amypeterson

This is it

This is going to be the year

I will break out! (runs back under a rock)

Just submitted to Nightmare Nights, so fingers crossed I can get a vendor space!

Planning on expanding my Ponies of the Five Rings mythos.  I dont know if I will create an actual printed scenario, I'm not that great of a storyteller, but if I can give people the ideas of how to start and play the game, then that makes me happy.  
I will soon create character sheets for the Mane 6, and then proceed from there.  The problem is finding a suitable relationship between how Princesses and Royalty works in MLP.  There is a prince, and he is related to Princess Celestia, but he isnt magical in the same sense she is.  Now, there is a King, but he is also from a different zone, so do I treat that like America (President) and England (Queen)?  Then how does THAT correlate to the powers of Celestia and Luna?  Where does Cadence and Twilight fit in this? How do I convert that to l5r, which whilst Asian inspired, is still it's own thing.

Its all so confusing.  I find it amusing when I get into these discussions with my husband, who kknows more l5r lore then Pony lore.  Its eveen more hilarious when we do this at a fancy restaurant (Waffle House is fancy right?)

I am also looking at perhaps working on PonyFinder characters too... more on that soon mwahaha

So, I'm trying to make this a semi regular occurance, typing my thoughts and feelings regarding mine and others art.  It's been helping me focus on projects and actually completing them.  The ramblings will continue!

I suffer, like a lot of artists I suppose do, from the green eyed monster.  "I wish I was as good as X", "How does Y do it?!" "I can do SO much better then N, why do they get all the praise?", and it tends to affect my work... in that I don't do it.  Why bother?  Someone else (Probably Y, that witch lol) will do a better job of it then I will, so just forget it, use that time and waste it stupidly (by playing games that just give you more ideas on what to draw, just so you can give up on them later on).

I hate this.  It plagues me every time I pick up a pencil.  Every stroke could be, for me, the one that utterly ruins the picture, so I crumple it up, toss it at the wall, and stomp off.  Even though the rest of it was great, it's now *drama couch* the worst, possible, thing EVAH!

This is why I'm doing these journals, and just generally being more productive on deviantart.  I get this off my chest, and then I can get back to work.  

I dunno, I guess thats it for now.  I'm doing my best at being more social, which I suck at.  So, yeah....

I was sitting here, trying to get into the mood to finish inking a series of MLP/Crossover I've been working on, and I got to wondering.  Why?

Why am I doing this?  I suppose it's one of those things that pops into my head and makes me wonder about things.

So, why?  It's not for fame or fortune, though being able to quit my job and be an artist full-time would be wonderful, but I kinda enjoy working too, I get to meet people I normally wouldn't, and although there are the few wankers out there, overall, it's enjoyable.  I'm too shy to promote myself too much in the artworld, but would also like to (I guess this is why I'm doing art shows for now, and not art tables).

So, not fame and fortune, for the enjoyment of it then?  It can get costly, which is annoying, and downright heartbreaking when something you'd think is a great idea and you worked hard at doesn't get the reaction you'd think it would.  It's not for the thrill of doing a traditional piece, where every stroke could be the one that completely ruins the piece.  No sir, I don't like that part either.

I think the reason I like doing art, is that I love mashups.  Yeah, I know, random.  I love coming up with ideas that shouldn't work, and making them work.  I'm currently working on 2 sets (I'm a masochist apparently) of about 4-6 pieces each.  One is my MLP Crossover, and the other, which at least 1 piece has seen the light of day, is my Art Nouveau 'Kill Bill' piece set.  Now, I have only seen Kill Bill once, and I'm not one of Tarantino's greatest fans, but this for some reason sat with me and formed a plan in my head.  "Amy" it said "You should totally like, put them in an Art Nouveau setting, it'd be killer" and I was like "Yes Master", and so now I'm trying to put David Carridine's ugly mug into a serene Art Nouveau setting.  IT SHOULDN'T WORK! but by golly I'm gonna try!

Back to my original thought, I love mashups.  I love coming up with an original idea for non-original characters, and making it work for that piece.  I'm not that great with coming up with my own characters, unless it's Legend of the Five Rings, which that I can make up characters all day, but at the end of the day, they still kinda belong to Alderac.  Anyway, (I did say I'll ramble!) so this is why *I* Do art, because the voices in my head tell me to.

So, yeah... that whole website idea didn't pan out as well as I was hoping, then again, it's hard to when you don't follow it up.  

This year will be the year I finally come out of my shell and show the world beyond DA my art.  I can say this because I already have

I entered 6 pieces into the Art Show at MidsouthCon in Memphis this weekend.  I learnt so much about that process that now I'm hunting the web for more places I can send my art too hehe.

I went in not expecting to sell anything.   I was happy with the experience I gained.  Before now, I never matted.  We never learned it at school, working more on the 'principle and elements of design', which my mind has by now thrown out along with algebra, because it got hammered into my skull so dang much.  I'm sure my subconscious remembers some of it, but not enough for it to make it to the surface and allow me to knowingly do it.  
It'd be great one day for me to say I meant to do something, and not have my subconscious facepalm itself...

ANYWAY, so, now, I generally know how to matte.  I know now I should get me some www.clearbags.com/ Clearbags.  Yes, they do look better.

I went in not expecting to sell anything, but sold something I did.  Mini Lady Amalthea sold saturday night.  It feels weird.  I've done art for friends who display them, and I see them every so often, but never getting to see her again, is it weird to grieve?  This I wasn't expecting, well, actually yes, I did.  It was the reason my 2 biggest weren't for sale, as I didn't get a chance to make copies of them.  My husband suggested I do put them up, but I got extremely defensive and broke down.  Sounds silly over something I can probably remake easily, but I guess thats not the point.  I like them for the problems, the defects.  

Anyway, this got a lot more long winded then I planned.  Just know that I plan on doing more with my art, and who knows, maybe next year I'll hit the artist alleys...

yup, today is 12, tomorrow is 13 and I think the one after that is 14

The past couple of weeks I've been working on my website, www.StudioConvict.com, and have finally got a working site complete with.... 1/10th of my art.

I had to format my computer a while back and moved my art onto an external harddrive that that decided that after I moved my music back, it was going to fail.  We're still working on getting them off (like the iphone, there's an app for it), so hopefully I haven't lost like, my entire digital artwork, but we'll see soon enough.

In the meantime, I've been scanning in a lot (and I haven't even dented it) of my sketches.  Now, when I say I haven't even dented it, I only have maybe 10 sketches up so far.... I have 5 FIVE FAT FOLDERS of nothing but sketches.  Not just books of paper with random sketches on it, noooo I've already gone through my artbooks and saved all of my GOOD sketches and some potentials, and whats left is still at least 5 fat folders worth.  I may put them up... depends on how anti-social I want to be

So if you want to see some of my newer stuff, I'll eventually get them on here, but if you want to see them now, head on over to www.Studioconvict.com to get the inside scoop!