Heather Dixon Wallwork's Blog, page 22

Window stories

Fw-ii-ii-iiip.
And then, this:
Fw-ii-ii-iiip. And then...
Fw-ii-ii-iiip.
I've noticed these Things are getting progressively larger.
I'm kind of scared to open them again.


SPEAKING of windows!
Remember my Gibson Girl kitchen? Well I made curtains!

I'm very proud of them. In fact I am so proud, I think I might quit this whole artist thing and make pelmets for a living!
That's all tentative, of course. I still have to figure out how to keep them up. (They keep falling down. Velcro I guess isn't doing the job.) Maybe I should try tape...which is pretty much all they're made out of. You don't want to see the other side of that valance. In fact it's probably good I don't open my blinds anymore. :)

speedpaints schmeedpaints

Some 15-30 min speedpaints. I think most of them are backgrounds from Samurai Jack, but there's a Grinch and Mr. Magoo in there too.

They are all flat and kind of chalky. I like flat and chalky, but lately I've felt like a bum because I'm not pushing myself. I'll work on fleshier stuff now.

The Dance of...Love...

Many people don't know this, but I'm silver certified in both Latin & Standard dance.

I'm not real good at it, though. This is, possibly, because I was born with a peg leg.
I don't really want to talk about it.

Anyway, because of this pairing up in dance class was hard. I told myself it was because the guys were shallow, but looking back, I realize it was probably because of Charlie.
Actually I'm pretty sure it was because of Charlie.

HOWEVER this did not stop me from entering a rumba contest! The rumba is known as the dance of love. I don't know why. It hurts like Hades to do.
However I'm always up for a challenge and I feel it a crime to hide the world from my bota fogos!

Also, it was assigned.


The teacher lined us up in rows, girls on one side, and boys on the other, gave us numbers, and randomly matched us. When they got to the best dancer in the class, MY NAME WAS CALLED!! He went like this:
Of course when I saw that, I went like this: So both of us were like this: We got an hour of classtime to practice. It went real well. Oh yes. He was one of those dancers.
That hour was like slitting my wrists and doing pushups in the Great Salt Lake. I had had enough. I didn't care if I flunked the class. I was outta there. However I have a lot of stamina and determination and felt I should continue on!

The next few days, I was on FIRE.
I got new dancing shoes. I practiced in front of the mirror. I went to a dance lab with my partner and practiced for HOURS and lost my favorite earring (and no, he didn't tell me I was New Yorkering around with only one earring in.)

When I found the earring, it had been squashed flat and looked like this: And no I am not still bitter about this!

Competition night came as I finished my custodial shift. I rushed to the ballroom to discover it PACKED. There were about 300 couples there.*
*ballroom dance is like a religion at BYU.

AWESOME. THE PRIZE WAS GONNA BE HUGE!!!
Throughout every heat, I was a dancing queen! My hip action was impeccable! My rhythm was beyond reproach!
I even pretended to like my partner!*
*this was hard

So when the winners were announced on the projector--
Yes, it was true. We had won 4th place.

(!!!!)

They lined up the winners
And gave us our prizes. They were...

candybars. I picked out my bar and stared at it.

It seemed to get bigger.
And bigger... And then the world turned red. RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!
RAAAARGH!!! RAAAAAARGH!!!
RAAAWWRRAAAAWRAAAAWRRR!!!
Well.

Ok.

That might have been...a little different than...what...actually happened.

What actually happened:
And then I walked home in the rain.
You may think that this has been a Very Sad Story with a Very Sad Ending. However, you would BE WRONG.

This story has a very HAPPY ending:
My partner and I avoided each other like the plague after that. I never had to dance with him again!

And I got an A in the class.

And the reese's wasn't bad I guess.

So all in all, not bad for a girl with a peg leg.

Holiday Diptych

To kind of go along with the Butterfly Diptych :)

It was my birthday this weekend, and my friends gave me a Mary Poppins party (!) We had lunch w/a spoonful of sugar, explored the countryside, flew kites, and fed the birds.

Me feeding the birds

Oh come on, it's right there. You can't miss it!

They also gave me tuppence. Tuppence! They are REAL!!
I am a lucky girl :) :)

"Labyrinth" is probably what being on drugs is like

And don't you try to deny it.
I have no idea why I did a picture of this, other than it's a total iconic 80s cult film. It was fun as heck to draw. Apparently the girl got to keep the dress after the show! I looked it up. In the dictionary. There's a picture of her under the word "lucky".

Another neat thing: the ballroom is shaped like a ball. (!) A small one. So she's...just sort of...wandering around in circles.

I spent like 8 hours figuring this out


She just goes round and around!
Round and around and around!
I realize that not everyone can stay up til 3 in the morning to figure out the sequence staging of obscure Jim Henson films but as you may have noticed I am a very special sort of person and so it is with a great sense of responsibility that I step into this role.

Want more of that Goblin King goodness? Every year in LA there's a Jareth's masked ball. Fear him...love him...do as he says, and he will be something something. I can never remember that line.

Trailer final

It usually takes me about 3 complete redo's of a project before I'm pointed in the right direction.
Here's a sampling of the early draft:
Ok, 13 seconds is pleeeenty.
Final draft of the trailer ended up more like this:
And here's the final!
Lots of thanks to pass around--Alex Bell, who helped me with the AfterEffects stuff, rendering and the 3D butterfly (I owe you man), Matt Gates, who composed the beautiful and haunting music, and for the images: Etsy, istockphoto, and especially The Graphics Fairy.  Also, thanks to Greenwillow, who gave me the opportunity.

For teh Coloring Win!

And now...the coloring post!

This post is hard for me to post.  I thought ALL the entries were incredible (one had an entire castle panorama and another even had a giant stained-glass window in the background (Egads!!)) and I wanted everyone to win, so it hurts to say that only some people get stuff.  BUT then I realized that everyone who entered is a winner, because they received the pure joy of coloring the picture!  Your crayons may be smaller, but your hearts are full of love.  Yes.  You are ALL winners!*

*Except you don't get stuff**
**aaaargh aaargh I'm such a jerk!

Alex Bell, the judge, said it was tricky to decide.  He decided mostly on color schemes, so this is Coloring Contest: Hardcore.  Alex is a crazy good artist, and has done Artist's Alley at Comic-Con.  Here is his blog.  Go stalk him!

I promised I would post the coloring contest winnahs yesterday, but it occurred to me I'd better ask the peeps if it was ok to post these.  They all said yes and here they are! 
 Elisabeth Clyde won in the 0-11 yr category

The 0-19 category had a tie!
 Josie Phillips
 and Keisha Okafor   Kimberly Kay won an honorable mention in this category ^^  (honorable mentions get a beaded bookmark...luckeeeeee)    20+ category winner was Kevin Nordstrom
 And honorable mention goes to Julie Graham

Everyone, thank you so much for entering!  I was thrilled with the response.  You are all EPIC!

Living Downtown

I don't know what it is, but I've never seen bigger bugs than I have since I've moved downtown. They're not just big...they're LIKE NIGHTMARES FROM THE MESOZOIC ERA!!

I had a centipede invade my house last week! I've never seen a centipede before! THEY'RE HIDEOUS!!!!!!!!

!!!! !!! !!!!

Boy, I Raided that sucker. I Raided it good.

And then I sprayed it from this angle.

And then I sprayed it from this angle.

And then I sprayed it from this angle!!

Here's a top view of me spraying it.

And then I vacuumed it up!

And then I took out the vacuum bag and stomped on it!

And then I set the vacuum bag on fire!!

And then I stuffed the bag down the garbage disposal.
HA! That'll show it.

But just to be safe, I sprayed the entire apartment, including the walls and down the drains and stuff.

The rest of the night I had a weird cough and the world looked like this:

But I still couldn't sleep, because I kept imagining centipedes crawling everywhere.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!

I ended up spending the rest of the night like this.
The shadows were jumping.

I was pretty sure I had the bug isssssue taken care of.

Until this morning.

SLAM!
WHERE DID IT COME FROM????

FFOOOOOSH!! FWOOSH!! WHIIIIIIIIRRRRRR!!!
Etc.

I decided it came back probably because I hadn't sprayed everything well enough. So this time I really sprayed the place!
cough cough

Ok. Well so far I haven't seen any more bugs. But, really...I've got to figure out a permanent solution here. Either I A) Need to find a bug spray that works better, or B) Get me a husband already so he can smash all the bugs. Aaargh! I hate marrying for the wrong reason!

Although, I dunno...
I kinda like how I feel right now.

Trailer pics

A bit of a com-post today. When books are released, part of the promotion is a book trailer. A book trailer is like a movie trailer except completely different.
Because I like makin stuff, I was really happy when Greenwillow was willing to give me the reins. I had some vague idea to do an animatic, but it ended up being crummy and I'm not ashamed to say it. So, I was glad when they let me scrap the entire thing and make something that I felt was way more appealing. Phew.
Here are some boardy frames from the original. It was a good project, I'm glad I could do it.

Trailer pics 1

A bit of a com-post today. When books are released, part of the promotion is a book trailer. A book trailer is like a movie trailer except completely different.
Because I like makin stuff, I was really happy when Greenwillow was willing to give me the reins. I had some vague idea to do an animatic, but it ended up being crummy and I'm not ashamed to say it. So, I was glad when they let me scrap the entire thing and make something that I felt was way more appealing. Phew.
Here are some boardy frames from the original. It was a good project, I'm glad I could do it.