http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:Toki-Kuragari&section=today deviantART RSS for by:Toki-Kuragari en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:57:46 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/28847141/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/28847141/ Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:46:51 PST
Anne Bishop's Black Jewels:



Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn:



Terry Goodkind's Sword Of Truth:



Patrick Rothfuss's Name Of The Wind:



Garth Nix's Abhorsen:
http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/28816479/ Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:42:48 PST
First though, a couple updates. I do have sketches to show you guys, but since the majority of them are currently getting turned into slightly bigger projects, I'd hate to give you any spoilers. School is almost over for the semester and I am going to be a busy bee over break. I have a couple of paintings that I want to work on, one or two of which will be fan art. Like holy crap! Right? If you've ever read The Name Of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, it's fucking amazing. Check it out. I'm also going to be working on a few tattoos. Ridiculously nervous about those. Either way, there will be new work from me come January.


This brings us to the December contest:

Theme: A Step From Reality
- Depict your favorite (or one of your favorite) characters from an existing story or novel.

Rules:
- Deadline is Sunday, January 10, 2010
- Must be a new submission
- Any medium is acceptable
- Must be a character from an existing book
- Note me with the link to your submission


Prize:
- A feature in my next journal.
- 1-month DA subscription
- One sketch from me - anything of your choice - within reason of course.

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/28329698/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/28329698/ Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:56:43 PST
So without further ado, the November Demon Chronicles Contest.

Rules:
- Deadline is Sunday, December 6, 2009
- Must be a new submission
- Any medium is acceptable
- Must be a Demon Chronicles character
- Note me with the link to your submission

Theme: Modern Era (courtesy of Miss ~Witchdrums)
- Depict a Chronicles character in a modern setting. They can be from our time themselves, or they can be a victim of a world warp thing where they've been transported from one world to another. Options always open :3

Prize:
- This month the prize shall be a 1-month subscription. I wish I could do more this month, but finals are coming up. December's shall be better, I promise.

Submissions: To Be Posted...

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/27777378/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/27777378/ Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:44:16 PDT
Lots of love,

~ Toki

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/27643468/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/27643468/ Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:02:00 PDT
[link]

The password, of course, is "stratovarius"

What ya think?

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/27373148/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/27373148/ Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:18:21 PDT
But in any case, I just started my fifth semester of community college. I'm pretty much down to just the fluff classes - y'know, the ones they want you to take to be a "well-rounded student" before you go off to the big university. Isn't that what high school was for? *shrug* I dunno, but I'm almost done, thank goodness. I'll probably take a year off between community and university though to work and save money and stuff.

I've been thinking though, would anybody be interested in commissions? I really could use the extra cash. They probably wouldn't be anything too extensive at first. Sketches and ink work probably, though I may have one slot for a bigger illustration. Might not though, as I've begun to favor the huge paper for full illustrations, and that stuff isn't cheap - not to mention the amount of media it takes to cover one of those sheets.

What do you think?

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/24873523/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/24873523/ Thu, 21 May 2009 23:04:03 PDT
Edited to add the link! Stupid me forgot it!



]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/23950138/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/23950138/ Sun, 29 Mar 2009 11:47:12 PDT
All I can say is that the things are amazing. I haven't found the right one for me yet, but I think it will probably end up being one with an italic or flex type of nib as I love the flair it gives to my writing.

Anybody else use fountain pens?

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/23761989/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/23761989/ Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:21:30 PDT
It's

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/23565407/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/23565407/ Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:01:30 PST
]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/22942443/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/22942443/ Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:11:42 PST
So, I'm back...again.

I suppose that it's good that I haven't been around, because anything in the way of art has been nonexistent for ages now. How long has it been since I've done a serious piece? A year and a half? Oh yea, that's it.

So what have I been doing recently? Well, first of all, I did start that big project that's currently up as a WIP in my gallery. And yes, I do plan on finishing it. Gonna take it slow though. In the meantime, I'm working on updating a few of the older generations of Chronicles characters and perhaps designing a few of the newer ones who have not yet gotten faces to go with the descriptions. I'll try to get the character sheets up as I finish them, however, my scanner doesn't seem to be working so we'll see how that goes. I'm not sure what's wrong with the darn thing. The characters themselves are coming along great though. I worked out the bugs in a their older designs, so they're still recognizable, but definitely look a lot better. Rakurai doesn't have fluffy hair anymore for one thing XD Also, be prepared for a couple more Antenshi and Kuragari characters. I'm going back several generations and designing the forefathers, starting at Azrael Antenshi and Alexei Kuragari and working backward like five generations. Fun, eh?

And for those following my writing, that's still going on as well. I'm working on a couple of short stories that do some set-up for some of the characters - Crystiano Argentos (formerly Kitahi Kokoro) and his gang of assassins (I could probably turn this into its own miniseries if I wanted to. Lovely), a different side of Toki Kuragari, and possibly one regarding Hyperion Antenshi (Azrael's grandfather). For The Love Of Danger has been put on hold indefinitely, and I'm now working on the book that falls prior to it and sets up that story. It's tentatively been named For The Love Of War. I think all three books are gonna follow this title pattern.

As for school, I'm now in my fourth semester. At this point, I just want it to be over and done with. Luckily, my schedule seems to be okay this year. I have 17 units, 5 classes, and Fridays off. Monday is also mostly free except for like an hour in the afternoon. Of course, Tuesdays and Thursdays make up for this by being hella long. I get out at 5pm on one day and 9:30pm on the other. My classes this semester are Political Science, Ballroom Dance, Marine Biology, Multicultural Music, and Intermediate Algebra. Poli Sci and Algebra can fall off the face of the planet as far as I'm concerned. And I seriously need to take another art class sometime this century. Maybe Illustration next semester or something. That could be good for me.

In any case, that's about it as far as things go. I'll catch ya guys later :3

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/20299792/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/20299792/ Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:44:33 PDT years. No joke there.

In any case, with the return of school, my muses have also returned, so there might possibly be some work to upload here soon. As you can see, I finally uploaded my Nightwish pictures from last May. Took me long enough, eh? I've been pretty damn lame lately. Just in time though. Two weeks from now I'll most likely have another set of Sontata Arctica and Nightwish pictures for you all. I really should get a separate account for my concert photos. They're kind of taking over my gallery here XD

Anywho, new work. Soon.

And I've also started writing again, for those of you who care. I'm skipping around as bit as far as parts of the stories go, but so far, I've gotten about five intact chapters done for For The Love of Danger, a whole short story, and the first chapter of a new story. I'm trying to focus on Love of Danger though, because at this point, I just want it done and I'm pretty sure I have all the necessary ideas and factors to finish it. The trick is just sitting down to do so.

In addition to the muses return, school has also started again. I'm taking 16.5 units this semester, and am pretty sure I've managed to commit social life suicide/murder. And that's seven classes by the way - Archery, Foil Fencing, English Comp, Creative Writing, Piano, Geology, and an online Mythology class *whew* Quite the lineup, eh? Next semester I plan on working on my major though. I just kinda noticed that I'm lacking on classes completed for that XD

Alright, enough out of me for now. You'll hear from me again soon.

Toodles!

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/18600380/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/18600380/ Sun, 01 Jun 2008 10:09:30 PDT
As some of you may know, I just recently got a new computer, which so far, has been nothing but a pain in the ass. Nothing I had runs on Vista, so I've had to order a lot of driver disks and such, not to mention a whole new wireless adapter because the old one wasn't receiving any power through the machine. It took two weeks to even get the internet running. Augh. Still, now that I've got most everything loaded, now I just need to hook up the printer, find a version of Microsoft Word that is /not/ from 2000, and find my Photoshop disc (which probably won't work either). In any case, once I get the thing fully hooked up, it's gonna run gorgeously. It's an HP Quad-Core with 720GB of hard drive and 4GB of RAM, not to mention an 22" LCD Widescreen with HD compatibility. Oh, and a cool feature to it? The screen can flip either normal horizontally or vertically :3 Totally worth the money I am going to be paying off for the next year and a half (not counting the new camera I want to get, nor the tablet).


Ooh, and as soon as I get Photoshop up and running, I have some new concert photos to share with you all! I got a couple of really good ones that I want to post here, though the full set is on my MySpace, which I finally decided to put together so I could have somewhere to put all my retarded snapshots. In any case, I went to go see Nightwish again when they played in Orangevale with a big group of friends. Really, it's interesting trying to keep seven people together at a concert. We did it, but we were damn lucky to get as close as we did. Amazing show! The setlist was:

Bye Bye Beautiful
Dark Chest of Wonders
Whoever Brings The Night
The Siren
Amaranth
Sleeping Sun
The Poet And The Pendulum
Dead To The World
Last Of The Wilds
Sahara
Nemo
Wishmaster
Wish I Had An Angel

So, a bit different than the San Francisco setlist from November, but that's a good thing. I'm assuming it'll be a bit different at the San Francisco show next September as well - of which I wasn't given a choice to go or not. The ticket is ordered already In any case, Last of the Wilds was a surprise, and I'm so glad I finally got to hear the live version of Wishmaster, because we got cheated out of it last November by a shortened setlist lols I got myself another guitar pick within the first five minutes of the show. Silly Emppu. And me and ~Witchdrums kinda acted like the whores of the front row. I swear, Annette, Marco, and Emppu were on our side of the stage every two seconds. It was kinda funny. Ally is officially the Nightwish Attention Whore XD Seriously though, it's hard not to be when you're less than two feet from the band members at any given time. It was awesome :3

Except the whiplash syndrome the next day, that wasn't too awesome lols At least it wasn't as bad as it was after the Sonata Arctica concert. That was horrible. Despite the stiff neck though, that didn't stop me from going out again the next day. I don't think I've been out since though, and that was a week ago XD


On a less chipper note, and much closer to my current frame of mind, I'm so worried about a friend's chihuahua that it's not even funny. She managed to get to four Butterfingers and a FiberOne bar and is not doing well at all. It looked like she was going to be okay for a couple of days (I swear the dog has a cast iron stomach), but things took a huge turn for the worse yesterday, and today we were pretty sure she's had a stroke and definitely a seizure. So things aren't looking good for her at the moment. Poor baby. And yes, she was taken to the vet, and the lady didn't even /check/ for chocolate poisoning even though she was told what happened. So pissed about that. Looking through articles though, it doesn't look like much can be done at this point. Yea, I've gotten a little attached to this dog, even though she's not mine, so I'm really scared for her.

Alright, I actually didn't mean to write this much, so enough of my ranting.

Catch ya laters y'all

~ Bella

Edit: Shirley the chihuahua passed away this morning at around 2am...

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/17999928/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/17999928/ Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:30:55 PDT
o2. If so, what exactly is it that defines my "style"?

o3. Would you say my art usually follows a 'theme'?

o4. Is there anything I really need to improve on or change?

o5. Does my style (if I have one) remind you of/look like the style of anyone else?

o6. Judging from whatever art of mine that you've seen, what do you think I do the best at?

o7. What do you think I suck at?


Be honest lols stolen from


And I have all your guys' comments still in my inbox. I've been busy and am really bad about replying

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/17856751/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/17856751/ Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:26:00 PDT

So what do I need from you? Well, I'm here to organize a vote. Just leave your choice here.



So far:

Riley: |||||-|||

Blaine: |||||


Happy Voting

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/17691662/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/17691662/ Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:23:56 PDT
I'm sorry to say that I will not be posting the chapters here, but there are a few changes that I would like to address.

1. I've got myself a beta-reader now :3 has most kindly taken on the duty, and has both the prologue and the first two rough chapters in her inbox as I type this. I say rough because they're currently going through a bit of a cleaning up period, which is mostly due to the fact...

2. ...that I am changing the names of places and characters. In short, I'm getting rid of the heavy Japanese influence of the names. It was a good place to start from, but it's high time to move on. So far, I've got most of the given names switched over, and while a few of the surnames have been altered, most of them are still the same for the moment. However, they're quite subject to change as well. Don't worry, I'm keeping a few of them, such as Kuragari, and the names of the five ruling families of the Realms - the Myojo, Takara, Nagareboshi, Tsuki, and Higashi.

To give you a bit of an idea to things here, I'm gonna put a list here with the changes I'm making, and especially those familiar with this will notice the change (not to mention how hard a few of these choices were to make).

Location Names
None as of yet.

----------

Given Names

Aki (Suiryo) --> Antoni
Akuma (Tamashii) --> Alistair
Ami (Kami) --> Aimee
Askura (Higashi) --> Abigail, goes by Abby
Aya (Asahi) --> Aamina
Hotaru (Kazetama) --> Helena
Izumi (Asahi) --> Izabella
Kaiju (Higashi) --> Konstantine
Kaira (Akari) --> Klara
Kasei (Kuragari) --> Kasey
Kashira (Nagareboshi) --> Tybalt
Katsu (Asahi) --> Kaden
Kaino (Hikari) --> Kameron
Katsuka (Kyoku) --> Katherine (or Kat)
Kitahi (Kokoro) --> Christiano
Kosuke (Kami) --> Aldric
Kyoshi (Ryoko) --> Keegan
Lana (Kuragari) --> Leena
Machiko (Seijitsu) --> Marisol
Majutsu (Maboroshi) --> Marius
Makoto (Takara) --> Marielle
Mirai (Nagareboshi) --> Oberon
Michiru (Nagareboshi) --> Miranda
Mizuki (Nagareboshi) --> Desdemona
Nobaru (Myojo) --> Baltazar
Rakurai (Takara) --> James, though always goes by Jamie (Jury is still out on this one. If you have a better suggestion for a name that would fit the boyo, feel free to drop it by)
Reika (Tsuki) --> Rhea
Sagaru (Takara) --> Gabriel
Setsuna (Suigin) --> Selena
Shikitu (Myojo) --> Stela
Shitori (Higashi) --> Sheila
Tatsuka (Nagareboshi) --> Nikodemus
Toki (Kuragari) --> Katerina (or Kate)
Toshiko (Takara) --> Tobias, goes by Toby
Yugiri (Kinuhono) --> Hana
Yurei (Namida) --> Eva
Yuzuki (Suigin) --> Yasmina

----------

Surnames

Alluminati --> Regali
Antenshi --> D'Antenshi
Kami --> Kamin
Kazetama --> Kazeran
Kinuhono --> Kaine-Alidel
Kokoro --> Argento
Maboroshi --> Klaire
Nagareboshi --> Nagareboshi-Jiana (Michiru Only)
Nagareboshi --> Jiana (Rest of family)
Seijitsu --> Colletta-Seville

----------

New Faces (to some people anyway)

Adella Quinn --> Thunder Elemental
Alexandra Illumara --> Light Elemental
Amaranth Elizan --> Earth Elemental
Belladonna Regali --> Earth/Darkness Elemental
Cian Nystrom --> Light Elemental
Ciaran Nystrom --> Light Elemental
Isolde Kuragari --> Darkness Elemental
Matthias Illumara --> Light Elemental
Siobhan Falco --> Light Elemental
Travis D'Falles --> Wind Elemental
Tristan Kallurianna --> Water Elemental

And far more Antenshi's than I really want to go into right now. They need their own separate journal...

----------

Oh, and 3. I bumped most of the more important characters out of their teenage years, which is probably something I should have done a long time ago. The main examples, in order from oldest to youngest is Kaden (Katsu), Keegan (Kyoshi), Rhea (Reika), Eva (Yurei), Jamie (Rakurai), Kira, Abigail (Askura), Toby (Toshiko), and Katherine (Katsuka). The age range is now from 20 to 27, where it used to be 16 to 23 I believe.

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/17611206/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/17611206/ Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:50:27 PDT
What is it with people and leaving the "ooh pretty" type of comments? Really people, it is not that I don't appreciate the flattery, but these two-second-to-type things are as frustrating as anything because they don't give you any actual feedback. Is it so much to ask why you think it's pretty? Just give me something to work with here. I can take it.

So here's what I want to do, and it doesn't matter if you watch me or not.

Go through my gallery and find something that is under a year old, preferably less than 8 months. Leave a comment with a good solid constructive criticism type of comment, or why you like/dislike the piece, I'll go through your gallery and do the same for you.

Fair enough?

What do you think?

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/17354362/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/17354362/ Sat, 15 Mar 2008 21:29:08 PDT
The Sonata Arctica concert was absolutely amazing. As you could see from the pictures, we were right up front right underneath the guitarist. The two opening bands sucked, and the vocalist for one of them was totally drunk. Sonata played a 16-song set, and I managed to snag both a drum stick and a guitar pick within five seconds of each other at the end. I think I went into a temporary state of shock XD

School is going pretty good I guess. I absolutely loathe my math class, and Psych is pretty dull, but that may just be because it's an 8am class and I'm not awake for it anyway. However, Creative writing is going awesome, even though we just started the poetry unit. Uber yuck there, but at least none of it has to go into my final portfolio if I don't want it to. And Music Fundamentals has really gotten me wanting to take a piano class next semester.

Oh, and somebody asked me to draw one of those old frigate ships for them, which sounds HELLA fun! I fully intend on doing it, especially since I just bought an easel so I can work on my bigger sketchbooks more easily now. I don't know how I'm gonna pull this puppy off yet, but I have been trying to do sketches for it and am trying to write down my ideas. Not surprisingly, it's a slow process, especially...

since I got a job finally :3 I finally have money! And after I pay my mom back for my new hardcover copy of Anne Bishop's Tangled Webs and take out money for food, all of it is going into a fund towards a new camera and a new computer, because quite frankly, both pieces of equipment are totally dying on me. My compy is regularly starting to run at 1GB and only goes back down if I close all my open programs. Then it goes back down to 500MB or so. And the camera? Well, Disneyland next week will probably be it's last gasp - either that or the Nightwish concert in May, which I already bought my tickets for.

Soooo yea, I guess that's about all that's been going on....


Oh, one last thing - mostly about my recent lack of anything artistic here XD

I am committing RPG suicide lols I actually just registered my 42nd character and should be classified as clinically insane. This is the same site that has a 250word posting minimum. And I totally love it. However, it takes up a lot of time.

But hey, I seem to be in a writing phase anyway, so I guess that's a good thing.


Alright, anywho, Ta!

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/16498151/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/16498151/ Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:50:09 PST
What's worse is a writer's block and an art block at the same time...

*le sigh*

So I've been mindlessly doodling for a couple of days, and though I don't have any real ideas, things are actually turning out really well. That's never happened before *shrug* Maybe I'll scan some things for a sketchdump later. I've got a few things that might be worth it. Maybe it's just the glow of starting a new sketchbook.

School starts again on Tuesday, and I'm actually looking forward to it. It'll give me something to do and get me out of the house. Art History should be fun, because I actually already know somebody who's going to be in that class with me. Let's just say we'll probably end up starting another dysfunctional RPG notebook, and I'll probably get some drawing ideas from that. And I'm a little nervous about Creative Writing, but I'm definitely looking forward to it. Hopefully by the that time, I'll be able to kickstart myself back into writing something worthwhile. Oh, and I finally relented and am taking a Psych class. So not looking forward to it. It's an 8am class on a subject I'm less than thrilled about, but hey, it fit into my schedule, and who knows? I may end up actually liking it 9__9 Another one I'm not looking forward to? Elementary Algebra. Ick. Enough said on that one. Ah, and how could I forget about the Music Fundamentals class? lols I figure that since I'm a total music buff, I might as well try to learn a bit about how it all works, no?

Gah, the cat's in the closet...*goes to drag him out before he eats her shoes*

Yes, he would eat my shoes >.>

Oh! And I found an old jacket in the back of my closet the other day, so I modified it! You'll see what I mean later. I'm gonna get my sis to model it so I can post the pictures here. It looks totally awesome! I gots wings now :3

So yea, I found out what my grades for last semester were too I got straight B's, except for an A in Pre-Algebra (yea, I started from the beginning again. Big deal). To put all that in a nutshell, that's a better report card than I've had in five years. Needless to say, the parents were shocked XD

Alright, this is getting long, so I'm gonna stop rambling now lols

~ Much Love

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/16409475/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/16409475/ Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:25:08 PST

You know you're an Art Student when...


1. Your fridge has no food in it, because there’s no more room after 50 rolls of film.

2. You stare at an aisle of paint thinking, “Can I get away with making an entirely red painting? Because God knows that’s the only color I can afford…”.

3. You have ever managed to throw together a five minute speech during a critique about how deep your piece is, when really it’s just about the fact that you think cows are pretty cool.

4. Little kids tend to be afraid of you in grocery stores and other public places.

5. You sit in the art building doing a project you hate on a Friday or Saturday night while your friends are off partying because they’re all liberal arts majors. Or something like that...

6. The concept of math can give you a headache.

7. You stop referring to your dishes as dirty, and start calling them art projects. Just so you won’t have to clean them.

8. You have no nice clothes left, because everything has been burned or covered in clay, paint, plaster or photo chemicals.

9. If you do something silly, people roll their eyes and say, “That’s an art student for you.”

10. Your concepts of baths are the things you put your photos in and not your body.

11. Your messy room is just organized clutter and you really know exactly where everything is, or you can find anything in five minutes.

12. In the fall, people ask you if your hair color is for Halloween or not.

13. The floor of your room is littered with the remains of your last project. Hell, it's littered with my current projects

14. You eat on the floor because your table is covered with art supplies.

15. You find yourself apologizing to everyone, everywhere for hitting them with your oversized portfolio.

16. You know how the graphite of pencils smells. And tastes. Yea, not pleasant...

17. You’re afraid to go to the doctor because you might be declared pencil or paint poisoned.

18. You wear more of your raw materials than you use.

19. You have found every possible way to open doors without using your hands.

20. You skip class because it’s raining and your work is not waterproof. Or if it’s critique day.

21. Your facebook/myspace photo is either photoshopped or a piece you actually did. Sorta, my DA ID usually is in some fashion or another

22. You wake up in the morning and subconsciously assess the levels of daylight and how they would affect your camera’s aperture.

23. Half the mugs or cups in your house or dorm have remains of paint along the brim.

24. You still drink out of those mugs.

25. In your bathroom, you have paint brushes mixed with your toothbrushes while you let them dry.

26. You’re enjoying the sunset, and then start to think “That’s nice, but it could use a bit more texture...”

27. Paint or chemical fumes have become the scapegoat for any weird behavior.

28. You can't focus on what your friends are saying because you're too busy trying to imagine what their faces would look like rearranged.

29. You're in class and you get so bored that you draw a cartoon of your teacher and give them a unique expression.

30. You can't truly start your art project until it's really crucial: 11:00 pm the night before it's due. Or 7 in the morning when your class starts at 9:30am...

31. You typically look like death warmed over from late night schematics and cold pizza.

32. You walk out of class with paint or charcoal smeared on your face, and when someone mentions it, you just don't care because you just came from art. It's supposed to be messy!

33. You are constantly looking for nude models.

34. You see a smashed coffee cup on the floor and the coffee from it next to it, and briefly wonder if it's an installation piece.

35. You understand how absolutely cruel 8am studios are because you were in that same studio till 2 am the night before.

36. People think you are going fishing because you carry all your art supplies in a tackle box.

37. You start coordinating your clothes in the morning based on the colors of paint they're stained with, and not their original color.

38. When you grocery shop, you spend hours picking through fruit, vegetables, etc. because as soon as you get h... ]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/16206876/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/16206876/ Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:37:20 PST Witchdrums mentioned, it's a pretty good lead-in and prologue to the rest of the series.

lols maybe I should make it another resolution to not add to the influx of Darkness Elemental characters this year :3 Unless it's absolutely necessary of course.

Anywho, was just stopping by to wish y'all a happy new year.

Much love

Over and out.
______________________

Edit:

Y'know, it's sorta funny. No matter how hard I try, I cannot finish a sketchbook. I always leave somewhere between 5 and 10 pages blank at the end. I don't get it.
_________

Oh, and my official Nightwish collection is now not looking quite so pitiful anymore either :3 I just bought Angels Fall First and Century Child today, and I might also go back for Oceanborn later in the week. Those are the three hardest albums to find, so I scooped them up lols After that, I'll only need Wishmaster and Once, and possibly Over The Hills And Far Away (this is just an EP though).

Current collection (in order of acquiring):
- Once belt buckle
- Nemo sleeveless button-down shirt (that I layered with a hoodie to make a jacket) [signed by Tuomas, Marco, and Jukka, but they're fading TT__TT]
- Dark Passion Play - Collector's 2-Disk Edition - [booklet signed by Jukka]
- Guitar pick from concert
- End of an Era DVD
- Century Child
- Angels Fall First
_________

Alright, enough of my useless rambling and trivia. I feel the need for fanart sketches. I just finished Daughter of the Blood again and I almost forgot what a good book it was lols Alright, I'm gone.

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/15964669/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/15964669/ Sun, 16 Dec 2007 19:28:55 PST Monday, Wednesday, Friday

Creative Writing - 9-10am
Music Fundamentals - 10-11am
Elementary Algebra - 1-3 pm

___________________

Tuesday, Thursday

Psychology - 8-9:30am
Art History - 11-12:30pm

]]> =Toki-Kuragari http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/15352154/ http://Toki-Kuragari.deviantart.com/journal/15352154/ Sat, 03 Nov 2007 20:46:10 PDT and I arrived in the city around two and checked into our hotel, and having only got four hours of sleep the night before, I decided to take a nap so that I wouldn’t crash and burn later. The next thing I know, my phone is blaring the intro to Over The Hills And Far Away and I’m running down to the lobby. Turns out that the band was out walking around by the club and doings pictures and autographs. I was practically in the car before it was stopped.

Upon arriving at Slim’s, the band had disappeared, luckily only for a little while. Soon enough, Jukka appeared, followed shortly after by Marco and Tuomas. I got pictures with all three and got the back of my shirt signed. Of course, this took a while for me, because I can be as shy as hell - nope, no exception for famous rockstars . One of the mom’s who was waiting in line took pity on me and asked Jukka for me, and then Russell helped me with Tuomas and Marco. I was shaking so bad!! Seriously, I’ve never been one to be a fangirl, but at that moment I thought I was going to go into a Nightwish-induced coma. I’m still grinning like an idiot. Anywho, this was about three o’ clock.

Over the next five hours, we saw Anette a couple of times, but she never stopped to chat, which was disappointing. Although, I’m not complaining. For a first-time concert, I think meeting three out of five band members is not bad at all. I think the most amusing thing out of the whole night though was the fact that Emppu is not much taller than I am. He walked by and it’s like “omg, I think I’m taller than he is!” And I’m five feet tall, even. He didn’t stop to chat either, and went straight into the club. I think this was right before their sound-check started. In any case, the next few hours were spent talking with the other people in line and laughing about the fact that somebody on the Paradise Lost bus was watching the Playboy channel. The doors opened at eight.

During the Paradise Lost show, the crowd was actually comfortable, because you weren’t being squished to death. The girl next to me and I were being dorks throughout most of it, and she kept hitting me with her hair. Personally, I thought all of Paradise’s songs sounded really similar and it was almost sad how lackluster the crowd seemed to be. However, the band themselves seemed a bit lackluster as well, so there was really no energy in them to feed off of. I do like the vocalist’s voice though. The last song they played (I think it was Say Just Words) really got the crowd riled up finally. I’d like to thing that this was because it was a good song rather than the fact that it was the last song, but I could be mistaken. Anyway, like right after they left the stage, the crowd immediately squished together like sardines in a too-small can. So yea, we were stuck like that for an hour. Not too fun.

It was like there was a completely different crowd in the building once Nightwish appeared on stage. It was so amazing. I think I spent most of the concert in a star-struck tizzy, and the other half I was rocking out like nobody’s business. My only complaint was the fact that I was stuck behind a guy whose shoulder I couldn’t see over at all, so between he and the big pole that was there to hold up a roll-down screen, Jukka was completely obscured, and half the time, so was Marco or Anette. However, the fact that Tuomas was right smack in front of me as well sorta made up for this fact a bit. And, I still managed to get a few nice shots with the camera. Emppu also kept coming over to our side of the stage and was tossing out guitar picks. One bounced off a group of people’s hands nearby and caught between my arm and the girl next to me, but when I reached for it, it fell off and disappeared. I don’t remember at which point in the show this was. The setlist was something like:

Intro
Bye Bye Beautiful
Amaranth
Dark Chest Of Wonders
Ever Dream
Whoever Brings The Night
The Islander
Poet And The Pendulum
Sahara
Sleeping Sun
Nemo
______

7 Days To The Wolves
Wish I Had An Angel

I was actually kind of disappointed that they didn’t play Eva, and very put out that they didn’t play Wishmaster, even though it’s not one of my favorites. I was really looking forward to hearing Anette perform it though. The highlights for me were definitely Poet... ]]> =Toki-Kuragari