It’s been quite a tumultuous few weeks. School’s never been busier, and tomorrow I start working on weekends. I want to keep this blog updated as often as I can, but it’s been quite a challenge to even keep up on my other websites.

Sarah helped me bleach my hair. I’m prepping it for purple tips, but I decided to leave the brown in for a bit. Bleaching the color out took forever, so I’m giving my hair a rest before I try it again.

I’m taking two classes this term - Living in a Media World and Drawing Bootcamp.

In LMW, we choose a topic we want to make into a documentary and keep a blog based on that topic. In the second term of this class, we choose the best topics and actually make the documentaries. Mine is on sexism in cosplay. Here’s the link if you’re interested - http://students.expression.edu/gabriellewee.

We aren’t allowed to make our own themes for the Wordpress-based blogs, but I found a way around it by using a forms plugin and inserting a stylesheet into a widget.

I attended Animation on Display in San Francisco’s Japantown last weekend for research and interviews for my topic - my first convention ever. It was so much fun! I didn’t have time to create a costume, but I did wear the butterfly wings I used for Halloween. I got some great interviews with both amateur and profession cosplayers, and I’m excited to use the footage to create a trailer for my documentary.

I’m excited for Comic Con. Alas, I failed to get tickets, even though I was on the site at the dot of 9:00 AM on Saturday. I do know somebody who knows somebody, and there will be ticket resales, so hopefully I get one!

In Bootcamp, we’ve been doing some intense drawing. I’m still not very good, but I’ve improved so much since I started. We do figure drawing and other various anatomical assignments. All these photos were taken with my iPad so the photo quality may not be 100% and I may not have cropped all the edges out.

The muscle study was the breakthrough, I think. Knowing where the muscles are somehow helps me to draw, even though I don’t ever actually think about what muscle goes where when I’m drawing!

Side story - I had inspiration in class and was drawing madly but was having trouble with the muscles on his left arm (the arm on the right). After class, I asked my instructor for help with the muscles. He has a two foot tall anatomical model on his desk, and he gestured towards it while describing the muscles to me. His sudden movement caused the already loose arm to fall into a cup of coffee which then spilled all over my sketchbook. I went over the drawing again with white pencil, and these photos are edited to show contrast, but if you look at the original, you can still see the coffee stain, sigh.

I’m also going to be starting a Dungeons and Dragons campaign with some school friends! It’s the one thing I’ve allowed myself to have besides school and work. I’ve tentatively decided on being a chaotic good half-elf favored soul. Still trying to decide what deity to follow - I need one that is within my alignment with a decent melee weapon. I’m starting next Tuesday, so I have until then to decide my stats!

And now that I’ve made a nice tidy post, I will go and eat my red velvet white chocolate chip cookies in peace.