Busy Like a Bee…

A drunk bee, maybe.

I feel like I’ve been so busy as of late, though doing what I’m not particularly sure. I definitely can’t say that I’ve had an overwhelming amount of down time, though.

Last Wednesday we went to a concert up north – Pop Evil, of course. Then the day after that we tooled around the U.P. (I live in Michigan, so that would be the Michigander lingo for the Upper Peninsula). It was so quiet and wooded up there – when you weren’t in the areas that drew tourists. We went to Tahquamenon Falls though and that was amazing. I love waterfalls anyways and nature, so that was perfect for me. I could have just sat there for days listening to the pounding of the water. Not to mention, too bad there were so many people up there, because that would have been an excellent backdrop for one of my silly self photoshoots. What can I say? I love dressing up and being weird.

Speaking of which… finally picked a date for the Renaissance Festival – this Sunday! I’m so excited. I only hope that I have enough money accumulated to buy a decent sword. Only I would save up like crazy for a sword, but it’s something that I’ve wanted for ages. I guess it more depends on if I can find one that I actually like. Being an artistic soul I’m quite picky when it comes to anything with a design aspect to it… especially if I’m going to spend a good chunk of money on it. The good news is that my toe is doing a lot better now so I should be able to wear boots and not flip flops. Still have yet to decide what I’m actually wearing – I have too much to choose from – but I will settle on something.

Back on the topic of being busy though: Yesterday I looked at my still unfinished leather bracer project and had intended to get back to work on that. I plugged in my woodburner, intending to at least get the basic outline of my design on it and ended up looking up how to make leather scale armor instead. I cut out a number of scales just playing around with the idea and now my mind is swirling with additional projects to add to my list of things to do. I found that if I take black leather and carve a slight design into it and then dry brush silver paint over top of it it almost takes on a metal-like appearance.

Now, I still intend to finish my original bracer project by the Ren Fest this weekend, and it can certainly be done. But now I have an even bigger project set for maybe next year. I was actually joking with myself the other day that if I got a nice, straight black wig that I could possibly do a cosplay photoshoot of my ‘villain’ from my book, Zariah. Then yesterday when I was playing with my leather scraps, I came up with this idea to possibly do this black and silver leather armor for him and yeah, then I had ideas running up the wall. I think I can actually pull it off. It’ll take time and money, but if I actually put my mind to it and continue to find time here and there to play with the components I should be able to complete it by next year. And hopefully I will have my first novel out by then so maybe one or two people might be able to recognize the character. Either way, it would be fun, regardless of whether people recognize it or not.

This is a sampling of what I was playing with yesterday and what I mean by how awesome the dry brushed silver on black leather looks.

Now, imagine a full tabard made out of ton of those black scales. I can see it in my head and it’s awesome. Not to mention, black and silver are my characters colors anyways so it works out spectacularly. I might even do a little bit of my own spin on a general leather scale tabard design and do an engraved kind of leather breastplate with the snake in the moon design I intend to do on my bracer. And underneath that would go my shirt of mail that I fully intend to make one day. It’s not that I don’t have the time, I just have to find the money to buy that many rings. But the rings I’ve been using are a dark blackish, silver, so ugh, that would look amazing. I’m going to have to add a category on here just for my art projects not related to my writing, because trust me, I’m sure you’re going to see a lot more posts regarding this particular project. Be warned.

Now, after all that excitement in my head last night I opened up Photoshop and had intended to do a quick sketch of Zariah in this armor that I created and well… I haven’t gotten to the armor part yet because I apparently can’t do simple quick sketches, but I’m now going to have to do at least two versions of this picture because I like the unexpected turn it took. While I was fiddling around with an nondescript background I ended up making a blob that looked like dark angel wings and I just went with it and copied that layer to the other side as well. The result was cool, but it also amuses me because this is probably one of the least angelic characters I have and one of the last I would have thought to draw with wings. Of course, he’s a magic user, so I never expected that I would be attempting to draw him in armor either. Regardless, here’s a preview of what I’m working on with that. It’s obviously not done, but I can tell that I’m getting a lot better drawing proportionately when I actually put my mind to it.

So yes, that’s the mess that’s in my mind right now. So much to do and it seems so little time most days. Eventually I will find a way to get things done. Besides all that I’ve finally gotten back into some writing… nothing huge, but I’ll take what I can get at this point. I wrote a five page chapter piece for the second book that I might have already mentioned. I’m incredibly proud of that. I wrote my Dear Doubt post, which is something that I think I might print out and tape to my wall to remind myself to just let doubt go and just go with the flow when writing. Nothing is ever perfect, especially the first draft. I’ve got my outline for my next section up for edit on this first book and can probably finish that tonight. And then I’ve got to get down to work outlining my fourth book for the upcoming NaNoWriMo. Yes, it will take away a month of my time from my edit of my first book, but it’s a great exercise and I loved doing it last year so I don’t think I can pass up doing it again. Not to mention if you complete the 50,000 words you get a coupon for 5 free copies of your book from CreateSpace that I didn’t get to use last year. Those would be great for initial editorial copies of my first book to make sure everything is in order before the real printing spree begins.

So much to do.. so I guess I better get to it! The good thing is that I’m finally feeling that spark to write again.. no, not a spark, that itchy urge to get back down to things that I can’t possibly ignore.