I didn't expect to feel so satisfied with a composition that I had to redesign and re-think several times over since that usually leads to stagnation, but then I drew a big black blob and suddenly it worked. Please feedback to how well it works, because I want it to have an emotional impact a little bit.

( 15 - The Devil (thumbnail) )

Heh, from this point on, I've got 4 more character cards, two of which I'll probably be doing next, and then all the rest are scenes from the last book. Maybe I subconsciously didn't want to get to them because they're not quite as ingrained into my HP-mindscape. :P

Wow, the internet will tell you everything.

( 09 - The Hermit (thumbnail) )

Work has been deadly hectic lately so it might take me a few extra days to build up the reserve of thumbnails again. Nonetheless I still have this one left:

( 05 - The Hierophant (thumbnail) )

11/22 cards posted, 2/22 in progress. Halfway done!

I would have saved this for tomorrow's schedule, but it's 10:30pm and I'm STILL sitting at work so I feel like producing something. Here's a LOT of rambling about a simple(?) card.

( 11 - Justice (thumbnail) )

A lot of fanartists, at least ones whom I've followed, tend to fall out of the habit as they "grow up". Spare time becomes short as careers take over, and/or original ideas dominate as personal skills (and business sense) develop. I think I'm uniquely in the position to turn out just the opposite of that - I have more personal time now that I'm making a living and not deluged with homework; I'm not doing actual art for my job so my creative energy isn't all spent; and I... never have original ideas. ._. Working on this project kind of makes me want to make a tarot deck that's original or at least public domain-themed that I'd be able to publish (AS IF I'D EVER FINISH EVEN ONE DECK AHAHA), but nothing inspires me nearly as much as a well-crafted pre-existing work. So um... I think my only hope is that one of you will write a really great story that I'd want to illustrate for. How's about dem old-time plans, ctrl_a? :P

78 pieces of fanart. I'm never going to finish it. But what if I do?

( 17 - The Star (thumbnail) )

Long anticipated by some at least one of you!

( 19 - The Sun (thumbnail) )

WHEEL

OF

FORTUNNNNNNEEE

( 10 - Wheel of Fortune (thumbnail) )

Hey you people who care, please go back to the comments section of the High Priestess entry and put in your opinion for which layout is better (and why). :3

( 00 - The Fool (thumbnail) )

10/22 cards done, 4/22 cards in progress, 6/22 cards posted!

I was going to present the cards in the order I finished the thumbnails, but I wanted to talk about this one, so here it is today.

( 08 - Strength (thumbnail) )

The best thing about doing thumbnail sketches in Photoshop, as an artist who's not very good at layout and design, is that I can resize/rotate/shift elements around until they look right. THANK GOD FOR THE DIGITAL AGE I WOULD BE A FAILURE WITHOUT IT

( 07 - The Chariot (thumbnail) )

Yeah, that last one was huge, but relax, most tarot cards aren't QUITE as packed-to-the-gills full of symbolism as the High Priestess card. This one is, though.

( 01 - The Magician (thumbnail) )

I've been doing a lot of invisible work on the Harry Potter Tarot lately, and although I had wanted to do concept drawings for all the essential characters first (and I still will; it will take FOREVER), the layouts for a number of the cards have been banging around inside my head and I thought it was for the better to get them out. Right now I'm working on thumbnail layouts for the Major Arcana in a grid so I can see them all at once in relation to each other; it's working out pretty well with 6/22 sketches ready and 4 more in progress. I plan to do the same for the Minors but that's going to take at least twice as long.

And all that was to say that I'm going to be posting these one by one every day or two or several whenever I get around to it, because if I posted them all at once I would dry up real fast. Cards will not be in order. Thumbnails will be displayed at 2x actual size, which is about 1/4 the size of the final image. Also, these entries are going to be a LOT more words than art because I'm going to be describing here everything I plan to do and why - I welcome any Harry Potter fans or tarot scholars or even art critics to come discuss my decisions or make suggestions! But you guys probably won't

( 02 - The High Priestess (thumbnail) )

I got my first tarot decks in the mail today! Since I have disposable income now, I figured I'd actually splurge and spend it on something I wanted but didn't need because I was getting tired of digitally flipping back and forth between scanned images on the computer when I wanted to reference something. Plus, doing readings with them feels much more "proper" than relying on a computer algorithm to generate randoms for me.

( About the decks blah blah blah )

Did a Celtic Cross reading for Dan and it actually came out pretty coherent :) Anyone else want to help me break in the deck?

P.S. And the point of all this is that I've been working on the HP tarot deck lately. I would say that I'll show some thumbnail sketches for the cards soon, but every time I promise to show something it ends up not happening for forever. So uh... I'm NOT going to show you some thumbnails. Ever. :P

So I've been (dragged by Kevin) into the aquarium hobby for oh, about a year now, but never mustered the effort to make any posts about it (mainly because it involves taking photos and blaaaah.) Today, though, I finally managed to set up a tank I've wanted to do for a while, so I want to take this opportunity to do a progress diary.

( Tank plans and specs: )

( Photos, day 1: )

On Monday I'll take the camera to work and get some good pics of the almost-2-gallon nano tank I've got running there :)

Work's been pretty easy-going lately, which means that I've had time to revisit my own projects (personal laptop at work = best thing evar). Namely, I finally have the time I never could spare to compile all the notes I needed for the HP tarot. This nourished some thoughts into old obsessions, ( so, useless braindump time! )

I hope to be posting some thumbnail/concept sketches before too long. Would be nice to get some discussion on those, but that might be too much to hope for. XP

Zomg, check out these ( boots of awesomeness I got at Goodwill for $11. )

I wrote this to address the religious concerns re: gay marriage from a friend-of-a-friend on Facebook, and I thought I'd post it here in case any of you needed any help with persuading people you know (or yourself, for that matter!)

( Read more... )

You know what? Due to our enthusiasm, our donations, our phone calls, our canvassing, our willingness to spread accurate information and call out lies, and embrace a positive message, and just talk with family and friends and neighbors and coworkers, we elected a black man named Barack Hussein Obama into the White House.

This should have been done for Prop 8. The lying ads should have been debunked. The best arguments should have been put forth. Money should have been given, we should have fought.

It won't happen again.

Yes we can.

A slight update. Little bigger this time:


( Warning: seriously over-rambled Smash nerd-ing below. Seriously, you won't know what I'm talking about. )

To make up for that awful nerdrant just now, here's some fanart. Oh god how I miss fanart

I'd spend time to color this, but it's not gonna get me a job.

And I thought Peach's dress was complicated last gen... =_=