Some artness. :)

Howl, Sophie and Calcifer from Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle. photoshop
I obviously have absolutely no idea what to do with backgrounds. None at all. *sigh* Cellish-like shading wasn’t necessarily quicker, I’m still searching for ditigal painting techniques that I really enjoy. Need to go read more tutorials.

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I went to Apollocon this weekend! :) But more on that later. First–

I have a FRIEND. Y’all don’t know how excited this makes me. I haven’t had a ‘let’s hang out and go cool places together’ gal friend in the Houston area since 8th grade. Most of my life it has been me, my family, my books, and, since high school graduation, the internet. And that was it.

I have a FRIEND! *runs around excitedly*

In Utah these last two years I gained real and true girl friends who I loved and loved to be with. It was so fabulously wonderful. Having friends is still a very new sensation for me, and I really didn’t want to be without it. That’s one of the reasons I came home instead of finding a job in some strange city: I either want to be with friends or with my family, I do not want to be without one or the other. I don’t like to be alone anymore.

My friend’s net alias shall hereby be ‘Junebug’.

I finally got around to going to the ‘Single’s Ward,’ which is the LDS congregation for young single people, last week, and I met Junebug in Sunday School. We got talking and, to avoid the overused expression “we just clicked,” we fell into friendly companionship immediately. XD Where we aren’t similar, she’s like my mother, which is hilarious, really. She’s just moved here from Wyoming to be a high school Spanish teacher, and knows no one, and I’m oh so happy to be her friend.

Junebug is my age, she sings, acts, is a voracious reader, and, like my mother, she went on a mission to Uruaguy and graduated in Spanish. She collects movies and books, and isn’t into anime at all, (which I may be able to change once I get my hands on a copy of Fruits Basket, mwahhah) but she doesn’t seem to mind my rambling on about it. :)

Last Sunday she asked me if I was doing anything that week, and I said, “I’m going to a Science Fiction convention, wanna come?” She’s only a mild fantasy fan, but she said yes, and so we went to Apollocon this weekend and had A LOT of fun.

I’m just SO excited to have a girl friend to hang out with and enjoy in Houston!!!1!!eleven!! *squeee!!!!*

I finally got to see the Disney dub release of Howl’s Moving Castle in the theater today! ^__^ I LOVE this movie!

It’s only playing in 4 theaters in Houston, all of which are across town from me. (Disney’s doing a lousy job promoting Howl.) >:[ *scowl*

Oh, it was SO PRETTY. I definitely recommend that everyone go see it. The detail in the backgrounds is just so beautiful. And the dubbers were able to make a few things clear that were either not clear before, or the fan translaters had missed about the Japanese version. This version made the most sense, story-wise. And it was good to finally be able to see it clearly. :)

The two English Sophie’s were nice, her old lady voice was very appropriate, though they seemed to have completely different accents. I liked the Witch of the Waste’s English voice better–actually sounds female, what a thought–and I didn’t mind Billy Crystal as Calcifer. Christian Bale as Howl seemed to be doing some husky whispering the entire time, which I didn’t like, but oh well.

I can’t wait for the dvd release so I can see it pretty and in Japanese. :)

EVERYONE go SEE IT! Hopefully it will come out in wide release soon. Like, actually in “a theater near you” and all that intelligent movie-promoting stuff.

I just stumbled across this 10 mins ago.

Daniel Powter’s music video Bad Day (yahoo link) is utterly honest and adorable, and makes me happy. And not just because it’s about two artists. ^__^

And while I’m at it, artness–

I’ve been trying to work on forced perspective.

Well, I got there too late, so I had to reschedule my jury duty. tah.
But at least I know where to park now.

SeethyBoy has tagged me, so I shall subject you all to the Music Meme! But I come bearing gifts! Oh, my evil file sharing ways. (SpiffyEm tagged me earlier and I missed it! Oh, bad friend am I!)

Instructions:
List five songs that you are currently digging … it doesn’t matter what genre they are from, whether they have words or even if they’re any good but they must be songs you’re really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artist and the song in your blog along with your five songs. Then tag five other people to see what they’re listening to.

1. Shining–Kristian Leontiou
This song has won my heart. *.* My sister discovered it on the “Win a Date with Ted Hamilton” soundtrack, but don’t let that deter you. Someone REALLY needs to make a Bleach AMV to this song, it just fits so well.

2. Walkin In The Air–Nightwish
Finnish gothmetal band with an operatic lead singer (yayness!). They have a few soft songs that are just lovely. This is one of my favorites.

3. Life is Like a Boat–Rie Fu–first Bleach closing song
Love this song. Rie Fu spent some childhood in the US, which explains her excellent American twang. I thought they had gotten a USofA white girl to sing this song until I looked it up.

4. The Dream Of The Red Mansion–Guo Brothers & Shung Tian
Honest to goodness real traditional Chinese music. XD And I quite love it.

5. Sound Life–AKIMA & NEOS–Trigun soundtrack
Passing it on. :) The whole story of Vash, Knives, and Rem from Trigun makes me cry, and this song is beautiful.

Tagging: Who HASN’T done this one yet? Oh, Kaladhwen, Kabochan, and Volscian! If you’ve already done it, just give me a baleful stare and link me to it, cause I missed it.

BTW, this community is corrupting me even more with the fannish music+story love.

Pajama Padme–Oh so true. >:]

I have jury duty tomorrow. Araghwulfsljsoiuerwdkfhsghh…

If I don’t post for a while, you know why.

….I’ll likely still be lost in Downtown Houston’s fricken one way streets! -_-

Yesterday my sister and I went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science for the traveling Lord of the Rings Exhibition. Don’t ask my why it’s at the Museum of Natural Science, but I’m not complaining that Houston is one of it’s few USA stops. :D

It was very cool. All of the videos they had playing can be found on the DVD extras, but what I came for were the costumes and concept art. Those were fabulous. ^__^ They had Aragorn’s Ranger outfit, Arwen’s Riding outfit and pale blue dress, Galadriel’s dress, both shattered and reforged Narsil, the Evenstar necklace, the Light of Eärendil vial–you know, cool stuff. Lots of armor, weapons, orcs, and the best part was that they had posted for each item the list of materials it was made of. So many were of natural materials: wool, leather, suede, linen, and silk. Glass beads, steel, copper. Great stuff. Makes me want to go learn how to forge my own armor and make my own jewelry.

There was lots of original concept art framed on the walls. Alan Lee loves to sketch delicate and detailed environmental designs with very light pencil strokes. The concept of ‘pushing your blacks’ does not seem to have occurred to him. John Howe’s work is nice and concrasty, thank goodness, but the ones that really stood out to me were tiny little acrylic environmental concept paintings by an artist whose name I never caught. These paintings captured color, mood and lighting so wonderfully with only loose strokes in a tiny space. I looked at them in awe because they are just something I don’t think I could ever do. Lovely.

They wouldn’t allow cameras in the exhibit, and when I got the tickets they told me they wouldn’t allow sketchbooks!!1!one! I made a fuss about that. “No sketching! What kind of idiots are SO concerned about their intellectual property…*grumble grumble* I can find it all online anyway, why in the world…!” “Did you intend on sketching?” they asked. “Yes, I was.”

So, sorry, I have no sketched details of the designs on Theodin’s battle armor. I might not of gotten around to sketching anything anyways, but just the fact that they were saying ‘no sketching’….

Grr.

Anyways, afterwards we went through the Gold Exhibit and looked at all the shiny, sparkly things, and by that time my brain was well and truly fried and overloaded. :)

I’ve been sitting on this one for a bit.

I like it. :) Markers, and fire, yay.

I’ve started going to my single’s ward activities finally. Go me.
Well, actually, it’s a fabulous girl in my town who is already going and is willing to drive me and invite me that’s getting me to go. Everything is in the middle of Houston and I hate hour long drives to everything, so I wasn’t motivating myself to go on my own.

Yesterday, my dad and I drove Enid to a week-long camp that’s past Waco. There and back=10 hours. bleghhghg.

Too much driving lately. Can’t wait for instant teleportation. I’m not holding my breath.