april_art

Took a while to 'evolve,' but finally...!

Got this dashing kitty-boy (yo-sized) from Pipos Doll. He's a fullset--so the faceup, eyes and clothing all came with him. I have 4 other anthros, but he's a bit different; my first cat and he's a bit bigger than the others. He also poses like a dream. I have since blushed his tail and hands a bit. 'Need to take some better photos sometime soon.


I'm calling him Kit Marley. ^_____^

I've revamped my bjd site a bit:
http://aprillee.tripod.com/vg/vgindex.html

I've had a number of new dolls come in over the past year and am expecting a few more...

This weekend, going to a meetup up in Solvang! Smorgasbords, Danish pastries, and dolls--I'm really looking forward to it!

I've been trying to sort out my convention schedule for 2012 (luckily I don't have regular events early in the year, eh?).

New this year is the new SPECTRUM Fantastic Art LIVE Exhibition in May.
http://www.spectrumfantasticart.com/spectrumfantasticartlive/

Is anyone else out there going? Just curious!

Because it is the Year of the Dragon, Nettle asks the Dragon to have some Tea at his place in the Faerie Woods.


(Dragon is thinking drinking Tea with a little fae means not drinking enough of anything...)

Happy New Year, Lunar or otherwise!

BJD: Fairyland Realpuki Aki, fullset.
Props: Lilacpumpkin on Etsy.

I'm going on a last-minute trip to visit with CO folk and go to MileHi-Con (Oct. 21-23).

After that, heading to World Fantasy Con, Oct. 27-30,down in San Diego.

No IlluxCon this year... I'm con-ed out!

Although I will try to get to the San Diego BJD Mini-Con, Nov. 5.

... Oh, and for the ILLUSTRATION MASTER CLASS (IMC) next year, the special guest instructor will be BROM!
I'm definitely signing up. And James Gurney will be there again, with the core faculty, too.

agh... now it's GenCon... I'll be in the art show. Not prepared, again! I'll sign cards, though... No problem with that...

Car-mageddon... No, not the old video game... This was the news and other folk having a bit of fun with the crazy appellations given to events--in this case, the weekend closure of one of the busiest freeways in the Los Angeles area (and the country)-- the 405, San Diego Freeway, running between the 10,Santa Monica, and the 101, Ventura. It sounds dry... and nasty given the amount of traffic in L.A. without any problems on the freeways, so the name, CAR-MAGEDDON was about the only fun thing to latch on to. I love that they were trying to put some humor into the situation, though. (and can laugh at themselves, since they really DO go overboard with sensationalizing the news at times)

Strangely enough, although everyone was thinking of getting out of the area for the weekend, I headed towards it... But, as reported... the car-pocalypse didn't happen (I'm sure because of all the hype about it). I stayed in all weekend, anyway. I hate traffic (which means I hate driving in L.A.).

................

Now, the San Diego Comic Con starts tomorrow (Preview Night-- Wednesday). I'll be sharing a booth with Diana Stein once again in the Fantasy Illustrators area (around entries F and G, I think). It'll be listed under LEE & STEIN or something like that.

As usual, I am totally, and I mean TOTALLY unprepared... Diana even broke e-mail silence to try and give me a friendly kick in the butt, but it sadly didn't work...

Oh, well.

I sucked at selling Girl Scout cookies, too.

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I WILL be hauling along a doll (if I remember) of course, for the Panel/Meetup on Sunday... Not even sure which one. Gah. So pathetic...

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... but I survived car-mageddon...

I have the perfect number of tiny anthro bjds for a fun little Tea Party! They are roughly Barbie-scale, they are shorter of course, but the re-ment food looks great and Barbie-sized furniture is easily found on ebay--so I went hunting and had fun putting together all the props.



Harry Haredini (Cocotribe Jerry) loves to host the party. To his left is Justin Alastair (Zuzu Delf Duke Lio), back from his adventures on the high seas, and Seth (Pipos Bao), a newpaper reporter, and young Freckles (Alice piggy) who definitely enjoys the cakes and sweets!


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Labyrinth of Jareth is coming up...
What are we dressing up as, we wonder???

Just got back from the fabulous, incomparable Illustration Master Class. I will report on it soon. ^^

doll_paparazzi has a photo-spread in the current, Summer 2011, issue of FDQ, (Fashion Doll Quarterly magazine), featuring fantasy-themed bjds.

Fashion Doll Quarterly site

I was happy to lend some of my bjds as models--
anthros: Delf Zuzu Duke Lio, Pipos Bao, Elfdoll Alice piggy, CocoTribe Jerry.
tinies: Bambicrony Elf Light Slate Gray Pepe, Sleeping Elf tiny Moona
mini: Kay Wigg's blue Koneko
large: Delf Elf El, Delf Elf El Vampire, Delf Juri '05
larger: Soom Monthly Dolls, Heliot and Euclase


some out of focus photos of the pages here

hotmarscube-- your mushrooms are credited
aries_jordan-- the micro-macrame my Elf El Vamp is wearing is credited
---yay!

From the magazine, doll_paparazzi's fantastic photo of my Elurin and Irime (Elf El and Juri '05)--

(geesh, I'm so behind with my lj-ing...)

Last month I was a GoH (art) at ConStellation. It was cool because about 10 years before I was out to an Omaha con as a guest. I'd never otherwise be in that part of the country, and it's just a lovely area, so I was happy to have another chance to see it.

The con was held over my birthday. I'm not a huge birthday fan these days, so that was not a problem for me. But the birthday thing seemed to want to make itself known. On the way out I sat with a lovely woman who was visiting Los Angeles with friends. We chatted about all kinds of fun things on the leg to DFW (and I can really chatter like a madman if people let me). Anyway, at the end we finally exchanged names and she said--"oh, were you born in April?" and I said yes and told her when, and she said she had the SAME birthday. I think I've only met one other person who had the same birthday as I had, so this was funny/weird. Anyway, we wished each other Happy Birthday.

Then I get to the con... get shown around and checked-in and shepherded nicely to the Opening Ceremony... The writer GoH is Jim C. Hines who wrote the Goblin Quest books and the _Step-sister Scheme_ and many others.

Some of his books on Amazon.

We get introduced and the con com folk get introduced and announcements are made, etc. And then at the end they say they have a special surprise for Jim and I, which makes me cast worried looks about... It turns out that we are both have the SAME birthday so they break out this lovely cake---



It has a picture of one of my L5R cards on it and one of Jim's covers. ... And it has very tasty buttercream icing which is nearly extinct out here. ... and for some reason they don't seem to always get Jim's name right... (or maybe that's just bad hand-writing?).

Now... I was seriously sleep-deprived (as usual), so I was thinking I'd gone into the twilight zone and suddenly every new person I was meeting had the same birthday as I did... or they SAY they do! Heh-heh... Maybe I get a little paranoid at times... Anyway-- it was WEIRD. Plus I was outed as someone who obviously did nothing special on my birthday... although I guess celebrating it with an author and a mess of other people at a convention is kinda special... if totally unplanned. Hmmm.

It was nice of them. And I guess it was impossible to resist doing something with both of us having a birthday like that...! They knew our birthdays 'cause they needed them for buying the plane tickets. I tend to keep info like that quiet... what with identity thefts and all (geesh, maybe I AM paranoid?). Plus, I don't like the attention, which I feel weird about saying since being a GoH tends to put oneself in the way of lots of attention. (So, paranoid, confused and masochistic... Yeah, I get that way at times...not to mention, abusive with ellipses...)

The media guest, Chris Mihm, wasn't there for the OC, but I finally got to ask him when HIS birthday was... It was also in April--about a week later, though. Not freaky-weird, but still weird.

Chris makes the greatest '50's-style B-Movie films.
Here's his website.

Definitely one of my more unusual Birthdays, for sure!

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Today was the last launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

I was lucky enough to get to view a launch in-person when I was in Orlando for the SF Worldcon in '92. It was the Endeavour, and it thankfully took off without any delays that would have caused us to miss seeing a launch since we were there such a brief time. And after, we went to have a tour of the Kennedy Space Center. It was such a great experience. Strange to think the Shuttle Launches are ending...