To all those in on the surprise for Elemental = Operation : Let there be Bowls of Meat Shiny Camera-ness is a success. Thank you again to all who donated, assisted with secret interrogations, kept the secret safe and participated in the ruse. Amanda is a pile of melting goo right now, which was the anticipated side-effect!

Maple = Just let us know when we can steal you away and what -you- want to do.

Dez = I totally owe you a (coherent) reply, too.

To everybody wanting new zips = we have the next batch finally, and I'm sticking them up online as soon as we're back in the US.

To those going to Archon = we're so going to do the masq...and we get to pull out the big guns. Literally. >;D

In recent times, Saeru and I have been trying to stay afloat on working at cons and commissions, and doing random Good Deeds as we've been traveling around. As of right now, I've finally kicked out Sae...who went on some kind of vision quest to prep for world domination, and is currently living with Hibbary and Paul. As for myself (especially after this morning with hellish logistics surprises) I would actually rate myself as not doing well overall. Not outright nearly neurotic like last year...but not mentally optimal in any sense. There is much to be said about that, but I'll skip it for now. Just in general, please understand that I have not had any consistent calmness in a very long time, and have missed out on numerous plans that I've really wanted to partake in this year.

Thus: I have totally missed a ton of comments that people have been leaving in bizarre places in regards to kinda important concerns. I don't have e-mail notifications for really anything, so I'm going around and physically weeding through everything, everywhere, now. As you can see, I'm on the lj messages stage now (which is amazing how insanely full this inbox is! I thought it would discourage people to contact me via lj if I disabled my journal comments. Wow...that back-fired. ^_^; It's okay, guys, I still love you. Just...sorry you had to wait.)

- If we were in the middle of scheming up something, and I didn't get back to you, very likely forces beyond my personal control nullified the plan &/or I didn't have any further info to report back. Everyone in this situation is getting a status report in any case soon. Thanks for your patience.

- If you wanted to buy something &/or make a commission, please ask Saeru. Even if I'm painting it...because I cannot value anything I make. ^_^; Asking for a price instantly shuts me down.

- If you wanted cosplay advice, please use the nice formula of "experimented with X and Y already, do you think Z is a good idea?" and I will answer pretty much right away. Please don't ask how I made a costume, start to finish - it's overwhelming for me, and useless to you (since my materials are random and my techs are bizarre.) Feel free to ask a bunch of little questions, but they should all be specific, and also be treated as "inspiration" rather than "tutorial."

- If you have been trying to PM me on cosplay.com...please don't. That tiny inbox fills up faster than I can go through it, and I've been missing out on a lot of undelivered messages that way. Also, I love getting comments on stuff that I upload to cosplay.com, flickr and dA - but please try to avoid posting questions that are time-sensitive or business related there. I don't rabidly check activity everyday, and more often than not, I can distracted from any of those sites for long intervals in between.


In conclusion: if you have to contact me about anything....please, please email me directly ( sniperdusk [at] gmail [dot] com ) because it's the only way I'm sure to see it, keep track of it, and respond in a timely manner. Thanks, everyone.

So...there are camels outside our patio.
I was just expecting a big pool or two...but this place is crazy amazing.
Not only is there (living) wildlife randomly tucked away in strange corners, staff in pith helmets and life-size rhino butts sticking out of the walls, the restaurant (for some reason) was blasting MCHammer videos during lunch.

I don't think Ohio has any right to be so epically bizarre. Next year, I don't want to be stuck in the dealers' room. XD

I'm supposed to post more, apparently! (I'll update later with proper reports on the Fabyan shoot and Castle-con!)

Currently:

• "Cleveland: We're not Detroit!"
  
• Went to wal-mart for toiletries, accidentally came back with Caboose...(which means I have nothing holding me back from cranking out Doc and Wash sometime...)
  
• All weddings should be neon-green themed! & on farms! And completely cute and stress-free! (What a great time, and I was just on strobe-duty.)
  
• "State the person's words exactly. Don't misspell or misuse any of the words that are included in your quote. Write the quoted material exactly as it was stated." (How to quote a source)
  
• Also...new exclusive info on Xion...? I don't have a problem with it. At all. Try being a fan of Angel Sanctuary or Xenogears sometime, guys. This isn't weird ENOUGH for Kingdom Hearts, if you ask me.

For only the third time in my internet life, I am going to openly endorse a site = Artician.com

A couple days ago, I received a random invite, and I was all set to ignore it and move on with my life, but it was such a polite request, I took a poke at it and have since become all excited about it.

It rocks so much it actually got me to post more than a one-liner in lj for once!

Well, okay...right now, it is still charmingly buggy, but I'm very impressed with what I'm seeing so far. This is exactly the sort of site I've been waiting for...somewhere between a comprehensible portfolio-share and an actually *fun* social network for artists. I don't think this is for everybody, but I predict this is finally the dA-alternative we've been waiting 4+ years to come along. If you have any sort of at least semi-professional portfolio, this is worth investigating :

• It has a friendly but compelling multi-navigation that reminds me of Etsy, a Flickr-like set and tag-system, and a search engine that actually seems to work. Thumbnail rotation and cross-pollination exposure is immense already...which means "popular" submissions won't eternally detract from constant variety and most-favorited items won't dominate browsing.
• Customization...on an art site! Profiles can actually have a personalized (but still legible and site-coherent) color-scheme and lay-out. Nice available starter skins and the ability to mess around in CSS, too.
• Easy to comment, reply to, fav and link-share. You can embed thumbnails into posts even. Looks like unlimited storage, too. (We'll see if the rating-star system ends up being a good idea, though....)
• Rockin inspirational palette-break-down under each image. Such a simple little thing that makes it uber-obvious this site is intended for designers.
• I dig the option to import feeds (which effectively replaces Facebook for me, actually...)
• Mostly, I love the possibility that I'll finally have the chance to actually post my ART somewhere. My actual, personal illustration work that I've kept off of deviantArt for years and years because I was terrified of their ToS regarding copyright ownership. (I don't intend to fully abandon dA because there is - and always probably will be - a good fandom community there...but since I've regulated it to fan-art and cosplay submissions only, I had no place to post my completely original artwork.)

Not surprising that I think so. They're cute little insane mutated eyeballs in trash-bins. Kinda like Soul Edge cosplaying as R2D2?

If I were to describe Sae as a Time Lord and myself as the "plus one" ...well, that would pretty aptly sum up the relationship. It also explains why we never know where we are exactly or what day it is in our efforts to run around (usually) preventing the apocalypse.

Nowadays, it doesn't matter much since you can just pause a game and get all the detailed full spin-around screencaps you need, but back in the day of PS1 and previous, it was a lot of guessing and fudging. There have been many a costume scheme that I had to shelf due to lack of sufficient references. But today, I just received two artbooks I didn't know existed previously, with artwork that includes...

Tomomi illustrations that I have - n e v e r - seen before...and some actually -legible- sizes of the ones I've gushed over their tiny counterparts for a decade now. SaGa Frontier is so frickin gorgeous in its totally crazy fab 80's kind of way.

Plus, just in time to make definite plans for next year's (finally) inevitable Legend of Dragoon group...it does exist = designs for Lloyd's end-game armor! Now I don't have to decipher the pixely PS1 battle polygon.

This'll be good for me. I haven't been excited about cosplay for a while, so perhaps it is bound to snowball into actually getting the 20-some -other- in-progress costumes worked on, too...?

The Fallen are the Virtuous by ~Elemental-Sight

Organization Assembled by ~8-13

Better shots later, but this is a good start!

This is the original older longer trailer. (I guess Craig was showing it publicly last ACen...?) And the second clip here is the quickie exciting teaser.
The windmill part is -not- green-screen...we were actually there for a whole day filming that. Also, I am a dumb-looking Riku. XP But the Sandman bit kicks ass.
Um...yep.
Pinata. XD

Dreamhost is giving out free website-y services (for forever) if you help them beta test their new webaps right now. This seems to include hosting of things like a "WordPress Blog, Drupal Site, Zenphoto Gallery, Mediawiki Wiki, and/or PhpBB Forum" with full customizing and no ads ever. I thought in particular people might care about the WordPress part in case LiveJournal does end up crashing in a firy pool of death in the near future.

Anyway, if anyone wanted to ever set up the like for their sites, I'm going to pass along the free codes (since I already have my site hosted with them, I get all this stuff included anyway, so I don't need the invites) = http://blog.dreamhost.com/2009/01/09/free-hosting-from-dreamhost-is-here/

I don't think I've ever posted to any community I've ever joined on lj, but I just did to cosplay and I realized that I'm the only one not selling old stuff nor demanding references. ^_^; Well...in case you ignore that community like I do, here's an x-post =

viewpoints had a rather terrible last month, so I made her a little gift to cheer her up and let her know how much we all appreciate all her amazing work for us. Please check out the article here to see some of the highlights from (mostly) 2008 = news at deviantArt

(& finally, my paid account expired! Yay, so now I'll feel like posting more...)

Some presents for you kooky Christians or those who just worship a guy who's name is Greg....


When I was on the phone with Sae (who I finally got to talk to!) I was tossing my camera at my parents' Tree of Death (it's coated in lead and covered in dangerously hot bulbs) and got some cheesy fun light streaks. So now you can enjoy some psychedelic colors without outside additives.



Music share, mostly topical...


- Merry Christmas...If That's Okay from MST's "Santa Claus (v.s. the Devil)"
...traditional and self-explanatory

- (Let's Have) A Patrick Swayze Christmas from MST's "Santa Claus v.s. the Martians"
...also equally traditional and self-explanatory

- The Song Is You from "The Saddest Music In The World"
...Perhaps because nothing says the holidays like glass legs filled with beer, glamorized depression and hockey players dancing with a nymphomaniac...yep...this is a *really* cute song considering the rest of the movie. ^_^;

- December by The Echoing Green
...This one isn't a parody, and also not specifically holiday related...just winter-y. One of my favorite perky songs (even though I guess it's supposed to be sad...?)

- Walking in the Air by Nightwish
...This actually -is- a Christmas song, but I think only Europeans know that.

- Return to You by Visions of Atlantis
...A ridiculously gorgeous song that goes from creepy-melancholy to amazingly inspirational. This is what holiday music -should- sound like.



& Happy Hogswatch...

 

 

( BTW, if anyone out there receives a nice shiny new PS3 tomorrow, please consider selling me your old PS2...? I have to replace mine for the fourth time now. ;_; )

Hope somebody notices this... ^_-

Soooo...
Re:CoM in English


( My grade = Upstairs gets a C / Basement gets a B+ )


For the lazy or those who hate card-based battle systems or those whose PS2's are broken = http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BA1eWGbK7e0

We finally dug up an online store that is selling at least one of the Marios Schwab designs from last year to feature our zips =
http://www.brownsfashion.com/product/92113.htm
And half off now at only $900-some dollars! - Perhaps because anyone who spends $1800 on a dress wants their nipples covered up...? XD

How are we ever going to explain to Nomura that it is directly his fault that fashionable bra-less-minded chicks can live in a world wherein exist giant zipper spines...?



Also, by the way and weirder still...since the displays are now up (although we don't know exactly where)...if anyone spots the holiday-season WALLS of DOOM for MAC Cosmetics (&/or Estee Lauder &/or Ulta for those outside Canada) snipe us a shot with your camera, please! We spent too much time working on those obscenely long zips (and went way too insane dealing with FedEx losing about a third of them) that I don't want to miss seeing them in action.

They're red, and covered in giant zippers and supposedly people pop in and out of them....to symbolize the make-up of your soul phasing in and out of the Purse of Life. (Yeah, we don't get it exactly either.) This is what they look like = http://www.orgxiii.org/zippers/gallery3.html

Dear Demon:

I can either fold my ears into three, spirit gum them flat against my head, and possibly construct a latex appliance to utterly delete them...or wear some applicable head gear. Input is appreciated.


Dear Angel:

It's 74 degrees in here, and I'm not cold for once. I was hanging around outside, too, and still no adverse effects. I hope I'm not dying. Or perhaps I'm cured.