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FORBIDDEN FRUIT ZINE Issue 16 has gone live. The artwork is now also buried within the stories as well as found in the galleries

Read Alyx Shaws fun sci/fi story WAITING FOR THE SUN and because the piccie is so small, check out the smuts larger HERE
NOT works safe so click with caution.


Also,please take a look at Eve le Dez's GORGEOUS artwork for the stories Canals of Mars and Home Cooking *^__^*

Sunday I was out of town all day in T.O. ~ the 60th birthday of a family friend ment much schmoozing and wondering how it was that I was included in yet another small gathering as part of the extended family....

...I must be a hellavahermit when people burst into tears when I actually show up at something. Seriously embarassing...again....=__=...

I know I need to work on my *staying connected* skills, but dayum.

ANYway ~ speaking of working on things ~ if you click on the little image (of Alyx Shaw's character, Tiff) you will see what I have been slogging at on my pc yesterday. 12hrs, several forgotten meals and one hand cramp later I am only half way done.

I am showing you a close-up because it occured to me, again, that I'm an idiot to fuss about the littlest detail (like the eye colouring) only to have the work finally appear online the size of a postage stamp ~ so people acknowledge the character probably has eyes, but the subtle shading is totally lost on everyone but my hand muscles. *face palm*

Seriously though ~ I wouldn't invest this many hours in anyones work other than Alyx. I will easily have doubled the time it takes me to do the artwork by the time I'm done it ~ but her stories have always made me happy over the years, and she deserves it.

IRONICALLY ~ I get word from one of the editors this morning, that the synopsis for the series I was (am) working on will be in this week...and the author sent a note through them that my work has been appreciated.

....give or take a YEAR. And now she's hopeful I'll illustrate a specific charcters yadda, yadda, yadda.

Oh...a request?

I am thinking...stick figures for you lady. >P

Anyway ~ gotta get the kid off to camp and then back to playing with my stylis...

....serioulsy....if I didn't have to get up early and get him out the door, I'd have probably worked through the night. THIS is why I don't DO much art ~ I totally resent having to deal with family when I get in *the zone*.

I've started on the peice for Alyx Shaw's story in the upcoming issue of ForbiddenFruit.

I won't be able to work on it again till Monday ~ but now I have the sketch atop which to build....this is going to be a riot. (you'll understand once you see the final illustration)

*^___^*

....yeah I'm going to be a very bad girl all next week. Good thing the kiddo is off to camp when am colouring things..*cough* ..at my pc. >D

Last night one of the editors at Forbidden Fruit Zine ~ sent out the signal to artists, that they are getting the new issue cobbled together and if anyone on their list of contributors is interested to let them know, blah blah blah.

The series I am working on should be a go, but due to a slight snafu, it's not entirely certain I will get the story in my hands to know what exactly it is I am illustrating, before I leave to go farmsit and I return after the deadline.

SO I requested to see the list of story summaries and pounced on one that reminded me of the first artwork I ever did for them ~ One I'd felt was too rushed on my part(very tight timeline for me) and I was never satisfied with the result. This story was scifi as well, and I enjoy something out of the box.....

...and when I was greenlighted on the tale and opened the authors draft I almost fell off my chair.

It's the sequel to that first story I illustrated for, Alyx Shaw's Life Out There. BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!

Colour me happy *^___^* (and amused once more by that serendipity thang)

Monday night...

Me: So what are we doing again??

Rach: The theme is *secret garden* and we are doing ....well the background with an gate through a wall....there will be a real arbor with flowers in front where couples will stand to get their photos taken... but we need to make a garden-type background.

Me: So where are the sketches?

Rach: ....

Me: ..okay the reference photos?

Rach:....

Me:...do you have any idea what we are doing?

Rach: .....not really. But whatever it is, it has to be subtle.

Me: and you have to study for your French finals right now and write them tomorrow, then you have an appointment with the naturopath and then hoop practice, while I have my parents here ALL DAY and well into the evening...so we won't really get at it until 8 or 9 pm..... and when we get on this it will be less than 18 hours before it gets picked up.

Rach:....yeah. Something like that.

Me: .....

Rach: Have I told you how much I love you lately?

Me: ...yes, and keep it coming.



( Prom painting )

So here it is ~ finally. The artwork for part two of Devil Kats, Sorcerers in Suits; from da latest issue of Forbidden Fruit

Click on the detail to see it all, and click on that to make it larger if you will.

I don't know why I go half blind with the details from eyecolour to putting shine onto the f**king cufflinks jewels & belt buckle...when in the end the image people see is so condensed and itty-bitty, you'd never know I'd agonized over fucking grommets on the boots!!!

"He snapped the tie like a whip from his fingers, and grabbed the bloodstone hilt of the Shadowed blade it became with practiced grace. Fire flowed down his body, his imported suit turning into leaf-patterned armor, his body Changing even as his defenses rose."

Anyway...thar he be.....in all his tranforming from Armani to armour glory. :)

ALSO ~ Check out Alyx Shaw's Saving Lazlo. It's a really lovely story, illustrated by the brilliant, Eve le Dez!

The new addition of zine Forbidden Fruit isn't officially out yet.

I've been checking every day since the 2nd, when it was supposed to go live and it's happening at a crawl.

*flaps hand*

...yeah yeah, I know that it's all volunteer, that the people doing the work have real lives that come first, etc...but I'm pouty because the stories are up, the authors able to flog them ~ but the artwork is not ~ and since that is what I contribute to I'm a bit miffed.

I mean...how hard can it be to drop in the images compared to the stories and reviews?

Once people read the stories I highly doubt they are going back to look at the artwork which is just a small cherry in the entire bowl of fruit.

*mopes*

Not that I see any point in moping. If and when the art goes up it's still the same ~ silence.

I recieve thanks from the editor naturally....but, I think the last time I heard a peep from an author was when I drew for Granamyr....in 2005 or 2006. From anyone else besides the editor or occasional author ... NEVER. Not one hiccup in all these years. I don't know if they liked or hated the work...maybe they say nothing because they are so horrified or disappointed they prefer to say nothing at all?

The fact remains though ~ if I didn't post the image in my journal to share with online friends or show my family, I'd only have my own opinions echoing in my head.

If I never hear another author whining about a lack of feedback again it won't we too soon.

I've been pre-occupied with odd things, in between the usual domestic run-around....things that I will speak of in depth.... at a later date..., when I am not trying really hard to ignore the siren call and prevent myself from getting in too deep.

I don't need another hobby. On the other hand I have come to understand the madness that surrounds dollies. Nuff said.

ANYway, last week was March Break and any routine I might have, such as it is.... was completely nuked right out of the water. BOOM. Many bodies floating to the top....one of them was my sanity.

Meanwhile, I recieved an email from a Forbiddenfruit Zine editor asking me if I'd been contacted about the illustration for the next volume...due in two weeks.

=__=

Ahhh.... no.

Well that's what I'm going to be up to for the rest of this week. This is the initial clean sketch of the character Kel from Devil Kats' story, Sorcerers in Suits.

Hope everyone is suriving their colds/flus/pre-spring blues, are not too knicker-knotted by the SUP-asshatery and are enjoying the first wave of real Spring weather (well except for those down under doing the flipside season...but I hope you are enjoying a break from the heat).

*wanders off to make coffee before sitting down to fight with the pc drawing program*

OLD AUNTIES NEW YEAR CARD ILLUSTRATION FINISHED!!


WOOHOO!!!

...and with two days to GO to BOOT

*^___^*!

*pats self on head*

....and now that I have put in my two hour *chatski* to my parents on teh phone I can sit back and enjoy some single malt. Tomorrow the gym and the business shop to pick up some printer ink (just in case) and then get cracking at printing up these babies and fire them off in the post before the annual *raise the postage costs because it's the new year and we can! hike. *^__^*

New Years' card illustration for *not the aunties* DONE!

...now to draw the *auntie safe* version of happy 2008 *^__^*

Hope everyone survived the week and is now flopped on a couch somewhere ~ buried in a good book, absorbed with a good movie or show and blissed out in general as we head into the home stretch of 2007.

I have the house to myself today and will be working on the *not-for-the-old-aunties* New Years card illustration. *^___^*

*Waiting for the rice cooker to cough up breakies before I slide my brain into da zone*