...things and stuff.

Briefly musing on Original Stuff Projects I want to maybe get at one day.

* Firstly, Knight Lights: saviour of the dreaming world story. My mind's gone back to it recently. But damn. If I ever stick it on dA, people are going to see 'dream world, dream eaters' and think of, well, Dream Eaters. And with one of the things in it being 'nightmare creatures want to use human hosts', welp... I don't want to be accused of ripping, when this is a thing I designed ages ago!
I still want to try and design our magical girl knight, at the very least.

* On a similar kind of note? Steampunk, Victorianesque magical girls. Or ... technical girls? IDK.

* Magitek cyborgs and golem-androids. Would go wonderfully in some kind of RPG setting, I think. I wish my drawing skills were good enough to do justice to how I see these things looking... I do stylised animes. I see complex machines and flickering energies.

* Got a vision for a magic type system aligned along two different 'axes', two different classifications; nine basic 'elements' in a grid, a complex rock-paper-scissors system. Perhaps it'd make for some kind of mons-world thing, perhaps something else.

All things I wish I could make into something concrete. But I never finish projects. :(

Realising I've gone all kindsa quiet again. Which is actually weird, as stuff has been happening in my life; conventions, trips abroad, and yet I've not really been with the saying of the things? Sheesh, I got a tumblr and I ain't tumbld a word!

Guess it's a big thing of 'don't know where to start'. Always is with me. Perhaps I should try another 'blog post a day even if it's total crap' challenge like I did quite some time ago ... I don't know. But man. So flat. So lack of inspiration-y.

Know it'd do me good to interact in more community situations, too. But *points at DW's title.* The one thing I suck at worst is going into established groups of people, established settings. I just end up lurking around...

Ahwell.

Convention report!
AmeCon, Keele University. Which is like an hour from my house, follow one road number all the way. Easiest navigation ever. Phew.

I'm tired as hell from the parties finishing at 1.30am. My feet hurt from picking the worst socks to go with my Org boots. I want to curl up in bed but I daren't do so yet.
...Still. Worth it.

In total, there were ... five KH cosplayers. The crap. I spent a lot of the weekend palling around with the other two Organization 'players (one of whom's actually the guy I was 'argh!'-ing at over the forums... heh. Goes to show, can't always judge folks from interweb posts.) Honestly, it was the most fun I've had cosplaying: I packed a few other things but I kept falling back on Xemnas for the hell of it. We derped around and kept cracking Nobody jokes and generally had a good time. Well, I did anyway, I think the guys did too...
(Think next time (might be London Expo, I'll check whether I can make that) I'm doing Zexion for the more manageable hair (even with them bangs) and being more able to pull a li'l guy like that off. And I've got some fixes to do on my coat; hopefully I can get the paint that rubbed off on it back off, don't want to remake the flipping thing.)

On a non KH note, my Vinyl Scratch went down pretty damn well, too, although the Sharpie dye kept rubbing off the wig. Blue crap everywhere. Another 'welp back to X.' moment thanks to that. Met up with a bunch o' bronies on the Sunday, which was also fun. There were three of us DJs; and rather niftily, one of the actual event DJs invited me and one of the others up to actually have a photoshoot behind the decks. :D I hope the pics come out well!

Didn't go to too many panels; couple on the Saturday but that was mostly it. Spent a lot of the time raiding the dealer's room, chilling in the games room (mostly on the DDR machines), or just plain latching onto any folks I could to hang out with. Pretty relaxed sort of weekend except for the parties. Oh god the parties. Disco night, rave night, cheesy music night. Mah feet... was melting from trying to dance in Org coat, too, but once again, worth it. :p Would've liked to see the inside of the dance hall more too, but I was so tired out after the time I spent there that maybe it would have been overkill? IDK. Still, fun.

*collapses*

As I have said in the past, what I often consider to be my thing is making stuff. Creating stuff.

And what I want to do more of is hands on stuff. Not poking pixels. While I have pixel projects to poke (eg Keys to the Future and all) I know it'd do me so much good to find things I can physically create.

Perhaps I should start angling towards ... non-derivative works as well as my fan stuff. I mean, heavens, I'd never give that up! I'm a dyed in the wool geek 'n all.

And this blog entry is apparently heavy on the word 'stuff'. Oh well. At least I'm not calling my things 'crap', right?

But thoughts have just come on back to me. A couple of years ago, when I was diagnosed with having an eye condition that could cause trouble in the future, it got me thinking. Perhaps it'd be worth me branching out into art things that aren't just about what you can see...

Then the eye condition turned into 'oh let's just check up on this every year or so' and any thoughts of being able to do stuff outside of work kinda petered out.

But right now, indeed, I have time to do stuff.
And the wondering started again. Maybe it would be worth investigating. Maybe it'd be worth making. Things where sound and touch and scent are important to the art, too, every bit as much as the visual (can't see how taste would work unless the art show provided snacks, but that's not a bad addition to art shows either, huh?) The whole experience. 3D not 2D not pictures on a screen. Heck, 'art in the dark' would make a heck of a title for a display (shut up in the back of my brain KH popcorn gallery). (I typed 'popcorn factory' first, whee.) If you're outdoors somewhere beautiful, you're experiencing the wind and sun around you, the sounds in the distance, the scents in the air... why can't art try and get a bit of that in there?

All that said, though, worried little thoughts are crossing my mind regarding such things, given I'm the sort of person who's made paranoid by talk on t'internet and who has recently dropped off certain prescriptions now that work is no longer a factor in my mental state. Like I'd be moving in on territory that doesn't need sighted artists stomping over it, that instead needs more space for all kinds of artists to stomp, cruise and bungee jump around - I never know, and I never know where to look with such things. (Yeah, yeah, 'Google'.)
I don't want to make people angry. Hell, I don't even want to make a statement. I just want to make people go 'hey that was pretty cool I enjoyed it and I'd like to enjoy more cool stuff of yours'.
...And this whole paragraph is probably fulfilling some internet law about 'as the length of the blog post increases the probability of the otherwise well meaning writer putting their foot in it approaches 1'. So apologies in advance.

Even if I don't touch on that stuff. Even if I start work on simpler artistic ... whatever. I've got to do something.
I'm mostly trying to tell myself something that I've read a million times. Though I can't think of the exact places I found the quotes... I remember a couple. This blog, for one, which kind of cheered me up a lot during those nasty work times. And this Penny Arcade news post that I couldn't remember for the life of me what exactly it said until much google fu was applied. But now the googles have been done I know why it stuck.
"Every creative act is open war against The Way It Is. What you are saying when you make something is that the universe is not sufficient, and what it really needs is more you. And it does, actually; it does. Go look outside. You can’t tell me that we are done making the world."

...Though all that said, I don't even know where I'd start creating such things with my limited resources and general lack of willingness to art outside of my own room. The rest of the house doesn't feel as comfortable for me to do stuff in freely, even as ridiculously indulgent in my nerdery as my folks are. It's just a personal space thing. That's always something that stands in my way.

Hmm.

So, cosplay progress. My work on The Coat is going crackingly; the second draft prototype looks to be a good fit, and I'm getting the techniques sorted out on things like where the details and funky seams go. I've got the wig ready and waiting to be assaulted with hairspray. I still need to crack on with the repairs to Terra and the redo of the bodysuit, plus my other new one. Which I am still a little reluctant to own up to what it is out here. ^^;

Only one dark cloud. I've been having a running - thing with this one guy on the convention forums. He'd already called dibs on Final Form Xemnas. When I came along and said I was thinking of doing Xem too, because a) I like me some 'norts, b) it'd be appropriate after Terra, c) GLOWSTICKS - he tried to talk me out of it. Guy is still being all 'but I don't want to do the same thing as someone else' ...and I don't know how to respond. He already bought the costume, so why is this even a thing?

Seriously. There. Were. Four. Axels. At. Kita. Sunday. No-one CARES if you're doing a duplicate. 'Sides, different versions of character. And more than that...

( KH3D spoilers. )

ETA: Described situation to mum.
Her reaction: "Tell him to deal with it. There'll probably be something like thirteen of them there anyway." (Words might not be accurate, but number is.)
Me: *cracks up* "You have no idea how appropriate what you said is."

So here we go, off to Turkey tomorrow. Actually starting to get with the looking forwards to it at last. :) Took long enough...

Just got back from seeing the Avengers, too. Yay for silly action movie times: there are probably a lot of criticisms that could be made, but still. And Iron Man stole the show. Whole cinema laughter on a few occasions, there.

So I'm going away with a friend in a week's time. Turkey. Sun and happiness.
So why am I not excited? Maybe I'm just burnt out for now. Just tired. Blah.

Posting this from my new 3DS. Whee! Though obviously kind of hard to type. Ah well. It's good to have an internet on the go gadget at last. XD

Welp. Home. That was certainly a thing!

One big thing. Lack of planning hurt the weekend. I ended up getting there a lot later on the Friday than I'd have liked to, and Saturday was an extreme trainwreck of getting my Terra gear wearable: it still wasn't as good as I'd hoped (the armour bits look fine but the bodysuit failed, and nothing wanted to stay stuck on). I didn't get to any of the panels or events that day except for the masquerade itself.
I've learned my lesson.

On better notes, though! Friday night? Party time. Wave them glowsticks in the air like you just don't care. I was playing dogtier Jade that night; I ended up running around with a Roxas who liked my kit and kept meowing at me :p . We danced like plonkers and sang Pokémon themes in the middle of hotel corridors. Good times.

Saturday... I'll skip straight to the Masquerade itself. Oh god the stage fright, the stage fright! And the 'smart idea' I had of using heeled boots to give me that bit more height towards Terra's kind of backfired when I ended up third from last on stage. Freaking OW ON TOAST. On positive notes, though, it was an amazing experience being out there, and I had a lot of positive feedback from folks around the hall when we were preparing. I spent quite a lot of time talking to an old hand at the armour making scene - one of the con gophers, he gave me a hell of a lot of support. (Amusingly enough, he was cosplaying a villain - anyone who knew their KH was chiming in with the Terra-and-Xehanort comments as they realised...)
Due to aforementioned dumbassery with boots and costume disintegration, I kind of didn't get to the party until I'd destressed some. Hung around with one guy who seemed nice enough but it kind of spoiled things when he pulled the 'your place or mine' card. >_< I AM NOT THERE FOR THAT JHLGADFJHG. Fell in with another group at the party. Rock night that time. Good stuff, good stuff. Wish I'd been able to spend longer there because I was loving the music.

Sunday was the best day overall; I had the chance to actually get to panels, raid the dealers' room (even though I didn't pick too much up, sadly), and hang around with the rest of the Touhou posse who were roaming the con - I actually got a few photos for my Eirin gear. All chilled out and enjoyable. Watched a few skits in the evening but it seemed mostly to be singing so I left to crash out for a bit.
Party started out as a ball; I chatted to a couple of Organization 'players for a bit, had a dance with Death the Kid, but kind of felt a bit awkward wallflowering it around the place so I bailed out for the karaoke! Load of the classic anime 'n game tunes being done. One person was totally hogging the stage, which did cause me to >_> a bit, mind. Tried my hand at 'Simple and Clean', found it was totally out of my voice range - and then the machine broke. The music was playing, but no lyrics - I totally blanked out on the second verse! Much thanks to the Axels offstage who were prompting me to get through it... XD It broke during 'Passion', too, which turned into "*japanese lyrics* - hner hmnurrr nurr - MY SANCTUARY, MY SANCTUARY..." as everyone doing it just kind of blurred into the English version. There were a couple of huge singalongs, FF9's Melodies of Life and a Gurren Lagann theme. I joined in on the latter even though I didn't know it because screw it, I was getting a song done without tech fail attack.
The best bit of the karaoke, though? Ellen "GLaDOS" McLain singing "Still Alive." The party never got GLaDaoke! ... though I heard they had a group hug at some point.

On to Amecon in August, and whatever's out there!
... but first, I need a rest.

Whatever happened to cheap headphones that aren't earbuds? My everyday headphones gave up the ghost a couple of weeks back, and while I've got my fancy pants Beats ones (which kind of look a bit worse for wear, so much for cool looking) I still need a lightweight pair for shoving in bag etc.
But all the ones like the ones I used to use have vanished. Clip style with a pad-type earphone bit rather than an in the ear one. There are plenty of clippy ones with in-ear pieces, sure, but I can't tolerate bits in my ears too well.

*surf surf surf*

... Okay, they still exist, says this one site. But that's three styles with ear-pads out of thirty three with clips. Damn these things are hard to come by...