Plans of world domination are coming along well indeed. Rika and I have been working steadily toward a goal of having our own shops or artists alley tables at upcoming conventions. Perhaps even an eBay store or an Etsy shop. We have come up with some very funny comments to put on buttons as well as ideas for donation gifts for the army. We are also thinking of producing stationery and perhaps little charms and figures made of sculpey. I still need to purchase my own silkscreening kit from speedball. I really want to get into t-shirt design and I really hate cafepress and its’ stupid high prices. They charge ME 18$ for the shirt before it’s printed… if I mark it up to 20$ that’s only two dollars in my pocket… If I get the kit, and do it myself that’s a lot more rewarding (in an artistic way) and I get to have more in pocket and get to charge less for the shirts. Donation gifts may vary but I was thinking of having some ‘collectable’ button series’ of various different artworks and to collect all of them you would receive random ones in a bag when you donate. I’ll be making my own art into pins as well as custom characters into pins as well. I’ll be working heavily on my arts soon to make up for the lost time over the years in Job Corps. I’m getting back into my art and I’m back full force!! I’m thinking of entering a few art contests on Gaia to practice with my tablet, and also maybe the art arena and some avatar art when I get a scanner Rika was thinking of doing PikyStreet mods and customs for big bucks. PinkyStreet is awesome but I don’t think I should get into collecting them, lol. She says they’re like crack… I don’t need more crack in my life. In fact, she just showed me the cutest goth loli pinky and I want to steal its hair… damn her and her crack. I’ve been looking up writing competitions and I’m going to hand a bunch of the stacks of contests to Tenshi later when I see him again. He’s applied for writing grants and I think it will help his chances to get published and win contests. I want to help him achieve his dreams, and I will do anything to do it. I know I’m going back and forth between subjects but please do bear with me. I’ve been asked by Anime St. Louis to do a few panels if I get the chance during their convention. Well, I know exactly how much conventions suck without compelling panels, so I might just do it. I was thinking of hosting a panel about Scott McNeil/Scott’s Army/World Domination, Writing Compelling Characters, something to do with art, amateur voice acting, they don’t make ‘em like they used to, and some such like that. If you have any other panel ideas, please throw them at me. They might be something I know a bit about. Tenshi said he would love to help me with the panels if he can get that weekend off. That makes me so happy that I can’t even express how much! He would help me! I wouldn’t be up there practically alone spearheading an endeavor that I fear people in my audience would know more about… Tenshi knows everything… He’s like Shinra. On top of being asked to host panels at ASTL I’ve been busy learning as much as I can about sculpting/sculpey, Copic markers, my tablet, digital art, open canvas, and all that art-related junk. A great guy on the bus I ride first thing in the morning has family that does the art thing, and they own a gallery not too far from my apartment. He said they do classes and workshops there, so I want to get their card from him and check it out. I think it’ll be a great place to learn if they offer some good classes. Especially ones on sculpting… I could drag Tenshi down there too! He was into sculpting a while ago. I heard he’s really good at it. I want to light a fire under his ambitions again. I knew a person many years ago that had so many dreams… I can’t sit by and watch those dreams fade or fall apart for the sake of others. Not even for the sake of myself. I want my Tenshi to be my best friend again, to talk with me the way he used to, to teach me so many new things that I can’t even comprehend the scope of his knowledge… I want the person back who spoke of his dreams with such longing and determination that I knew that if I did not make him mine now I never would because he would be out of my reach. He is destined to become great at anything that he puts his mind to. He is awe inspiring as a voice actor and he always manages to make me weak in the knees when he is feeling particularly Master-ish and his lustful thoughts are conveyed in the velvet quality of his voice. So many things make me love him and this love this loyalty won’t allow me to let his dreams die. Tenshi will not lose his dreams, not even the dream he has of owning a home in the land of lakes one day. Whether or not it seems like I support his dreams, I support them within my heart. I don’t want to live in MN right now, but I’ve only ever been there once and my heart still belongs to Oregon. He has been there so many times over his life that his heart is there, at that cabin on the lake. His heart has been there for a very long time. Just as mine has been with Oregon a very long time. Hearts are swayed over time and through good or bad experiences, they can not be swayed in two weeks, not strong hearts anyway. Someday my heart may join his in that cabin on the lake, but right now my heart is on a two lane road that leads between cattle and vegetable farms up to a mountain with a swing on its northern hilltop. DragonRealms is becoming an addiction again. I feel the urges to draw my characters in their various stages and perhaps even sculpt them. I never did finish those sketches for my uncles, perhaps I should? Maybe they will even go through with their ideas of making six inch models of those characters. My uncles are pretty awesome when it comes to ideas like that. One of them is an engineer and the other does construction but don’t get fooled, JJ is really creative. He always encouraged my pursuit of the arts. Always encouraged me to keep on drawing and to keep going and keep learning… He is one of the few people from my blood family that really supported me. My dreams are things that don’t have to take center stage all the time. My art can be worked on after work or on the weekends. Even on my breaks from work, I get next week to myself. I want to learn, but I can’t take full days off from work to go to college for art. Once I get a car I think I’ll take weekend and evening classes where I can get them. My job is from 7:30 in the morning to 4:30 at night and I need the money so I can’t take a lot of half days or anything like that. I don’t even know how many half days, personal days, sick days or what I’m allotted. I guess I’m still considered an Intern even though I’m officially titled Sub-Clerical and such. But the pay is good, and it keeps a roof over my head and food in my fat tummy. It also supports my newfound addiction to Copic Sketch markers. A lot of people asked me how I could afford Copic Sketch Markers when they were SO expensive… well I found mine for $299.88 including free shipping and a free airbrush kit. So really it’s about saving up at least $500.00 in the event that you purchase them full price, and then once you’ve saved money up you shop around for the best deals online. Once you find a good deal (like my great deal!) you buy it. Depending on how much it was, you end up having money left over for other things like opaque white or other fun accompaniments such as Copic paper. Budgeting is a key to saving up money, if you don’t have a job and you get an allowance… save a dollar or two or however much you don’t spend of it. Keep saving that same amount (or more than it, never less) every time you get your allowance (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly). Before you know it you will have enough money for your Copics. Think of it as opening a savings account, when you have a savings account you don’t make big big deposits in it at a time, you put in a little here and a little there and before you know it your balance has grown by leaps and bounds. You just need to remember to pay yourself first. With every time you get money, put a little of it away. You’ll have less to spend and then will have to make wiser choices on how you spend your money, but thinking of the long-term goal (your Copic markers, perhaps) will keep in perspective why you have that money tucked away. Also, never take the money out. Don’t even count it until you think you have reached your goal. Let’s say you thought it would take you twenty weeks according to the amount you said you would put away, so until those twenty weeks are up, you are only allowed to put money into the jar (or whatever) and you are not allowed to remove the lid or count the money. At the end of the twenty weeks, count up all the money you have and if you are short, keep saving. If you are over what you estimated as your cost, then that’s great! Feel free to shop around and find a great deal for the object of your saving (in my case, Copic markers). Whatever is left over can be spending money, or it can be the initial deposit into your next savings fund for the next big thing you think you can’t afford. I may seem like a ditz and I might come off as a snob sometimes but of all the things I can’t quite get right, I will admit that Tenshi is right. I have a sound financial mind. Math was never very good for me, but as for figuring out the costs of things and money matters I’m pretty good. Give me problems like what the unit cost to produce a button of a particular size would be and I can give you the prices according to how many materials you buy. It’s the same for other things as well. I’m thinking about starting a shop or something similar on GaiaOnline, but I’m not sure if I want to devote a lot of time to that site. I want to get more practice and I want to have a lot more range in my artistic ability but if someone like HER can have a successful art shop on Gaia, then so can I. I don’t proclaim to be the best artist in the world but I’m certainly better than her. Maybe I’ll even enter the Art arena eventually. But I don’t want to be a preppy fan-service type. I want what I do to have meaning. Even if it’s voted at my average scores of 6… I don’t mind. My AA average is 6 and I haven’t even posted a dozen pictures. I have been learning about animation here and there and I think I finally discovered how to make the 3D renderings of the D&D Characters that they wanted. I would have to draw character sheets for each race front, side, back, and head views too. It won’t be too hard. I think I’ll experiment first though. I also need to come up with racial sketches for Kaladea. I need to finish plotting out character creation and also the rest of the four races for the first world. I might even add more races to it or a quest for some special people who meet the requirements to have the ability to shift peoples’ features into other shapes. I have so many good ideas for Kaladea that it’s becoming almost an obsession. I might even write novels about some of the people in there. Hell I might just put hidden quests and secrets in those books, like secret alchemical techniques. I am trying to get together a big list of art challenges but nobody seems to be cooperating. I want to get ideas for themes of pictures. I have a large list of my own going as well, but I want to know what people think I should try out. My list includes: The seven deadly sins The brothers Grimm Fables Legends of Japan Panty Shots Embarrassment Myths Gods Demi-gods Wicca Christianity Vodun (voodoo) Vampirism Love Rest Hobbies Phobias Bubble crush Scott’s army World domination Pin designs Fonts Computers Cemeteries Death Wedding Emo Punk rock Raver Para para Fangirlism Cathedrals Haven The aria The umbra D&D basic Characters D&D basic Monsters Kaladean Bestiary Rika MakoNeko Kaladean Dossiers Anime St. Louis mascot Saeko Romance Scott mcneil EGL Fashion And that is my list thus far. Each category may or may not have a subcategory within it. It will have most likely more than one picture falling into the category over time. But for now I think these general categories are a good start don’t you? If you have any to add feel free to post it in a reply. I think FanArt and Gaia Art will fall into different categories also. I don’t much like doing fanart but it gets your things out into the public (online) eye. I like some fanart when it is well done, but most fanart isn’t. So, I try to keep my fanart to a minimum. Gaia Art is much like fanart, only it’s for GaiaOnline and I do it for gold? Though I don’t think I’ll do anything really awesome for small amounts of gold… I might do chibis or small avvie line art for small amounts of gold but anything I have to spend a lot of time on and detail on is worth some real money. There is a girl on DeviantArt who bartered some CGed pictures for a corset. Three pictures all taking 24+ hours just in CG. The corset was worth 300-500 dollars. I’m sure she made a down payment for as much of it as she could but damn… If I’m going to be spending that kind of time working on something on Gaia, it’s going to sell for more than 100,000 gold. Believe it. Please feel free to visit my various different presences around the interwebz at Deviant Art (http://yuki-yue.deviantart.com), Xanga (http://www.xanga.com/Mako_Neko), Myspace (http://www.myspace.com/slavetoshinigami), LiveJournal (http://realmduo.livejournal.com) Leave comments or just stalk me, I don’t mind. Later. | 
