Uh... I've been sucking at art lately, so here're a few stories!... and a preview of some art, I guess...

I have been a very disgruntled beginner the last few days. My artistic endeavors have been less than successful. Soren has been insufferable with gloating, since I had always blamed him for not being very good... Apparently, it IS me. It's very frustrating...

Anyway, here's some NON-art related stuff that I've been up to lately...

I was gonna write about this anyway since everyone loved my last Demon Spider encounter. That's right, another one. This never happens when anyone is home!

Actually, it happened twice that day, but the first one only gave me a slight shock before I squashed it it wasn't very big.

The absolute worst part of my day is when I have to walk from my car to the house. There's a large, spiderweb covered hole at the base of the tree in our front yard, and I'm almost positive it's a tarantula hole. We had some in the Houston area like that which were, indeed, tarantula holes... So I'm terrified of it and walk as far away from it as I can.

By the time I get to the doorway, I'm usually feeling pretty good. Yay! I made it without dying of a heart attack because something big and nasty and hairy jumped out at me! So it's a relief to get the key in the lock and run inside after checking the threshold for Demon Spiders because I'm still afraid.

I was actually LESS afraid this particular day, even of the hole, because there were at least six guys across the street working on the roof of our neighbor's house. I thought that if I got attacked and screamed, I'd have at least six guys come running over to solve the problem. Especially since I looked pretty good that day in a short-ish short for me is knee-length dress and heels... So I had no qualms about reaching for the door handle.

Idiot, I should have double checked. When I reached for the handle, a massive black spider with the super-long pincher type front legs and weird white spots on its abdomen came barreling out at my hand. I screamed like a lunatic and ran away.

As I ran in circles around and around the yard, I remembered the guys across the street. So I stopped running and screaming and marched back up to the door ok, sneaked and opened up the glass storm door, expecting one of those guys to be over at any minute. I looked all over the doorway for that stupid spider, but couldn't see it anywhere. Maybe when I screamed I scared it off?

Just to be sure, I kicked the wooden door. Out came that spider like a bolt of lightning, intent on eating my foot. I jumped back and watched as it zipped back under the door handle. There was no way I was getting in while that thing was still there. I kicked it again with the same results and cussed that spider like crazy. Where were the stupid guys?

They were sitting on the roof across the street, watching intently. Apparently, they had never seen someone flip out and start kicking doors and cussing for seemingly no reason before.

I could have asked them to come kill it, since they obviously could hear me, but I decided not to be a wimp and rely on stupid guys to kill a demon spider. I'd done it before, I could do it again. I knew that if I could just get inside, I could get the spider spray and take it that way.

I slowly put my keys in the lock and turned it until I heard the click. Then I stepped back and kicked the door handle as hard as I could and the door flew open. Demon Spider II slung off the doorway I said a few words but managed to stay on by a thin string of web. I took my chance and ran screaming and cussing past it into the house, did a 180, and slammed the door shut as hard as I could.

Unfortunately, in my plan, I didn't take into account the fact that it was hanging by a web. It went sailing through the air and landed just to the right of me, then scurried up the wall like a psycho.

I screamed and ran into the living room, hiding in the corner I had previously used as a spider fortress.

I couldn't remember where mom had put the spider killer, so I reached for my cell phone, only to find I had left it at work. We have no home phone. So I couldn't even call to ask where the killer was. This did not help morale.

Fortunately, after poking around for a bit, I realized my brother had accidentally left his phone at home, so I was able to call mom and ask her where the spider spray was.

I drowned that spider and a good deal of the entry hall in poison. Fifteen minutes later when I felt safe enough to venture out of the corner, I remembered I had left my keys in the door. So I opened it up and saw the stupid guys still watching the house.

Thus proving my theory that 85% of men are useless.

OK! Enough about the Demon Spider Saga... I had some other stuff I was gonna write about.

Rollin has been very active lately. My dreams have been very interesting. A few nights ago, I had a dream most would call it a nightmare, but it was fun for me that this city I lived in a fantasy one with towers and canals and stuff was being attacked by some kind of demon and everyone but me was either dying of a disease or too scared to do anything. Well, except my brother, who tried to help me until he was eaten by piranas. There were a lot of people there, too, which is odd since usually my dreams have only the knowledge that people are there instead of me actually seeing them... There were a bunch of my old college friends there, some from my old church, and the Soren from Fire Emblem (don't ask).

I had to go through this long process of studying to figure out what the demon's weakness was. To skip over all the details, I did eventually manage to defeat it... I'm just very surprised at Rollin. He's been pretty quiet for the past six months. I just wish he'd give me a dream about Caroline so I can get that story moving...

I had some other stuff I was gonna write about, but I forgot. I was actually gonna write this post a few days ago, but couldn't because my Photoshop 8 trial was up and I couldn't do the illustrations... I know they're not necessary, but they're so fun... Fortunately, my tablet came with a free copy of Photoshop 4, which works just as well, but with more workspace. Eight had almost no work room... <-- proper grammar.

So anyway, before my PS expired, I was working on some character concepts for my manga. I haven't decided whether or not to go with a traditional manga style, or a more stylized realism... I'm hoping some concept art will get that question answered. Here's a block of some of my main characters:

Since it's mostly to get facial structure set, I wasn't overly concerned about being entirely clean-lined. Somehow, it still wound up looking pretty good XD

I guess that's all for now.