

The other maybe complication is NaMoPaiMo. (National Model (horse) Painting Month: paint one three-dimensional equine model during the month of February). Last year, especially toward the end of the month, that took up a LOT of my free time, and I struggled with getting any writing done. I'm afraid of the same thing happening this year - I only have so much time after work. Again, we'll see. I do have all month for both the model and the chapter, though if I can finish either in less time, that would be even better.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: The Ringmaster/Finale - horror movie on Prime

I finished painting my little plastic horse!

It still needs to be sealed, and at some point I may do a few more layers of white to even out some spots, and I noticed a blip in the tail that could use some touch up. But for now it is Done Enough!

Though now I think I'm going to go lay down with a pillow over my head, as about ten minutes ago I started to get a horrible headache. Tomorrow is definitely going to be my "catch up on DW" day, but tonight I just want to shut my eyes. ~~It is 7:30 and it kills me that I am now this lame.~~

Current Mood: sore
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: Welly Boots - The Amazing Devil

Today was mildly less terrible than anticipated, but it kind of feels like I'm just leaving a pile of shit for tomorrow-me to deal with. Oh well.

Tonight I need to pretty much finish up my NaMo horse. (It has to be done by tomorrow, but I don't want to leave much to do, or it won't happen.) I *may* cheat a wee bit, in that I'll get it to a point where I *could* call it done, and then improve it later if I want to. We'll see. I know it could use more white layers, but it looks all right (just has some brushstrokes visible), so I think I'll try and get the mane/tail/hooves/eye done tonight.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: Criminal Minds

Yay next blizzard round. Today was pretty deceptively nice for much of the day (chilly, but the sun was bright and made it feel warmer.) And about half an hour before I got off from work the snow came up very immediately. We're supposed to get anywhere from 4-10 inches, but it's hard to tell where we're at, because there's a lot of wind drifting it.

I'm trying to get my NaMo horse done. The end of the month has definitely snuck up on me. Tomorrow and Friday are about my only days left to work on it (since otherwise I'm working.) Tomorrow I've got plans, so really, I've just got Friday.

Tonight I worked on cleaning up the whites, trying to sharpen the edge between the body color and the markings. (Also going over the stark white primer with a much more toned down white-ish mix that looks more realistic.

White layers are notorious for requiring up to double digit layers if you want to avoid any visible brushstrokes, so... aaaaaa. I also have to do facial detailing, hoof and eyes, and figuring out exactly how I want to do color in the mane and tail. (It'll be a mix of black and white, but have to figure out exactly where I want the color to be.)
I'm giving myself a pass on writing stuff while I'm working on this... I only have so much time and energy!

Tomorrow Taylor and I are going to do another virtual hangout. (Which is why tomorrow is not an art project day.) We might pick a new reading project, they'll probably stream some Okami, we'll hopefully listen to some more of The Magnus Archives, and maybe watch some Umbrella Academy. We'll see.
I'm excited! I'd rather we could get together in person, but not there yet. My mom got her first vaccine yesterday, but Taylor and I both fall into the "general public" category, so it's likely a few more months for us.

I'll likely feel awkward as hell being on voice chat all day in a one-room blizzard-bound apartment with Alex getting a one-sided conversation, but... oh well.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: Criminal Minds

I'm feeling about the same today - still with the sinus pressure headache and general blah. Also, I went to blow my nose and it was like someone had dumped poprocks in my ears. Fucking OW. So glad the ear tubes are getting in on the fun from the nose tubes.

It was tempting to just make a blanket tent and spend the day in bed, but actually I managed to do several things. (Which is an accomplishment for me, lol.) I do hope I didn't OVERdo it, though. But this way I don't have to feel bad if I wind up not doing much tomorrow.

I worked on my NaMoPaiMo model. He's got shading now!

Color looks more chestnut than bay, but I hope he'll get there. I think it looks a little better in person than in the picture, but the shading is coming along!

I tackled my cleaning goal for the week: the fucking windowsill. It's probably been at least a year, maybe two since we really cleaned it. Yikes. It's easily out of sight/out of mind, because we have the hanging blinds mostly closed most of the time, and the plants crowd the other side. But there was a lot of dust and the super fine road grit that makes it through the closed windows. (And a dead moth. Where the fuck did that even come from?)

And I finished The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. I'm PAINFULLY slow at reading physical books lately, so I wish it hadn't taken me so long, but I enjoyed it!
Taylor has been doing book reviews on their tumblr when they finish something, and I'm trying to decide if I should do the same. My review skills are rusty.
Now I need to decide what to read next. I have an enormous TBR pile. I'm leaning toward River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey as my next one. It's fairly short, and I've seen it recommended in several places.

We got a lot of snow, but the sun melted most of it off the roads by midday. Still cold, but not below 0 at least.

Alex is also not feeling well. All we have is one of those stupid color-changing strip thermometers (it's like a mood ring... for science!) and it says he has a 99° fever. Not super concerning, but also not great.

Current Mood: sick
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: Salty Sweet - MS MR

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mistressofmuses

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Entries tagged with namopaimo

Misc stuff:

NaMoPaiMo horse: COMPLETE!

NaMoPaiMo horse updates for the week!

Tiny plastic horse progress + my "weekend"

NaMoPaiMo update

Happy Valentine's Day! Or happy Wednesday!

NaMoPaiMo 2024

BreyerWest Open Show:

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NaMoPaiMo 2022 - complete!

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Twos-day (2/22/22)

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NaMoPaiMo 2021: Done!

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