astridv

I've spent much of the last few weeks building papercraft dioramas. (Right now I'm trying to figure out how to photograph the things. I'm getting the feeling that's the tricky part...)

Here's the first in a series: ( Space, with Puddlejumper )
Preview:

I'm so happy with my fandom stocking. I got Angel fic with Kate, Angel and Connor \o/ and more Angel fic with Angel and Connor doing some father-son bonding (boy, do those two deserve it) and a cool Garak/Bashir fanmix, fma icons (of which I just uploaded one for those days you're just like, blah...) and a Sam/Rodney wallpaper, and holiday greetings with kittens.

I only managed to fill one stocking this year, myself. I clicked on dozens, hoping something would trigger my creativity but it has just been the kind of year where the muse went on vacation. But. I finally had an idea for something in the Angel verse I'd really like to do. It's still fragile... I'll pet it and water it and hope it grows into a proper bunny.

A Halloween-appropriate vid rec:
Monster, Monster by thedothatgirl (BtVS)
Seven Seasons of monsters, courtesy of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
Music : In The Hall of The Mountain King- From the Peer Gynt suite by Grieg.

'Cause as thedothatgirl says: Halloween ain't the same without a little Buffy.

and in honor of the day, a re-rec:
Every Day is Halloween in the Pegasus Galaxy by bironic (Stargate: Atlantis)
gen; Humor; Warning: really makabre... It's Halloween, after all.
Summary: Come into my hive ship, little boys and girls...

A Wraith POV vid set to "Halloween" by Stephen Lynch. The lyrics and the footage match perfectly and the result is hilarious. And weirdly aesthetic.

My fannish output this year was way below that of the past few years, I think in parts because I've just done so much fanart for SGA that, while I still have ideas, the itch has been scratched... that must make fanart now!! But mostly I've just been swamped with work until November, and by then I was just exhausted so I spent the last two months drawing very little, reading and reccing fic instead, and playing outside in the snow. (Skiing! I was lucky and found skis to buy two days ago. \o/)

Well, here's what I did draw (the preview pics link to the posts):
January:
a visual prompt for the commentfic exchange at sgahcchallenges (btw, still up for grabs...)
February: nothin'
March: Following a post from sholio I discovered Fullmetal Alchemist. Result: a Roy&Riza sketch
April:
my entry for sticksandsnark
May:
for Cliche Bingo: Roy/Riza, After the Battle
and a quick Roy Mustang color sketch... an attempt to paint fire using watercolors. (needs more practice.)
June:
Dog Days: two FMA inks. Astrid tries manga style.
and a colored version of both.
July, August, September, October: The Project of Doom happened. Also, my vacation to Comic Con and gorgeous Zion National Park.
November:

a colored version of my Teyla&Rodney sketch from January. At first I wanted to leave it as a sketch because I was happy with the way the movement was caught, and that gets easily lost when I ink my pencils. I'm glad I went back and colored it after all; think this is my favorite of this year's bunch (well, or my stickandsnark piece, can't decide). The colored ink I used did interesting things and the result suprised me. (No idea how I got that dusty effect, really.)
my contribution to fma_ladyfest: Mei, Al, and Xiao Mei in Xing

That's it. Not too bad, though I'd hoped I'd fill at least one of my prompts for hc_bingo... hhm. I still have a couple hours... ;)

anenko wrote: meganbmoore posted a link to the most recent round of female character bashing. In my comment to her, I mentioned how happy I am that the people on my flist/DW circle love a wide variety of female-identified* characters.
Wouldn't it be great to find more people who feel the same way?
Is there a female character friending meme? If not, there totally should be.
And now there is: Female Character Friending Meme :)

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In other news I have now learned the kanji for 'moustache' and for 'shave'. Fandom is nothing if not educational. *nods*

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I have a fanart rec. Sorry, the link goes to Pixiv ( Read more... )

This fanart is on Deviantart: The Real Threat by Gimpyslair (FMA)
characters: Roy, Riza, Bradley, Olivier, Miles and Buccaneer
Gimpyslair has a whole bunch of FMA fan comics up, they're all worth checking out. This one cracked me up (and made me cackle evilly. Heh.)

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fic recs:
Five Dangerous Things by Martha Wilson (SGA)
gen; PG-13; 3200 words
Five planets the Atlantis expedition won't go back to anytime soon

and for five planets SG-1 won't go back to anytime soon: Five mission reports written in 100 words or fewer: Brevity by penknife (comment fic)

by the same author: In Short
gen; PG; humor; ~1100 words
Summary: Twelve episode tags Penknife never wrote for SG-1 and SGA.
funny snarky meta, yum.

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tielan posts about the upcoming SGA: Legacy novels here and also here and I gotta say, I haven't been this excited about SGA in months. It sounds like these books will be just what I'd been hoping for - all the things I loved about the show, plus many of the things I didn't get from the creators nor the fandom. I so hope they'll live up to my expectations!

Added benefit of those posts - I learned that there are Season 8 DS9 novels, and apparently they're good. I DID NOT KNOW THIS. Talk about being out of touch with the fandom. Due to recent posts on my friends list (thanks guys :) I've really gotten in the mood to revisit that fandom. I still think DS9 is one of the best tv shows ever made, and woefully underappreciated. (For an overview to whet the appetite read scrollgirl's post here.

Posting is open at Sticks and Snark, the Rodney/Teyla thing-a-thon! Here's my contribution.

For tli. I combined two of the prompts:
#1. What exactly did Teyla and Rodney get up to while John and Ronon were on Earth in "Outcast"?
#2. Poetry in motion

technique: sketch xeroxed on watercolor paper and colored with a basic watercolor wash & pastel crayon

( full picture under the cut )

preview

A while ago alias_sqbr made a post about fanart styles in manga/anime fandoms, which I found interesting. At the time I didn't know any anime or manga, but now I thought I'd give it a go; I was interested to see if and how my style would mesh with that of the manga. From my first impression, it doesn't feel all that different from doing fanart for a life action show. Hum.

This is just a sketch. I would say 'quick sketch' except it must've taken me an hour to fit that damn rifle in there. I'll probably ink and color it and add some background later, soon as I make more progress on my work project. (And just so you don't think I've jumped fandom: I also got an SGA fanart just waiting to be colored. (With pastel crayon :). Not jumping anywhere...)

Warning: clichés ahoi. Really, if something like this hasn't been drawn, like, a million times, I don't know fandom. But what can I say, I really felt like adding my own take on this motif. :)
( Roy & Riza, having each other's back. Gen; PG; Sketch; WIP )

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vid rec: Seeing as how there's been something of a BtVS/AtS revival on my friends list, I got a vid rec: Angel Trailer by Robert Flannigan. [Spoilers through the entire fifth season.]
Actually this used to be on my recs list but as almost all my vid recs, the link had become defunct; I just found another copy. This vid captures the vibe of season five perfectly. I'm still getting goosebumps around 1:30 when the music changes after Wesley's words.

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fanart rec (SGA): eirenealetheia on DeviantArt made a gorgeous Ronon/Jennifer wallpaper.

I'm looking for any episode with scenes of Teyla doing bantos fighting or practicing. The more the better. I figure especially the vidders among you may know this stuff in and out.

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And speaking of Teyla, ileliberte has posted Sherlock Holmes-fusion Teyla fanart: Miss Emmagen would like a word...

Sign-Ups for the fourth annual Rodney/Teyla Thing-a-thon are open until the 14th of February. This challenge accepts fic, art, icons, and vids, and this year it accepts Rodney&Teyla friendship as well as ship. (Which is cool, 'cause I'm just better at gen.)