Making the cut~ knowing when to.

Anyone who likes to write/draw will hopefully understand my difficulty here.

Okay, so, anyone who knows me will know I have no issue coming up with characters for a story, and indeed, how much time I spend drawing aforementioned characters, coming up with random stuff about them, writing biographies, working out backstories and relationships, and, on top of all that, making new ones and attempting to fit them in somewhere, or making whole new stories to accomodate them. >_<

This is a problem. And, it's a problem for me because; I spend so much time thinking about the characters, and their stories and all that sort of thing, and there is so much I want to fit in, I lose track of where the story should start, what it should cover, and where it should end.

In short: It's not that I know too little about the events of my stories and the worlds in which they take place, but too much! Now I don't know what to include and I'm confused!!

Now, I absolutely love my characters; they were one reason for me getting into the BJD hobby; I still get this awesome little feeling inside to look up to my shelf and see the closest thing I'll probably ever get to a physical representation of Vikenti, and I love working on the doll so that he expresses more about the character, but that's another story, and I don't want to go off on a tangent.
Anyway, back on topic, I really, really want to write/draw something good. And, of course, that's so much easier said than done.

Point is, any of you guys who like to write stories/comics/etc. have the same issue? Do you find it difficult to know what to cut, what to explictly tell, and what to imply? Comment below and maybe, if you're having trouble too, we can help each other ^_^

In other news, I'm going to attempt to start posting some of my art up here, or on my tumblr, which I will provide a link to, if I decide to start using it. I've managed to produce some stuff I'm actually really happy with lately, so I kind of want to show people :3

Aaand now, I bid you adieu, for I am going to go and draw something cute. One of my new characters is demanding I draw him and I think he's fucking adorable.

Peace~
Clair

Just a cute photo of Jin

 

Because I'm running a little low on cheer, and Jin never fails to make me smile.
Enjoy the finger-in-mouth shot fail!

I set my clocks early, 'cause I know I'm always late~

... I am a terrible blogger. Seriously. Not only do I never have much interesting to say, I always seem to either end up moaning, blabbering about dolls, or... something that no one probably cares about :P
And I'm really bad at writing anything on a regular basis. Any stories I've tried to write are in bits and pieces all over the place! *laughs* so it's little wonder my blog is such a neglected corner of my online life.

ANYWAY - um. Okay, so I guess I just want to let the world know I'm not dead, and that I'm buried under a mountain of school/paper work. Which recently got to be a lot less when I remembered I could do my Student Finance online *facepalms* - so that's all sorted on my end - just waiting for them to get back to me now about exact amounts and payment dates and all that jazz.

I also wanted to ask - anyone here who writes their own stories or fanfiction on a regular basis; How do you keep yourselves disciplined enough to work on it? It's not that I'm losing interest in my stories, but I'm finding it hard to work dilligently on them in my free time.
So, any tips would be much appreciated ^_^

In other news... Not an awful lot. Looking forward to going back to uni, haven't seem much of anyone this summer really, which is a shame, but that is what living in the middle of nowhere does for me. Sod all. :) ah well.
Doll-wise, little has changed... and I guess that's all I've got to tell you about life with me, other than I'm on a diet >< have lost two pounds so far, so hopefully I'll be able to keep going in that direction ^_^

Good times :3
Clare xo
Music: Fall Out Boy - A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me"
            G-Dragon Feat. Taeyang - Korean Dream
            Enter Shikari - Labyrinth
            Green Day - Know Your Enemy and Oh Love

ただいま。。。

(meaning 'I'm back!' in Japanese)
Well, I'm back, like I say - blogging truthfully hasn't been the first thing on my mind (not that it ever was to begin with, but you know what I mean), and I've been swamped with work.
I kind of don't know where to begin with updating everyone on what I've been doing, part of the reason I'm writing this is a vent, and part of it is because I haven't blogged in forever.

I guess I'll start with the good stuff. Nice things that have happened to me recently. Like getting most of my work done; I've only got one more piece of coursework due in in May - rest of this is all just revising for exams now, which isn't much fun, but I've got a bit less pressure on my shoulders than I did.
I've also been planning for a doll I'm hoping to get this summer - Hazel and I have had this massive LTF order planned for ages, and whilst two dolls doesn't really qualify as massive to most, it's big to us, and we've had Kenji (mine) and Seiji (Hazel's) planned since last summer!! Two adorable LTF Bisou twins <3 I can't wait!

Also, I finally sat down and started playing The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim properly, and now I see what everyone's raving about. It's amazing! Makes me wish I hadn't traded Oblivion in =( but once I'm done with Skyrim, I'll get it again and play through it.
I'm currently playing as a High Elf called Meldiron, but I have plans to also play through the game as a Khajiit and a Dark Elf - one of them has to be female, since I always play as boys :L

I swear that 'The Ghost of Saint Valentine' by Bayside is my song right now. It really describes how I'm feeling at the moment, mainly because I've started liking a friend of mine as more than just a friend. Which is bad enough because I don't do well with romance and expressing my feelings for people. What makes it even worse is, before I started having feelings for him, I was helping him get set up with the girl he DOES like. I'm still helping him with that, because, whilst I am jealous AS HELL of this girl, I don't see why my feelings should get in the way of him being happy. He doesn't like me that way. That's it. There's nothing I can do about that. And I don't want to lose his friendship. I just want him to be happy.
You'd think that'd be enough. But of course I can't just shove my own feelings to one side. I'm jealous, absolutely. Sad, definitely. Kicking myself for falling for him, like you wouldn't believe.
So I'm just going to do what I've always done. Channel it into my art... That's all I can do...
Why do I always fall for people who are never going to like me back? It's like a curse!

Anyway, I guess that's my update =) Any PSN-ers, the username is KawaiiSamurai if you want to add me =P, and Skyrimmers, what's your character? =D

Peace,
Clair

30 Days of Harry Potter: Day Five- Favourite Male Character

Hm~ this is quite a hard question.
I guess I'd have to say either Ron, Lupin or Dumbledore.

Ron, because he's so dimwitted <3 and so devoted to his friends (despite storming off in DH). He and Hermione are an adorable couple, and his jealousy of anyone who gets close to her is adorable ^_^ (PS- Stephanie Meyer, that's how you do jealous boyfriend without making it creepy and abusive!)
Plus, Rupert Grint is one of my favourite actors :D he is probably the best Ron there could ever have been!
It's little moments like this that make me love him even more <3 (really annoyed I can't find the specific clip I'm looking for - it's Ron standing in the hall in HBP, just before the first potions class with Slughorn - it just illustrates what a twat he is).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYvDBi88XtE

Lupin, well, I love a character with some conflict. Despite being ostracised from wizarding society, he continues on, even though it would be the easiest thing in the world for him to just fall in with the other werewolves who've joined Voldemort.
Not to mention, the man has infinite patience. I do NOT support him and Tonks as a couple, though, it's like the most AWKWARD canon pairing in the whole series.
... Lupin/Sirius blatantly makes more sense /shot.

And Dumbledore... how could anyone hate him? He's odd, eccentric, quirky, loveable, and loving. As well as brave, and quick to admit/recognise his own faults.
Grindelwald CLEARLY didn't recognise a good thing when he had it.
Also, as a fan of Stephen Fry's, the fact that I can see quite a bit of him in Dumbledore makes me rather happy :3

30 Days of Harry Potter: Least Favourite Female Character

Okay- I'm torn between Lavender Brown and Ginny for this.
Lavender just gets on my nerves (though the whole Won-Won thing made me laugh, I must say).
I don't hate Ginny, it's just... her character development to me is quite sudden - I still think of her as this shy little first-year clutching her battered books and Tom Riddle's diary, and all of a sudden, she's hexing people and got boys all over her?! Did I miss something?

30 Days of Harry Potter: Day 3- Worst Book To Movie Adaptation.

Without a doubt, Half-Blood Prince was the worst. Definitely.
I understand dramatising a lot of stuff, but just making stuff up, like Bellatrix randomly turning up and setting the Weasley's house on fire etc. it just doesn't do it for me.
The whole movie, to be honest, just wasn't how I imagined it would be at all. Thus, it remains my least favourite of the series, despite my love for the book.

Doll Vomit (In which Chu gets spoiled rotten, and Vikenti is chalked up for surgery!)

Okay, so like I say in the title, Chu's being spoiled by his loving Auntie (me! And my lovely mother, who made everything you're about to see him wearing), and Vikenti's going to undergo some modifications to help him sit better.Right, so, first order of business!

Okay, so like I say in the title, Chu's being spoiled by his loving Auntie (me! And my lovely mother, who made everything you're about to see him wearing), and Vikenti's going to undergo some modifications to help him sit better.Right, so, first order of business!

Beautiful Winter-Wear ^_^ Nice and warm. Black tights, red satin skirt and a top with a red bow, and matching headband.

Close-up on the bow. Horrible lighting in my room, unfortunately, but the clothes look wonderful on him.

And now Blogger is being weird and won't let me add any more pictures, so I'll come back and edit this.

Anyway, moving swiftly on, to Vikenti being 'operated' on. I have several things I want to address.

1) The rotten ear mod he suffered before I bought him.
I had originally intended to send him off to be fixed to do this, but I figured it was nothing I couldn't do myself. And indeed, it's not that hard - I've already managed to fix the shape to something much more... human, at least. There is still a lot of colour-matching and sanding to do, but, in the meantime, his wig keeps it covered, and everything in this respect is on track.

2) His severely limited posing ability.
Now, bearing in mind that Vikenti is a good five years old, and there have been leaps and bounds in BJD jointing since, eventually I would like to get him a new body. As regards what I've got to work with; his body is severely yellowed in parts, he's single-jointed, and clearly engineered to be standing more often than sitting.

Thus, what I want to do is, either carve or sculpt a locking step into his back so he can slouch forward and sit in a more natural way, and I'm going to widen his hip sockets so that the ball-joint fits better into the socket, and so that the elastic has a little more room to move. As he is now, he sits at a terribly awkward angle, and tends to puff his chest out.
I'm not too bothered about colour-matching any additive mods, as he doesn't go shirtless too often, and any additive mods would most likely be on his back, anyway.

It's just a for-now measure, until I can afford to get him a new body (though I have the issue of finding a match for DIM's 2008 NS Resin - anyone know of one? Thinking DZ WS.).

I'll come back and add pics later :)

30 Days of Harry Potter: Day 2 - Favourite Movie

Favourite Movie is, without a doubt, Philosopher's Stone. Out of all the movies, I would say it's the most faithful to the book, and I liked Richard Harris as Dumbledore. Not that Michael Gambon didn't do just as good a job; I just felt Harris fitted the part better. RIP, Richard Harris, you were the best Dumbledore as far as I'm concerned.

30 Days of Harry Potter: Day 1- Favourite Book

1. Favourite Book
Okay, so for this, I'm slightly torn. Goblet Of Fire is the one I always come back to, because it's when Voldemort came back, and you could see that things were going to get really heavy for Harry from there on in.
Half Blood Prince and Order of The Phoenix are also pretty high up there in my favourites, because, well, I love a good villain, and Umbridge is one of my favourite female villains. You think she's just a bitch, then she makes you write lines in your own blood. Personally, I think she and Voldemort would make great pals. If Voldemort knew the meaning of friendship that is.
I cried my eyes out reading Phoenix (SIRIUS! NO!)- AND it was released on my birthday!
Also, Dumbledore dying was a HUGE OMG moment for every fan. And I think we all wondered if Harry could do it without the old eccentric's help at the end of HBP.

But yes, in conclusion, I can't really pick between those three. So those are my favourites :) I think it goes without saying, though, I love all the books.

30 Days of Harry Potter :)

Okay, stole this from Alannah because I'm super-bored and I'm hoping this will make me blog more regularly, along with doing a Sketch Saturday every week (thanks to the awesome Immie for the idea!).

Day 1: Favourite Book?
Day 2: Favourite Movie
Day 3: Worst Book to Film Adaption?
Day 4: Least favourite female character?
Day 5: Favourite male character?
Day 6: What house would you want to be in?
Day 7: Favourite female character?
Day 8: What do you think would be your favourite lesson?
Day 9: Least favourite male character?
Day 10: Horcruxes or Hallows?
Day 11: What character would you say you are most like?
Day 12: Favourite ship?
Day 13: Least favourite movie.
Day 14: Team Voldermort or Team Harry.
Day 15: Who would be your best friends at hogwarts. (three only)
Day 16: Favourite professor?
Day 17: Were you excited about The Deathly Hallows movie or scared it won’t do the book justice?
Day 18: Least favourite book.
Day 19: Do you prefer the books or films?
Day 20: If you had to meet one member of the cast, who would it be?
Day 21: Out of all the characters that died, if you could bring one back, who would it be?
Day 22: Harry Potter or Twilight?
Day 23: Any part of the books/movies that makes you cry?
Day 24: Any particular scene you wished would have been put in the movie but it wasn’t?
Day 25: Nineteen years later. Are you happy how it turned out, or do you wish something
was different, ie Neville married Luna?
Day 26: If you could be able to work one spell without a wand what would it be?
Day 27: Would you rather own The Invisibility Cloak, The Resurrection Stone or The Elder Wand.
Day 28: Are you on pottermore and what do you think of it?
Day 29: Favourite fanvideo (on youtube).
Day 30: What effect has Harry Potter made on your life and how much does it mean to
you?

Contemporary Trends in Transvestism: josôko, cross-play, visual-kei, the desire for vicarious femininity: Clair actually went to an optional seminar?!

Yep, I did. Was really looking forward to it, and it WAS really interesting.
I just wish that the lecturer had known more about the subject.

She's just starting research on crossdressing/transvestism/josoko in Japanese society, and basically, every question we asked her, we got "I don't know" or "I can't answer that yet- I've only just started my research." which was REALLY annoying, all she really covered on her own was what Josoko was, why different sociologists have theorized that they do it, and that sort of thing.

So, for the benefit of you guys reading this, I'm going to try and explain what the seminar was actually about.


1. Josoko- Basically, a subculture of young men, dressing up as and attempting to pass for girls, the cuter and more feminine they can be, the better. According to the lecture, most of them do it because they're poor and can't conform to their normal gender role, or because they want to become performers.
It's also often been shown that the Japanese public think they're cuter and more feminine than real women. O_O

2. Cross Play- Cross-play is basically cosplay, for all intents and purposes. However, someone doing crossplay dresses up as a character of the opposite sex.
Again, the woman giving the lecture didn't talk about this for long, and she only seemed to talk about why boys crossplay, didn't even mention why girls do it (and they do do it).

3. Visual Kei- Visual Kei is a genre of music/fashion, characterized by elaborate stage makeup and costumes, somewhat andrgynous-looking men (and sometimes women!) and anything from 80's Goth Rock, to Metal or Punk, and pretty often, it's a combination of the three. Bands like Malice Mizer, or X-Japan are good examples of Visual Kei. (See links at the end)

She barely talked about this at all, just showed us some pictures of Mana and Gackt from when they were both in Malice Mizer and then started waffling about Mana's clothes label; Mana is pretty famous for always being cross-dressed in his public appearances, along with never speaking, always whispering into someone's ear, and he also helped to popularize the Gothic Lolita fashion trend with his own label, Moi-Même-Moitié, which he also models for.

4. The Desire for Vicarious Femininity- you know something, I don't even remember her talking about this, at ALL. I think it has to do with the Japanese public often preferring cross-dressed pretty boys to real women in terms of cuteness or "Moe" - usually these young boys dress up as schoolgirls, or innocent, naieve sorts of women (according to this lecturer.).
She showed us a couple of crossdressing manga, and told us the name of a movie, where guys dress as girls, and win the heart of the girl they love.
She also thinks that Miyazaki's female protagonists have more 'Boyish' personalities...

The definition of Vicarious from the Oxford Dictionary.
1. experienced in the imagination through the feelings or actions of another person: this catalogue brings vicarious pleasure in luxury living.

2. acting or done for another: a vicarious atonement.

Therefore I guess I can conclude that "the desire for vicarious femininity" means, the public as a whole enjoying the projected illusion of femininity on these boys and/or the josoko themselves doing it as a performance act, i.e, for the enjoyment of others.

She didn't seem to think that transvestism was a big issue, that it wasn't something done that much in everyday life.

In conclusion, I'm quite disappointed I haven't got more to write about this, but, I would love to hear the thoughts of others on this. Louella cut the debate short yesterday, probably to save the guest lecturer's skin, which is a shame, because it was just starting to get interesting!

So, if you've got an opinion this, I'd really love to hear it! :D

Oh, and as promised; Links!
Malice Mizer- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwn0MefXCK8 - Illuminati
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhiwRhPS1O0&feature=related - Beast of Blood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrGwptv_2Yw - Gekka No Yasoukyaku

X-Japan- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7kEkPPrWMw - Jade

If you search "Mana" "Moi Meme Moitie" "Josoko" etc. you should be able to find plenty of pictures ^_^