Azvolrien

Still alive! Anyway, an open question to my watchers on here (I know you're out there somewhere): I'm trying to do a bit of market research, so to speak, about the possibility of opening commissions. So, bearing in mind that I would be working for cash, (pounds sterling, £), not DA points, my questions are as follows:

A) If I were to open commissions, how many of you would consider buying one?

B) I'm aiming to get a fair price for my time and effort without pricing myself out of the young market I think form my main audience, so how much would you be prepared to buy for work of the following kinds of complexity or completion? Going in descending order of time spent, here:

1. Full colour, with a background (albeit not a wildly detailed background, as I'm not very good at them), e.g. Wasteland Warrior.
2. Full colour, more complex shading, but without a proper background, e.g. Lumberjack Centaur.
3. Full colour, cel shading, no background, e.g. Being more festive.
4. Greyscale shading, no background, e.g. Takkar Brings Word. 
5. Lineart alone, e.g. Body type.
   

I'd be aiming to work primarily with digital media, but I'd be willing to work in traditional as well - technical pens, coloured pencils, some watercolour paint - if specified.

Thank you!

Again, as much to change the entry on the front page as anything else. So, a few big things that've happened in the last year:
- Graduated university with a 2:1 in Environmental Geoscience
- Acquired, played and beat Assassin's Creed I and II
- Dad adopted both a new dog and a new baby
- Both parents turned 55
- Had a few job interviews
- Learned to moonwalk properly.

This is mostly because my DA journal hasn't been updated in literally more than a year, and I figured I should finally get that SOPA entry off the front page. XD

The university's annual Geological Society Spring Ball was last night, and as usual I attended. Dress code was, I suppose, technically formal wear but the event never ends up being particularly formal - 160+ students and as much alcohol as people can afford isn't an arrangement that lends itself to a formal evening. It's always a ceilidh, which must be a bit of an odd experience for the first-timers - there were about as many people on the dancefloor with no idea what they were doing as there were people who knew every dance by heart.

There are a few things to bear in mind at a ceilidh - or at least, every ceilidh I've ever been to:
- Nobody cares who you dance with. Most dances were devised with even numbers of men and women in mind, but in practise nobody ever bats an eyelid if the ratio is skewed one way or another.
- Either wear comfy shoes or no shoes at all. High heels or flats that fall off easily are not going to work.
- Stretch your calf muscles beforehand. Really can't stress that one enough. XD

Watch This Video

Keep boosting the signal, guys - get this out to as many people as you can. Cross-post to blogs, put it on forums - get it out there. Show these guys that hypocrisy doesn't fly.

So.

A bit more than a month ago, my mum was walking back from dropping some DVDs off at the Blockbusters down at Tollcross, and spotted a wee poster in the window of the Edinburgh Bookshop, an independent one near Holy Corner (not a huge premises, but a pretty good selection if you're ever in the area). It was advertising 'An Evening with Neil Gaiman' - tickets £10 each, including £5 off a book bought at the event.

A couple of hours ago, said evening took place. The whole event's been Tweeted here, but I wanted to give my own account nonetheless. I showed up a little too early; in the hopes of finding a good seat, I'd arrived before almost everyone else, possibly including Mr Gaiman. They opened the doors at about 7.20. I was there by 6.55, but it turned out for the best because I'd brought my sketchbook.

It started off with a reading. He read out one of his short stories, Chivalry, about an old lady who finds the Holy Grail in an Oxfam shop and ends up dealing with Sir Galahad, who needs it for a quest. He's got a great storytelling voice; kind of dryly humorous. You could always tell which character he was reading for, because he made these slight changes to his tone of voice, and it made a few lines that were sort of 'heh' when I first read the short story literally laugh-out-loug funny. Then we had a break, during which some snacks (cheese straws, crisps, bits of cucumber etc.) were set out and Neil did some book signing, and book doodling as well. He drew a little gravestone in my copy of The Graveyard Book, and I told him that I'd liked the English script he did for Princess Mononoke. Apparently people don't often remember he wrote that. The event organiser handed out some bits of paper for people to write down questions, and they were all put in a bowl for her to pick out a few for Neil to answer. I asked 'Is the Black Cat that helps Coraline the same one that fights the Devil in The Price?', but it wasn't picked. A few of the ones that were included 'Where did you get the idea for the button eyes in Coraline?' (answer: "I really don't know"), 'What's your top writing tip?' ("Finish things"), and 'What's the spookiest thing that's ever happened to you?' (meeting a silent woman dressed like a gypsy under a street lamp when he was twelve). After the Q&A, folk just started packing up and he did a bit more book signing, including signing some copies for (I presume) the bookshop to sell. I gave him a picture I'd drawn of Sleipnir ("Sleipnir: Steed of the All-Father, Son of the Sky Traveller, Freaky Mutant Horse"), and he shared his favourite theory about the idea that led to the idea of Odin's eight-legged steed: that bearing in mind Odin is a god of the gallows, it stemmed from the image of four men carrying a coffin. Then I shook his hand and headed out to catch a bus.

And a grand time was had by all!