Alvvayz zomething. Zo, lazt vveek the hingez on my laptop completely died. My laptop zcreen flopped around and I had to get out my tabletop eazel to zupport it from behind zo I could actually ZEE. Other than that, it vvaz fine. Today, a Dell repairman came and fi>

Woot, the shop is now up and running! Yay. I'm hoping to get some time this weekend to start on a few luna dragon plushies. Fun stuff! Probably won't sell anything, but it doesn't cost that much to list things and they're at least fun to get feedback on. Anywho, I'm planning on making an artsy crafty filter where I can post what I've done to stick on Etsy. Comment if you'd like to be on the filter!

[/shameless promotion]

First off, I want to reassure everyone that I AM alive. I'm also incredibly sorry for worrying everyone and falling off the Internet like that. I know there really isn't any way to excuse my behavior, but I'll try to explain what happened. I wasn't trying to dodge people or ignore anyone!
( Some explaining... )

Oh, so cute and so true. I miss my kitties.... Only about a month and a half before I get to go home and see them! I've never been so long without kitties. It's been five months so far. ;_;

Who loves to get free stuff for Halloween? :D Well, I wanted to do something special, so here's the plan:

If I've made an icon for you in the past, I'll make a Halloween version for you! Sorry to everyone who doesn't have an icon yet - I just have a short time to do them, so I have to work from ones with existing bases.

And if you don't want to bother with all of this mess, the three icons at the top are free-for-all, take 'em if you want 'em! Woo!

( And more about those Halloween icons! )

Rules:
1. I have to have already made you an icon (again, sorry!)
2. It has to be using an existing expression (but if you want a new one, just poke me with a trade or $1)
3. Only TWO icons per person (this might change depending on demand)
4. Offer ends 3:00 p.m. EST Wednesday, October 31! (Mostly, this is to make sure I have time to finish them all by Wednesday night.)

( The Party! )

So earlier today I felt like I just needed a fun break from all these durn midterms, so I pulled out my Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern CD. It's one of those games that you find in the bargain bin and years later it's nowhere to be found in stores. I mean, I adore this game. Yes, it's glitchy at times. Yes, it's got some horrendous camera problems. I can see why it got bad reviews. They don't explain the Pern world at all in the game, but it's beyond awesome if you've read the books! I can deal with the glitchies for the awesomeness of the graphics (keep in mind that it was made in 2001)


Squee! The dragons just make me all happy. The voice acting is great, the dialog is awesome (they worked closely with Anne McCaffery, so it sounds like it came straight out of the book), and the face animation is pretty advanced. Eyes blink, eyebrows move, and they have teeth and tongues. Which is awesome for a 2001 computer game. In my opinion.

( More screencaps inside! )

If I can figure out some way to do video capture, I'll make videos of the awesome dragon flight sequences. Mmm, purr. But I have no clue how to video capture, bah.

SQUEE, I love my awesomely amazing icon from Time-Panic. It is so beyond cute words fail me.

Aaaaand, a bunch of dumps because it's been a while since my last journal. But with thumbnail action!

( Icons! )

( Graphic! )

( Shirts! )



( What in the world... )

Woo, what a week. But I'm so excited! I ordered some merchandise from my cafepress store, and I can't wait to see how it looks. Of course, it's going to take a bit since I ordered a black shirt and it takes a minimum of 5 days to ship. But still, -glee!- I know I probably could print stuff off on iron transfer paper and do it cheaper for my own use, but I don't trust my cheapo printer. Plus, it's hard enough to find ink for it as it is, since it's 3 years old...

For any of you interested in learning how to do vector (at least in Inkscape) here is a quicky tutorial I cooked up: [Big Tutorial Image o' Doom]. I made it a week or so ago for a friend. If you want the full interactive effect, poke me and I'll send the .svg file in an email. Yay!

( And more icons and arts! )

Woo! I seem to be mostly over my cold now. Hopefully I'll have developed an immunity to whatever's going around now and I won't get sick the rest of the semester. At least being cooped up for so long has stimulated my muse! So now I'll dump a bunch of art and icons and store stuff on you, hehehe!

Commission Queue Journal(plenty of icon slots left, and two moodtheme slots open!
Commission Prices and Information

( Dump! (Image Heavy) )

Oh, and on a slightly different note, if I've done vector art for you and you'd like a high resolution version of anything for any reason I'd be glad to send big files over!

Hey all, I just wanted to apologize for my random disappearance these past few days. I've been dealing with a bad cold for a week, and it just hit super-hard on Monday. I haven't been able to work on art (Heh, I haven't been able to study either...) but I have some stronger medicine now and I'm hoping to get better soon. Again, sorry! I didn't mean to disappear with no explanation.

...imagobacktosleepnow. Yaaaaaaaaarg.

Blarg, woke up this morning with a killer sore throat and felt absolutely miserable all day. Luckily, a few naps and a pile of pills later, I feel much improved and can almost swallow, yay!
And at least I finally put a nice theme on my LJ, so it's no longer so painful to look at.

But anywho,

( On to the icon stuff! )

I've decided to open commissions tomorrow (Saturday the 15th). This is just a preemptive heads-up. Woo! If you want to know the moment I'm getting online, just stick one of my Instant Messenger IDs on your buddy list. (Check my profile)

Woo, one test down, four to go in the next week and a half... Mmm, Reproduction practicum tomorrow, joy of joys. >.>

( Some more icony goodness )

Also:
If you're watching my journal for icon commission updates (or if you're stalking without watching), comment with an email address (or send me an email at katolincat (at) gmail.com) if you'd like to be added to an announcement mailing list. I'll send out announcements as soon as I offer trades/commissions, in addition to posting here of course.

A thousand and one thanks to the person or people who anonymously gifted me with a year's subscription and extra icons! *squee* That was totally unexpected, and a wonderful surprise!

I'm so glad my vector-cutie icons are so popular! I have so much fun making them, and I can't wait to see what else I can do with vectors (Mmmm, animation...). Thanks for all the requests!

I'm going to keep vector icon requests open until 3:00 pm Eastern time tomorrow. So if you want free art, hurry and get your request in before then! After that, they'll be for commission only (toying with the idea of $5 per icon) and maybe for trade.

So I've been having a ton of fun with Inkscape, a free vector program. (http://www.inkscape.org/)



Scary? Yes. Fun? Very much so! Plus, vector is scalable. Which is awesome. So that above image started out at 1500 px wide (Click if you're brave...) and I shrunk it down to 400 px wide with no loss of detail. That impresses me.

But that means I can do this:


And even this:
and it still looks sharp and happy.

So. I'm having so much fun with this, I'll do requests! Comment on this journal with a link to a reference image, and I'll do a 100x100 icon of your character's head. With huge eyes. Because eyes are awesome.

Edit:
Oh, and another thing I thought I'd mention. If you want these resized for anything (50x50, 75x75, 400x400(GAH! Hehehe...) they're really easy for me to resize. So just poke me for a resize and I'll be happy to oblige!

Requests closed! Sorry!


( Icon Invasion! )

I don't enjoy feeling sick. It keeps me cooped up in my room (more than usual, that is) which then leads to me feeling depressed. Which makes me feel sick. So the end result is that I start really needed something like a hug, but there's just no one around. My parents are 1000 miles away, and my best friends are 1000 miles away in a different direction. Online hugs help, but they just aren't the same. *Sigh* So yes, after two full years of college I still have random bouts of homesickness. And I'm still annoyed at Housing for making me take everything off the walls so they could paint, only to find out that I didn't need my room painted. Those Command 3M stickies aren't cheap! And that's about all the emo-ness in my life at the moment.

I'm trying to get back to drawing, yay. So far it's mainly just doodles that aren't worth posting, though. And when I'm not drawing, I'm messing with the sewing machine, planning out some Sculpey/polished rock pendants, or playing Diablo II. My interests are just plain random. Hehe! Maybe it's the overload of science at school. It makes me run home to balance the day out with creativity...and killing demonic monsters.

I've been thinking about going to DragonCon. I live in Athens, only 2 hours from Atlanta and all, and I've never been. However, I have no transportation and no one to go with. Plus, it'd be strange to go to an event like that without my friend Muse. So most likely I'll end up staying home and being my normal anti-social self. Well, not anti-social. I just don't actively seek a social life. Which is why I don't have any local friends, hehe. I wonder how many other college students have parents begging them to go out and party. I know I'm an oddball :D

( Pictures under cut! -Image Heavy- )

Also known as 'I made it!'
Today is my 20th birthday and I'm now officially 'old.' Though I have it on good authority that once you're old you get the 'Detect Gems' ability. I wonder how much MP that costs? Hehe!
To celebrate my 20th birthday I thought I'd write something incredibly wise and thought-out and all, but then I realized that I had caffeine and most likely wouldn't be coherent anyway. So instead you few who actually watch me just because we're friends will be subjected to a random stream of babble.

I'm not a journal type of person. My most successful diary had about three entries. Nothing incredibly noteworthy happens to me on a daily basis, and I don't feel like boring people with a transcript of every day. I occasionally have bursts of inspiration while writing and manage somehow to accidentally say something witty, but most of the time I'm just bland. Maybe I just have a tapioca-flavored personality (though personally I like tapioca). In the end, the whys don't matter. The result is that my personal journal entries are few and far between.
Commenting is another beast entirely. I do read all the journals written by my friends, but I rarely if ever comment. This isn't because I hate you! No, it's just me being shy and recalcitrant and all. (This applies to all but Muse. With her I'm talking through AIM anyway, so commenting seems redundant.) Plus, it's a deadly cycle. If I haven't commented before, will it be presumptuous to comment now? Should I pretend familiarity after keeping up with the past few months of your journal, or am I still enough of a stranger that I should keep it formal? In the end, indecision wins and I just resume lurking. It's the same on all boards I join besides roleplay boards. I don't know why, it's just me. I guess I just find it easier to talk to others through a character. Crazy, huh?

And on the plus side, I finally found out how to get openCanvas to network! If anyone wants to network-doodle, I love drawing with others.

Well, that's a lot of wordage. But here's some art!
( Art! Finally! )

This is just a reference for my dragon character, Arikalen.
( Reference )