My kids are too young to care what they are for Halloween.  Hopefully, I’ll get one more year of dressing them however I want before they start randomly picking costumes.  I’m hoping for a little Link and Zelda next year because I might die of cute.

Anyway.

Michael was Baby Hulk for his first Halloween.  It was a stupid easy costume – I drew a muscled torso on a lime green onesie I had and cut up a pair of purple shorts I bought from Dollar Tree.

Baby Hulk SMASH!!! in 2010

Last year I decided he should be a bat.  I was also hugely pregnant with Miss Maddie, so I didn’t want to do a whole lot of sewing.  Or anything.  I ended up buying a black hooded sweatshirt, gluing on some felt bat wings to the sleeves, sewing on two stuffed fabric horns, and making little goggles out of fun foam and elastic.  It turned out pretty cute.

Baby Bat – also cute 2011.

I really had no idea what the kids were going to be until around summertime, when Miss Maddie started sitting in the high chair.  She loved to hit things with other things.  DING!  I decided then and there she would be Thor for her first Halloween.  She absolutely loved the little hammer I made for her out of a wooden dowel, some electrical tape, and an Alka-Seltzer box.  Check her out.

“I may have a rainbow on my shirt, but I mean BUSINESS.”

Unfortunately, I was really excited about Maddie being Thor and less about Michael being…anyone.  So my blond-haired blue-eyed little boy ended up as Captain America.  He doesn’t even know who Captain America is yet.

So without further ado – Tiny Avengers!

So much fabric paint was used on that shirt.

Maddie decided her hammer was tasty.

Not so good with riding it yet, but it’s a cute picture.

When Thor’s happy, everyone’s happy.

Maddie dislikes the outdoors.

Even superheroes need their trusty blankies.

The costumes were basically a bunch of fabric paint on basic clothes.  Maddie’s was a black onesie with silver circles and a yellow belt, then I made a red cape that velcroed to it.  Everything else was hers.  Michael’s started off as a blue long-sleeved shirt.  His shield was made from a frisbee I painted and attached elastic straps to.  He had no idea what to do with it, so we hung it from his back.

And last, but certainly not least, I had decided to be April O’Neil from the 80s TMNT cartoon since my hair was orange (at the time – it’s not now.)  This stupid jumpsuit ate an entire week of my life – I couldn’t figure out the directions.  I basically FORGOT how to sew or something.  Everything I pieced together wrong, inside-out, or upside-down…then more than once.  I ripped out enough seams to make an entire second costume’s worth of thread.  It was bad.  But it turned out cute.

April O’Neil should’ve had Moon Boots like mine.

Now on to the Christmas sewing!

Today, I discovered something even more awesome.

I attempted to take self-portraits with my kids.  Michael wasn’t having any and Maddie kept wanting to shove the camera strap in her maw, so you can guess how well the pictures actually turned out.  I also gave up on trying to get pictures without using the flash because my children vibrate.  They are incapable of holding still unless they are asleep.  Even then, it’s questionable.

I captured this gem of Maddie and me, and once I loaded it onto the computer, I realized how utterly crappy it was!

Out of focus, completely overexposed – there was no way this photograph could be saved.  The expressions however, are priceless.

So I fiddled around with it in Painter, and made it into a watercolor.

I consider this a good use of my afternoon.

Comparison shot.

Introducing…Midian!

This one was giving me some trouble, until I opened the four songs I had on the playlist today and blasted through another 13 easily.  Inspiration is neat when it’s useful.

Tracklisting:

1. Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry – Nick Cave*
2. Duel – Bond
3. Preacher Man – Fields of the Nephilim
4. Seven Devils - Florence and the Machine
5. Wood Carving Partita - Michiru Yamane
6. Spanish Steps - Toto
7. Love Like Blood – Killing Joke
8. Xavier – Paradise Lost
9. Revival - Beats Antique
10. Secret Message - Rasputina
11. Carnival Noir - Cauda Pavonis
12. Snake Dance  - March Violets
13. An Angry Blade - Iron & Wine
14. Stigmata Martyr – Abney Park
15. Quixote – Bond
16. Sacred – Moonspell
17. Venus in Furs - The Velvet Underground

You can listen to the entire soundtrack at 8tracks.com!

Picture credits

• dewfooter at dA for the knight
• VaultofJzabelle at dA for the castle

Trolling through the resources on DeviantArt is both terrifyingly hideous and hauntingly beautiful.  There’s a lot of crap on that website.  But there’s also a lot of gorgeous things.  I stumbled across this picture and decided to do a painting of it.  Many hours later, I’m calling it done.

Also, I just now noticed the funky line in the top right corner.  Apparently that happened during saving in Painter.  It happens occasionally.  It just sucks because this is the last place I’m posting it, so I have to update it everywhere else. 

Anyway, Veins of Vine.  Check out my dA site for the full size version.

Since this picture, the boy has gotten a haircut.

I might do one of Maddie from this set, but she is not a fan of the outdoors.  She pretty much sat there in the grass and scowled at me.  At least the boy likes being outside.

Again, done in about four hours or so.

I honestly cannot express enough how happy this makes me.  I’ve wanted to be able to digitally paint for years, and I’m okay with some styles.  However, the big sweeping fully realistic paintings that I want to do are still out of my reach.  Just like my painting in real life, I simply cannot spend weeks on one picture.  The great thing about doing it digitally is I don’t have the constant urge to undo stuff like I do when I’m using Photoshop.  Mistakes are easily fixed with a few more brushstrokes.  That is awesome.

And another comparison shot.

It took about four hours or so from a photograph I took of him during his birthday party.  I think it turned out pretty good.  I like it.  I wish I could afford to get a giant 20 x 30 canvas print of it.

I’ve been using Photoshop for my digital painting lately, so I’m having to relearn the Painter stuff.  I’ve had versions of it in the past, so it isn’t a total system shock for me.  I still like it better than Photoshop for fine art looking things.  Both programs are good for different stuff.

So.  On to something new.

Here’s a comparison shot of the original photograph to my painting.  Photo on the left, painting on the right.

This map took a couple weeks in Photoshop to make and the canvas on it grew huge.  It’s at 72 dpi but the image is 48 inches square.  It started at less than half that.  I drew the outlines for things and started coloring stuff, and then visited the awesomeness that is Chaotic Shiny for ideas for areas.  And then things suddenly spiraled out of control as I discovered how much fun the Medieval Map random generator is for a project like this.  Soon I had a Word document several pages long and my district numbers went from like 12 to I don’t even know what I ended up with.

Stock details and credits are up at deviantArt.

Kristy has a happy.

We’ve both loved the Thief series since we first played them on a computer that took five minutes to load a mission (frustrating when you had saved it somewhere and immediately died after it loaded – *cough*Down In the Bonehoard*cough*).  He’s made conversions for D&D 3rd Edition, Warhammer Fantasy, Fantasy Masks, and now this.  I happily made the cover for his printed book copy and immediately started working on my Thief-esque role-playing game too.

So.  The picture.

I made a “Not Garrett” for the picture because despite my deep love for the series, I’ve always hated the main character.  He’s kind of a jerk.  “Oh, I’m the greatest thief in the world but my rent’s due, so I have to go rob a crap ton of warehouses because I’m scared of my landlord.”  What?!  And don’t get us started on what he does with his gear between missions.

The left side of the arch is very prim and proper, like our beloved Hammers would like it.  The right side of the arch is overgrown, like our beloved Pagans would enjoy.  And the very tip top of the keystone of the arch is the sign of the Keepers, who I guessed should be represented somehow.

I sketched and colored it in Photoshop CS5.  Special thanks to faestock and Grinmir-stock on deviantArt for the stock images used.  This is the final version we used for the cover.  A version without text is available on my dA account.

I swear, I have WordPress theme ADD.