And Next monday, Happy Birthday to me! Yeah…I had to get that out there. But I got awesome plans for my birthday this coming weekend which involves Disneyland, Mr. Max, and HOPEFULLY dinner at the Blue Bayou. WOO HOO!

ANYWAYS…

Some more silly sketches from my brain.

This, is Muffin

Muffin is my Gnome fighter from my monthly Pathfinder RPG game Mr. Max is running. She likes to go berserk and cut people.  I’m currently trying to convince a friend to play her brother and name him Biscuit or Cookie.

And two more work in progresses of characters from the Steampunk story I keep kicking around in my head. I’m hoping to ink and color these soon.

Soiled Dove turned mechanic, Annabelle Leigh Langy and Deputy Luke Colt.

And Madam Jezebel Norton and Bandit (and Luke’s baby brother) Charlie Colt.

Aaaaannnddd…Thats all I got today.

A way over due picture I did for Colleen from Wyng’d Lyon Creations. Here she is, all dolled up as a gothy fairy.

I’m really happy with how this turned out.

Also, a quick sketch of a Work In Progress piece I’m doing based off that steampunk story I’ve been batting around.

This one is going to take some time to finsh, but I’m realyl excited about it!

Subject #2 – Colleen from Wyng’d Lyon Creations is having a give away! And the prize is awesome. Come on folks. An adorable stuffed bunny. A flaming hearts stuffed bunny! So its badass AND adorable! You know you wanna. It’s easy as pie to put yourself into the drawing. Check out her blog entry here so you can get a chance to win. FLAMING STUFFED BUNNY!!!

Subject #3 - I finished my final commission from this last round. A black and white pic for Brooksbabe from deviantart. Here’s Brooklyn sharing an evening glide with her original character, Crystal. I had a lot of fun with this.

Cheers!

I’m sure you’ve heard me mention NUMEROUS times about how I am in the SCA or I plan to post pictures from an SCA event (which I never do) OR that I have some new SCA garb photos over at my costume blog. Yet I never bothered really explaining what the heck the SCA is in the first place.  It’s because I’m absent-minded.  The SCA has become a huge part of my life after college. I’m a bit of a learning junkie and for me, the SCA is learning outside the classroom (and no nerve-wracking exams to take!)

The Royal Encampment at Great Western War

SCA stands for the Society of Creative Anachronisms.  In the words of the organization:

The SCA is an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe. Our “Known World” consists of 19 kingdoms, with over 30,000 members residing in countries around the world. Members, dressed in clothing of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, attend events which feature tournaments, royal courts, feasts, dancing, various classes & workshops, and more.

For me, the SCA a historical reenactment group that studies the culture pre-17th-century Europe (and in some cases, the Eastern cultures as well). We’re a bunch of history buffs all coming together to revel in our love of history.  It’s a world-wide organization and has kingdoms almost everywhere. I’m a part fo the Kingdom of Caid  and in the Barony of Calafia . 

Our Baron and Baroness of Calafia: Oliver and Kate Dogberry

My friend, Karine encouraged me to join. She is over in Montreal and was heavily involved in her area at the time.  I was fresh out of graduate school and looking for a social outlet (Graduate school tends to suck that right out of you). Since she knew I was into costuming, she felt I was a great fit for SCA.  And it went all down hill from there.  Funny enough, costuming wasn’t the only thing I focused on. I tried my hand a rapier fighting, illumination, needleworking, and belly dancing.  Most of those hobbies ended up sticking to me, hard.

Potrero War 2007. A day that will live in INFAMY!

 What I love most about the SCA are the people I have met. My husband Max was the first person I met when joining in on the fun. He even asked me to marry him at an SCA event three years after. If THAT doesn’t create fond memories I don’t know what can! I’ve met some amazing friends along the way who I consider a second family. Also, the amount of knowledge I have gained from just speaking to others! So many things to learn and so many people who have a beautiful passion for their craft and an undying need to teach others.

Crown Prints Tournament Arts Auction

One of my favorite parts of the SCA is picking a persona. In the SCA you have the opportunity to picks a time, a place, and period name for yourself .  I ended up going with an Italian persona, Florence to be specific. I used my Grandfather’s last name, Ricci and my great grandmother’s first name Giovanna. I managed to trace it all the way back to the 1500′s in Florence, Italy.  It was exciting to find how far my family name went back. I do have the option of dressing strictly my time period and area but I’m such a costuming nut I tend to dress all over the place.

My Husband (in green) fighting for my name at the Leodamus of Thebes Tournament.

 I suppose I’m just a romantic at heart. I love the pageantry and the history of the SCA. Like the Princess Bride, its “The Good Parts Version” of history.  Going to an event and immersing myself in the culture of the SCA is my way of unwinding. I turn off my cellphone and simply enjoy a full day (or weekend) of talking to friends and sharing our love of history.  The people are intelligent, passionate, and fun-loving. And one thing they love to do, is share their love of the current middle ages with all.  It may not be for everyone, but it definitely is for me.

…..

Plus you occasionally get to see something like this:

And this is awesome, indeed.

Their romance is hilarious and twisted.

Costumed Nonsense! 12th Night Dress! Jazz Hands! Link Here!
Etsy Store! New Stuff! Involving Flowers and Girly Crap! Link Here!

Okay, got that out of my system. ONWARD!

I’m not sure why I got the itch to show off my studio space. Probably because I just cleaned it up and realized how much I love it. So, I felt like sharing. I mainly do my craft and sewing in here but occasionally when I want some quiet time, I will sit on my futon and sketch as well.

When I first moved to San Diego I lived in a very small apartment closer to the heart of downtown. It was a perfect spot for one person but it got quickly crowded with the addition of a husband and a cat.  I had all my sewing, craft, and art supplies organized in a tiny corner in the bedroom.  My late night sewing binges were cut short if the hubby needed to go to bed early. So when the two of us found a house that had a space for a studio, I flipped out.

My studio space is a large room built separate from the house itself. Its past lives included a wood working shop and after that, a rumpus room. That explains the endless amounts of electrical outlets and ugly carpeting.  It used to be painted an awful mustard yellow. EYE SEARING mustard yellow. Needless to say, I repainted the place.

My sewing nook. I say nook but in all honesty my nook is really the entire dang room. This is just where I have my sewing machines. The white sewing machine table belonged to my grandmother. My dad refurnished and painted it for me when I moved to San Diego.

The shelves the DVD and TV are on were built by the hubby. It was all a surprise birthday gift-y. Below that are all my fabric bins and notion/pattern drawers. I try to keep it all organized though right now my fabric stash is outnumbering my fabric bins.

 Yes, I’m watching Tron: Legacy.

The sewing cabinet is also from the family. It belonged to my great-grandmother who was a men’s tailor. My dad refurnished and painted it for me too. Unfortunately the paint got a little damage on our move to the new house. The thread holders are gifts from my friends Ty, Julie, and Colleen. That’s half scale samurai armor, a project I did in grad school. Next to that, you can see where I hang the finished hair falls. They’re hiding the ugly fusebox. And in the corner is the land of rescued homeless toys… Long story.

Bookshelves! The hubby built these for me as well since the old Walmart bookshelf collapsed.. On my head. Once again, long story.  You can see my poor abandoned doll house project still waiting to be finished *sigh*. My many costume and art books are being guarded by various female action figures. Don’t ask me why, but I love collecting the chicks. Though there are a few fellas mixed in.

Another bookcase I filled up and random stuffage. My inspiration boards (aka places to hang weird photos) various masks, my display tree, and my apothecary jars full of random doo-dads.

I love my fairy candle holder. A gift from my oldest friend, Julie.

The other side of the studio. It’s a wonder of second-hand furniture! my futon was my sister’s and the formica table used to be my grandmothers, then my sisters, and now its miiiiiiine! Now I just need chairs *plots*

Big, floppy, Scooby-Doo is a gift from my friend Ian.

My amazing cutting table! This was built by my friend Dan as a Christmas/house-warming gift and I LOOOOOOVE it! He covered the top with cork-board and the bottom is an old vintage icebox. It’s all on wheels too so I can pull it out from the wall when I want to work.
Dang, I got some creative friends! You can see a pile of craft repairs and the patterns for my upcoming Victorian gown sitting there.

Once again, Julie the amazing got me that Wicked poster signed by the original Broadway cast. Did I mention Julie is amazing? Because she is.

Shelf O’ Headgear! Hats and headdresses I’ve made for various occasions. Though those two pretty hats on the top shelf were made by Christal Blu Creations. I love them! Yup, those are vintage Lemon Chiffon and Orange Blossom dolls. I was a Strawberry Shortcake fanatic as a child and felt the need to relive it through the magic of eBay.

I kinda love Hats. Can you tell? Most of these were either my grandmother’s or my mom’s from the 1940′s, 50′s, and 60′s. I thought they were too pretty to keep in a storage box. So there they be!

Well, THAT was long winded wasn’t it? I hope you enjoyed the photos though! I really do love my little space of creativity. There’s just something about having your own room that is yours alone, whether it’s a full studio, a work desk, or a bedroom. I’m really fortunate that I managed to get a spot of my own.

To this day, I come up with random stories in my head and characters to inhabit them. Unfortunately my grammar skills are… loose, on a good day, so I never bother to put words to paper. But I do tend to do massive amounts of character sketches just to get things out of my head.  The stories that do see the light of day I tend to keep to myself because… see above grammar issues.

Anyways, I was rummaging through my sketchbook and noticed I had a bazillion sketches of characters I never bothered to scan because I’m a lazy butt.  So I forced myself to go to my scanner which was a WHOPPING 2 feet away from my laptop (I KNOW, huh?!) and scan some character designs I played with.  So my session at the scanner lead to this long-winded blog post. You can thank the scanner.

Sit tight folks, this is how my brain works!

Bluebeard 

After I saw Disney’s Tangled for the first time, I had the sudden urge to play with fairy tales.

I am easily influenced.

One of my favorite and one of the more morbid fairy tales out there was Bluebeard. A lovely tale of boy meets girl, boy marries girl, girl finds out that boy is a serial killer and has been killing all his wives and keeping the bodies in a locked room.

Good Clean Family Fun!

Below are two sketches for my version of Bluebeard which revolved around the runaway bride and a helpful woodsman who got her out of that pickle. Here’s Lotte, the unsuspecting wife of Bluebeard who found the bodies and took off running.

And Rodger, the ex-soldier now woodsman who found Lotte hiding out in his shed. She attacked him with a rake shortly after their first meeting.

I really should go back and do a character sketch of Bluebeard himself since I had some great ideas in my head on what I wanted him to look like. Maybe next blog post.

Shattering Utopia

Shattering Utopia is one of the few times I actually dove into the realm of fanfiction. And this story was large enough that I worked on it with three other friends, Scott, Dasha, and Doug.  It was based on the great cartoon series, Gargoyles (Which I’m a huge fan off if you couldn’t tell already) and took place a little after the second season ended. The plot revolved around a group of scientists and leaders called the Utopian Society who picked up Dr. Anton Sevarius’ work and ran with it, creating plans of apocalyptic proportions. So a small group of characters ended up banning together to try to stop the US.

Chaos ensued.

Here are a few players in that game:

My character, Roberta “Robbie” McKenzie was one of the ring leaders of our band of heroes. She once was human but was kidnapped by a group of scientists and partially mutated in a series of experiments. Later on she escaped. Robbie was a fun character to create because she was extremely layered. She was smart, savvy, cold, aloof, and REALLY great at her job.

Payton Chantra was a character created by my friend Scott. He came up with the concept and I ended up running away with it. Payton was a teenage boy who was also kidnapped and experimented on by the same group of people who took Robbie. They used wolf DNA on him instead of Gargoyle which resulted in him having hyper senses and a crappy attitude at times. He was also a very skilled magic user. He escaped with Robbie.

Walden Croyer is another character concept Scott created that I went wild with. Walden was one of the original scientists to create the DNA strain to mutate humans. When he realized that the US was up to no good he instigated the escape of Robbie and Payton. Walden is the father figure of the group and has tons of info on the people they are up against. He injected himself with the strain and has been slowly mutating over time.

Marcus Donovan is my friend, Doug’s creation. Former Black Ops Soldier who got out of the business and assumed a different identity when he realized the government was making him a patsy. The US set their sights on Marcus due to being a fine psychical specimen. Robbie kept them at bay and he joined up with the band. He is the man who finally gets them organized and turns them from a small group of vigilantes and into a full underground movement.

I posted this pic before but the story isn’t complete without Lanara, my friend Dasha’s character. Lanara was also a kidnapped experiment, but in a different lab from Payton and Robbie. She was a young teenaged girl who ended up being fully mutated into a Gargoyle. She joined the band and has become a huge help with her magic skills. Eventually she gets mixed up with their benefactor, Richard Du Bois, a rich playboy. But alas, I still have yet to sketch him.

Victorian Sundown

My new story and new obsession (who I am playing around with my friend Jen and once again, my right hand man, Doug).  It’s a steampunk, western, romance. And lord knows I’m a sucker for all three things.  Still fleshing out the details but the story will revolve around two “Soiled Doves” Named Jezebel Norton and Anabelle Leigh Langly. You can kind of tell their personalities in the sketches.  I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of them soon since they are currently a host spot in inspiration land.

I’m sure I tortured you all long enough with a peek on what inspires me most.  I figured I should at least try to explain what I draw since it can be a bit incomprehensible. Just about every picture on my blog has a story behind it. If you’re interested in the story, just ask!

A special thank you thank you THANK YOU to Colleen from Wyng’d Lyon Creations who generously shared her booth with me.  As usual, it was an awesome time. I always have fun doing events with Colleen. I wanted to give a couple shout outs to fellow vendors that made our weekend lots of fun:

• Foulbitten offers beautiful copper etching..oh yes I WILL own one someday!
• Last Wear does awesome steampunk garb and are a group of awesome folks.
• and Ravenworks offers all sorts of period goodies. They were our neighbors and were lots of fun.

I also wanted to give a shout out author, David Lee Summers who I had a nice conversation with. He writes steampunk Westerns among other things. Steampunk and cowboys. Be still my heart.

I have a few costume pics posted up Costumed Nonsense from the H.R.M.  Steampunk Symposium. There were some awesome costumes at the event and we even took a few goof ball photos of each other on the Queen Mary. This is what happens when you let two costumers lose on a period cruise ship.

Come check out the entry, here.

Most of my and Colleen’s time was spent in the Vendor’s room, but occasionally we  escaped to play on the Queen Mary. If you ever get a chance to stay on the Queen Mary, I highly recommend it. It’s amazingly beautiful. You can feel this history!

Check out that view!

We had a super sweet vending space and Colleen was kind enough to let me hog a table. Have I mentioned Colleen rocks? Because she rocks.

I love steampunk cons and I really hope to start exploring more as time frees up…which may or may not happen.  The good thing is Southern California seems to me a hot happening area for the steampunk movement.

I also did two new Cthulu prints especially for Symposium. I am considering offering blank note cards and post cards with the wacky cephalopod on them in the near future.

So here they are, Lady and Lord Cthulu. Prints will be available via my etsy store soon!

I’ve had plans of grandeur to update immediately in 2012…yeah we see how well that went over, right? The truth is I have tons of things to scan and photos to post. Alas, I’ve been sitting on my butt about since December….because I’m a slacker. Well in all actuality it’s because I still have yet to have a weekend to sit down at ye olde laptop and put things up.

But it will not be THIS weekend. Why? Because I will be at HRM Steampunk Symposium! WOOO!

I may or maynot be dressed like this. I’m kind of digging the middle eastern vibe lately.

 Out of the Goodness of her heart, yet again, Colleen from Wyng’d Lyon Creations is letting me tag along as her business associate to this con.God Bless ya, Colleen. So if you find the Wyng’d Lyon Banner, you will find me as well!  I will be offering up $5 quickie sketches to anyone who mentions this blog post as usual. I’ll also have my kit with me so if you want a regular priced full color picture, just ask!

Okay, I do have ONE picture uploaded of my crafty obsessions. I made tons of Christmas ornaments for my family and friends this last Holiday and I’m pretty proud with how they came out.

They were a blast to make. I believe I will be cranking out more next year. The constant fabric folding satisfied my OCD.

Never the less, 2012 came charging out of the gate and I made a promise to myself to do more art and update the blog more often with said art. So far the art part has been coming. The blog part…eh…not so much. Working on that!

Until then, here’s another older commission done for my friend of her Dresden Files RPG cop character, Shelly…yup, thats a kitsune behind her.

Win Win situation!

Before I bombard you with pictures of Holiday cheer, just wanted to post that Costume Nonsense is updated with pictures of Max and me heading to the H.M.S Winter Maquerade Ball. It was a total BLAST of a steampunk event! I have only a few pictures but they’re entertaining! You can find the entry here.

Anyways, we have the house all decked out for Christmas! Christmas and Halloween are my favorite times of the year…actually, October straight shooting through Feburary puts me in a good mood to be honest. But Christmas and Halloween are my favorites of all.

Here is our Grand tree at the Chateau. We found a great one. I think Max is the tree whisperer or something. This was the first tree he grabbed and it was perfect.

Our stockings were hung by the Brady Bunch chiminey with care, as you can see…

Stockings for Max, me, and our kitty Scout…which isn’t %100 accurate. Mainly because we have a new addition to the Chateau.

Meet Minion.

Minion is our new kitten. We adopted him when a friend ended up with kittens randomly in his livingroom. Our older cat, Scout has been…tollerating. 

Overall, Minion has had no problem adjusting to life at the Chateau.

And to end this blog post, here’s a quick commission sketch I did of a friend’s RPG character.

I hope everyone has a great Holiday Season!