Not to be a Grinch or say Bah Humbug, but this hasn't been a very Christmas-y holiday for me this year. It only snowed once while I was home, and as many of you know, much of my break was broken up by trips to different states to play with the marching band. My family didn't even bother to put up the Christmas tree because we'll be traveling for hours on Christmas Day to get me where I need to be. I hate that my mom and dad have to sacrifice their holiday for me, but let's hope this will be the one and only time we as a family have to do something this inconvenient. I'm going to try to stay positive about it. Hey, it'll be a Christmas I'll never forget! Now that it's Christmas Eve, I'm just getting ready to pack for two more back-to-back trips.

Essentially I'll be gone from deviantART from today (December 24th) to January 3rd or 4th. Though I'm taking my laptop with me on the trips, who knows how busy I'll be, since traveling to California inevitably means we have to do a shitload of sightseeing. I'm not a fan of amusement parks so I'd stay at our hotel if I could (honestly - I hate being "official bagholder"), but that won't happen. ~vaimeron and =star-blazer, I can't start your commissions until I get back to school on the 4th, but I will as soon as I get back into my normal routine!

If you're up early on New Year's Day, turn on your TV and watch the 121st Tournament of Roses Parade. Keep an eye out for uniforms that look like this, and you just might see me marching!

Have a safe and happy holiday, everyone, and a great start to 2010!

I'm offering a free lineart request for the deviant who catches a screenshot my 70,000th pageview. Send me a screenshot and you win, that's it! No faked shots, please!

I got my big Christmas-present-to-end-all-Christmas-presents a few days ago, since Christmas Day I have to be with the marching band (yes, it blows): I got my Playstation 3. I've already hooked it up online and have been playing mad, frenzied sessions of LittleBigPlanet. I've already been called a newbie while accidentally joining in a veteran session on Resident Evil 5, too.

Basically I love this thing to death. Come on, I know some of you dA people have PS3s out there and are aching for some online play... add me as a friend! My PSN ID is caviesfan79. Here are the games I have (with online capability):

LittleBigPlanet
Resident Evil 5
Soul Calibur IV
Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time (only if you want to compare trophies)

Non-online:
Prince of Persia
Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction
The God of War Collection
Dead Space
Prototype
Assassin's Creed
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

I just bought Assassin's Creed yesterday online, too. I'm thankful I have my job again so as to fuel my growing PS3 addiction. So... send me your PSN IDs if you want to play!

I'm offering a free lineart request for the deviant who catches a screenshot my 70,000th pageview. Send me a screenshot and you win, that's it! No faked shots, please!

That's right.

I want a challenge.

List me as many insane things as you'd wish; things that have nothing to do with any of my original characters. I'm sick of waking up and going, "What OC am I going to draw today?" I need to be more versatile in my art through themes and composition, rather than drawing prescribed works of a + b, aka "an OC doing something."

I don't care if this is pirate pandas in space or bears wearing tutus. Even a one-word prompt would be helpful. I just got my newest issue of Advanced Photoshop in the mail this week, and I've been looking obsessively at links to artists ~KE-M72 sent me, as well as one of my absolute favorite artists here, *kuroitora. All these things are makingme feel inadequate, so it's time to take a stand for myself.

I'm sick of being average. GO!

I'm offering a free lineart request for the deviant who catches a screenshot my 70,000th pageview. Send me a screenshot and you win, that's it! No faked shots, please!

Thank you to both *bec-sparrow and ~Justamutt for the gift art!

Once again I am avoiding drawing like the plague, not because I want to, but because I'm creatively dead. About my only saving grace right now is a band I found due to me searching on Facebook to find a Piece of Flair I made with Versa on it. This band's called VersaEmerge and they are HOLY SHIT AMAZING LIKE A MILLION. Some people have compared them to Paramore (they're both on the Fueled By Ramen label and have a female front-woman), but I'd say they're more like Circa Survive meets little bits of Evanescence and Alexisonfire. My favorite song by them so far is called In Pursuing Design There's something really neat about the power of their singers' voices and the way they mix in haunting little electronic vibes into the mix. Good stuff.

What's even creepier with the VersaEmerge link to "my" Versa is that the cover of their EP "Perception" 1. has a waning moon on it , and 2. the first song's title is "Percipere," which is a Latin verb, meaning "to perceive or feel." A FREAKY coincidence, if I say so myself. Bottom line here is that I've been jamming to VE for this whole week and it makes me want to move my pencil around a little bit, no matter what.

This winter is going to be really busy. I found out my university's football team is going to a bowl game now since we're 1st in our conference division, so I'll be pulled away with the band for that this week. Plus the Tournament of Roses Parade, and possibly another bowl game... so much for a relaxing winter break with time to make artwork at my leisure. I'll see what I can possibly get done. It's killing me inside that I haven't drawn anything in the past two weeks or so.

Send me anti-art block vibes. Go.

I'm offering a free lineart request for the deviant who catches a screenshot my 70,000th pageview. Send me a screenshot and you win, that's it! No faked shots, please!

Flaky: exactly what I've been concerning dA lately, haha. I feel bad about it. I fear my passion for drawing is dwindling this time of year since haven't been doing much of it at all. As soon as I get home from class, I just get on my computer and that's about it. Today I'm going to aim to start ~CoyoteCaliente's commission and maybe do another Halloween OC drawing. Argh. I get so frustrated when I start losing interest in the thing I love the most. :/

On the upside, however, I have been writing and researching a lot for both de vita sua and a potential sequel to Vengeance. Really it's just brainstorming, but thanks to how awesome my Latin professor is, I've dove right back into the language as far as using it as a tool to discover Ancient Roman history again. I kicked out about two pages worth of "journal entry" for de vita sua last night, expanding on the original story of how Versa got her curse. Now just trying to connect it to her modern day life will be the challenge... if ever I do write a sequel to Vengeance, I think it will be more backstory-based.

I'm offering a free lineart request for the deviant who catches a screenshot my 70,000th pageview. Send me a screenshot and you win, that's it! No faked shots, please!