This one is watermarked because it is actually very close to me, as its the first painting I’ve done that was completely spontaneous.  Started out as some swirly colors and dodging and burning, then it just appeared.  

Check out my deviantArt (http://jenniferashley.deviantart.com)  to see a larger view.

Ugh I haven’t been able to finish ANYTHING lately.  

So I give up.  This will eventually be a full piece but I got so obsessive with Ayrs since I’ve had her in my mind for oh, about 8 years now, and I’ve never actually done a true concept drawing of her that wasn’t super manga-style or in pencil.  The final piece is going to be hearth-side, thus the warm lighting, even if it looks a little weird with the lack of background.  I assure it will make sense at some point when I should bother to finish it.

Ayrya:

I’ve a couple of other half-done things that I’ll post in the next few days.

Update:

Well I decided that I’d rather redo these up a little, add some color and all. 

Kaoko:

Old Version is on the Left:

Mineki:

Old Version is on the Left:

"Once when the gentle rain fell I glided in a barge down a sunless stream under the earth till I reached another world of purple twilight, iridescent arbours, and undying roses." -- Ex Oblivion, H.P. Lovecraft

So for Halloween, like every year for the past few years I’ve been reading a fair amount of Lovecraft, and as always I am overwhelmed by the imagery his words invoke in me.

Roses: Brushes created from pictures of roses I received for Valentine’s a few years back

Grove: Taken from a picture of Rhode Island when I visited in 2006.

For a larger view, visit my deviantArt entry.

I tried this technique of painting without first having an underdrawing, just for kicks. It didn’t turn out too badly so I am uploading it here. Photoshop brushes were custom-made by me.

My Wolf, Hirulji:

I had a very weird experience this weekend.

As some of you may know, after being a copious meat-eating anti-vegetable girl, I have been vegetarian since mid June. I read the RAVE diet, watched the “Eating” documentary that came along with the book, and vicariously read most of “The China Study.” I signed onto PETA’s Goveg 30 day challenge in mid June. (Not that I’m a huge fan of PETA, but dang do they have some of the best, most easily navigated resources for being vegan.)

Surprisingly enough, this has mostly worked out for me. I made it through being vegan for about 3 weeks, then work and stress and life got to me and I started having some dairy as well, mostly in the form of latte or cheese. I can proudly say that until yesterday, I had eaten no meat except for the possibility of a few stray bacon bits and some egg in ranch dressing and baked goods for over 2 months, going on 3 now.

But lately I’ve been feeling really down and blah (probably due to the weather) and I REALLY wanted cajun food. So I decided, that since “The China Study” said that it was occasionally okay to eat fish, I’d try some cajun catfish. There wasn’t much on the menu other than salads that were horribly expensive because they came with an entire chicken breast or some such type thing on top of them, and from experience they don’t tend to give you a discount when you ask for no meat.

Now since I’ve been off of meat, I can say that I really do not miss it. While the memory of the pleasurable taste or convenience of going to McD’s and getting a 99cent double cheeseburger with no pickles or onions remains with me, when I imagine the actual act of chewing and ingesting the meat and associated grease I’m generally no longer interested.

So I was like, “okay i’m just gonna try this fish. i used to kinda like it when i was little.”

Granted I’ve never been much of a fish fan, and all other seafood is right out (with the exception of these particular crab cakes in my favorite sushi restaurant–when you’re faced with the options of expensive delicious chicken or steak, or more reasonable fish and seafood sushi, a spicy tasty crab cake goes a long way towards making you feel not so left out).

So to my experience with the cajun fried catfish.

I looked at it and wasn’t too offended. When I tasted it first I can say that I actually liked it more than I’d ever liked fish in the past. And instead of the weird “eating flesh” vibes that I would normally get when thinking of eating meat, I kept thinking “Wow. I am eating a fish. Fish are nasty; they swim around and breath water that they’ve pooped in, and generally they look gross, why am I eating a fish?”

I made it through one strip batter fried with cajun spices and fresh lemon squirted on and the best most excellent honey mustard sauce I’ve ever tasted.

Then I was done. I tried to take it home but the smell by the time we got there was too much for my fiance or myself, and so we just ditched it in the dumpster on the way up.

So yeah. No fish. Gonna start getting rid of the dairy again; I felt so much better when I didn’t eat cheese or milk.

Beritalis & Luca

Original Fantasy Characters; more on them another time.

Kitawa Keiji

Original Character, originally from L5r, but still mine.

2nd to Latest Work

In the midst of my WoW experience…ok fine I did 99% of it before I started playing WoW again….anyway…

So I was poking about on facebook and deviantArt, talking with my L5R friend LadyEntropy about art and how I need 1000 times more practice. I got to thinking that maybe she’d like it if I painted one of her drawings as a present. I did not alter any of her line art, and in fact left it a little darker than I normally would so as to highlight her beautiful lines and shading. So with her permission here is the final piece:

A Moment of Quiet Repose by ~LadyEntropy on deviantART

The original work can be found here: A Moment of Quiet Repose by LadyEntropy on deviantArt

/say Um…I feel like an addict…one that was recovering and slipped…

/say Heck the idea might apply.

/shy

/say I started playing World of Warcraft again…with their updates and my better video gaming skills its a 1000 times more fun than it was the first time I played…

/cry

/say I have so many bad memories of the past time I played WoW. It was very frustrating…took me an entire year to get to level 60, the max at that time. Granted I started playing 3 days after the game was released, and there was a lot left to be improved that could only be discovered by people playing the game, and a huge learning curve for me since I’m not very good at comp games, only console ones, and even then I’m generally just mediocre.

/cry

/say now they’ve apparently made it easier to get to lvl 60 since they want everyone to play in their new area for 60 to 70, the new max. I’ve played for less than a week and I’m already level 22. I know I’m playing a warrior which at this level takes a little less skill in general than rogue, which is what I played to 60, and I do have my evasion skills carefully honed by months of “Please don’t aggro on me I don’t want to die and run across the map for 7 minutes AGAIN!” practice.

/scream

/say Sorry the memories bring back all the adrenaline into my system and I want to crawl into a dark hole and hide. I was wandering through Night Elf lands, Ashenvale and Astranaar and Stonetalon on Kalimdor last night with my fiance and friend. All I kept saying was “I remember this place.” “I hate this place.” “No we can’t go there.” “I was underleveled when I came here and died 80,000 times.” “No we’re not going to Redridge I’d rather die here 80,000 more times than -ever- see/hear/kill/loot another one of those hyena things again.” “OH GNOLLS they’re called gnolls!”

/cry

/say it also helps that I’m playing one of the new races that was included with the Burning Crusade expansion, the Draenei. Yes I’m still stuck on the alliance side even though Belfs are HOTT and I really want to play one, really really bad. I mean really bad. I played them before the expansion was released and pushed back like 3 times at BlizzCon in October 2005. http://jenniferashleyart.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=36

/say Yes I got my face painted to look like a Night Elf. All my further NE’s have those face markings. When I made Ayrya I couldn’t see b/c my monitor was so dark and my vid card was poor. So she ended up with maple leaves on her eyes. Which is annoying b/c I really like those markings. I almost remade her but then I’d have been completely behind and have cried a lot.

/cry

/say I really like the abbreviation NE though. In D&D terms it stands for Neutral Evil. Understanding the ramifications of Neutral Evil, it tends to work out for me in roleplay because its all about being self centered. I am a self centered creature. It works. Night Elves work for me too.

/say So yeah I logged out of my main, Ayrya, a 60 NE Rogue on Earthen Ring 2 years ago right around Christmas.

/say How do I know it was around Christmas? Here’s how.

WTF?

oh.

[Esc]

Exit Game *click*