Because I'd like to have my bedroom back someday, I'm going to kick off a second ARC giveaway for Midnight Blue-Light Special. This one will be open until Monday, and is one of the ones that requires actual effort (sorry about that). This time, we're going visual! Make icons, do a photo manip, draw a picture, grab some friends and pose, whatever makes you happy. The rules:
1. The image must relate directly in some way to one of my available works. Meaning that both Velveteen and the Rose Marshall stories are eligible. Stage a hitchhiking ghost! Draw a bunny superhero! Or stick with InCryptid, or Toby, and have a blast!
2. LOLcats are also eligible.
3. Once your submission is prepared, link or post it on this entry. Feel free to explain what's going on.
4. That's all.
The winner will be chosen Monday, December 17th, via random number generator.
I saw this one and immediately thought - aha! my secret weapon!
This is rather quick and dirty. (Yeah, I realize that's a slow quick and dirty. I took the picture, ran home, got dinner, discovered that my GIMP installation only had one font, put on a caption anyway... and the LJ image program announced that it still hates me. And then I had to teach a class and sit, and only just now got up to the library again to post it.)
But... it's Aplysia californica, aka the Californian Sea Hare. They have 20,000 neurons, and they can still learn. And dream (no, seriously, we have evidence). And negotiate complex pieces of seaweed with their mouths. I would easily go on at length... but I've been trying to get it through my head that not everyone actually wants to know about my research.
This thing is like, 95% photo manipulation, and the careful application of vectors, because I can't actually draw. (Nothing says "good use of an afternoon" like dangling a stuffed animal from your hand and trying to take a photo of it a JUST the right angle.) I did the costume, hair, etc, from memory, so hopefully nothing is too egregiously wrong.
ETA: Also, for the record, it's REALLY HARD to find photos of women in unitards who look fight-ready. Dance-ready, much easier. Hence the slightly odd pose.
You said Rose Marshall was fair game, and I went "ooh, I have a terrible idea with bonus somewhat-painful memories!"
I was driving that vehicle when I fell asleep doing 75 mph. I walked away from it with a couple of small cuts and a skinned knee. Rose Marshall was not my passenger, but in some other 'verse I was Rose and the driver didn't make it.
Newcomer here, but I've spent this past week devouring a frankly irresponsible number of your books/short stories and couldn't resist throwing my hat in the ring! I fudged some of the costume details because I wasn't sure, so...let's just say this is one of Marketing's early experiments with the 'Velveteen look.' :)
For some reason, this particular page keeps breaking my keyboard. Just this page. It's weird. (Typing this in a notepad program so that I can get all of the text to appear.)
For all I know, this page is cursed. I would have entered last night, but I discovered that at some point in the near past, the cats knocked my Wacom stylus into the trash (which has, of course, been thrown out since) and my tablet was gotten for me *mumblety* years ago, so replacements are hard-to-pricey to come by. And now is NOT a good time to have unexpected expenses. So I hope you like this, because I had to do it with a MOUSE, which is obnoxious when you've gotten used to the wonders of tablets.
This is the before-and-(years)after shot of the destruction of Redding, mentioned in passing in one of the Velveteen stories. If I'd had a contour map, the lake would undoubtedly be different. I'd planned a whole lot of excerpts from the Congressional report on the subject, primarily dealing with the immediate physical effects and geological aspects (which I've thought about on many of the drives along the boring stretch between Redding and Sacramento), but I think I'll just leave you with a bit of Heather McFarlane, passenger on the Coast Starlight.
"...We had been delayed by a freight shipment the night before, so our train was passing the north side of Mount Shasta at about 7:30 that morning. I was eating breakfast in the café car when Shastina seemed to shudder, and a cloud of mist rose up. Then the whole train rocked for a moment. The engineers hit the brakes, and as the train slowed, the top of the mountain started to collapse inward, like an imploding building. I'm sure that Mt. St. Helens was on everybody's mind as the train started swaying in oddly percussive winds, and I couldn't help but think, 'This is it. This is it.' "
(Um... geology is all interconnected. The rogue who destroyed Redding also rendered Lassen totally inactive, and Shasta (with its second peak Shastina) lost almost five thousand feet in height. Weed was never the same afterwards.)
Clearly, this is what would happen were Velveteen to visit NYC. Well, that or a lot of chaos in the Museum of Natural History (and I have no idea -what- she would do with the Whale, but I'm pretty sure it would be something).
sick
December 11 2012, 00:10:36 UTC 4 years ago
December 11 2012, 01:04:25 UTC 4 years ago
"One of these fishes is not like the others, one of these fishes just doesn't belong...."
December 11 2012, 01:27:10 UTC 4 years ago
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December 11 2012, 01:50:15 UTC 4 years ago
This is rather quick and dirty. (Yeah, I realize that's a slow quick and dirty. I took the picture, ran home, got dinner, discovered that my GIMP installation only had one font, put on a caption anyway... and the LJ image program announced that it still hates me. And then I had to teach a class and sit, and only just now got up to the library again to post it.)
But... it's Aplysia californica, aka the Californian Sea Hare. They have 20,000 neurons, and they can still learn. And dream (no, seriously, we have evidence). And negotiate complex pieces of seaweed with their mouths. I would easily go on at length... but I've been trying to get it through my head that not everyone actually wants to know about my research.
December 11 2012, 01:50:21 UTC 4 years ago
December 11 2012, 03:12:49 UTC 4 years ago
December 11 2012, 03:12:46 UTC 4 years ago
December 11 2012, 06:01:14 UTC 4 years ago
December 11 2012, 16:04:53 UTC 4 years ago
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December 11 2012, 06:23:51 UTC 4 years ago
It's Toby and Tybalt :D
December 12 2012, 02:13:21 UTC 4 years ago
December 11 2012, 20:30:16 UTC 4 years ago Edited: December 11 2012, 20:34:13 UTC
ETA: Also, for the record, it's REALLY HARD to find photos of women in unitards who look fight-ready. Dance-ready, much easier. Hence the slightly odd pose.
The images used that didn't belong to me were this alleyway, this women in a unitard, and this bunny-ears headband.
December 12 2012, 02:10:25 UTC 4 years ago Edited: December 12 2012, 02:10:49 UTC
December 12 2012, 18:25:00 UTC 4 years ago
December 12 2012, 23:13:00 UTC 4 years ago
I live with a child superhero.
December 13 2012, 04:33:04 UTC 4 years ago
And your superhero can save me anytime :-)
4 years ago
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December 13 2012, 00:25:11 UTC 4 years ago Edited: December 13 2012, 00:25:46 UTC
December 13 2012, 01:07:42 UTC 4 years ago
December 13 2012, 04:56:17 UTC 4 years ago
December 14 2012, 05:09:56 UTC 4 years ago
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December 13 2012, 06:48:06 UTC 4 years ago
Not an artist. Going with my strengths with this one.
December 14 2012, 01:53:49 UTC 4 years ago
December 14 2012, 06:42:41 UTC 4 years ago
I was driving that vehicle when I fell asleep doing 75 mph. I walked away from it with a couple of small cuts and a skinned knee. Rose Marshall was not my passenger, but in some other 'verse I was Rose and the driver didn't make it.
December 14 2012, 23:21:03 UTC 4 years ago
Newcomer here, but I've spent this past week devouring a frankly irresponsible number of your books/short stories and couldn't resist throwing my hat in the ring! I fudged some of the costume details because I wasn't sure, so...let's just say this is one of Marketing's early experiments with the 'Velveteen look.' :)
December 15 2012, 05:12:28 UTC 4 years ago
4 years ago
4 years ago
December 15 2012, 05:29:05 UTC 4 years ago
For all I know, this page is cursed. I would have entered last night, but I discovered that at some point in the near past, the cats knocked my Wacom stylus into the trash (which has, of course, been thrown out since) and my tablet was gotten for me *mumblety* years ago, so replacements are hard-to-pricey to come by. And now is NOT a good time to have unexpected expenses. So I hope you like this, because I had to do it with a MOUSE, which is obnoxious when you've gotten used to the wonders of tablets.
This is the before-and-(years)after shot of the destruction of Redding, mentioned in passing in one of the Velveteen stories. If I'd had a contour map, the lake would undoubtedly be different. I'd planned a whole lot of excerpts from the Congressional report on the subject, primarily dealing with the immediate physical effects and geological aspects (which I've thought about on many of the drives along the boring stretch between Redding and Sacramento), but I think I'll just leave you with a bit of Heather McFarlane, passenger on the Coast Starlight.
"...We had been delayed by a freight shipment the night before, so our train was passing the north side of Mount Shasta at about 7:30 that morning. I was eating breakfast in the café car when Shastina seemed to shudder, and a cloud of mist rose up. Then the whole train rocked for a moment. The engineers hit the brakes, and as the train slowed, the top of the mountain started to collapse inward, like an imploding building. I'm sure that Mt. St. Helens was on everybody's mind as the train started swaying in oddly percussive winds, and I couldn't help but think, 'This is it. This is it.' "
(Um... geology is all interconnected. The rogue who destroyed Redding also rendered Lassen totally inactive, and Shasta (with its second peak Shastina) lost almost five thousand feet in height. Weed was never the same afterwards.)
December 16 2012, 01:36:38 UTC 4 years ago
Clearly, this is what would happen were Velveteen to visit NYC. Well, that or a lot of chaos in the Museum of Natural History (and I have no idea -what- she would do with the Whale, but I'm pretty sure it would be something).
December 16 2012, 13:21:22 UTC 4 years ago Edited: December 16 2012, 13:22:07 UTC
This is an attempted photomanipulation based on Seanan's song 'How much Salt to Bind a Man?' from her album 'Wicked Girls'.
This is my twisted version where the Sea King's daughter is not a mermaid, and her mother is dead so she is asking a ghost.
Model stock by ^Elandria - http://elandria.deviantart.com/
Background stock by ~mudukrull - http://mudukrull.deviantart.com/
December 16 2012, 14:06:34 UTC 4 years ago
I wasn't sure if I could use the One Salt Sea doodad that I did...so I made another one for An Artificial Night. Which I love even more.
December 16 2012, 17:00:00 UTC 4 years ago
http://flic.kr/p/dBr83V
December 16 2012, 21:10:43 UTC 4 years ago