http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:turquoisephoenix&section=today deviantART RSS for by:turquoisephoenix en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:49:20 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/28441511/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/28441511/ Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:56:26 PST Man, this weekend is going to be a hurricane. A long painful hurricane full of studying and painting (and repainting and repainting since I'm not the best of painters)

On the bright side, apparently I'm getting a B+/A- in my Rendering class. That surprises me considering that it's really hard to track my progress in the class. Teachers need to realize that when you keep grades a surprise, you're only hurting the OCD-ish students who obsess over every last point like me.

Oh, and apparently the colored pencils I've been using since high school are actually considered inferior and bad.
So now I need to get a good set of Prismacolors.
Only problem is, while a 144 box set of Roseart (yes, you may now laugh at my poor, cheapie colored pencils now) is about 20 dollars, a 72 box set of Prismacolors is over a hundred dollars.

Geez, just 24 pencils set me back 30 dollars. I can understand the oil paints and watercolors and stuff like that being expensive, but colored pencils?
...gee, I bet I'm showing my ignorance of the medium I use by saying stuff like this. Hurr-durr.

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/28324477/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/28324477/ Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:44:26 PST
*Term paper for Art History
*Term paper for Typeography
*My Original story (which keeps transforming into different things every time I touch it)
*Monster fanfiction

And yet I highly enjoy it. I do enjoy writing prose.
Term papers though, that's not so much fun. But I mastered the art of writing them so I'm not too worried.

Distropia as a name though was not working for me. I changed it to Process of Eternity but even THAT'S a funny-looking name.
I'm so tempted to recycle one of the old titles from one of my old fics.
Hmmm...
*sticks "The Realms of Chaos" title on story*

Oh, and random: Neopets releases Steampunk World. There's nothing for the world yet, but the fact that it's a freaking steampunk city in the middle of the volcano immediately makes this the coolest thing they've done in a long time.
...why the hell am I even on this site again?

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/28098240/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/28098240/ Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:27:44 PST
I got an A- on my Art History exam, and since there's only three grades out of the entire class, that's a big deal for me. It goes to show that if you DO study, you do get good results.
Which is why the Biology test got a weaker grade (. I thought I didn't need to study on it as much because I figured that I got mitosis a lot more than the differences between Brunelleschi's cathedrals and Alberti's cathedrals. (Although I'm pretty sure the mitosis might be more useful in real life than knowing which early Rennaissance cathedral is which. A-durr. )

I'm kind of mad that I couldn't finish my other Halloween picture in time, but oh well.

Also, against my better judgement, I joined the National Novel Writing Month this year after years of finding the concept interesting but never having an actual solid story to build anything off of. I have no intention of beating the goal; I just want to do it to see how many words I can actually put into a written piece if I casually work on it.
I'm not posting my user profile just yet, but I will say this. I'm just entering it so I can give myself a decent excuse to actually start writing out my original story.

Plus I'm working on a paper for Art History (which I can crank out in about two-three days so I'm not worried) and a fanfiction called "Monster". Definitely not intending to hitting the 50k total. Why am I doing this again? 8D
Actually, just by writing out 1000 words, I managed to figure out a major plotpoint for my story. It's helping me iron out the kinks.

...I'm now really tempted to take a summer semester just so I can take a couple creative writing courses...

---------------------------------------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1-5. OPEN!
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-Evil Neal
-Villains Week sketch-o-thon (will I do it? Unsure)
-References for original storyline including revamps for Sidney Athari, Catherine Gaines, Regina O'Malley, and Susan Winthrop. (will work on as soon as she feels like it)
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/27807742/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/27807742/ Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:05:05 PDT
Charlie is feeling a lot better and doesn't look near death now, so hopefully this is a sign that she's making a speedy recovery. Now she's eating and moving around, which is very good.

Buuuut unfortunately I'm not going to be updating much. I'm cramming for a very important midterm on Monday. (only reason I'm on is because half the test is a take-home "write an essay" exam. Wheee, FUN) The midterm is worth 33% of my grade, which means a lot of pressure.

Plus my two art teachers decided to make two important art pieces due on the same day. X_x Both of them involving ink, which means I have to be precise with everything.

I MIGHT do the whole "Sketch a Villain a day for a week" thing for the week of Halloween, but judging by my current schedule, I wouldn't be able to put together coherent sketches. Whee, it feels like my junior year of high school only the classes are shorter due to budget cuts, making deadlines even more constrained...

---------------------------------------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1-5. OPEN!
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-Villains Week sketch-o-thon (will I do it? Unsure)
-Blizzcon Comic (sketch finished)
-References for original storyline including revamps for Sidney Athari, Catherine Gaines, Regina O'Malley, and Susan Winthrop. (will work on as soon as she feels like it)
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/27660738/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/27660738/ Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:08:21 PDT The bad news is that the RENT tickets sold out while I was in class, so now I can't go see the musicial I was looking forward to. An unfortunate loss but I can live through it.
The even worse news is that one of my family's pets is seriously ill and the doctors only gave her a 50% chance of living through it.

Charlie, a cat my family's had for eight years, has been diagnosed with liver failure and a severe bladder infection. We first thought it was just stress from us adopting two kittens, but no, it was something internal. She has about a 50% chance of living, and right now from what I've heard she looks like utter hell. Apparently she's lost a lot of weight and has stopped grooming herself.

I can't help but feel bad because I can literally do nothing to help this. It's essentially just a giant waiting game in terms of whether or not Charlie's going to pull through. It's not fair for the cat to die like this.

Oh, and on top of that, I found out that a lot of my Typeography projects need Adobe Illustrator, a program I don't own and would cost 600 dollars to own.
Considering that I don't have the money, I have to do all of my upcoming Typeography homework from the designated school centers, and they close early and on weekends due to budget cuts. This means that my windows for doing any sort of Typeography homework are very tiny. Craaaap.

It's been a real downer week.

I'm mostly worried about Charlie, personally. RENT's nothing compared to a family pet. Geez...

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/27607932/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/27607932/ Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:26:27 PDT
Again, not much happened last week. School, school, and more school.

But in the middle of last week, I went to Disneyland.

They added some new stuff to the place in honor of Halloween, but the best newest change is the Ghost Galaxy Space Mountain. The effects are really cool and I kind of wish they'd keep it in the ride all year. (Red energy ghost chasing you throughout the ride? Keep it in, please)

My one gripe? PIRATES WAS CLOSED. Both that ride, Casey Jr., and Storybook Land are going through some major revamps. I don't really care for the last two rides, but PIRATES SHOULD NOT BE CLOSED.

Look at Monstro the Whale here. It's just sad. XD
And the last time I rode on this, my grandmother was still alive. No big loss.

I kind of wish they'd change the parade though. The dancing parade isn't that much fun and is very lacking in pretty floats.

------

Random but I'm changing Ben's species. pointed out these lizards to me and they look so much like Ben that I figure that he's now one of these in addition to being a skink (currently his status as an Otago Skink mix is called into question on account he seriously didn't resemble one that much, but I'm still keeping him a skink just cause): [link] [link]

I seriously did not know there was a lizard with those kind of ear things. I just made those up and apparently Nature actually has a matching lizard to go with them. XD As an added bonus, now Ben can run on water!

So going to doodle something akin to that. For now, just look at the pretty lizard!

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/27419918/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/27419918/ Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:38:37 PDT
In terms of my life, not much has happened these past two weeks. Just schoolwork, schoolwork, and more schoolwork. Been doing the usual "worrying whether I should take one branch of major or another branch of major or whether I should take a minor" kind of song and dance. Been also checking out the libraries both on campus and around town.
Managed to read the legendary "Bambi". Let's just say the book is a LOT gorier than the movie. There's a hunter who accidentally shot himself in the face, for crying out loud, and tons of fun death for everyone.
And "Moving Pictures" by Terry Pratchett was a fun, hilarious read. Now I'm rereading Valiant and I'm starting to raid the young adult section. (Young Adult books and Adult books are mainly separated due to theme. There's actually some pretty good YA novels.)

Plus my Rendering teacher is the pickiest art teacher I've encountered in my life. She's the first person that told me to do a project over just because the shading was a bit too dark. Apparently quite a few of the students fear having a class with her. Too bad she's the only teacher that teaches Rendering now thanks to the layoffs in the art department.

Also, my iPod was left on all night one time. I hate it when that happens. Luckily it only played about half of my Top Rated list but that's still about 350 songs...


I am starting to get my original storyline organized so I'm kind of pleased with that. Only about one person is going to care about this but oh well. I've decided to axe the whole travelling thing and just have the whole story set in the city. The story starts in the city and ends in the city. (Which is still unnamed. I'm thinking of naming it Progress City as a placeholder until I think of something better) I figure that's good enough simply because cities are pretty huge and I'm really going for some sort of cyberpunk thing.
Plus it'll be fun designing the different districts. (So far I have an old ruins-like district, a business district, middle class residence district, the dreaded research facility located on an island in the middle of a lake...)
One thing that bugs me is designing the cast of heroes and villains. So far I have several characters that are definitely going to be in it (Sidney, Susan, Catherine for the heroes, Regina, Claudio, Willow, and Assassin for the villains), several characters I'm unsure about (Ben and Neal could be conveniently replaced with different characters, I'm not sure if I'm keeping the magic users...), and some characters that are merely ideas rather than fleshed out characters.
It's really fun building my own world though. Too bad I barely got a plot (I have a premise which isn't enough)

I need to start drawing for my original world some more. Catherine went through a rehaul for the story (Sidney and Susan basically stayed the same because I love their character dynamic. Susan's just getting weaponry including a "light bomb" called Heaven's Light.) and plus I want to show off some more of the cast of characters. (Plus I need to draw Willow more competently. X_x)

Anyways, enough of my rambling!

MEME!

----------------------------

Instructions: Open up your iTunes (or WinAmp, or whatever, though iTunes is easiest for this I think) and fill out this survey, no matter how embarrassing the responses might be.

How many songs total: 974
How many hours or days of music: 2.2 Days, 3.55 GB.

Most recently played: "Move Your Dead Bones" by Dr. Re-Animator

Most played: "Sun" by Tomohito Nishiura

Most recently added: "Be Prepared" from The Lion King.

Sort by song title.
First Song: Absolutely (Story Of A Girl) by Nine Days
Last Song: 99 Red Balloons (English) by Nena

Sort by time.
Shortest Song: "Futurama Start Theme" (0:28)
Longest Song: "Ghost Love Score" by Nightwish (10:02) [This song is pretty epic. I suggest everyone to listen to the entire song at least once.]

Sort by album.
First album: The Abba Generation by A*Teens [Don't laugh, I like their covers.]
Last album: The 8th Sin by Nocturnal Rites

First song that comes up on Shuffle: "Heaven's Light/Hellfire" by Tom Hulce & Tony Jay (from the Hunchback of Notre Dame).

Search the following and state how many songs come up:
Death - 3 (Adagio of Life and Death, Chasing Death, and Death Mountain)
Life - 16 (Most played is 18 and Life)
Love - 27 (Most played? The Power of Love. I'm sensing a trend.)
Hate - 1 (Who I Am Hates Who I've Been)
You - 65 (Most Played is Move Your Dead Bones. The Most Played with "You"... ]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/27130382/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/27130382/ Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:51:27 PDT
Anyways, I sort of hit the ground running for this year of college because my classes are now getting more serious and in my rush of doing college-y things, I sort of forgot about this site and let my messages pile up. Whoops.

Anyways, these are my classes for the year:

*Upper Division Art History-Early Rennaissance Art in Italy
Whoo, my first upper division class! Which means art history just got even MORE ungodly hard! The grading scale is basically two tests and a paper, each worth a third of my grade. Hooray.

*Biology
My easiest class simply because I love Biology. It's a required class that I have to take. I love their lab. It's full of live creatures like giant frogs and stick insects and turtles.
I think my favorite live creature he has in there are the carnivorous pitcher plants. They're these little plants shaped like funnels that, when a bug or something living falls inside, they fill up with digestive juices and eat the bug. He fed one of them by dropping a mealworm in there. XD

*Rendering
One of my two art classes. This class is basically "Shading and Perspective", which is a good thing. I need desperate help on both of those things.
I have to redo my first assignment on account I went crazy with the shading. Apparently there is such a thing as too much contrast and too much shading. =/

*Typeography
Aka "How to create fonts on a computer and by hand". The teacher seems a little pro-Apple, though, considering that one lecture was basically "PC sucks, Mac is so much better". That being said, I'm allowed to bring my tablet into this class, which will probably make things easier for me. (I still need to develop a steadier hand when it comes to using a mouse to draw.)

*Comedy Around the World
Okay, I think I'm going to love this class. It's how comedy evolved over the years and how each culture has comedy that's both different and similar to the other cultures. My first assignment is to read a script of an ancient Greek play that still has the basic formula of most soap operas. It's really an amazing class, partly because it helps explain why some jokes are considered offensive and how others are considered hilarious.


And of course, we have the dorm situation. My current roommate's major is in Russian Studies, and she speaks fluent Russian and was in Russia for the last year. Plus she has Russian pop music. XD (Which is actually really pretty.)

In terms of art, I tried drawing something early on but then got caught up.
I'm still working on a simple little comic involving something that happened at Blizzcon, but man, I've just been lacking the drive to finish it.

I might try something different; I might try actually drawing some fanart from games and stuff I never did fanart for before.
What will I draw stuff for? You'll see.


---------------------------------------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1-5. OPEN!
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-Blizzcon Comic (sketch finished)
-Banjo-Kazooie fanart (sketch finished)
-References for original storyline including revamps for Sidney Athari, Catherine Gaines, Regina O'Malley, and Susan Winthrop. (will work on as soon as she feels like it)
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/26934028/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/26934028/ Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:57:48 PDT
Anyways, Blizzcon. I was at Blizzcon on Saturday the 22nd.

The best way to describe it is to compare it to a convention everyone knows about, ie, the Comic-Con.
Okay, imagine if Comic-Con was focused on only three subjects instead of a whole bunch of things (and I do mean a whole bunch of things. The Comic-Con is EVERYTHING) and there were a lot more booths involving trying out videogames. Imagine that, instead of shiny hospital whiteness, the entire place is cloaked in shadow with everything lit by crazy colored searchlights, causing the place to resemble a concert of nerds. Also imagine that every single person there is, in some shape or form, a Warcraft or Starcraft nerd.

This is the Blizzcon.

And it is a glorious thing.

Basically, what me and did the entire time was blab about Blizzard and World of Warcraft stuff, ogle all the Blizzard-related merchandise they had (mainly World of Warcraft, but they had their other games in merch form too), and play unreleased videogames.

And it was AWESOME.

I played World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, Diablo 3, and Starcraft 2. I ended up playing both of the new races for Cataclysm. (Alliance is getting Worgen, Horde is getting Goblins)
Okay, Goblins are AWESOME. They can summon the bank at any time, shoot rockets, jump really high, and actually use gold to buy stats increases any time they want. And their starter zone is an abandoned island filled with shipwrecked pirate ships. Lots of fun explosions too.
Worgen? They're really, REALLY boring, and it's sad to see a race of really boring werewolves. Their starter zone is just like the Undead starter zone, their transformation power is only impressive the first time, and their only racial power involves running really fast. Whee. I'm not at all impressed by them, but everyone knows people are going to flock to these guys on account they're "furry" and "werewolves". =/

Diablo 3 was really fun, but Starcraft 2 was devestating. XD I have never played Starcraft so all I was doing was making a peaceful little Zerg town filled with peaceful little Zergs that only harvested gems and multiplied. My town was getting rather big until someone sent a giant squadron of spaceships and soldiers to my town and destroyed all of my bugs in a hideous massacre. The entire ground was coated in bug blood. Starcraft is MEAN.

Oh, and bought a Murloc plushie and Burning Crusade while I was there.

------------
Dorms

Okay, now that I got Blizzcon out of the way, now I can describe my dorms.

I'm now in the quiet section of the campus and the rooms are slightly bigger and have more storage. Problem is, now I have to walk farther for everything and the room didn't come with air conditioning and my window doesn't get any breeze on account my room's window faces the back of a three story building.

So yeah, had to buy some fans in order to survive in my room (it seriously got to 100 degrees in my room on Saturday night. WITH THE WINDOWS OPEN). Other than that, it's really cool. I'm looking forward to this year.

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/26737946/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/26737946/ Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:12:41 PDT . I'm so excited!

I'll tell you how it is when I get back.

Funny thing is, this isn't the first time I've encounter Blizzcon. Blizzcon 08 happened while I was at Disneyland.
Let's just say that Disneyland filled with World of Warcraft nerds is just about the bizarrest things ever. The lines for the rides were excessively awkward as I had to stand next to people wearing Gnome shirts and shirts with the Heartless symbol, among other things.

And now, I shall embrace this group of nerdy behemoths. I know I plan on wearing a videogame-themed shirt there. XD

In other news, I'm still at the library. Only now I'm helping find missorted items. Apparently one of the Fables books got misshelved to the children's section even though the volume shelved there was one of the most violent (a cat gets put in a meat grinder on one page).

I'm also moving into the dorms next week. Hooray, school!

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/26575831/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/26575831/ Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:39:49 PDT
My little bout of minor anxiety has caused a bit of an art-block. You know that kind of funk you get into when you can't help but feel sorry for yourself because you're a failure at everything. THAT sort of thing. I don't know. Just, what am I doing wrong? I seem like I'm an all-around unlikeable person but why is that?

Eh, just me beating myself up over stuff again. You can ignore me for now.

In terms of the library, now they moved me from shelving the books to shelving the books AND weeding out the old, beaten up books. The weeding is a kind of sad process, because the books that get taken off the shelves are usually the ones everyone loves but the book just worn out its welcome. For example, several of our Narnia books and children's picture books had to be weeded out. What happens is that, after we find the beaten up books, we remove them from the catalog, put them all in a box, and send them to headquarters where the books get pulverized and new books are ordered.
I don't know, but it was kind of sad packaging up books that I personally read as a kid in a box to be shipped to a kind of old book slaughtering house.

I'll be camping on the beach until Sunday so I'm going to disappear for a little while. I'll be sure to actually draw something this time...

Finally, just because I work at a library, been reading a lot of books, and can fully reccommend a lot of these books, here, have a list of titles that I thought were really good reads this summer:


*The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor - I know, the whole "dark, dreary Wonderland" has been done many times and is getting to the point where it's a cliche, but rest assured, I really liked this interesting take on the story simply because it manages to work the story of how the book "Alice in Wonderland" itself came to be and actually worked the original author into it.
*Higher Institute of Villainous Education by Mark Walden - I know I mentioned "Evil Genius" before, but this one, in my opinion, does the whole evil academy concept a little better. Some of the characters aren't as fleshed out as the characters in Evil Genius were, but the way they protray the teachers, facility, and all that other stuff seems a lot more interesting. It's a series, but I only read the first one and can vouch on its goodness.
*Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie by Holly Black - Just putting this up here because I really like this book. To me, having both fairies and modern cities and having the two mix is something that's really hard to pull off, but she managed to pull it off. I reccommend this read.
*Undertown by Jim Pascoe - It's your basic "kid wants to save parent's life, kid finds magic portal to another realm, kid saves other realm, kid grows up and saves parent" kind of story, but with some very good twists, like the fact that sugar is a mind-altering drug/weapon in the other dimension. It's not deep, but it's a nice light read.
*Vampirates: Demons of the Ocean by Justin Somper - ...yeah, as you can tell, I'm listing books that aren't really literary goldmines, but rather fun, light reads. But come on, VAMPIRATES. You can probably get through this entire book in about two days, but I really liked the atmosphere of it nonetheless.

And so ends my list. I'm trying to remember what other books I read these past three months that were really good...

Anyways, be seeing you all soon! I'll try to find a way to cheer myself up in the meantime...

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/26434106/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/26434106/ Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:52:26 PDT
I've reached a bit of a crossroads with my life. When I first entered College, I knew what I was going to do. I was all "HELL YEAH I'M GONNA ANIMATE!" but now? I'm really not sure. Do I want to do children's picture books, game art/design, independant comic book series? I have no idea and it's kind of bugging me because if I don't know what to shoot for, then how am I supposed to hone my skills to become that kind of artist they're expecting?

My main goal, at least the lofty goal in my head, was to have my story heard. I have several story ideas, several of them blossoming into feasible ideas, but sometimes I feel that what I'm doing is pointless. Could I compete?

I'm tempted to just get a minor in Creative Writing and instead write a novel or something, but even that...I don't know. I just don't know.

My dad's pushing me to get an internship, but I'm not sure how that would work when I don't even know what I truly want.

Before you ask, not changing my major. I want to do SOMETHING art-related. The problem is, what?

...at least my assistant librarian job is keeping my hands busy.

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/26250738/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/26250738/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:09:28 PDT
But holy crap, this thing is fast.

Okay, on Saturday we went to Fry's Electronics and took advantage of a sale to get a more powerful laptop. To compare:

Old laptop
Single core processor
70 gigs of hard drive
512 mgs of RAM

New laptop
Dual-core processor
160 gigs of hard drive
3 gigs of RAM.

I am, for one, glad that there was someone to get my hard drive off my old Toshiba just so they can put everything on here. I had to reinstall World of Warcraft (took about two and a half hours because World of Warcraft needs all these patches)

And boy, can you feel the 3 gigs of RAM. It's kind of amazing when you go on Photoshop and suddenly, everything isn't jerky if you have another application open.

The most amazing thing though was going into Orgimmar in World of Warcraft and having everything LOAD. I could get from point A to point B without stuttering!

My one gripe is that since I've been away from WoW for three weeks and they award you EXP for not playing it (one of its anti-poopsocking features to keep people from staying on it forever), now my character's levelling up way too fast and I don't have Burning Crusade. What am I going to do when my character hits level 60? D8



Just letting you know that I have everything on here now. Now I'm going to start uploading more stuff now, starting with pictures.

On a random note, I finally got my hands on a copy of Baten Kaitos Origins. I highly reccommend both it and the game that came before it: Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean. Incredibly pretty games with a fun little twist on the whole RPG combat system.
...that is, if you can find them. (One of the best games on the Gamecube and no one played it.)

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/26041241/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/26041241/ Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:10:13 PDT
I was really really hoping that my computer would get fixed while I was up for a week in Phoenix, Arizona (at least all my stuff is on an external hard drive) but since the problem is NOT a virus, but rather the drivers in the computer, my dad is getting me all spooked with talk of buying a new computer and me paying for half of it.

Geez, why did this have to happen? It's like technology is giving me the finger. The stupid laptop is only two years old! It's young enough to still be working, but old enough to be past the warranty.

Same thing happened with my Wii. There was a problem, but whoops, you're two weeks out of the warranty. (Course, then the Wii ended up fixing itself, saving me 46 dollars)

Just once, I'd like to upload something. I have like three drawings on the backburner now...

---

Okay, whining about technology out of the way, here's how my trip to Arizona went.

It was really hot. Temperatures were at 120 degrees several times.
Course, the entire trip was basically "Hang out at the pool, eat lunch, hang out at the pool some more, eat dinner, games, bed." every day. It was kind of neat being in a different climate. The cacti were beautiful, some of the bugs were insanely huge, and the desert wind was like a blowdryer in your face.

It's a shame we didn't get to eat rattlesnake but it was too expensive.

Also, on one of the last days, I ended up slipping on wet tile in the bathroom and slamming my neck against the counter so now my neck is really sore. I guess it's a little better than getting a concussion, but still...

*sigh* I just want to scan things...

---------------------------------------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. Nova and Neal *sketch finished*
2-5. OPEN!
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-Willow Altraz reference *FINISHED. Waiting for computer to be fixed*
-Han-Jin and Lorrington painting *FINISHED. Waiting for computer to be fixed*
-Landscape Painting *FINISHED*
-Butterfly picture *FINISHED*
-Brier watching the sunset *FINISHED*

-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100).
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/25819443/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/25819443/ Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:12:07 PDT
Which...really irritates me to be honest. (Okay, it downright pisses me off because my dad's all "Well, nothing important is on it" and "Go read a book". Geez.)

Turns out something in the hardware needs to be repaired because when the computer turns on, the USB drives don't work, the synapse pointing device doesn't work (rendering the computer completely unable to use a mouse since the mouse needs the USB port and the synapse pointing device is the little thing that you use to move the cursor around with your fingers), and on top of that, once it loads up, the screen turns completely blue. Not a blue screen of death with actual text. Just...blue.

Either way, I'm really mad because I had artwork I was going to post up and now it's going to have to wait until I get my computer fixed.

I'm just praying that they don't have to WIPE it, because four years of my data are on that thing including unfinished stories, 4 years of pictures I've taken, and really important files that I've kept on my computer for safe-keeping, and the last thing I need is to start over from scratch.
(Plus, if I do start over from scratch, reinstalling everything including WoW would take about six hours...)


So yeah. Don't expect anything from me for a while now.

In addition to my computer breaking, I'll be gone on a trip to Arizona from the 13th to the 17th.

When I do get back and my computer does get healed, expect a lot of stuff to get uploaded all at once to make up for lost time.



---------------------------------------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. Nova and Neal *sketch finished*
2-5. OPEN!
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-Willow Altraz reference *FINISHED. Waiting for computer to be fixed*

-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100).
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/25693927/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/25693927/ Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:42:09 PDT
You'd think sorting books, sorting reserved books, taking reserved books from the shelves and shipping them to other branches, making sure everything's in the right order on the shelves, and making sure all the DVDs are sorted by title is boring.

And yet, it's not. I kind it kind of fulfilling in a strange little way.

Plus the people there really like the job I'm doing. Finally, a job that I enjoy AND I'm good at.

But then I heard they're really downsizing the collection because they're going to tear down the library building and make a new one, which is a little sad, considering I was about four when I started going to that library.

Ah well. Maybe the new library won't be so cramped and "rural"-looking...


Oh, and FINALLY changed my webcam to something more recent. That's my main WoW character on his mount.
...I realize the screenshot's a little dated (He's now a level 50 in Un'Goro Crater) but at it least replaces the webcam I've had for YEARS. XD
(Why yes, most of my WoW characters are based off of characters I own. NealSect's a Undead Rogue and Minerva's a Tauren Druid.)


Random, but Tarzan Boy by Baltimora reminds me a LOT of Benjamin Thorn for no reason at all.

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/25481887/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/25481887/ Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:39:39 PDT
My main gripe is that my birthday week has been compounded with colds, sinus infections, stomach aches, and just flat out not feeling well. I've been spending more time taking naps, blowing my nose, and just laying around feeling achy or just plain unmotivated instead of enjoying the presents I got and I think that's no fun.

Oh well. I guess my 20th birthday isn't as big of a winner as I thought it to be.

My sickness is to blame for the lack of art at the moment. It's been kind of sapping away at my creativity as of late.

I do plan on submitting some character references or at least designs for some of my more original stuff. I don't know, I feel that if I'm going to spout crazy ideas to my friends, I should at least provide some pictures to back it up. XD
That, and the usual "Ben and Neal stuff that I draw as it comes to mind". I kind of want to draw evil Raven!Neal more, for some reason...

Although, for some odd reason, I've been sketching some Neopets pictures. I blame the fact that I finally found my TCG collection and have been reading some of the older magazines recently.

I'll be uploading stuff soon. I just need to recuperate from this weird little bout of sickness over my birthday.

Oh, and in terms of birthday gifts, I got some books I wanted and a couple games I wanted. The highlight was probably both Weird California, a hardcore book full of California lore, and Mario Kart Wii because I have no shame when it comes to kart racers.

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/25240100/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/25240100/ Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:54:48 PDT
This time I'm turning the big 2-0 this June 18th, so all of you watchers better send me cash. Be sure to make sure all checks are addressed to this username. (I'm kidding, in case you couldn't figure that out)

No one has to give me anything, but gifts are fine.

Things have been going fine on my end. Right now, I'm working on two OC memes, and, if I'm lucky, some character profiles for some of the characters for my original series. The OC Memes may not sound exciting, but I'm having fun with them. They will be the only place you will see Doomfeather on his own cooking show and Neal drunk.

Might start working on my other series again, preferably the series that have characters in the OC memes.

The library told me that I have to wait one more week until the library is done checking my background, but I have good feelings about this volunteer job. (If not, there's always the Boys and Girls Club again...) I sure hope writing about this job doesn't end up jinxing it for me.

Finally, really tempted to draw something for one of the June Pet Days for Neopets again. Closest one seems to be Nimmo Day. I want to see if I can remember how to draw Sssidney...

Well, that's pretty much it.
I did manage to sort through my stuff in my closet. Found about five Halloween costumes and my graduation clothes too. XD

---------------------------------------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1-5. Open!
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100).
-Sharpie practice.
-Character References.
-Two Art Memes
-A new webcam
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/25080652/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/25080652/ Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:48:09 PDT
My week was okay.

Moved around furniture, sorted the books in my room, hunted for jobs, got disappointed at the fact that the Comic-Con completely sold out (this one was downright depressing. Usually you can buy the tickets in May! What happened?)...

I'm telling you, there were a ton of books in my room. I decided I was sick of the clutter in one of my bookshelves and just emptied it, putting in only books I actually would read on it. I ended up emptying the bookshelf of such titles like "Just Tell Me When We're Dead!", "Looks Aren't Everything", "Caddie Woodlawn", and "The Night Room". We're talking books that would sit in a library for decades before quietly decaying into a pile of dust. Books that no one in their right mind would read.

So...why did my bookshelf have such classic titles? I'm guessing it's because, at the end of the year, sometimes the school libraries will put books no one reads in a large donation box and ask the children to grab away. I...just happened to grab away.

I might donate these clunkers. Or at least try to read some of them. On the bright side, found some of the titles I did like in the process. (I was wondering where I put a lot of my Dean Koontz paperbacks.)

Right now I'm feeling good about an application I filed for the library. I really hope I get it. If not, I can always go slinking back to the Boys and Girls Club. I'm kind of getting increasingly desperate to get a paying job this summer, because, well, I want actual money. If I'm going to sit around and be pestered by children, they'd better pay me. (sounds a little rude, but I'm being blunt here.)

Also, on World of Warcraft, I got my mount. And now I'm questing in areas where Alliance members will frequently kill me and camp on my corpse. The people who target me? Mostly gnomes and night elves. Sheesh, people. Why ya hatin' on the troll?

In terms of art, I'm doing well. Catching up on stuff I needed to catch up on, working on my original storyline (FINALLY), revisiting subjects I never drew in a long time.

Just for the hell of it, I'm going to start drawing Neopets fanart again. Or, if I'm feeling really adventurous, actually drawing fanart in general. Most of my fanart seems to be other people's characters lately. (Not that that's a bad thing. XD)


<sub>----------------
RULES:

1. Pick which OC you are going to answer this in
2. Answer all the questions Truthfully. Make it interesting!
3. Tag at least 5 others when finished!

Name: Dr. Benjamin Brier Thorn

Birthdate: July 27th.

Birth Place: New York City, New York. Manhattan area.

Current Location: A nice scenic temple hollowed out and turned into a giant lab/residence that resides on the second island of a trio of tropical islands. The temple, before Ben's takeover, was a temple that worshipped a God of Nature and Sunshine, so a lot of the gardens and foliage were already there.
Before that, he had an apartment in Wellington, New Zealand.

Eye Color: Was blue, is now red. By the way, those tinted contact lenses don't work and the person who invented them should be ashamed.

Hair Color: Was bright blonde (which he frequently dyed outrageous colors as a fashion statement). Is now white. The roots and tips grow a light lime green, and there's two green streaks in his hair to simulate his lizard frills.

Height: 6 feet, 3 inches tall.

Weight: Average weight for a lean, muscular guy at that height.

Tattoos: None. The last thing he needs is to get something that can get easily infected while he's handling poisonous reptiles.

Boyfriend/Girlfriend: None at the moment. His most recent one was Claudia but after more than one year of dating, they got into a fight and broke up. He's still a little sore from the whole ideal because he accidentally started it and finds it hard to let go.

Overused Phrase: "IT'S NOT MAKEUP!"


FAVORITES

Food: Sirloin. Also bacon with maple syrup.

Candy: Skittles. Especially the Sour and Wild Berry kinds.

Number: 8675309. I got the number on the wall. For a good time, for a good time caaaaaaalll...

Color: Green, if the fact that he often dyes his hair and pants that color didn't tip you off...

Animal: Gee whiz, I wonder what animals he likes? (This is a pretty duh answer.)

Drink: Coffee. He drinks it straight, without putting anything in it. Best way to enjoy coffee. He feels that anyone who sweetens their coffee or dilutes it with milk is a wuss. (Won't stop him from drinking the stuff at Starbucks though)

Alcohol Drink: Hey, he's not p... ]]></sub> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/24905242/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/24905242/ Sat, 23 May 2009 10:21:32 PDT
Sorry for the lack of activity this week, but it can be summed up like so.

Monday: FINALS
Tuesday: FINALS
Wednesday: SOME PACKING, WAITING AROUND FOR PAINTINGS.
Thursday: PACKING. ON THE ROAD.
Friday: UNPACKING. APPLICATIONS FOR JOBS.
Saturday: STILL MORE UNPACKING. MORE APPLICATIONS FOR JOBS.

So yeah, it's kind of hard to be creative when your week looks like that. I figure once I actually unpack stuff, I'll get to a-drawing. For now, I'm tempted to either do some memes or take a picture of some of my finals to make up for the downtime I've been having.

At least I'm actually finishing the art-trade I've been working on for the past month already. Augh, a million sorrys, .

---------------------------------------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Ben/Neal/Claudia/Igma (sketch finished, shading)
2-5. Open
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100).
-Sharpie practice.
-Character References.
-Two Art Memes
-A new webcam
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/24836819/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/24836819/ Tue, 19 May 2009 09:50:03 PDT
Man, I think my entire weekend was just eating, sleeping, using the restroom, and finals. The only time I was online was to do the online portion of one of my Finals.

Today's the last day of my Finals. Painting Final. I'm crossing my fingers that I get good grades on these monsters because the teacher had to be a jerk and give us TWO paintings to finish in time for Finals, and one of them being photo-realistic.

So today's going to be like last night.
PAINTING LIKE CRAZY.

I did go to Disneyland on Friday so that's always a plus.

One thing I noticed the last two times I've gone was what they're doing with THIS ride: [link]
[link]

It looked like that in April.

Now it looks like THIS: [link] (Had to use someone else's photo since Photobucket just refused to load the picture I took)

Poor Astro Orbitor. No one likes you because you're just a futuristic Dumbo ride and you congest the traffic in Tommorrowland.

I will start working on stuff once I have actual free time. For now, I've been pulling out all the stops to make sure these paintings get good grades.

----

A quiz to lighten the mood!

Stolen from


<sub>Classic Disney
--------------
[x]101 Dalmatians (1961)
[x] Alice in Wonderland (1951)
[x] Bambi (1942) (I actually find this movie a little boring. XD)
[x] Cinderella (1950) (Same with this one.)
[x] Dumbo (1941)
[x] Fantasia (1940)
[x] Lady and the Tramp (1955)
[ ] Mary Poppins (1964) (Not really interested in seeing this to be honest.)
[x] Peter Pan (1953)
[x] Pinocchio (1940)
[x] Sleeping Beauty (1959) (And this one, save for the climax. Let's face it, the fairies are much more interesting than the dull princess and the dull prince. They should've just made a movie about Maleficent and the fairies.)
[x] Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) (And Snow White's kind of creepy to watch in this film once you read up about Rotoscoping.)
[ ] Song of the South (1946) (And there is no way I can logically see this movie unless I pirate it for obvious reasons. (Banned movie))

Score: 11/13

Disney's Dark Age
-----------------
[x] The Aristocats (1970)
[x] The Black Cauldron (1985)
[x] The Fox and the Hound (1981) (This movie always makes me cry.)
[x] The Great Mouse Detective (1986) (And this is a great film.)
[x] The Jungle Book (1967)
[x] The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)
[x] Oliver and Company (1986) (This movie is so badass. I mean, watch the climax. CAR CHASING DOGS THROUGH A SUBWAY.)
[x] Pete's Dragon (1977)
[x] Rescuers, The (1977)
[x] Robin Hood (1973)
[x] The Sword In The Stone (1963)
Score: 11/11

The Disney Renaissance
----------------------
[x] Aladdin (1992)
[x] Beauty and the Beast (1991)
[x] A Goofy Movie (1995) (If this movie counts, shouldn't the Ducktales movie count? That was released into theaters!)
[x] Hercules (1997)
[x] Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (1996)
[x] The Lion King (1994)
[x] The Little Mermaid (1989)
[x] Mulan (1998)
[x] Pocahontas (1995)
[x] The Rescuers Down Under (1990) (One of the few Disney sequels that's BETTER than the original. (The Rescuers SUCKED, okay?))
[x] Tarzan (1999)

Score: 11/11

Disney's Modern Age
-------------------
[X] Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) (Ah, Atlantis. The movie that heralded the downfall of Disney's Animation studio. [Lilo and Stitch not counting.])
[ ] Bolt (2008)
[x] Brother Bear (2003)
[x] Chicken Little (2005)
[x] Dinosaur (2000)
[x] Emperor's New Groove, The (2000)
[X] Fantasia 2000 (2000) This is an epic movie.
[X] Home on the Range (2004)
[x] Lilo & Stitch (2002)
[x] Meet the Robinsons (2007)
[x] Treasure Planet (2002)

10/11

Pixar
-----
[x] A Bug's Life (1998)
[x] Cars (2006)
[x] Finding Nemo (2003)
[x] The Incredibles (2004)
[x] Monsters Inc. (2001)
[x] Ratatouille (2007)
[x] Toy Story (1995)
[x] Toy Story 2 (1999)
[x] Wall-E (2008)


9/9


Don... ]]></sub> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/24642998/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/24642998/ Thu, 07 May 2009 21:02:20 PDT
I was warned ahead of time that the movie is creepy, but I sort of forgot about that as the movie lulled me into a false sense of security by making me believe that it was a happy, adventurous stop-motion romp through a colorful wonderland. And then it kind of hits the fan once the button eyes issue comes up, and the movie continues to freak you out with false endings. "Yay, it's ove-OHSHIT! Oh, now it's-AHHHHHOHGOD!"

And man, was it awesome! One of the things I missed in children's films was the whole epic factor that some of the movies in the 90's had. Compare Beauty and the Beast to, say, Brother Bear. Their climaxes don't really compare. (I liked Brother Bear, mind, but most of it was because it was a pretty movie)

I reccommend the movie, especially now that it's out of theaters and is probably a lot cheaper to rent it now.


And I'm happy now.

Chemical Exam? Aced it.
Art History Paper? Finished it.

Now all I have left are the...three paintings and life-sized portrait of me...BUT I DON'T HAVE A PAPER ANYMORE!

I'm honestly not at all worried by the Philosophy and Chemistry finals because I'm acing those classes anyways. It's the Art History and the two Art classes I'm worried about because you need actual effort for those...

At least I'm finally getting that art-trade I have squared away...

-----

<sub>tagged me for this and I forgot to do it until now.

Read these questions, then pick the songs that best fit them.

Which song do you associate with...

1. Awesomeness? (I'm going to list two since I couldn't decide)
Day and A Lifetime - Mob Rules (no Youtube link available)
Heeding the Call - Hammerfall [link]
Song's got the coolest instrumentals.

2. Pirates?
He's a Pirate - Klaus Badelt [link]
...yeah, it's not original, but first song that pops to mind.

3. Adventure?
Under the Star of Destiny - Soul Calibur II Soundtrack [link]

4. Love?
The Power of Love - Huey Lewis and the News
Little Lies - Fleetwood Mac [link]
This song took a while to grow on me, but I think it's a pretty song. (I was SO tempted to throw "What is Love?" up here, but that song's even more obvious than He's a Pirate)

5. The end of the world?
Soundtrack to the Rebellion - Machinae Supremacy [link]
(Because "It's the End of the World As We Know It" doesn't really have the tone of actual ending of the world. XD)

6. Energy?
Going Down in Flames - 3 Doors Down [link]

7. Calmness?
Caribbean Blue - Enya [link]

8. Happiness?
Run With Us - Kevin Gillis [link]

9. Darkness?
Another Day in Paradise - Phil Colins
Sun - Dark Cloud 2 [link]
(Yes, the title of the song is ironic, but listen to the song.)

10. Light?
Living on A Prayer - Bon Jovi

Tag 3 people!

Anyone can do this.</sub>


]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/24512089/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/24512089/ Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:10:59 PDT
And man, the whole school's on some sort of lockdown. Especially the dorm-living students.

Okay, about five different news channels were at my school, news reporters and cameras were all over the place, the dining hall was heavily monitored, entire buildings in my school were closed...
The girl's in quarantine, three other people were sent to the hospital, and now the whole school is kind of on red alert. It's kind of surreal.

I waved hi to the Channel 2 and the Channel 9 news cameras as I was walking to my life drawing class. People are getting kind of paranoid because they're afraid they're going to either quarantine the school or just flat out cancel classes.

Either way, now we're supposed to report any flu symptoms to the nurses. And if we feel sick, we're supposed to stay home instead of go to class. (Oh, I'm sure that's giving some people an excuse to cut class...)

Me, I'm going to continue going to class as normal, especially considering I'm working on a painting today and skipping class simply is NOT an option. I want my painting to look good, considering that painting's sort of my lowest grade ( right now.


I was used to just ignoring these health scares that crop up from time to time, but now I can't really ignore this if I'm caught in the middle of it.
It's really kind of creepy seeing our school appear on newspapers and on TV. (Although one wonders why this is getting more coverage than the girl who got murdered on campus grounds during Spring Break. >_> )

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Ben/Neal/Claudia/Igma (sketch nearly finished)
2-5. Open
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100).
-Sharpie practice.
-Character References.
-A new webcam
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/24426640/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/24426640/ Sat, 25 Apr 2009 11:29:37 PDT
Lately she's been trying to force me to go to church to try to cleanse away the sin of pornography from me. Why? Because I'm drawing naked people and she thinks it's a sin that I'm demoralizing and sexualizing the people in my life drawing class.

Okay, I am sick of people making it out to be a big deal. The first two days, yes, it was weird seeing someone strip in front of you, but now it's just "Oh, naked person". I don't post the pictures up here, sure, but that's more of respect than anything. My roommate was making my class out to be immoral and forcing people to take off their clothes for our evil art.

Sheesh, last time I leave my art out where she can see it.

On top of that, she's been pulling the same crap my previous roommate was pulling: She will come into the dorms at 2 or 3 am. (Sometimes at both 2 am AND 3 am because she will go into the dorms to noisily get something, leave, and then come back in)

Last night I barely got any sleep at all, partly because of my roommate coming back at 1:50, 2:30, and 3:30 am, and partly because I was having these really bad cramps and some sort of a fever. Man, it sucked.

It's a good thing it's Saturday. My head is still pounding and one of my ears hurts really bad. I think I'm just going to lay around in my room and work on one of the papers that's due in about two weeks.

On the bright side, I won a goldfish from the fair at the college yesterday. He's still alive. I've been feeding him bread crumbs since I don't have any actual fish food and apparently they like foods like Romaine Lettuce and wheat bread if you don't have the flakes. He's in a jar, but I've been doing the smart thing and changing his water twice a day.
He's got a little racing stripe on his back. If he survives the weekend, then I'll name him.

At least I'm finally getting good progress on 's half of the art-trade we did. I really hope this idea's really well. I scrapped like two other possible drawings for this one.

Ugh, I'm going to go lie down now.


Oh, and random book shout-out: Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks is an awesome book, and basically takes the whole evil school idea and shows what would happen realistically if you put a bunch of evil villains together and make them teach a school. It's really an interesting read, and it's quite clever too. Sure, a lot of people die, but what do you expect? It's a school full of evil people. I wholly reccommend it, and plus it does have a lot of neat interesting twists.
I just kind of wish it focused more on the school and less on Cadel, the main character, but then again, geniunely interesting stuff happens to that kid throughout the story.

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Ben/Neal/Claudia/Igma (sketching)
2-5. Temporarily closed until I feel better.
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100).
-Sharpie practice.
-Character References.
-A new webcam
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Me... ]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/24256867/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/24256867/ Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:15:56 PDT
Last week and the last few days were rather..."interesting". Of course, the week back from break is always pretty hectic because you go from being lazy to being overloaded with work as soon as you set foot on the campus.

Also, on Monday, our dorm room got our first cockroach!
Yay...only, not really yay. I never saw a cockroach in real life before, and they're HUGE. It was climbing the wall, and when my friend tried to squish it with a boot, it JUMPED.

I will admit without any hint of remorse that I screamed. I mean, it was jumping right towards me and it was this huge fist-sized cockroach...

I even heard a crunching sound when my roommate tried to squish it with a boot, but somehow it didn't even faze the creature. We had to get a Room Advisor to catch the cockroach, mostly on account both of us were too freaked out to reach behind our desks and catch it. (can you blame us?) The cockroach even freaked out the RA a couple times. It took us a grand total of 20 minutes to subdue the cockroach, and it hid in many different places, like behind the desks, under my bed, in my art stuff, under my easel...yeah, not a pleasant night. I had the heebie-jeebies for the rest of the night. *shudder*

Plus, in addition to them shutting off the power for one day, they shut off the hot water.

Only it's for all week.
Unfortunately, I found that out while taking a shower last night. Turns out cold showers are really miserable to take. Who would've guessed?

Sad thing is, since our cards are needed to open the hall connecting to the showers and our cards are code-encrypted so we can't sneak over to another dorm and take a warm shower, we really have to suck it up and put up with the freezing cold showers until Friday.

...so, it's either take really cold showers, or not bathe until Friday. Wow, way to give us a pair of really tough choices. (I'm going with the cold shower one, but I'll take them earlier so it's NOT night while I'm soaking wet and cold.)

Air conditioning's been gone, power's been gone, and now heating's gone. All this construction BETTER be good, because cold showers suck.

Anyways, putting construction aside, lately I've been deciding on what classes I need to take. So far, my next semester looks like this:

*223 Lettering-Typography
*271 Introduction to Rendering
*Some Upper division art history class
*Capstone Literature.
*Either Capstone Philosophy or Marine Biology.

Man, deciding on an upper division art history class is hard. Part of me says "Go with the Greek or Roman or Gothic or Impressionism classes! Everyone loves those periods!" and part of me wants to go with one of the more oddball classes like "The History of Museums" or "Modern Japanese Plastic Art" (what the hell does that even MEAN?).
I do find it funny that one of the classes I can take next semester is Modern Japanese Graphic Art.
Aka, an ANIME class. Because that'd be so fun, learning the history of Anime...well, okay, not really. I wonder if there's a History of Comic Books course.

Anyways, I will admit that I got a little lazy and was mainly doing schoolwork instead of any actual art. I am working on stuff, honest. One of them being stuff for my original storyline (currently title-less. I sure hope a good title arises while I'm working on everyone), and of course, art trades. I never forgot the art-trades. I just had to play a little catch up.

_{Plus my World of Warcraft trial ran out so now I have a lot more free time. *cough* (I'm going to miss my troll hunter. He had a flying snake!)}

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Ben/Neal/Claudia/Igma (sketching)
2. -Jagger The Mad (sketch finished)
3-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100).
-Sharpie practice.
-Character References.
-A new webcam
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/24120210/ Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:02:07 PDT
So I'm back in school again, and I plan on completing this semester with high grades in all of my classes. Luckily, there are less assignments needed in Painting so now I'm not so stressed and hating life.

I'm also going to be submitting some stuff. I have a picture I drew over the break and a half of an art-trade (Jokerz-the-fox's) so I'm going to try to make up for lost time.

Also, downloaded the World of Warcraft trial. It's an oddly addicting game. If I could compare it to any game I've previously played, I'd compare it to Final Fantasy XII, only you have only one character in your party and the main focus is on the fun portions of the game (I found the marks funner than the actual storyline, Squaresoft.)

So yeah, just a post to tell you all I'm not dead. I've just been laz-err, taking my time with stuff.

Man, I hate it when I stare at the same sketch and urge it to finish but it never does. XD

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/23959579/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/23959579/ Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:25:00 PDT ...except for painting.

Anyways, long story short, I did great on all of my midterms except for painting, but even that can be fixable. What happened was that, while the paintings were getting transported, my painting was still wet and during the trip from the classroom to the office, the painting got a big fat black smear on it, which dropped my midterm grade to a C. So now I have to wait until spring break is over (I'm waiting for the stupid thing to dry because I PILED wet paint on that thing to make it look good) to fix it and resubmit it.

But the other classes I did good in. Philosophy's midterm I have an A+ on. Life Drawing, I have a B+ in the entire class (the teacher commented that I have a "messy" style when it comes to pencils and while it is lively, I should try to tighten it up. Also, my weakpoint is feet. And gauging the size of palms in comparison to fingers and wrists). My Art History, I honestly don't know the grade, but I predict that I did well since I studied my butt off in that class. Chemistry, I have an A+.

Which just leaves Painting and the fact that I have to redo an assignment. I'm starting to get the feeling that maybe, just maybe, painting is NOT my strong suit. (Oh sure, I can paint pretty stuff, but professional painting seems like something I'd rather not do. Or maybe it's my teacher.)


Well, now I'm back at home. It's nice to see all my stuff again, but I find it funny that, whenever I get back from break, I feel the urge to organize my great collections of junk but never do.
Also, it's good to see both my bed, my stuffed animals, my books, and my videogames again. I missed my Sega Genesis and N64.

I'm tempted to start drawing the characters that are in my original storyline, but then again, I'm more tempted to actually start on the art-trades that I couldn't start earlier on account of the giant work rush. (I'm tempted to bring a hair dryer to the dorm just so I can dry paintings quicker...)



---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Ben/Neal/Claudia/Igma
2. -Jagger The Mad
3-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100).
-More of Neal.
-Character References.
-A New ID
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/23795456/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/23795456/ Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:46:34 PDT
If you guessed midterms, then you're correct!

The chances of me submitting anything coherent are really slim, so all art-trades are temporarily put on hold until I get back from the mythical land of studying.

I just want to say that even though art history is really fun, studying for it is totally not. Memorizing dates and times are even harder when half the temples look the same, and even more difficult when you have to consider the fact that 1000 years were covered. Oh goody.
And not only that, but it's really hard to tell Buddhist temples from Hindu temples once you get to a certain period.

Oh, and I still have to finish a painting. And now a Life Drawing assignment too because my Life Drawing teacher is just that cruel.

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/23657550/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/23657550/ Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:48:06 PDT
Ever since Tuesday, my campus has smelled of gas. It's really weird to go to class while the air smells like someone's trying to start a barbecue. I have to wonder what's going on. Probably construction or something like that...

Hardly any updates this week because I'm cranking down on art midterms. Whee, fun. (Well, not really. My Life Drawing class assigned a self-portrait and the only mirror we have in the dorms is really tiny.)

On the bright side, we now get Comedy Central and Cartoon Network in the dorms!

The only problem is they're set to Eastern Standard Time so turning on the TV at 8:00 gives you Adult Swim. So it's confusing figuring out when things are shown. (On the bright side, that means I don't have to stay up late at all to watch Adult Swim.)
What's weird is that they're the only two channels set to Eastern Standard Time! The Discovery Channel and Nickelodeon are set to Pacific Standard Time. ...it's just weird.

Eh, don't watch much TV anyways, so I'm just throwing that out there.

-----

Oh, and how can I end a journal without doing a meme?

Stolen from

Pick ANY character of mine and I will tell you their:

01. Full name
02. Best friend
03. Sexuality
04. Favorite color
05. Relationship status
06. Ideal mate
07. Odd Skills/Skills in general
08. Last Amusing Escapade
09. Favorite food
10. Crushes
11. Favorite music
12. Biggest fear
13. Biggest fantasy
14. Quirks
15. Bad habits
16. Biggest regret
17. Best kept secrets
18. Last thought
19. Worst sexual/romantic experience
20. Biggest insecurity

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1.
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100).
-More of Neal.
-Character References.
-A New ID
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/23505940/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/23505940/ Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:52:04 PST
Well, okay, that's a lie. It was rather eventful but I couldn't actually record the stuff.

I went to Disneyland on the 21st, but my camera was dead. (Disneyland was fun except that Haunted Mansion broke down for about five minutes and I was stranded in pitch black darkness while a crow animatronic is busy cawing at me over my head. Oh, and Tower of Terror had an hour wait and I've NEVER seen ANY California Adventure ride get an hour wait before.)

I went to the museum on Saturday, but I forgot to change the batteries in my camera.

Note to self, if I'm going to bring a camera, I'd better make sure I can USE the stupid thing.
Aw well. At least I didn't lose my camera like I did one year at the Comic-Con. (I really hope I go this year, come to think of it.)

I might submit some of school work in a couple days, just because I find my first oil painting kind of neat looking.
Again, I really wish oil painting was cleaner and easier to work with. I hate the fact that you need to drench the paintbrush in flammable chemicals before you can even think about removing the paint from the brush. And of course, the paint's hard to get off of ANYTHING, including your own skin. I've had a black paint splotch on my leg for a week before it finally washed.

It's probably just being me being a fuddy-duddy, but would it kill the Foundation Painting class to use more acrylics and watercolors? You know, the stuff that DOESN'T need the huge clean-up time and will permanently ruin anything it touches?
Plus I like watercolor effects.
...and I still have hot and cold press paper, while oil needs me to shell out about ten dollars a painting for a canvas.

Part of me really wants to organize my favorites and gallery, but the other part of me is being really lazy and thinking that they're fine just the way they are. XD

I also hate it that when I finally decide I'm going to go through my stuff and save the gift art my friends did, only to find that some people went and deleted the artwork. Not cool at all. (I feel bad for not saving that stuff sooner)

---------------


<sub>1. Put Your iTunes (or whatever music player) on Shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write down the name of the song no matter how silly it sounds!
4. Put any comments in brackets after the song name.


If someone says, "Is this okay?" You say?
Video Killed The Radio Star.

What do you like in a guy/girl?
Bats. (...huh?)

How do you feel today?
Snowballed

What is your life's purpose?
Me, Myself, and I. (Wow, that sounds kind of selfish)

What is your motto?
Skull and Crossbones. (Arrrr...)

What do your friends think of you?
Englishman in New York. (Whoa-oh! I'm an alien! I'm a legal alien!)

What do you think of your parents?
Exceeding Love. (Hmmm...)

What do you think about very often?
Cemetery Drive

What is 2+2?
Stone Tower Temple. (2+2 equals a really frustrating level with a time limit. At least it had pretty music.)

What do you think of your best friend?
Take Me Home

What do you think of the person you like?
Boss Dragon Machine

What is your life's story?
A Smile From Heaven's Eye.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
Enter Sandman

What do you think of when you see the person you like?
Soarin' Over The Space ()

What will you dance to at your wedding?
It's My Life.

What will they play at your funeral?
Falling to Pieces (Wow, gothic/heavy metal funeral!)

What is your hobby/interest?
Get On Your Feet

What is your biggest fear?
99 Red Balloons. (Oh no, anything but that!)

What is your biggest secret?
Hallucinating Pluto.

What do you think of your friend?
Transformation.

How would you describe yourself?
Now and Forever

What will you post this as?
Battle Theme. (Hah, a title so vague that it could be practically ANY game.)</sub>

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1.
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
- ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/23373546/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/23373546/ Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:50:28 PST
Well, the bright side is that I finally figured out a way to balance all the workload in a way that's reasonable for me. Managed to fit in all the reading, homework, and art in a way that I'm perfectly satisfied.

Personally, next semester, I'd want to take one less class than this. This workload is not what I'm used to, but part of the reason might be because I'm taking Painting and that class is probably the KING of requiring supplies and money from you. Good lord! It's like the teacher expects to only be taking only that class for the semester.

Nothing makes you hate a subject more than taking a class about it. Way to go, painting. You make drawing skeletons and feet in Life Drawing just that much more appealing. XD At least I have an A in Painting. Somehow I have a B in Life Drawing when you'd think it'd be the other way around. I GET THE BEST GRADES IN THE CLASSES I DON'T LIKE FOR SOME REASON. (Hence the B+ in Asian Art History)

Although, personally, I think part of the reason is that Painting is a Foundation class (as in, anyone can take it), and Life Drawing is one of the more art-orientated classes that needs art classes and actual portfolios. Still doesn't explain why he wants us to buy a ton of stuff.

Also, the yogurt machine is back in the dining hall. Mmm, yogurt.


Write 10 facts about your OC and then tag one person.

10 facts you didnt know about Neal: (I'm doing Neal because I've been using Ben too much. [plus most of the stuff I say about him wouldn't be much of a surprise anymore.]

1. Neal is right-handed...in both sets of arms. He's actually extremely dexterious in all four arms.

2. He's related to James "Sparky" Reeves, the custodian of the evil public school. ([link] seen here.) Their relationship can be best described as "less than stellar" right now since the two of them have massively different personalities and Sparky would probably rather stab out his left eye with his own wrench rather than spend five minutes with his freak of a brother.

3. He can't cast any magic, nor does he have special fighting abilities. His mutations give him the power to run away really fast, though!

4. His stinger contains enough venom to kill someone, and even without the venom, he could definitely stab someone to death with it. And on top of that, since he's a bumblebee, his stinger lacks barbs and he can sting as many times as he wants. This is considered more of a curse than a blessing to Neal, though, so most of the time the stinger's actually disabled by wrapping it up with duct tape.

5. Neal wants kids of his own, and loves kids. Too bad the actual relationship part is hard for him.

6. He's capable of controlling insects, to the point where if he wanted to coat his arm with bees and make some sort of large claw made out of bees, he could. He just never does it because he abhors violence.

7. The only reason he hasn't been killed yet by any of the bigger, badder villains is because Neal is completely harmless. It'd be like kicking a puppy.

8. He lives in a giant airship called The Wasp. Guess what animal it's shaped like.

9. His mutation was actually very violent, to the point where if Ben didn't save him, he would've died from bloodloss.

10. The reason he's in the evil science industry in the first place is because the evil scientists have the best technology. He wanted a way to improve the quality of life of people around him, but he did serve two years of "service" working for some people. If you were in one of the cities held hostage by a giant swarm of mutant bees, he wants to apologize for that.

I tag anyone who wants to do this.

(You know, there's several unwritten stories in there...)

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1.
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100).
-Tangled Vines Chapter 4-Academy
-More of Neal.
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/23243304/ Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:07:14 PST
Hooray. Now I'm stuck in the dorms with a bad fever, an upset stomach, a general hazy feeling around my brain, but most of all, the guilt that I had to leave in the middle of an art class that grades us on participation.

Funny thing is, I probably could've prevented this. I was feeling pretty bad yesterday but I thought it was just because there was some things happening in my life that wasn't particularly pleasant.

I probably should've taken medication before voiding my lunch into the toilets.

I just hope this sickness dies down before I go to my classes tomorrow...

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1.
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100).
-Tangled Vines Chapter 4-Academy
-More of Neal.
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/23070646/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/23070646/ Sat, 07 Feb 2009 21:14:12 PST
Okay, just this weekend, I have to paint a box, paint a canvas, paint two oil paintings, and draw 15 different angles of a single object. And, on top of that, I have to read my Indian Art text and finish my Philosophy and Chemistry homework.

In other words, college is really eating up my free time so I'm not surprised that I'm not really submitting some fun artwork.

Plus painting in oils is fun, but MAN is this stuff messy. Would it kill the oil painting to dry a little faster?

It also got on two pairs of pants this week already. Luckily, the teacher taught us that ivory soap and fingernails is usually enough to get the stains out...although spending ten minutes in the bathroom trying to save a pair of pants is not my idea of fun. From now I'm turning both my pants and my shirt inside out before I enter that class. Sheesh...

If you're on DA, chances are, you heard about the spam. I'm not going to mention it again, except that it really weirds me out when the spammers use actual DA accounts of people I know to do it.

Don't worry, I'll try to submit something!

...eventually!

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/22840172/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/22840172/ Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:40:31 PST
Anyways, my week so far can be best summarized in bullet form.

*I got a new roommate. From what I've heard from the people in charge, my old roommate dropped out. (Big surprise.) This roommate doesn't drink and seems friendlier than my old roommate, so I'm happy.

*Whoo, and my extremely loud neighbors dropped out too.

*I'm happy that my life drawing class wants all the materials from drawing class, so I probably won't have to spend anything over 10 dollars for the entire school year for that class. Whoo, finally a CHEAP art class.

*My art history then makes up for this by requiring three books, and one of them HAS to be bought brand new. I fear my Chemistry class might also need this many books.

*My PS2 cord broke over the winter break but I didn't learn of this until I brought it up with me to the dorm. Now I have to get a new one. They're about seven dollars but it still irks me.

*Sure enough, I DID leave my tablet behind when I moved back home for about a month. Luckily it's still in one piece.

*My classes are going to be extremely long and, from what I can infer from one day of Philosophy, extremely tiring on Monday/Wednesday. Luckily, I only have one class on Friday. Awesome.

*My computer now has a new virus-scan program that actually does its job by finding viruses and spyware instead of slowing the computer down to snail-speed whenever it decides to boot up and "update". (Good riddance, Mcafee.)

Expect an art-trade and maybe a comic or a character reference up by this week. (Or fanart.)

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - One of his two dragon characters *sketch finished*
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100).
-Tangled Vines Chapter 4-Academy
-More of Neal.
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/22641772/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/22641772/ Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:02:23 PST

Anyhoo, I'm not dead, but right now I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do this year as far as my storylines go. Part of me wants to really work out the kinks in the current storyline (mainly by working out the relationships between the main character and the more minor characters like Neal and the like) and the other part of me wants to work on the storylines that I've pretty much discarded. And some minor miniscle part of me wants to redo some storylines that I've pretty much declared finished (Like The Realms of Chaos).
There are the three storylines I want to work on this year. Mostly my original ones that include characters that I didn't really draw much last year. The futuristic distopia one with the team of evil scientists, the fantasy one, and the ruined city involving a psychotic doctor antihero and a totalitarian pearl tycoon and the secret city hidden underneath a swampland.

I also promise to draw more fanart. Why? Because it's fun and I don't think people really mind when I draw it. XD

I'll also try to draw more in general, but just not right now because I really don't feel well. I'll draw something as soon as I'm done feeling really ill.

Finally, I want to finish the T.V. storyline (Hee, I like how my storyline has such a funny pair of initals.) so I can get started on the other stories I have in mind. Again, not sure if Chapter 4 will be the last chapter, and maybe Ben will be in other stories. I'm not sure at the moment.

Well, I'll be back at the college soon. It's been fun at home, but now I'm kind of ready to go back....

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - One of his two dragon characters *sketch finished*
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100).
-Tangled Vines Chapter 4-Academy
-More of Neal.
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/22449769/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/22449769/ Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:29:17 PST
DIRECTIONS: I'll feature you without discrimination towards subject matter, tools used, type of art, or how well I know the artist, and I will talk about what I think about the work chosen. Every 1st to 10th person who comments will have their work featured in THIS entry, so keep an eye on this. If featured, you must also do the same, but not to the previous deviant featuring you, and you may opt to hold off on it if you are in the middle of another entry. DO NOT secretly reply again and again to get a spot.

---------------

Okay, sorry for the utter lack of updates, in other words. I've been kind of busy with things.

I am going to submit some art today, so don't worry if I'm dead or not.

I had a fantastic New Years, and here's what I think about 2008.

It was awesome, end of story.
Things that happened in 2008-
*Got a Wii on January 1st 2008
*Went to Disneyland about 11 times on account of my Season's Pass.
*Went to the Comic-Con
*My laptop died on me on account of a factor in its programming.
*I changed my major from Illustration/Animation to just Animation.
*I took some more classes that relate to my major.
*And college. I like my college, despite some of the hardships it brings.

I know the list was short, but I liked having the stability that last year brought me (besides the whole laptop thing, but luckily that only lasted a week). Nothing rocked the boat too much.
It's a shame that I only have 2 and a half years of college left...

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - One of his two dragon characters
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100)
-Randell, Snowflake, Persistence.
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/22200617/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/22200617/ Thu, 25 Dec 2008 21:48:29 PST
Anyways, I didn't disappear or die or anything. This week was just a lot of celebration and Christmas cheer so I didn't really draw much this entire week. XD I will submit something this week, though. Maybe something Christmas themed (and late) while I'm at it, for I do apologize for my giant absence.

I will say this. I'm pleased with everything my family has gotten me. I'm not going to list everything I got because I got a TON of neat stuff.

There was only minor hitch in my Christmas, and that's the ever-popular "expensive toy you get for the entire family ends up not working" problem.

The Rock Band my dad got for all of us has a faulty drum pad and we have to ship the drum kit back to EA. Luckily it won't cost us anything since we JUST bought it and it was clearly a faulty set, but it's still a bummer.

Other than that, I hope everyone had a very nice holiday break. The amount of journals in the last couple of days is showing that a lot of people are pretty much happy with the holidays.

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - One of his two dragon characters
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100)
-Randell, Snowflake, Persistence.
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/22030999/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/22030999/ Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:39:16 PST
It was the night before a big final for both of us. You should've studied (I know I did) instead of going out to a local bar, taking five shots of vodka, and then returning to the dorm at midnight (waking me up) as drunk as a fish. Waking me up at midnight, 1:30 am to vomit, and then 4 am because your boyfriend wanted to return something to you and then the alarm went off and you vomited AGAIN wasn't cool. I mean, sheesh.

No love,
Your roommate.

Seriously, when I saw two guys (both of them boyfriends) open the door carrying her all slumped, my first thought was "OH MY GOD, SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAS HAPPENED!". Nah, turned out she was so drunk she couldn't stand on her own. She was like a doll in that she was all limp and stuff, and the guys had to throw her back on the bed multiple times.

1:30 am rolls along, and she vomits all over herself. Now, dorms are enclosed spaces, so it was hard getting back to sleep while all you're breathing in is vomit. The air fresheners did little good because what they did was combine together and make some sort of "someone vomitted after they ate a scented candle" smell.

Worst part is, she has a Final at 10 am just like me, and during the morning, she was still a little tipsy.

Good god. She just went to a final DRUNK.

Now there are times when me and my roommate get along, in the purely "You're a giant nerd, and you're a giant party person with about 15 boyfriends" sense of the way, but man, I'm kind of pissed off right now because I'm sitting in a room that STILL smells like vomit.

And I'm cold, because I opened the window up all the way to air it out and it's currently around 40 degrees outside and it's raining.


...one of these days (I'm guessing as soon as I'm out of the dorm and don't have to smell it), I'm going to look back at this and laugh.

In terms of how finals went, my Art finals were very boring because it was basically talk about EVERY SINGLE PIECE for almost three hours, my Art History final almost killed my brain because I had to memorize CATHEDRALS, and I feel that I did well on the Final today, even if I was a bit tired and irritated.

I might apply for a new roommate next year, but then again, this is probably the one instance I can think of where she really kind of pissed me off. (her study sessions that were more "grope the boyfriend" than "read the source material" was annoying, but it was easily ignored) The other days in the semester weren't that bad. I just don't think we're meshing well like my last roommate and I did.

Man, this current roommate makes me feel like such a dork sometimes, but at the same time, she kind of makes me feel better about how I'm doing in college.

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21923796/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21923796/ Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:01:52 PST
It's gotten cold all of a sudden where I'm at. (Not saying how cold, since I'm in California, and we don't get chilling cold.)

I'm used to walking around in a T-shirt and pants, but now I've been wearing longer-sleeved clothes and sweaters and stuff.

...although part of the reason might be because some of my teachers just love blasting the AC. Including the Art-History teacher. I've seriously seen people use blankets in that class. XD

Anyways, finals and stuff. My art finals are coming along rather good, except that the art store ran out of those flat display boards so I'm hoping that Sears or any of the stores near Sears has flat pieces of wood that you can use to display a giant clay sculpture on.

I tried scraping the other sculpture off HIS display board, but not only is he kind of melded into the board, but my sculpture final is white and the previous sculpture is dark grey and well, cleanliness is a factor.

I will take photos. It's not finished, but it looks nice enough to be displayed.

Also, turns out my 2D Foundation teacher has a friend that's been working on The Simpsons for ten years. I thought that was cool.

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1.Jokerz-the-Fox
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100)
-Randell, Snowflake, Persistence.
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21721170/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21721170/ Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:29:40 PST
It was good. Pretty average as far as Thanksgivings go. Games were played, people were seen, turkey was eaten. Not going to tell you the details.

...Only for my dad to embarrass me by saying he knows what goes on this account (way to make me want to die of shame, dad. No really, I totally appreciated that.), and that I should send this stuff in as coursework or else I'm wasting my time instead of actually studying.

First he complains about the videogames (because college students don't play videogames, which is why someone sculpted a giant N64 controller made out of clay and why practically the entire 3D class has played Ocarina of Time), and now he complains about the artwork and stories.

Yep, why draw and write when I can study?

Apparently even one picture a week(my average activity)'s too much because it's not art homework. Personally, I want to make it at least one drawing every three days with better quality. Luckily I'm improving, but that's not the point.

Well, crap, what the hell am I supposed to do? Do only what the teachers assign me and not get any good facial expression or muscle anatomy practice in? Not write anything except for essays and let my English language rot?

Well, since this stuff isn't good for school and since this isn't studywork, I should probably just close my account. It's been good talking to you people. _{Nobody better take this seriously.}

I wonder if mentioning that two of my current professors play video games would make his head explode. Either that, or he just wouldn't believe me.


If anyone actually shopped today, I feel massive amounts of pity. Apparently some Walmart employee died because he was trampled to death.

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half*
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Fanart of whatever I feel like/(Fanart50/Fanart100)
-Randell, Snowflake, Persistence.
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21661708/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21661708/ Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:30:50 PST Are my chapters too long? I know several of you have complained that Chapter 2 of this story was a little on the long side. Because if you want, I can split up this chapter into two chapters.

Either way, I think this story is coming along great. TON of character cameos in this fourth chapter. (Because Ben's at the Academy and well, yeah.)

I'll just show you a clip (I write the dialogue first because it's fun) so you know what's in store:

"Nice to see that she's hiring more albinos, and I guess it's nice that she's doing the whole equal opportunity employment thing, but do you really have to be so open about your sexuality? This is a distinguished environment, not a Gay Pride Convention."

"Aw, how cute. Hey, Casper, you'd better keep that smartmouth still when you're in my class. You're looking at your new biology teacher. Insults like that will land you an instant detention!"

"For your information, I happen to be a teacher too!"

"...and you're criticizing me for bad taste? What are you teaching? Emo 101, or Advanced Goth Music Study?"

If you don't know who's speaking, (although it should be pretty obvious) you'll find out in Chapter 4. (Or Chapter 5. It depends on whether or not I split them.)

In other news, school's been kind of tough what with midterms. I still have to add the finishing touches to my sculpture so that it's presentable.

Still trying to get my art spark back. I still need to finish my last art-trade on the list. Whoops. XD

Also, random but: [link]
NEOPETS FINALLY MADE A KYRII PLUSHIE. OH MY GOD, WANT.

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half*
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Puyo Pop Fever Fanart, Spyro fanart, Neopets stuff (Fanart50/Fanart100)
-Potential redesign for Laigon, art of Randell, Wart, or Snowflake.
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21510083/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21510083/ Sat, 15 Nov 2008 23:21:27 PST
Oh California and your wildfires...

I sure hope the fires are done by tomorrow because I don't really like being stuck in the dorm all day. (Seriously, the air quality was really bad. That coupled with my cold would mean me unable to breathe.) I'd like to actually, you know, do something besides sit on my butt.

Also, a meme I stole from

Name a character that you know I write/draw or have written/drawn, and I'll tell you:

a. What initially prompted me to write/draw them.
b. One of their best traits.
c. One of their worst traits.
d. How easy/difficult I find it to write/draw the character.
e. The moment where I feel that I truly captured the character.
f. My plans to write/draw the character in the near future.


(Games-wise, I'm rather pleased I managed to see the ending of three of the games I own. Finally beat Phantom Hourglass, finally beat The World Ends With You, and finally beat the story mode in Banana Blitz. Now, next is Baten Kaitos.)

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half*
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Puyo Pop Fever Fanart, Spyro fanart, Neopets stuff (Fanart50/Fanart100)
-Potential redesign for Laigon, art of Randell, Wart, or Snowflake.
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21420049/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21420049/ Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:57:54 PST
It's just a really bad cold, so right now I'm doped up on tylenol and decongestants. 8D

Plus I got my artistic spark back. It's kind of weird how that works out.

I still have the two tests, the paper, and the speech to write, but I feel those are doable. I might post pictures of my sculpture.

Just letting you guys know how I'm doing...

I also thought my DS was having problems with its chargable battery since I was charging it at least once a week. Turns out I've just been playing it a lot. Whoops. XD

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half*
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Puyo Pop Fever Fanart, Spyro fanart, Neopets stuff (Fanart50/Fanart100)
-Changeling, because I've been meaning to draw her
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21359633/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21359633/ Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:32:59 PST
If I sound a little stressed and crabby in places, that might be the reason why.

Plus, on top of that, I have NO income to speak of because I've sent over 30 applications and no one's accepted any of them, so any shiny things I want are all going to be Christmas presents. (Yes, that includes MOM.)

Course, not that I can get a job at this point anyways because most of my free time is for my classes. Ugh, 50% of my grade in Art History is decided on Thursday...

Plus the fact that my artist's block isn't going away isn't helping matters.

And on top of that, I caught my friend's cold and Prop 8 passed. I'm sad now. D8

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21298524/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21298524/ Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:33:52 PST
This didn't bug me because they were having sex. This bugged me because it was 3 in the morning and I was TRYING to get some sleep.

Welcome to college dorm life. XD

I had a blast this Halloween. Instead of trick-or-treating, we stayed on the Queen Mary. Whee, fun. (They had European candy on the boat! Mmm, Fruit-tella and Cadbury Chocolate and Flake...)

My only complaint is that there were a couple adult-themed parties on the boat so there were a lot of adult costumes. (Ie. Girls dressed in just a bra and a skirt that has about as much fabric as a napkin) Eh, live and learn. XD Some of the costumes we saw were really well-made.

And then we went to Hollywood to go to the LACMA. I will say that we discovered the good ol' Hollywood air the hard way. We were saying something that made us all laugh, and then all four of us doubled over in coughing fits because of the smog.

And then when we got back, We bought about five bags of candy to make up for the lack of trick-or-treating. I've been plowing through my bag of Life Savers.

Sorry if I haven't drawn anything for Halloween. I'll TRY to make up for lost time by drawing something even remotely scary, but right now I have the MOTHER of all Artist's Blocks and it's not leaving anytime soon.

Any tips for combating artist's blocks? I want to draw but can't.

In other news, they're coming out with an Eternal Darkness 2. Chances are, I'll play it just to give myself nightmares because Eternal Darkness was one of the scariest games I have ever played. I kind of want to get the first Eternal Darkness, personally, because my library's lacking in scary games (Conker's Bad Fur Day [Spooky levels] and that's it.) and it'd be on sale since it's a Gamecube launch game.

Also, tomorrow I get to vote. I'm pretty much saying no on every proposition in my state. XD

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half* (Warning: May Contain Ben)
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
Closed until I finish my art-trades (unless if it's good)
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Puyo Pop Fever Fanart, Spyro fanart, Neopets stuff (Fanart50/Fanart100)
-Changeling, because I've been meaning to draw her
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21163767/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21163767/ Sat, 25 Oct 2008 23:33:34 PDT
I swear, my Art History teacher keeps on reminding me of Dr. Cox whenever he opens his mouth and talks. And, on Thursday, in order to illustrate how to unravel a scroll, went off on this tangent on how to best TP (not me, toilet-paper) a house. First, you have to unravel it just a little bit so that it can unravel as it travels upwards, only to make a grand arch downwards. Be sure to aim for the really tall trees, as that toilet paper's not going to come down until the next rain...

I'm all better now, by the way, if anyone's still concerned about that last journal. No more Notes, and I'm no longer contemplating changing the character's hair color and eye color anymore.

Still need to think of what I'm going to draw for Halloween.

The two art-trades I'm finishing up right now are now Halloween themed, (Currently working on QD's art-trade. Let's just say...poor Rurik.) but I need to think of what I'M going to do for the holiday. So far, besides an idea where Ben is egging and throwing toilet paper at someone's house, which would be kind of a pain in the butt to execute, I'm pretty much dry.

Eh, if I don't think of anything else, there's always Sssidney or random fanart of some "spooky" character. XD I know last year, I drew zombified King Jingaling.


Also, Soul Music by Terry Pratchett is rapidly becoming one of my favorite books. I definitely recommend it.

Trying out the footer so that the links are on the bottom instead of the top.

I'm still unsure which layout is best...

---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half* (Warning: May Contain Ben)
2-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
Closed until I finish my art-trades (unless if it's good)
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Neopets stuff (Fanart50/Fanart100)
-Halloween-y Stuff
-Puyo Pop Fever Fanart
-Spyro fanart
-Changeling, because I've been meaning to draw her
---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21085757/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/21085757/ Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:29:43 PDT JenL's N. Igma character and no, I don't know how to get her to draw your character.

So please, stop sending me notes and stop asking me these things.

Stop accusing me of stealing because I didn't steal anything.

It was only mildly irritating when the first three people asked these things, but after about fifteen or so notes, it's getting to be a pain. I'm sick of answering these notes as politely as I can.

I don't know how long I've been receiving the notes, (although I remember telling Holly [since she came up with Ben's hair design and sideburns] about one of these notes accusing me of stealing around January, so LONG ENOUGH) and I'm not going to mention any names (partly because of common courtesy and partly because it's against the rules and ban-worthy to point fingers), but seriously, it's got to stop. Yes, Ben is a teacher, and yes, Ben has spiky white hair, and yes he has red eyes, but that's where the similarities END.

And I can't exactly hand JenL a list of things to draw because she draws whatever she likes. Why people are asking ME how to get their characters in the comics is kind of rude. Sheesh, people. And it's never the people with a reason. They only want it because it's a popular person drawing their character and surely, since I got MY characters mentioned, I cracked the secret code to get FREE ART.

I doubt anyone who sends these notes are going to listen to this journal, but please cut it out.



Yeah, it's been a hectic week. I do have more art coming up. I have a comic about halfway done and some very good ideas on what I want to draw next.


Just, had to get this off my chest. Seriously, people. There's only so much a girl can take. ._.


And you know what other notes make me mad?

Notes telling me to finish TROD or to put their characters into TROC or (I actually got this) to replace Snowflake with their character because they'd go SO MUCH BETTER with Ripto. (Or just saying "Bah! But Ripto is mine! You can't have him!" What?)

Guys, I finished TROC years ago. I'm not going to insert your character into a finished fic, no matter how many times you ask me. And TROD was written into a brick wall that not even Spyro could break so henceforth, it died. STOP ASKING!


...I'm going to see if my header would look good as a footer, just as a test. I might switch it back though. Just a test.

And on a random note, finally got around to playing TWEWY. It's an extremely awesome game, but can someone get the "Calling" song out of my head?


---------------------------------------------------------
Buddy List/Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50/My Fanart100
-----------------------------------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew
---------------------------------------------------------

Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half* (working on)
2.-Morgan or Rurik. (I'm doing both because I can. XD) *received my half* (working on)
3-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
OPEN!
Other Art:
-http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20913081/ Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:30:14 PDT Buddy List
Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50
My Fanart100
-------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew
----------------------------------------------------------


Okay, the dining hall was having a "fiesta theme", and one of the things on the menu was churros.
Man, I have never seen a line in the dining hall so big as the churro line. It was like every college student heard about the free churros and rushed over. Churros went by in the blink of an eye, people reentered the line for seconds, and brown sugar coated the area near the churro vendor.

I myself got two. Couldn't finish them because they were almost as long as my arm.


Okay, I apologize for my lack of art, but I have two very good reasons for my art absence.

Foundation 3D Art, and Communication GE.

Building a sculpture out of wire is not as fun as it would seem. Wire's really hard to bend, wire can get out of shape and out of whack real easy, and on top of that, I think I lost all the skin on my pointer fingers on account wires are pointy. Ouch.

Plus I have to give an eight minute speech tomorrow so that's killing my buzz.

I promise I'll try to submit something tomorrow once I actually deliver the speech. Probably will be an art trade or collab, but I kind of want to draw some of my characters' costumes. (Here's a hint-Benjamin's costume should be really obvious.)


Yeah, five hours on a wire sculpture and the stupid thing looks like an ugly tripod of doom. I am proud that it can stand up on its own and is about two feet high, though...
I just wish I didn't prick my finger on it a bunch of times. I probably have a lot of steel flakes in my bloodstream now. >_>


-----------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half* (working on)
2.-Morgan or Rurik. (I'm doing both because I can. XD) *received my half* (working on)
3-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1.
Other Art:
-'s contest
-Neopets stuff (Fanart50/Fanart100)
-A New ID
-Scenes from my fanfics
-Laigon, Randell
-Fanart for various videogames

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20814434/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20814434/ Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:14:30 PDT Buddy List
Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50
My Fanart100
-------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew
----------------------------------------------------------


...a lot of my recent journal titles have plant themes to them.

Man, I really hate group projects. Either you end up doing everything or the group kind of excludes you. Gah, making this group speech is killing me.

Also, trying to figure out how to vote in the general election is kind of killing me. I hope I can figure it out before the deadlines. X_x

Aww man, I hit 60k and no one bothered to tell me? XD

No one seems to like catching my pageview things.

That being said, I'm really trying to figure out ideas on what to draw.
I'd hate to sound like I want you guys to decide for me, but what do you like in my art? Should I draw more of something, less of something. I just need drawing ideas.
...ideas that don't involve Ben, that is. Several RPs that took place are giving me ideas, but I feel kind of bad for filling my gallery with him. XD Although, I don't know, maybe you guys want to see more of him.

Bottom line is, what would you like to see in my art? More fanart for videogames, more of the plant monster, more Snowflake, more fanfic? What?

Speaking of Ben, I keep toying with the possibility of him with other women. (You know, in case the Ben/Catherine thing remains one-sided, because in my mind, it can really go either way.) Maybe he had a crush on Claudia but realized that the things she can do to N. Igma can also apply to him and just backed off or something.
Or maybe he has a crush on Agnis, I don't know. XD The possibility with Ruberta was pretty much slaughtered.

Game-wise, I've basically been playing Baten Kaitos nonstop for about two weeks now. It's kind of one of those games where, once you get to a certain point, you simply HAVE to see the ending.
I'm personally not complaining. I'm usually bad at completing RPGs. (excluding Pokemon, of course. I'm a regular Pokenerd.)
...that might change soon.

My art history teacher STILL sounds like Dr. Cox to me.




-----------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half* (working on)
2.-Morgan or Rurik. *received my half* (working on)
3-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1.
4-5. Open!
Art for myself:
-Neopets stuff (Fanart50/Fanart100)
-A New ID
-Scenes from my fanfics
-Laigon, Randell
-Fanart for various videogames

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20649043/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20649043/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:40:13 PDT Buddy List
Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Stamp Collection
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50
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-------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew
----------------------------------------------------------

I just want to say that first, I'm doing the happy dance on account I FINALLY beat the Folon/Giacomo/Ayme boss battle on the Goldoba in Baten Kaitos. (The RPG actually expects you to fight a three on three boss battle, with one of the bosses having two turns) It only took me one try my second go-around.
For those out of the loop, not only is this boss battle tough, but it's at a point of no return. As in, you save on the ship and you're underlevelled, you're pretty much screwed because you can't leave until you beat the boss. Unfortunately, my first game file, everyone was Lv. 23 and 24 so YES, I was screwed. D8

...the problem is, I'm only halfway through the game, and right after I beat them and went through another dungeon, there was ANOTHER boss.

Only this one has instant death spells.

*head meets controller* WHY ME?

By the way, I suggest Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean as an RPG that RPG fans should play or at least give it a try. The game's really pretty [It's absolutely gorgeous] and it has a unique battle system. Plus some of your items age so a bottle of wine, a healing item you had near the start of the game will turn into Vinegar, a weapon.


And right now, I really hate my dorm halls.

The neighbors right next to me always bring about seven different people over and talk late into the night very loudly, and the walls in the dorms are very thin, thus, despite the fact that I don't want to, I end up having to listen to their entire conversation.

And then the guys they invite play pranks like clogging all the urinals and then filling them with urine on Friday and then letting it sit all weekend so that the bathroom smells like stale piss until Monday when the custodians come.

On top of that, my roommate has about 12 boyfriends, and sometimes I'll enter the dorm room only to find my roommate and one of her boyfriends melting into one being on their bed. A couple of them asked if they could "borrow" my Wii. Yeah, I'm just going to hand an expensive console over to you just so you can play Brawl. God, people. Their excuse was that girls don't really play video games, and that I probably just had the Wii because my boyfriend gave it to me anyways. >_>

Yeah, that's why I have a PS2 and a DS and a GBA and a Gameboy Color with me. Because they're my boyfriend's. I'm just holding onto them for him, despite the fact he's nonexistent.



This week will be trade submissions, because I'm really mad at myself for not finishing the trades sooner. X_x AUGH, I'M SO STUPID.



-----------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half* (working on)
2.- Zenneb *received my half* (working on, sketch done)
3.-Morgan or Rurik. *received my half* (working on)
4-5. Open. (Comment if we had a trade but you're not up there)
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Art for myself:
... ]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20551099/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20551099/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:35:04 PDT Buddy List
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FAQ
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Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50
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-------------
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew
----------------------------------------------------------

I'm sorry if my art seems lackluster at the moment (Okay, VERY lackluster). I'm taking two art classes plus one of my other classes requires a poster, so my artistic quality is being sucked out like a drain. 8C I'll work on something better, I promise.

This week is going to be me working on finishing the trades, mostly.

, I'm sorry if my birthday present is going to be a little late. I'm crossing my fingers that I draw something decent today or tomorrow.

On a sort of ironic note, this month marks exactly one year of that Brier redesign and the first time I actually introduced the whole "N. Tangle" thing.
Man, does time fly.

...think I should do something to celebrate this, or be worried that it's been a year of hostile plant takeover? XD
Huzzah, happy birthday, Brier Redesign!

Maybe a contest, but I don't think I would run it now. A lot of people are running contests at this time of year...


-----------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half*
2.- Zenneb *received my half*
3.-Morgan or Rurik. *received my half*
4-5. Open.
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Art for myself:
-Neopets stuff (Fanart50/Fanart100)
-A New ID
-Scenes from my fanfics
-Laigon, Randell
-Fanart for various videogames

]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20463606/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20463606/ Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:47:01 PDT Buddy List
Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50
My Fanart100
--
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew
----------------------------------------------------------


I'm going to miss you. It runs out today.

You know what I'm going to miss the most?
The lack of ads.
I'm just so happy that DA is running smoothly and that I'm able to write stuff without a randomly loading ad making the load jerky, and then...
Yeah. Now I'm going to have to get used to that again.

I'm also going to miss the stamps but I managed to collect enough to satisfy me.


In terms of actual stuff, this week was basically school. Nothing exciting happened save for the fact that I got to try Guitar Hero: World Tour out early. (Long story short, Guitar Hero van drove up to my college and set up a booth)

It is awesome, although I wonder why the song I played is not on iTunes. Livin' on A Prayer by Bon Jovi is supposedly a famous rock song and IT'S NOT ON ITUNES. The hell? (Way to be a jerk, Bon Jovi)

Also, Spore came out but it's too expensive for my budget. I guess I'll have to stick with my Creature Creator a little more...

The games I'm currently addicted to are DKC2 and SMRPG.
Yes, those games came out over ten years ago but I have never played them before on account I owned a Genesis, so hush. XD Oh man, the graphics and music are still really nice. I definitely reccommend these titles, although chances are, you've probably already played them a bazillion times and you're probably wondering why I'm talking about old games.

I'm sorry if my art's slower than normal, but I'm still trying to submerge myself back into the college life.

--------------------------------------------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half*
2. - Zenneb *received my half*
3. -Morgan or Rurik. *received my half*
4-5. Open.
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Art for myself:
-Neopets stuff (Fanart50/Fanart100) (Working on [FINALLY. XD])
-A New ID
-Scenes from my fanfics
-Laigon, Randell
-Fanart for various videogames ]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20463494/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20463494/ Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:34:19 PDT

http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20345500/ Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:31:25 PDT Buddy List
Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50
My Fanart100
--
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew
----------------------------------------------------------


I just want to apologize for the lack of artwork. I'm currently drawing Rill and Ravenkill (OLD old characters I'm ressurecting for current storylines) and a bunch of other stuff, but I assure you, I'll submit something before the week's over, trust me. XD

Also, one of my traders got banned for breaking the "You must be 13 to join" rule. Now I'm unsure if I should finish the art-trade or not. O_o

Augh, man.
College has a way of wearing you out.
This entire week, my right foot's been stiff from some trauma it suffered while moving. It's getting to where it's not bugging me, but still, annoying.

Okay, summary of my classes.

Art History: MY TEACHER SOUNDS AND ACTS LIKE DR. COX FROM SCRUBS. I AM NOT KIDDING.
Now I can't help but picture Dr. Cox having an appreciation for the significance behind the cave paintings discovered in Southern France. It makes the class more enjoyable, at least.
Although now I have to visit a museum for a term paper and the closest one is an hour away by car. LAME.

2D Art: The supplies list for this class was about seven feet long. Goodbye, extra funds.

3D Art: Hee, we're making a sculpture out of scotch tape right now.

Communications: Fun GE. I will enjoy this class.

Communications workshop: Another COMM GE. This one involves speeches and stuff. Yikes.

My new roommate is a lot more talkative and friendly than my last roommate, but she keeps on bringing guys over. XD My previous roommate had her boyfriend, sure, but they always went someplace else to get all intimate. Yeah.

She has never played video games or watched cartoons on account of her upbringing. I'm not sure if I pity her or not. XD

Also, I got readdicted to Baten Kaitos, aka "The really pretty RPG that almost no one has played on account it's a Gamecube exclusive".
YOU CAN KILL YOUR ENEMIES BY THROWING BACON, UNCOOKED MEAT, AND HAIR DRYERS AT THEM.

--------------------------------------------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half*
2. - Zenneb *received my half*
3. -Morgan or Rurik. *received my half*
4-5. Open.
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Art for myself:
-Neopets stuff (Fanart50/Fanart100) (Working on [FINALLY. XD])
-A New ID
-Scenes from my fanfics
-Morphina, Rill and Ravenkill, Laigon, Randell
-Fanart for various videogames ]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20227656/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20227656/ Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:52:43 PDT Buddy List
Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50
My Fanart100
--
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew
----------------------------------------------------------


...only, no. Not really.

If my activity suddenly takes a nosedive (and that includes the boards I'm now moderating), that's the reason why.
I'm moving back into the dorms, and I'm sure everyone who's had that experience knows how fun THAT is!

I am thrilled that I'm moving back in the same hall as last year. That place had some prime location.

But the main thing I'm thrilled about is the fact that I'm on the first floor again.
YES! NO NEED TO MOVE MY FRIDGE UP A FLIGHT OF STAIRS!

...I just hope my electronics survive the trip.
Last time I moved into the dorms, one of the PS2's cords broke off and I had to dig out the piece sticking out of the PS2 with a pair of tweezers. Whee, fun. (But that's because the cord was getting old and the plastic was corroding, but still...)

Watch. Now that I've said it, I probably jinxed it, and all of my games are probably going to burst into flames. XD



But anyways, I'm sorry for my lowered activity, but I really can't help it. (Plus there's the whole, you know, financial aid thing I need to take care of, and plus books, and plus college classes, and all that good stuff...)

--------------------------------------------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. -Orkuz meeting Ben. *receieved my half* *working on, sketch finished*
2. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half*
3. - Zenneb *received my half*
4. -Morgan or Rurik. *received my half*
Collabs
1-5. Closed, will open when Art-trades are done.
Art for myself:
-Neopets stuff (Fanart50/Fanart100) (Working on [FINALLY. XD])
-A New ID
-Scenes from my fanfics
-Morphina
-Fanart for various videogames
Fics:
-Two Catherine fics.
-Several unnamed original fics. ]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20188064/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20188064/ Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:33:47 PDT Buddy List
Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50
My Fanart100
--
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew
----------------------------------------------------------


Yeah, that DA poll I posted earlier?

[link]

It was referring to an actual board. Anyways, go crazy, audition as your characters (or one of the canon characters), and be sure to have fun.

I'm a mod. Guess which character I am. (I'll give you a hint; check the gallery and see who crops up the most in my recent art.)


acking for the college is boring

And to make this not-so-Crash-filled, have a meme.

<sub>I tag and some other guy. I'm tired.

LETTER:

Dear Sony-Shock.
I don't really know how to tell you this, but your nostrils are insulting. I think I realized it when you put cuffs on me under the busand and I saw you sit on my best friend. I'm sure you're man enough to understand that there is no solution to this. I'm returning your ring to you, but I'll keep your mom as a memory. You should also know that I told in my confession today about the incarnation as an eskimo.
Good luck on your short-term leave from jail,
-Turquoisephoenix-

Rules: Do the "Letter MEME". Tag no less than 5 other people, and leave them a comment, informing them that they have been tagged. Then copy the "How-to" Letter Meme, and finish your Journal entry.


-> How you do the Letter Meme:

Dear (the last person who left a comment on your Journal).
I don't really know how to tell you this, but ___1___. I think I realized it when __2___ __3__ and I saw you ___4___ ___5___. I'm sure you're ___6___ enough to understand ___7___. I'm returning ___8___ to you, but I'll keep ___9___ as a memory. You should also know that I ___10___ ___11___.
___12___,
-Your name-


1. What's the color of your shirt?
Blue - Our romance is over
Red - Our affair is over
White - I'll join the monastery
Black - I dislike you
Green - Our horoscope doesn't match
Grey - You're a pervert
Yellow - I'm selling myself
Pink - Your nostrils are insulting
Brown - The mafia wants you
No shirt - You're a loser
Other - I'm in love with your sister


2. Which is your birth month?
January - That night
February - Last year
March - When your dwarf bit me
April - When I tripped on sesame seeds
May - First of May
June - When you put cuffs on me
July - When I threw up
August - When I saw the shrunken head
September - When we skinny dipped
October - When I quoted Santa
November - When your dog ran amok
December - When I changed tennis shoes


3. Which food do you prefer?
Tacos - In your apartment
Pizza - In you... ]]></sub> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20128439/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20128439/ Sun, 24 Aug 2008 10:49:20 PDT Buddy List
Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50
My Fanart100
--
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew
----------------------------------------------------------


I guess I wrote that last journal a bit too late. I dunno, I just find it ironic that I wrote a writer's block journal about two days before I submit this huge chapter. XD

Anyways, it's the last week of summer for me. That means this week is going to be spent going through my stuff and seeing which stuff will go best in my dorm.

I know I'm taking the Wii and the PS2. However, I should probably slim down the number of games I bring just a tad. Dad complained that I was bringing enough games to start my own videogame store. XD

I'm also stocking up on supplies. Whee, shopping.

Also, while cleaning out my room, I found one of the most interesting plushies stashed away. A Grovyle wearing a hula skirt.



He has a hula on because I bought him at Hawaii and the shop owner wanted to decorate him. XD Also, while I was messing around with my camera, he found a friend.




Man, I'm going to miss her. Too bad I can't take HER to the dorms. (I'm talking about the cat, not the Grovyle. XD)

Now with that tiny distraction out of the way, I will say this week is devoted to finishing Art-trades. I hope to finish at least one (Whoa, BIG standards, me.) by this week.
Misfortune and Orkuz are nearly done, either way.
Sorry for the wait, guys. I like to take my time. D8




Also, minor note. Crash Bandicoot fans, I'm helping start a RP message board. It's not open yet (at least, I don't think it is.) but I want to know if anyone's interested.
To those who remember it, it's just like the Spyro RP Boards. (GOD, I miss that place. D8)

--------------------------------------------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. -Orkuz meeting Ben. *receieved my half* *working on, sketch finished*
2. -Benjamin Thorn. *received my half* *working on*
3. - Andy and N. Igma. *received my half*
4. - Zenneb *received my half*
5. -Morgan or Rurik. *received my half*
Collabs
1-5. Closed, will open when Art-trades are done.
Art for myself:
-Neopets stuff (Fanart50/Fanart100) (Working on [FINALLY. XD])
-A New ID
-Scenes from my fanfics
-Morphina
-Fanart for various videogames
Fics:
-Two Catherine fics.
-Several unnamed... ]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20030857/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/20030857/ Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:47:07 PDT Buddy List
Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50
My Fanart100
--
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew
----------------------------------------------------------


I returned from my camp trip a day early because the campgrounds were SO terrible that we only stayed for one night instead of two. (Long story short, I could NOT get any sleep that night. Damn cars and people and crickets and hard ground and humidity and augh.)

But now I've run into some minor problems.

I can't write. At all.

I've seemed to have entered a really bad writer's slump, because even though I have a LOT of stories in my folders, none of them are making any progress at all, and I'm sick of the lot of them.

Right now I also believe that my writing sucks, pure and simple. I'm watching a LOT of my other friends just crank out these beautiful works of writing in half the time with half the length, and I can't seem to fit a consistent deadline. My writing's too slow to write out (I can write, what, one chapter every two months?), my writing's been called too long by plenty of people lately, and my writing's stopped completely because I just can't take my style of writing anymore.

This isn't affecting my artwork at all, since I can still draw, but it's somewhat depressing to see me just unable to form even a decent sentence.

Sorry for the minor rant, but I needed to get this off my chest. So for now, my projects have been put on hold. You can see the updated list on the bottom, but yeah, totally ran out of steam. :/



Also, somewhat related but less depressing, but I'm almost tempted to post my older Spyro the Dragon fanfiction and my Sentence50s up here.

For those unaware, between The Realms of Chaos and The Realms of Desolation, I wrote a couple Spyro fanfics and posted them on FF.net but never here. Some of them (mainly the Sheila/Moneybags ones because that's the closest I came to actually shipping something. XD), I have a fondness for, so I might post them back up here.

Sentence50s come from this LJ community ([link]) and are essentially 50 sentences (or tiny paragraphs, which I like to do.) that share a common theme. They're extremely useful for helping to flesh out a character or a pairing, so I have a couple of them on my harddrive filled out.
Here's an example of one I have:
#38 - Snow
Ben used to love the snow, back in his "golden days" when he was just a human who happened to have an interest in lizards and plants. Now, he found out that having cold blood and an affinity towards sunlight didn't mesh well with frozen climates. If the temperature around him dropped, so did the temperature in his blood. Things like really high-powered air conditioners made him drowsy, and if he was exposed to frigid temperatures, he would actually go into a state of hibernation.
It was incredibly embarrassing, instantly falling asleep the moment his bare skin touched snow. He probably should've warned Catherine before she chucked the snowball at him...
Yeah, I know, it's not a sentence, but it's short and has the same basic idea...sort of. I just never posted them anywhere and I wonder if I should until I can actually write REAL fic.

But yeah, should I submit these things here?

...might actually give off the impression that I'm actually writing things. XD

--------------------------------------------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/19957795/ Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:25:01 PDT Buddy List
Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50
My Fanart100
--
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew
----------------------------------------------------------


Ah, the great outdoors.

Too bad I'm not much of a camping sort of girl. I'm more of a "Ooh, modern conveniences!" kind of person. XD

Ah well, you can't fight fate, especially when fate comes in the form of "Boy Scout Family get-togethers", so I'll be gone most of Friday, all of Saturday, and most of Sunday.

I've been warned that I'm not allowed to bring anything more advanced than a book. I guess leveling up any teams on any of my handheld RPGs while the boy scouts are earning merit badges would seem in bad taste.


Now that real life's out of the way, time for me to talk art.

Currently working on a Contest entry, a potential entry for Kyrii Day, and art-trades galore. I've been also trying to make myself a new ID because I'm getting sick of all my older ones. XD So far that's not working out...

--------------------------------------------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. -Orkuz meeting Ben. *receieved my half* *working on*
2. -Benjamin Thorn. *received my half* (working on)
3. -Misfortune. *received my half* (working on)
4. - Andy and N. Igma.
5. - Zenneb
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Art for myself:
-Sony-Shock's Contest (Working on)
-Neopets stuff (Fanart50/Fanart100) (Working on [FINALLY. XD])
-A New ID
-Scenes from my fanfics
-Morphina
-Fanart for various videogames
-Tangled Vines Chapter 3-Restoration ]]> ~turquoisephoenix http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/19876845/ http://turquoisephoenix.deviantart.com/journal/19876845/ Sun, 10 Aug 2008 10:39:37 PDT Buddy List
Club List
List of all my Characters
FAQ
Rants, Raves, and Reviews
My Fanart50
My Fanart100
--
I'm Sideshow Bob in the DeviantArt's The Simpsons-crew
I'm Talim in the DeviantArt's Soul Calibur/Soul Edge crew
I'm a Censor in the deviantART Psychonauts Crew
I am Megavolt in The Disney Directory's Character Claimers' Crew
----------------------------------------------------------


Hey, guess who saw The Dark Knight last night?

...and guess who saw The Dark Knight last night on IMAX? 8D (For those unfamiliar with the term, it's essentially a screen that's a LOT bigger in a theater that can seat a lot more people, with crisper detail, and with gorgeous surround sound. Several of the scenes were shot for IMAX screens too, so there were some scenes where it's all "WHOA! I'M ACTUALLY IN HONG KONG!")

If you guessed that I did, then you're right! I also had a blast.

Long story short, this movie was awesome. I'm kind of crossing my fingers that it's going to be the movie to sink The Titanic's record. (But that's mostly because The Titanic is a movie I CANNOT sit through.)

And while everyone's saying that Heath Ledger's performance was the best one (and I don't blame them because he did a fantastic job), I really liked the performances done by Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, and Aaron Eckhart as well.

The special effects were really fun too. (especially on the villains) The IMAX theater amplified the gunshots so it actually sounded like someone was shooting a gun off in the theater.


I feel like a bad Batman nerd because I figured out what was going to happen to Harvey Dent within the first 30 minutes of the film through their use of foreshadowing, but someone actually had to go and point out to me that Scarecrow was actually in the film about an hour after the movie ended.

Plus dad was complaining that there was no Robin or Batgirl. He thought the movie was too long and the sound was too loud. (I thought the movie wore its length pretty well because there weren't giant periods of time in which there is no action.)

Also, the IMAX sold out really fast. I feel sorry for the people on the bottom row...



I also got Tiny Toon Adventures on DVD before I went to see the movie.




Anyways, change of subject. Who wants to Collab or Trade with me? I still have open slots and I'm working on some art-trades right now.

--------------------------------------------------
Stuff I'm Working On
Art Trades
1. -Orkuz meeting Ben. *receieved my half* *working on*
2. -Benjamin Thorn. *received my half* (working on)
3. -Misfortune. *received my half* (working on)
4. - Andy and N. Igma.
5. -
Collabs
1-5. OPEN!
Art for myself:
-Neopets stuff (Fanart50/Fanart100)
-A New ID
-Scenes from my fanfics
-Designs for mutant plant/reptile minions... ]]> ~turquoisephoenix