Eoin Colfer

I am allowed to be a bit geeky sometimes. Especially if it's in a way that's not really possible very often if you live in SA.)

Eoin Colfer is in South Africa to promote his new book, Airman. (Unfortunately the next Artemis Fowl book is only coming out in August) So of course we took ourselves down to the Hyde Park EB on Tuesday to meet him.

Turns out that he's very Irish, very funny and just really nice too. He's very comfortable in front of a crowd and all the kids just loved him. (There were loads of them. Made me feel extremely old :D)

I also bought the new book and I can't wait to start reading it.

Piper's Dream

At the base of the ruined city, an old piper still plays.

Dipping into the ancient, forgotten melodies.

Conjuring up images of what was, what might have been.

What could never be again.

Fantasy XX: Music

Brief: This image must contain something related to MUSIC. Since it is difficult to make sound appear in an image, you will probably chose to show instruments, dancing, or other activities that are usually associated with sounds. MUSIC is of course a matter of taste, so a simple horn that would summon your presence on a lonely cliff, would be acceptable,full troops of colourful dancers, pied pipers, surreal images of cellos frozen in crystal, a lonely drummer, an insect rock band, a harp soothing the savage beast or just about anything you can come up with that we could foresee being associated with some sort of sound effects will be fine.

Animated Work in Progress (485 Kb)

Sources

Unfortunately this was a bit of a rush job. It's a very nice theme, but after a hectic few weeks at work and a total blank on the inspirational front, I finally had only 2 days left with nothing more to show than a few scribbles done during the boring bits of Remix'07.

I had found the piper source earlier, loved it, and wanted to use it, but he just didn't want to fit into any else. (The vertical format is more due to not being able to find satisfactory background sources than any artistic choices)

But the dragon I like. They do seem to get easier as I go along. Still blue though. He was actually supposed to have a lot more spikes along his back, but I'm impressed by how well the horns worked.

It looks ok, not as refined as it might have been, but I'm happy enough with it.

Final Score: 7.821

25

Wow, a quarter of a century...

It always sounded so old. So far away.
Now I'm there, but I don't really feel any different.

The Descent

Slowly, gracefully,
the Harpy descends into the dusk,
ready to claim the soul of her first victim.

Fantasy XVIII: The First

Brief: You are to depict an image that shows THE FIRST of something.This could be anything from newborns, to the oldest, to the newly coronated, first contact with aliens, first explored planet, a first kiss, or victory, or the launch of some new overwhelming project on which something is dependent like the first starship, heck you could show the favourite among the concubines of some sultan...lots and lots of fun for the whole family.

Work in Progress

Sources

Once again, I'm really grateful to Tracie76 for letting me use one of her wonderful jump photos. (I used them previously for In Captivity)

I really wanted to do something a bit less depressing for this contest, so someone or something experiencing flight for the first time, immediately came to mind. I started this, abandoned it in favour of a Da Vinci-esque, bubble driven flying machine, and then came back to it when I couldn't find the exact right pictures I needed for the other one.

I liked the fact that her arms were merged into the wings, making her different from most usual winged humanoids. After doing a bit of research, I settled on a Harpy.

Traditionally they are depicted as a bird of prey with the face and torso of a woman. In earlier myths they were described as beautiful, winged maidens, or winged death-spirits. It was only later that they became the hideous, foul-smelling, winged monsters with the face of an ugly old woman, represented carrying off persons to the underworld and inflicting punishment or tormenting them.

For obvious reasons, I opted for the earlier description, as well as their traditional Greek role of escorting the spirits of the dead.

I like the warm, pastel colours. It's a bit different from my normal, colder palette, but it works and helps to create a much more serene atmosphere.

I'm really satisfied with the final result.

Final Score: 8.155

Persimmons

Cape Town - it was just a quick visit, but it was wonderful!

From eating smoked snoek and grapes while watching the sunset from Signal Hill (a very old family tradition) to finding 2 very cheap Terry Pratchett books in Paperweight, everything was just sooo much fun. I even got to see Herman for a whole 40 minutes before I had to leave for the airport.

However, my biggest discovery of the weekend was sweet persimmons.

We were invited for supper by my Dad's cousin, who lives on a farm just outside Stellenbosch. They mainly grow all the kinds of leaves and greenery you find in flower arrangements, but they also have some persimmon trees.

They look like fat, orange tomatoes, and when peeled, their flesh have a peach-like texture. However, I've never tasted anything like them before. Soft and very sweet, with an almost honeyish taste.

I prefer them fresh and raw, but they're just as delicious when quickly fried in a pan with a bit of cinnamon, and served over ice cream.

Apparently, their botanical name, Diospyros, is even Greek for “food of the gods".

Slip of the Tongue

Anatomy Sramble 2

Just a quick little chop that didn't really do as well as I had hoped.
Still, I quite like the way it came out.

Final Score: 6.119

Mothers

Tree of Life 7

An arboreal Lamaze class.

Closeup

Sources

This one was actually meant for the Fantasy XIV: Humanoids contest, but with the holidays and everything, I just never got around to finishing it. It was actually going to be based on the fates - the maiden, the mother and the crone, but when a Tree of Life contest came around again, all I had to do was make them all pregnant, and it fit the theme perfectly.
I'm really not that used to short contests anymore, so their lack of proper heads is due to my time running out. (And because none of the available pregnant source pics actually showed faces)
Unfortunately, my newly pregnant sister found the fact that I had 'decapitated' them, rather traumatic.

Final Score: 7.276

The Last Naiad

"Whether science or magic was to blame, nobody knew, but something was turning all the water in the world into ice. It started slowly, unobtrusively - tiny flecks of ice floating in ponds, a few crystals on the edges of a waterfall. But like an infection, the ice kept spreading.

The Naiads, so intimately connected to the bodies of water under their protection that their very existence depended on it, were the first to feel the lasting effects. Their aqueous bodies became lethargic, hard to move. They tried to fight it, but the spread of the ice was unrelentless and absolute

Finally, one by one, they stopped struggling, giving themselves over to the ice and it's cold, hard oblivion."

Fantasy XIII: Sole Survivor

Brief: Depict an image of the last surviving entity of some type. What that survivor is, will be up to you, and we will be generous in the interpretation, but loss, tragedy, and even hope are historically the types of emotions that images of this type try to convey.

Work in Progress

Sources

Closeup

I struggled to find a concept for this one. At first I wanted to do something a lot more personal (and more obviously sad) , but while I was looking for sources, I discovered this beautiful photo by osga and this picture just sort of grew from there.

Of course, the whole viral ice thing was inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's Ice-nine from Cat's Cradle. I've never actually read it, but the concept has intrigued me for a while. I just wanted to put a bit of a fantasy angle on it.

Doesn't amphibian feet just make the most interesting ears/fins?

I know the tail doesn't really make sense anatomically, but I needed something to enhance the transparency of her liquid form. I actually wanted to turn it into hair or a headdress or something, but I just literally ran out of time.

At least all this work earned me my highest score yet.

Final Score: 8.927

Dressing Up

Normally, there is never enough opportunities to really dress up, so when Anton's sister decided to hold a costume party for her 30th birthday, we had to do something completely crazy. It was established early on that make-up or bodypaint of some sort would have to be involved, but it took a few nights of brainstorming before we found the perfect characters.

Nightcrawler for Anton, Mystique for JeAnette and Illyria for me. (Blue sounded like a really good idea at the time, ok.)

Nightcrawler

Anton's Nightcrawler costume was probably the most complicated.

The tail was created from a wire framework, covered in blue material and stuffed. I think they weighed the tip down with a tube of glue or something. It was attached to his body with a complicated rig of hardboard, wire, fish line and bandages. (Trust a paramedic to do that)

JeA made the hands and feet, and added yellow mogde podged nails. The ears came from a costume shop and was just spray painted blue. We managed to make his hair with a mixture of Brylcream and black powdered paint. Amazingly, the Brylcream also made his hair curl, which was definitely a bonus. His face was just blue facepaint with detail in white pencil.

Mystique

Mystique was a lot of fun to do. For the hair we used bright red Bulldog Colour Power Gel and some more Brylcream. We used blue facepaint on her face, but it took a long time to get an even colour, and since time was running out, we switched to blue fabric paint for her neck, arms and feet.

Her shirt was originally turqoise and black, so it first had to be covered with a layer of white pvc before it could be painted blue. It became very stiff upon drying and we had to wet it before she could put it on again, but as it dried it took on her body shape perfectly. All the scales were drawn on afterwards.

Illyria

Compared to the other two, my preparations were fairly simple, but I was quite pleased with the result. Just a few blue streaks sprayed on my hair and blue eyeshadow or eyeliner for everything else, and I was ready to go.

The last photo was taken after the party, while I was putting the finishing touches on this. (The deadline was 6:00 the next morning)

24

I have now officially been here for 24 years.

Feel free to have some of my decadently delicious chocolate birthday cake on your way out.

Shattered!

I absolutely hate that sinking feeling that follows the discovery of a mess of little glass pieces on the pavement beside your car. Unfortunately it is all too familiar.

At least I learned from last time. While everything inside my car was turned upside down, nothing was actually taken, if only because there was absolutely nothing to take.

Thankfully, my lovely, 2 week old CD player is still there (it took me about 6 months to replace the previous one), but they broke a big window this time, so it's still not very cheap to replace.

What a lovely start to a day...

Maria

Finally, I have a decent picture of my brand new niece, Maria Anspach.

She was born early Monday morning the 16th January, 4 days short of her due date, and late enough in January to satisfy her mother, who had been spending the preceding few weeks practising all known birth delay techniques, to ensure that D-day would be suitable for school terms, birthday parties, etc.

So far, she is one of the happiest and most peaceful babies I have ever seen.

Book sales are evil!

I am such a sucker for cheap books.

EB's big summer sales are one of the worst things if you are on a tight budget.
I always spend way too much time and money there.

And there is a very good chance that I'm going back later, since I know that all the books weren't unpacked yet when I got there yesterday.

Still, where else am I going to get books at an average of R35 each?

The only problem now is that I urgently need a new bookshelf.
Mine are both officially full now.

Polite Request

To all the short, curly black hairs on top of my head who refuse to even consider growing in the same direction as the rest of my hair after each wash:

Please cease and desist with immediate effect, or else you will be forcibly removed.

Thank you.

Signs of life

I know I have been very quiet lately.

No, I wasn't kidnapped by a bunch of rogueish, yet charmingly sexy pirates who forced me to wear tight bodices and survive on nothing but skilly 'n duff and seaweed grog.

Nor did aliens abduct me to perform strange, and surprisingly kinky, experiments on my shining example of a human brain.

I didn't even find a magical wardrobe that led into a fantastical world where I had lots of wonderful adventures and later returned wiser and more mature than before. That will only happen on the 18th.

It did involve a dragon though.

The biggest reason is probably Worth1000. They actually convinced me to spend ridiculous amounts of time doing things like this and this. But it's a lot of fun. And probably one of the first times in my life where I am doing arty/creative things because I actually enjoy it, and not just because it is part of some assignment or project.

Another reason is my recent discovery of the wonderful world of webcomics. I found the first one while doing research for my dragon picture, and now I'm hooked!
I've always been facinated by manga and comic book art, but it just never really occurred to me to follow the next logical step and start drawing it myself. I do like the colouring part, just not really the drawing from scratch.

Anyway, here is a few of the prettiest ones in case somebody is interested.

Fallen - Sadly, it is not being updated at the moment, but I live in hope, since I'm completely in love with the sketchy style of the later pages.

Inverloch - Also on hiatus for a bit, but it's getting published next year, so it should be back soon. Beautiful, full-colour pages.

Juathuur - B &W, but it actually updates 7 days a week!

The Saga of Eruune - Strange story, but a very unique, avant-gardey style with lots of intricate linework.

Redemption - Some of the pages are being redone in a much cleaner, stylised way, but I still like the rough scratchy originals.

Pastel Morning

There must have been a huge veldfire somewhere in our vicinity last night. The smoky, but not unpleasant, smell of burning grass was everywhere.

This morning, the smoke had settled down into a hazy blanket, covering the Moreletapark valley. As the sun rose* it became more and more rosy in hue until it became a giant piece of surreal candyfloss**. On the other side of the road, the hill that houses a big part of Constantiapark was slowly turning into a powder blue fortress.
It truly felt like I was stuck in a Pierneef painting.



* I think it is wonderful that I can finally drive to work in the morning and see where I'm going again. It just makes the day feel so much shorter, and it even gives the illusion that I'm actually getting more sleep.

** I love candyfloss. My biggest achievement this weekend was in discovering that Safari Garden Centre actually sells freshly made candyfloss over the weekends. There is nothing like it. The smell. The delicious stickyness. Yum.
Those stale balls of flavoured fluff in little plastic bags just can't compare. And there is always the uncomfortable question as to who actually blew up those bags.

Women's Day

Yesterday was just a really great day.

I was awoken by the the sun creeping lazily over my bed - no horrible renditions of 'Sugarplum Fairy' to scare me into consciousness. Then after a nice languid cup of tea and a few pages of Waifs and Strays, it was off to Brooklyn to take advantage of half price Tuesday at Ster Kinekor.

We ended up watching first Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (A lot of fun) and then The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Even better). Inbetween we went to the new Chocolaterie (yes, almost like the one in Chocolat) to have huge mugs of the most devine hot chocolate I have ever tasted (basically hot milk with what tasted like hazelnut truffles melted in it). After all, what else are you supposed to drink after watching so much melted chocolate on screen?

This was followed by cocktails at Java Café with some friends, that turned into hashbrowns and java coffe (filter coffee with condensed milk), that turned into caramel cheesecake ... yum.

That night we even had a rainstorm - which means that spring is probably on it's way!

And like the ad said 'Absence of a National Men's Day - Priceless!'