Okay, we have moved.  I don’t want to move again unless it is into a house, so I hope this apartment works out perfectly.  I do like it a lot so far… I do have some small complaints, but overall I am pleased with it.

The move itself kinda sucked.  As you might expect.  I also would never rent from U-haul again unless there was no other option.  We booked the truck like a month before and asked 7 hours.  They called us to tell us when we got the truck and said we could have it between 7 am and 3 pm.  I said “Uh, I’m not even going to have the keys to the apartment until 8, so could we have it later?  Yeah, we could but we still had to bring it back by 3.  Uh, okay.  I figured it wouldn’t take that long to move everything (LOL.), so five hours seemed decent.  Picked up the truck and the guys there were absolute dickheads… and the “19.95″ rental ended up costing about $85 between the base rental, the mileage, the insurance, and the dolly.  The dolly was really heavy and an awkward size that really didn’t carry very much.  The truck was their smallest as I requested, and it would have been fine… except that the inside was full of various protrusions that made it so furniture didn’t fit as well.  Some may have been unavoidable just due to the truck design, but they also included a BIG pack of furniture pads that were anchored to the wall at an awkward height… furniture pads that we didn’t ask for and would cost money to use, but just took up space where, y’know, my stuff should have been.  Additionally, despite that they charge you a dollar per mile for mileage, you’re responsible for refilling any gas that you use…. and of course since it’s a truck it sucks down gas, so the gas and rental was around $100 total!  AND the guys who worked their were absolute dicks who talked down to me… oh, fuck off.

Because we only had the truck for 5 hours, we weren’t able to get everything and had to make a bunch of car trips back and forth.  Suck.  (Though to my surprise, I was able to get all of the doll boxes into my little Ford Escort in one trip!)  The kicker?  When we took the truck back, they had like, 4 other identical trucks sitting there… so there was no REASON why they couldn’t let us have it the hours we wanted.

Next day, muscles aching, went to clean out the old apartment.  We’d told the landlords that we’d be cleaning on Saturday morning, though technically we’re paid through the 31st so don’t HAVE to be out till midnight tonight.  Because we were so tired, it just took so much longer than we had anticipated to clean.  It took almost 6 hours, and one of the landlords showed up around noon and was all like “Well, I’ll just start on my stuff in the rooms you’re finished in!”  Fucking annoying.  And it ended up taking till almost 3!  I had ordered an edible arrangement as a “Thank you” to my parents because they helped up move on Saturday… and they called around 2 while we were still cleaning and were like “Um, we close at 3 today.”  So I had to rush over and pick that up while Roommate finished up… and ugh.

Chinchillas are still insane.  May not pick them up today because the apartment is just a mess!  We’ve put away the essentials (kitchen stuff, toiletries), but there are just… a lot of boxes chilling around the apartment.

My allergies are in full-swing and I don’t know where my Claritin is packed.  Hateful.

The brightspot of the morning though is that we got more pics of the pupyip!  Here she is!  We get to get her in about 5 weeks!  YAY!

Roommate is also posting a few pics. :)

Can’t wait to get Truffle!!

Also, sorry to anyone who I have not answered about commission spaces – I am just so bushed I haven’t really been replying to PMs.  Well, I have been in fits and starts… but I hope to get to my PMs tonight.  More unpacking today, grocery shopping now…

So.  We move tomorrow.  Everything is packed.

Every.thing.is.packed.

EVERY.THING.

I have nothing at all to play with and I am SO BORED.  And there is nothing interesting on the internet at all… Would someone post something?  Maybe I’ll make some new emoticons.  Any holidays coming up?  Nope… any emotions I feel unable to express with DoA’s current emoticons?  Hmmm.

I’m trying not to get sucked into Youtube, because there lies madness.

Y’know, I have to say… I think the DoA has probably the most hand-holding, lenient mods of any forum I’ve been on.  On the other (non-doll) forums I frequent, the mods will warn or ban people at the drop of a hat.  You backtalk, you’re banned.  You post in the wrong section, you get told you’re a stupid newbie.  Hell, I was briefly looking at a Tamagotchi forum and they are hard-nosed!

I guess that’s why I get annoyed when people say how “mean” or “scary” the mods are on DoA… and I just have no tolerance at all for when people publically backtalk about things like the Marketplace Access rules or signature restrictions.

I’m also grouchy today.

Workin’ the Woot Derby again this week.  I’m doing them as excercises more than because I’m trying to win anything… last week my focus was “Do ANYTHING just get it done.”  This week my focus is line weight.  I used to do really nicely inked drawings with varying line weights that made them much more dynamic… lately I just do pencil doodles or just lazily go over my pencil lines.  My typical inking lately is to do the interior lines with thinner strokes, then put a heavy outline around the edge of the whole thing.  It works for some things, but I need to branch back out.

So anyway, this week’s entries.  Vote on Woot if you feel like it, critique here if you feel like it.

Siren’s Song

I made this for you.

Self-critique – The cupcake one really has no concept or joke involved, it was mostly just drawn for the joy of drawing cupcakes and little skulls.  It’s rather dull, I’m not sure if the colors work well at all.  To the positive, I do like the linework itself.  I also like the high-key shading on the cupcake, but I think it might have been too stark on enticing swirlies… I should have done those with a paler red.  The little robot one makes me happy, but I was REALLY having trouble with color.  Mostly, I needed to be able to use one more color.  I’m not completely happy with the beige halftone around them, but none of the other colors were any better for the half-tone.  I had hoped to be able to use the body gray for the shadow on the whipped cream, but it just looked sort of gross. I think I’m going to try to do a little robot every week… I really enjoy drawing them.

Next couple weeks I’m going to focus on color because I obviously have no idea how to use it.  The six colors + shirt background is kicking my ass.  (Most likely no entry next week, though, because of the move.)

-  Another hour of work left.
+ Dinner with my brother who is visiting from California tonight!
+ Fun Shirt Woot Derby theme this week!
- Not much time to draw Woot Shirt entry tonight…
+ Almost done with two faceups!
- Ton of packing to do still.
- Consultation with oral surgeon did not go well.  Will need a bone graft(!) in addition to what I had already expected.
+ Cost of bone graft covered by having sold Puki Aang.
+ Palm-sized puppy is coming to live with us in October:

+Almost caught up on Accounting.
- Have to do someone else’s weekly mailinglist project. -_-

All in all, not sure if today is a good or bad day.  Leaning toward good, I think.

We found a breeder about 100 miles away… and we are thinking that we may have found our puppy!  The breeder seems to be very knowledgeable and pleasant and seems to care a lot about her dogs.

LOOK AT THE LITTLE TOES.  I’ve asked for the little golden boy on the right, but I haven’t heard back from the breeder yet.  Also asked for more pictures… so there may be future puppy spam.

If he is to be our puppy, we’ll get him around my birthday in October.

I don’t play with Ribbon enough… so he’s up for sale or trade.  If you want a (gorgeous) Liz boy, feel free to drop me a PM.  I’m also looking for a Maki, Tsukasa (LOL), or fullset Eden so if you want to trade please let me know!  And if he doesn’t sell or trade, it wasn’t meant to be and I’ll keep him. No, Ribbon is staying.  I just can’t do it.

Aang is up for offers.  Puki’s are too tiny.  I’m going to sell him and just focus on actually working on my Volks 1/6th Avatar cast… which is better anyway because then I can actually have all the characters I want.  (Pukis are too expensive to have a whole cast).

Okay, well, I failed at the “Do NOT work on a shirt woot submission” note on my other list.  I just really liked the theme for this week.
If you have a Woot account and like either of these designs, would you consider leaving me a vote?

Helium: A Perfect Valencing Act

Tin: The Element of Cute

I spent longer on the Tin one (the stupid valence shells took too damn long), but I like the Helium entry better.  Neither will win, but I’m happy that I entered.  I want to try to enter the Derby every week for a couple months.

I’m really feeling the time crunch… we move two weeks from tomorrow and there is so much to pack yet. The back bedroom is pretty much packed up (we just need to finish packing up the stuff on the bookshelves), but the other bedroom isn’t packed at all, and the livingroom and kitchen haven’t even been touched. It’s awkward, really. We can’t pack the kitchen or bedrooms because we’re still using most of the things in those rooms. We can’t just pack up all the pots and pans when we’ll still need to be cooking meals… and I can’t pack up my clothes when I still need to be wearing them!

I think Roommate and I need to sit down and make a detailed attack plan for the next two weeks to make sure everything gets done that needs doing.

Here is my personal to-do list, with tentative dates:

• OMG PACK (EVERY DAY)
  Call to turn off power 8/29 in current apaato (today)
  Paint Cathead’s pukisha face (today)
  Mail Yli heads, Yli, and Shiwoo (today)
  Bevel and sand Schneizel (8/17)
  Paint Kitsune (8/18)
  Paint Eleu (8/19)
  Mail card to turn on power 8/29 in new digs (8/20)
  Paint Miho (8/20)
  Finish Johnny (by 8/26?)

I have a corresponding list of things NOT to do before I leave:

• Do NOT buy screenprinting supplies
• Do NOT buy a pressure pot
• Do NOT work on new themes for DoA
• Do NOT enter the t-shirt Woot! derbies
• Do NOT work on Cog’s wings

New Archive has been ordered… I can’t wait till he comes! But it will probably be 12+ weeks. *dies a little* But hey, when he does show up it’ll be great! And I have a ton of things to work on before I could devote the time to him anyway, so it’s probably a good thing, really. My next bunch of commissions look pretty fun, so I’m looking forward to getting started on them as well. Lots of neat things coming up in the next few months.

Also have the Artist Retreat coming up in October! SO EXCITED. The list of instructors sounds pretty awesome – Patl for sculpting, Donn for molding, and Lilykoi for painting. NEAT. It sounds like the “flow” of the weekend will go sculpt basic head – mold and cast basic head – paint basic head. I can’t wait! The whole thing sounds fun, but I am most looking forward to Patl’s sculpting workshop. The heads we make probably won’t be anything to write home about, but I think I’m going to learn a lot. I’ve never taken a sculpting class, so just learning real techniques will really help me out a lot… much better than the trial and error methods I’ve had for however long now. And from one of my sculpting heroes! <3

Do you ever have days where you end up standing in the shower, realizing that you still have on both your glasses and your headband…?  And you wonder if it’s somehow it’s a metaphor for your whole life?  Then decide you don’t even know what that metaphor would be (and stop being so emo already), sigh, and just conclude it’s been that kind of day?

Yeah, it’s been that kind of day.

I’m tired and I’m eating the tops off of cupcakes at the moment. :)

The Shiwoo sold and will ship tomorrow or Thursday, and I am now free to order a new doll for Archive.  I had planned on a Zaoll Luv… the impetus for selling Archive’s Kiss had actually been that the Luv is now available in opaque urethane (rather than french resin).  However, between when I listed the Kiss for sale and when the Shiwoo actually sold, I had a lot of time to second-guess myself and decide that the Luv’s weird size (52cm???) would be too diminutive next to Burgundy on his SDF body… I don’t want Archive to look like a child.  He’s an adult, dangit, he’s a hundred years older than Burgundy!  So I’ve settled on a Narae 60 with the Mature faceplate.  She’ll get her boobs removed so as to be genderless… and Archive can actually look like the ambigendered magical creature that he is.  Hooray!

Otherwise, though, I am feeling like I just want to sell a bunch of my dolls and cut way back.  Unfortunately, all of the character stories are so enmeshed that selling one doll would result in selling pretty much everyone.  I have three dolls who don’t hail from the Stationboys storyline… but Rory is never getting sold, Percival is one of my dream dolls, and Aang is so small that selling him wouldn’t really alleviate any of the crush.  Part of the problem is that most of my dolls are either very hard to replace (i.e. Twist [Kanon Rui] or Cog [Pixydoll Sevy]) or they are just very very dear to me.  They all make me happy.  I guess I just feel restless because pretty much everyone is packed up at the moment.