It's getting a bit sketchy in here... [Manarelle]

[Manarelle]

Week 2: 

• Languages: Yup.
• Exercise: Yup. Sunday cardio is officially not gonna happen - the schedule just doesn't work for it. 
• Crafting: Sketched out the Backlash knife, got approval from the gentleman on the dimensions.
• Learning: Two art classes, Russian homework and class. 
• Veggies: 3 days of banana, then focused on colorful fruits

I'm very glad I keep track of what I do daily, because this week felt like a wipe until I looked back at my list. Four out of five weekdays were study - art and Russian classes/ homework - and the fifth was devoted to finally watching Endgame with the gentleman. Naturally, with all the learning and hoo boy was that movie dense, my brain didn't shut off well and I slept poorly most nights. The weekend was heavily overshadowed by our fridge breaking literally the day after we had gone major restocking grocery shopping; we shoved a huge bag of ice in the freezer and haven't opened it since, but the fridge section is sitting at 60.7°, so milk, eggs, condiments, leftovers, prepped foods.... all gone. Breakfast this morning was Dunkin Donuts: two egg and cheese english muffins, remove the bottoms of both and mash 'em together. Lunch is subway with extra meat. Neither option is horrible, but man that gets expensive fast. The landlady was very responsive and will be replacing the whole thing, should be delivered Wednesday afternoon, so not too bad, but that's a lot of purchased meals.  Also means snacks and "dessert" will be less healthy and less filling. 

 

Art class is going well, though it was a bit of an adjustment from masters-level classes to a continuing ed, arts level. I blocked out an hour r two for the first lesson, and got it done in 15 minutes, so I spent some of the rest of the time sketching, and then read a book (in french) to relax. Learned the phrase "looking for a needle in a haystack" (chercher une aguille dans une botte de foin), and got more language practice in. Took some of what I learned and sketched out a schematic for the gentleman's Backlash knife, I will try to get that mocked up this week. We went to a Steampunk con about an hour away from us and met up with the leatherworker who's done a lot of stuff for the gentleman in the past; he'll be making some of the pieces for the Backlash cosplay, so we'll mail him the knife so he can make a sheath to fit it. It kind of makes me laugh that I will go to almost any length to make my own costumes, whereas my gentleman prefers the social support aspect of meeting new artists/ crafters and supporting their work while putting an outfit together. Different strokes and all that. 

 

[Akura]

29 minutes ago, Manarelle said:

hoo boy was that movie dense

 

Yeah, that's my main problem with Marvel movies these days; especially the big team-ups. Super fun, but a bit exhausting.

 

 

30 minutes ago, Manarelle said:

our fridge breaking

 

That sucks! On the plus side: now you're forced to eat more vegetables!

 

 

 

36 minutes ago, Manarelle said:

eggs.... all gone.

 

Oh, yes, I remember! In America, eggs have to be refrigerated, don't they? That's super weird for me since in Europe they can be kept fresh for a few weeks outside of the fridge. Food laws are weird...

 

 

38 minutes ago, Manarelle said:

 

 

The bottle looks really, really good! I always struggle a lot with grasping the geometry of such complex shapes when I draw.

[Elennare]

Oh man, broken fridges are the worst.  Glad everything else is going well, though!

[Manarelle]

Mockup knife done: 

 

 

Now to research what to make the final out of. 

 

6 hours ago, Akura said:

Yeah, that's my main problem with Marvel movies these days; especially the big team-ups. Super fun, but a bit exhausting.

Yup., I haven't even watched all the movies in the run-up to endgame. Think I'm still missing ant-man 1 and 2, and Captain Marvel. Maybe a few others. It just got super deep and invested and I need silly, fun movies to distract from all the srs stuff I do on a regular basis. Ah, well.

 

6 hours ago, Akura said:

That sucks! On the plus side: now you're forced to eat more vegetables!

Oh darn, they all went bad, what shall we do?

 

6 hours ago, Akura said:

Oh, yes, I remember! In America, eggs have to be refrigerated, don't they? That's super weird for me since in Europe they can be kept fresh for a few weeks outside of the fridge. Food laws are weird...

Yeah, I ran into this a lot when looking up whether the eggs were savable or not. Apparently either cooling them or keeping them room temp works.... but you can't switch between the two. :/ I remember being really confused when I was younger and learned you could keep them at room temp, because that seemed more intuitive than cooling them then heating them to eat. Agreed, food laws are weird.

 

6 hours ago, Akura said:

The bottle looks really, really good! I always struggle a lot with grasping the geometry of such complex shapes when I draw.

Thanks. I've always had problems getting down what I see, because I tried to get too intricate/ realistic right from the start. This class pointed out start with basic shapes, then fill in. The water bottle progressed from a single cylinder, then second one on top for a lid, then another for a straw, add circles for the water level, add lettering, then shade in the top. Each step was pretty basic, but they added up quite nicely. 

 

2 hours ago, Elennare said:

Oh man, broken fridges are the worst.  Glad everything else is going well, though!

It definitely put a damper on the day, but it's not nearly as bad as it could be, so yay everything else.  

[raptron]

It's because we power wash our eggs in America because we just have to make things more difficult for ourselves. 

 

19 hours ago, Manarelle said:

Week 2: 

• Languages: Yup.
• Exercise: Yup. Sunday cardio is officially not gonna happen - the schedule just doesn't work for it. 
• Crafting: Sketched out the Backlash knife, got approval from the gentleman on the dimensions.
• Learning: Two art classes, Russian homework and class. 
• Veggies: 3 days of banana, then focused on colorful fruits

Nice.

 

19 hours ago, Manarelle said:

We went to a Steampunk con about an hour away from us and met up with the leatherworker who's done a lot of stuff for the gentleman in the past; he'll be making some of the pieces for the Backlash cosplay, so we'll mail him the knife so he can make a sheath to fit it. It kind of makes me laugh that I will go to almost any length to make my own costumes, whereas my gentleman prefers the social support aspect of meeting new artists/ crafters and supporting their work while putting an outfit together. Different strokes and all that. 

Oooh, that's neat -- working in concert with a leatherworker.  

[Manarelle]

This week has been a bit rough. On the plus side, the landlady did get on top of the fridge situation very quickly; she ordered one on Monday for delivery on Wednesday, and it was delivered and installed then. Everything around that, however, has been less smooth. I had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday - I thought at noon - and the delivery guys said they'd be by between 1:30 and 4, and call ahead when they were an hour away. Turns out the appointment was at 1, and they called as I was parking at the doctor's, saying they're 20 minutes away, see you soon. Thankfully, the gentleman's major project he was doing at work ran into some snags and they had to call a stop early, so he was able to be there for delivery, but then it turned out the only fridge we could get in that short a time frame is 6" narrower than the old one, so we can't fit all our frozen goods in it. The gentleman broke up the bag of ice we'd put in the old freezer and shoved the overflow into 2 mini coolers, but I suspect we're still going to lose some things. Still, on the bright side, it was a dang good excuse to throw out the 6 million old, half-used bottles of every kind of topping/ sauce/ flavoring under the sun that the gentleman refused to let go of "because you never know when we might need it," so yay I guess. 

 

I did get to have regular, healthy breakfast this morning, thanks to going shopping at 10pm last night, when I usually start my going-to-bed-routine. Worth it, but I'm tired today. I shorted lunch breaks all week, thinking I'd need extra time off work to meet the fridge people, so I have done zero language practice so far. Workouts have been ok, though a little off from eating out every meal for 4 days in a row, and I'll have to do so for lunch again today because I didn't have time to prep last night. Tomorrow I leave for a weekend with my sister, which I'm grateful to spend time with her, but means I'll have limited food prep time for next week, too (and limited fridge space going forward to store it - that's going to take some inventiveness). 

 

Staying focused on the positives: the craziness is largely over now, and next week should be a typical one. Also grateful that the landlady was so responsive, and we have the financial means to restock without having to scrimp anywhere. The scheduling stuff worked out great in the end, and the doctor was also very responsive to some health concerns I have so I'm glad I didn't have to cancel or reschedule. Busy week, but we made it through. 

[raptron]

Aw, sorry about the smaller fridge! 

[Manarelle]

On 8/23/2019 at 1:50 PM, raptron said:

Aw, sorry about the smaller fridge! 

 

Eh, we're trying to take the view that at least we HAVE a fridge. I've heard many, many stories of people ordering a new one and it takes several weeks to a month to get there, so we can deal with a smaller one coming within a few days. It is so good to be able to cook and have cold milk again. 

 

Ironically, we didn't get to go grocery shopping this weekend, as there was an explosion in a building next to our grocery store (gas leak, thankfully at an office building on a Sunday morning, so no injuries). Hopefully we can make an unscheduled grocery run this week, but we're getting by for now. 

 

Week 3:

• Languages: Shockingly, zero. It was a weird week. 
• Exercise: M-Th yes, Friday weights replaced by F/Sa hiking.
• Crafting: Mock-up of the Backlash knife, got basswood planks to try out for a base.
• Learning: Zip. See above re rough week.
• Veggies: Total fail, same reason.

Last week was, to say the least, an anomaly. Short lunches to make up for a doctor's appointment meant no language practice, evenings were busy with paperwork to prep for another (thankfully less stress-inducing) thing at work, food was difficult due to lack of fridge, and then Friday - Sunday was at an airbnb with my sister, whom I get to see... basically never. Last time was maybe 5 years ago. It was good, far from civilization, lots of hiking and lounging on the front porch and naps (lots of DOMs yesterday and today), and very restorative after the crazy week. It's good to know I can roll with a chaos wee, but I'm quite happy to return to my regularly scheduled everything. I was not able to batch cook for lunches, but I have healthy alternatives that take minimal prep so I will make it through. 

 

This week will be a little busy, getting back to the normal routine and also catching up from last week, but hopefully it will even out. Need to make time to go to a lab - the doc wanted me to get some blood work done, but thankfully it's not urgent, so I can put off to next week if need be. I've been having some issues with extra heartbeats - not dangerous, but REALLY disconcerting. She did an ekg last week (which was way less complex than I'd always assumed) and found that my heart appears to be structurally sound (yay), so next thing to check is various vitamins/ minerals. Further thankful that you don't need to fast for that anymore... counting my blessings. 

[Manarelle]

On 7/31/2019 at 1:42 PM, Manarelle said:

For those of you who read the last challenge, the unexpected presentation today went (I feel) pretty solidly. We have to wait a week or so to find out if they'll accept our proposal, and if I thought waiting for the presentation was bad... At least that I could obsessively prepare for; now it's just a waiting game. Cross fingers. 

 

Waiting game over. They went way beyond the deadline they gave, but they accepted our proposal. Boss forwarded the acceptance with the promise of a nice little bonus for doing that on the next paycheck. Unexpected, but deeply appreciated. 

[KB Girl]

Sounds like a really great weekend with your sister. There's really no better way to catch up with someone than being in the middle of nowhere with lots of hiking space and comfy space to lounge

 

On 8/29/2019 at 4:16 PM, Manarelle said:

Waiting game over. They went way beyond the deadline they gave, but they accepted our proposal. Boss forwarded the acceptance with the promise of a nice little bonus for doing that on the next paycheck. Unexpected, but deeply appreciated. 

That's awesome, well done and congrats!

[WhiteGhost]

On 8/29/2019 at 10:16 PM, Manarelle said:

 

Waiting game over. They went way beyond the deadline they gave, but they accepted our proposal. Boss forwarded the acceptance with the promise of a nice little bonus for doing that on the next paycheck. Unexpected, but deeply appreciated. 

 

Congratulations!

[Manarelle]

Holy biscuits, it's already Week 4:

• Languages: Back on track - missed Friday, made up for it on Saturday. No slacking.
• Exercise: Yes. 
• Crafting: Made the blade shape out of basswood, detail designs approved. More below.
• Learning: Caught up to all but one lesson, in good shape.
• Veggies: Just going to accept this is a fail. Can't commit to it. 

Somewhat busy week, mostly trying to catch up from the previous week and relaxing but non-productive weekend vacation. Languages are rocking and rolling; had to miss Friday due to a family lunch, but then made up for it (and more) on Saturday while I was dyeing a shirt. Gave a "business presentation" in class on Thursday: learned a lot of new words and why the synonyms I used are technically right, but conversationally wrong. Good to know. Gym is doing fine, no big news there, just keeping on. Devoted a good chunk of time to getting caught up on the art classes, only one lesson behind and should be able to catch up this week. (The middle picture is trying out a new set of pencils and charcoal I got. The smudging on the charcoal was a lot of fun, though quite messy.)

 

  

 

Veggies.... just aren't happening. Might be because there is still a bounty of delicious summer/ fall fruits that I want to stuff my face with, or just because they're still not appetizing. Didn't even bother to buy any new veggies this week after I found the bag of baby carrots had gone bad. Doc seems to think I'm healthy without em, so bugger it. 

 

On a completely different note, however, I got quite a bit of crafting done. The gentleman's cosplay boots are touched up and ready for a final protective coat (which just arrived yesterday). I dyed his shirt, removed the pockets from the pants in preparation for dyeing and then adding white stripes, and ordered white ripstop to make the stripes with. Unfortunately, the pants didn't fit in the junker pot we had for dyeing (the shirt barely did, and a slight mishap made the floor look like someone had been smooshing smurfs in the kitchen... oops. It *should* fade with time... I hope...). Found a 20-quart pot on FB Marketplace not too far from me, so we took a nice little drive today to pick it up. Ordered more dye, and hopefully can finish the pants off this coming weekend. The knife is really coming together, although the foil tape I ordered turned out to be too small, so I have to wait for a wider version to come in before I can make it look metal. It gave me time to add some little details, though, which I think will spiff it up a bit. I'll "sharpen" the non-hook edge, and add the serrated area on the hook side this week. 

 

 

Also took some time to work on a lightsaber holder for my Jedi cosplay. I ran low on time/ ideas when I debuted the costume, and just had tied the 'saber to my belt with braided twine; functional, but not really pretty. Used some scrap leather from the Thor belt this weekend to cut out a belt hanger with straps to wrap around the 'saber. Dyed it, cleaned up the edges, and went to put snaps on it, only to realize that fabric snaps and leather snaps are two very different lengths. Put a small hole in my thumb trying to dig the too-short snap out of thick leather, but it seems to be healing nicely. Leather snaps should arrive tomorrow, and I'll see if I've got a brilliant 'saber holder solution, or a wonky mess. 

 

Week 3 was crazy, week 4 was busy catching up to the crazy, let's hear it for a nice, calm week 5, eh? And while I'm dreaming, I'd like a secluded mansion with an in-ground pool.

[WhiteGhost]

On 9/3/2019 at 8:59 AM, Manarelle said:

Doc seems to think I'm healthy without em, so bugger it.

If you are doing fine without them, no point in punishing yourself just to check a box.

 

I liked the sketches. I just got a new pencil set but haven't tried them out yet.  I think sketching will make a comeback next challenge  

[raptron]

Smurf smooshing! Hahah.

 

 

[Elennare]

On 9/2/2019 at 5:59 PM, Manarelle said:

The knife is really coming together, although the foil tape I ordered turned out to be too small, so I have to wait for a wider version to come in before I can make it look metal.

 

The Jo-Ann's near where I used to live sold a tube of stuff to put a metallic finish on things.  I think it was in the wood crafts section.  I have had good luck with that on craft foam, so it might be something to look into if the tape doesn't work out.  Unfortunately, I bought it so long ago I forgot what it was called.  More recently, we bought some spray paint from the hardware store that gave a metal-look finish and it turned out pretty well too (it wasn't "metallic" spray paint, it explicitly said it was to make things look like metal).  So, that's another option as well, if you need it.  It looks great so far! 

[Manarelle]

On 9/4/2019 at 12:27 AM, WhiteGhost said:

I liked the sketches. I just got a new pencil set but haven't tried them out yet.  I think sketching will make a comeback next challenge  

 

I support this idea 100%  The end of this week once again went crazy, but I did get a little time in to work on rendering. Tried a couple different styles, then just went right back to my usual method of shading, sigh. Really need to focus on bringing out the other pencils, not just going straight for the mechanical one. 

 

 

On 9/4/2019 at 5:33 PM, Elennare said:

The Jo-Ann's near where I used to live sold a tube of stuff to put a metallic finish on things. 

 

Does DecoArt Metallic Paint sound familiar? If the foil doesn't work, I'll definitely try that out. I tried the spray from Home Depot on Mjolnir, and while it looked good, it didn't last on flexible medium. The wood knife might work though. The foil should come in this week, so we'll see. Thank you for the options.

 

Week 5 and wrap-up:

• Languages: Yep. 
• Exercise: Yep. 
• Crafting: Zero, another crazy week happened.
• Learning: Started to get caught up, then crazy happened, and I'm behind again, though only one class. 
• Veggies: Cancelled. 

The start of the week was mostly taken up with art class catch-up, then work descended into crazy that spilled over into Saturday morning. I don't mind, but it meant the rest of the weekend was spent playing catch-up on all the day-to-day things, and I got nothing else done besides some much-needed mental break time. Sunday evening was devoted to taking pictures of Legos, as the gentleman has decided to sell all his in a bulk lot, and he has a LOT of Legos. I was happy to help, though, as it means there will (eventually) be room for my craft stuff to have dedicated space, instead of tucking in pieces wherever I can shove it, and going hunting every time I want to craft. 

 

On the crafting side, there were two setbacks. The first was with the lightsaber holder: the snap idea isn't going to work. The snaps didn't come with a setting tool, and I'm not willing to spend MORE money to make it work, especially since the snap backs would scratch the lightsaber do I'd have to figure out how to alleviate that, too. The second setback is that the supposedly flexible spray-on fabric paint I used for the leather part of the gentleman's Backlash shoes didn't hold up to one day of wearing around the house.  So now I have to remove all that and try again with the airbrush and acrylic paint (which did stay attached on the fabric parts). Better to know now, I guess, but I'm slightly bummed. 

 

  

 

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with this challenge; not because I accomplished a lot, or made progress, but more because I hit some solid disruptions and was able to get back on schedule pretty quickly. I'm enjoying the art class, but am also realizing that art needs a lot of time devoted to it to get better, and I'm not willing to spend that time so I have to accept that I won't progress part sketching skills. Good lesson to learn. 

 

While that's a good place to end a challenge, there's something else on my mind. I tried to do some gaming this weekend as part of the downtime/ relax time, but I couldn't get into anything. I think part of my aversion to it is that gaming is usually either 1) no/ not much thought, but you have to follow the "winning" pattern designed by the game makers (side scrollers, early RPGs, etc) or 2) requires strategy and planning but also inevitably includes lots of mental and emotional drama (pretty much everything else). I get frustrated with the first, because I like to explore on my own terms, and I don't have patience with the second due to the crazy going on at work. Makes me sad, because I used to be huge into gaming, and now it just doesn't bring the same joy, excitement, and relaxation. 

[Elennare]

1 hour ago, Manarelle said:

Does DecoArt Metallic Paint sound familiar? If the foil doesn't work, I'll definitely try that out. I tried the spray from Home Depot on Mjolnir, and while it looked good, it didn't last on flexible medium. The wood knife might work though. The foil should come in this week, so we'll see. Thank you for the options.

The label sort of looks similar to what I remember, but it definitely wasn't paint.  It was a paste that you rubbed onto stuff.  Maybe same brand but a different product?  Might have been called something with "gilding" in the name?  Sorry, I know that's super not helpful.  I need to go to the craft store again fairly soon, I'll see if I can find it again and let you know what it actually is if I have success.

 

Bummer on the paint not sticking on the shoes, because they look great.

[Anim07734]

On 9/9/2019 at 9:32 AM, Manarelle said:

I tried to do some gaming this weekend as part of the downtime/ relax time, but I couldn't get into anything. I think part of my aversion to it is that gaming is usually either 1) no/ not much thought, but you have to follow the "winning" pattern designed by the game makers (side scrollers, early RPGs, etc) or 2) requires strategy and planning but also inevitably includes lots of mental and emotional drama (pretty much everything else). I get frustrated with the first, because I like to explore on my own terms, and I don't have patience with the second due to the crazy going on at work. Makes me sad, because I used to be huge into gaming, and now it just doesn't bring the same joy, excitement, and relaxation. 

Have you tried Skyrim (or similar) recently?  It's open world concept might be more what you're looking for.  You can completely ignore the main quest to just wander around the beauful landscape helping random folk and clearing out bandit camps.

[Manarelle]

On 9/9/2019 at 12:34 PM, Elennare said:

The label sort of looks similar to what I remember, but it definitely wasn't paint.  It was a paste that you rubbed onto stuff.  Maybe same brand but a different product?  Might have been called something with "gilding" in the name?  Sorry, I know that's super not helpful.  I need to go to the craft store again fairly soon, I'll see if I can find it again and let you know what it actually is if I have success.

 

Bummer on the paint not sticking on the shoes, because they look great.

 

If you happen to come across it, I'd love an update. I'll strip the shoes and redo with the acrylic and airbrushing.... just was hoping the faster spray-dye would work. Alas.

 

1 hour ago, Anim07734 said:

Have you tried Skyrim (or similar) recently?  It's open world concept might be more what you're looking for.  You can completely ignore the main quest to just wander around the beauful landscape helping random folk and clearing out bandit camps.

 

I tried it a while ago and wasn't thrilled with the controls. Might try again though, since my tastes have shifted. Thank you.