Do You Still Draw Elves? I Miss Errikan...

learning how to make things pretty with laser engraving :D (pewpew)

A crooked crook with a crooked grin >:D Hurr. I gave up on trying to be efficient with my work, it's just not me. Well, I GUESS I can make it me if I have to, but I don't have to like it! Pattern from squidfingers.

heysawbones: Do any of you have a Kindle, or a Nook, or some other reader? If so, how do you feel about it? How do these devices hold up in terms of audiobook selection? Is there a proprietary rating system for books/podcasts? My kindle is my best friend, it even saved my life not even kidding. I have the wifi only one but its not difficult to find a wifi starbucks or mcdonalds, and sometimes I even tether it to my phone if I need to get a book RIGHT NOW. It seems worth it to shell out the extra money for the 3G though- IF you travel lots. And ereaders are practically made for travelling. I read and spend SO much money on books these days, but the built-in kindle store has a lot of self published authors and I’m happy to support them, and they have a store sale section with books $4 or less, and of course public domain books are free (some times it worth spending $1 or $2 to get better formatting). I know the main selling point for nook is the drm-free EPUB format support, but I have free software that can convert that to kindle MOBI format so I havent missed out imo (Ill also use that to add things written by myself or friends, etc). Otherwise? both let you get library books if your library supports it, and sometimes lend books to friends with same brand of reader tho I have found it rare that publishers allow it. GET ONE you wont regret it!

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I like em fuzzy.

If you want to paint yourself and your friends weird colors for Halloween season (OR if you’re a nerd who cosplays at every opportunity, or even when there aren’t opportunities because you’re obsessed with makeup like meeeee) I would like to reccomend airbrushing :D

Top photo is my airbrush kit which fits in a toiletry bag from ikea. It includes a mini compressor which you can get for about $40 on amazon.

I use a $20 Badger airbrush from Michaels. I honestly use it more often than my nicer double-action professional airbrush because ngl I get tired of cleaning that thing out. Paint doesn’t actually go through the Badger air gun at all so its easy to clean.

BEST of all, if you also make props or paint fabric for costumes, you can stop spending money on spray paint! Seriously, airbrushes are where it’s at.

THE KEY ITEM is the Badger to Master brand adapter! The most annoying thing about airbrushes is there’s no standard sizing and shapes for ANY brush item or accessory between brands. I got mine in a set from Amazon for about $9. This way you have the choice to use any compressor instead of the expensive air cans.

Anyone who’s tried to do white makeup knows how ANNOYING it is no matter what! Creme makeup has good coverage but it’s gross and gets everywhere no matter how much powder you use to set it! Airbrushing lets you get 100% coverage with water-based liquid body paint. I got the best results with two layers of white and two of Ben Nye final seal (a layer of sealer FIRST helps the color stick and adds a small amount of protective barrier from sweat/oil). The key is to get full coverage with the thinnest possible layers, it flakes off more easily the thicker the paint is applied. Diluting liquid makeup with sealer instead of water or mixing liquid helps too, I don’t have a brand preference and have Ben Nye and Mehron colors, and some more expensive alcohol-based brands for experiments.

Examples! My QT frans (and me, whatever lol) :3 I painted em and they did the rest of makeup and powder. Powder pigments for colors and shading seem to work best before paint is entirely dry, if it gets too dry for blush/shading/etc, I’ve had good results with a light spritz of sealer to make it tacky again. Riles glows in the dark because Mehron has glow body paint so I had to try it, NATURALLY! Also used pure glow pigment as ~gremlin blush~, TKB has it I want to buy it by the pound, lol LOOK AT THAT SPOOKY GLOW THO

OK hope that was informative enough, I’m trying not to make this twenty pages long ok? K.

destroying some jelly shoes for science!

hoss. (Taken with Instagram)

A commission of a glaaaamorous elf lady. If you can't tell I like adding neon colors around ears way too much!

I noticed that this raised some questions, lol. I did waffle on it for a while but yeah there was some reasoning behind it (no really)

a. rubber bullets.

b. she is a cop (detective NOPD anti-gang, coast guard reservist instead of full time) and feels naked without it /stereotype

c. she has great aim with firearms, not so much with powers.

d. edited her abilities so she has to switch her entire mass to energy form to use her power, no laser hand-blasts.

e. this version of Monica is when she is very new and doesn't have precise control over her ability, her resting energy state is basically a glowy white-light energy being that is diffused over a fairly wide area so she doesnt risk incinerating everything/one around her. When she concentrates it she can tap into the cosmic background radiation to boost her intensity but its like opening power floodgates. This is great for battle against superbeings and giant monsters, not so much against humans. She CAN manifest at more midrange intensities but no matter what area of the spectrum she's at this would be either very annoying to downright dangerous (disrupting radio communications, internet and wifi, being too blindingly bright. Or uh giving everyone around her radiation poisoning/cancer... not really an acceptable form of collateral damage. Everyone tends to draw the line at weaponized throwing cars)

f. IN CONCLUSION, her two current settings are essentially "light show" and "atom bomb". 

/nerd

PS- later on she learns to reign it in enough to work as an Active Denial System though :p but takes a level of precision she doesn't initially have and would just microwave everything.

this makes deciding on color schemes a no-brainer! I'll definitely buy when the beta is over.

Coworker introduced me to a really awesome little Photoshop plugin. Took a screenshot of me playing around with it at work that I blurred to hell for NDAs. Gone are the days where I have to open up the color picker window to sample colors!! I definitely recommend at least trying it out.