Windchaser

I revised my "peafin" (yes, peacock-griffin)!

I didn't like the way that the anatomy had ended up so strangely "cropped" - at the time, I didn't mind that the tail went off the edge, because the only shapes that Vistaprint offered were return address labels (the little thin oblong stickers), which was my reason for drawing everything in such long thin narrow oblongs in the first place. Since they started to offer circles and bigger rectangles and ovals, and I wanted to put my pictures on stickers - mainly to be gifts but also who knows maybe someday sell them? - it... bothered me, that I had such strange crops in awkward places.

Basically, I am quite the perfectionist when it comes down to a lot of things - maybe not the remotest bit tidy, but I can't have anything be a rush job. (At work? Yes, I will straighten up a label on a box and re-fold a leaflet if it's not been done completely square. ¬_¬ And my writing REALLY bothers me if it's not as perfect as my current level of skill can get it.) So naturally I didn't feel happy about giving things out with STRANGELY SLICED OFF TAILS.

So I spent a good chunk of today, while the rain poured down and foiled my desire to go out and buy buffet foods for work, carefully filling out the cropped bits and giving my birdie a whole tail and wings and fingers. He's not perfect, but he's better than he was. :)

Related to this semi-kneejerk perfectionism... Is there a way of choosing the thumbnail that shows up in LJ Scrapbook, does anyone know? My scrapbook has gone from tiny widdly pictures that at least gave some idea of what the picture was, to ridiculous nonsense like this:


Plus, it seems to have broken all my thumbnails in EVERY old entry I made - everything has been oddly stretchd and smushed into a 100x100px square. Thanks, LJ. ¬_¬

I found my original post! December 2008, ouch. But I at least got a couple finished off!

An enfield (left) and a kelpie (right). As well as a borough in London, the enfield is a heraldic beastie, made up of fox, eagle, and wolf, occasionally with some greyhound and lion in it too. The kelpie, or each uisge, is the carnivorous water horse of celtic myth. You could always identify a kelpie by the sand and shells in its mane. (Presumably, if you dared to get close enough?)

As ever, I'm somewhat dissatisfied by the enfield's blobby "magic" and will probably rework it. To answer Anna's question (I can't get on FA right now): they're tall, skinny pictures because that way they'll fit on a particular brand of stickers. I like to get things printed so I can hide them inside things I put in the post (like... Christmas cards, haha) as little extras. Edit@8am 10/10: Ahaha! SUCCESS. I found my peacock griffin! (I was thinking I was going to have to redraw it from my horrible scan on the previous entry.) I'll get that coloured and uploaded tonight. Teehee, today's date is 10/10; I sense I will keep making jokes about things being "ten out of ten".

( More Art thingers! (2 pics under cut) )

I was going to have a go at doing these like "real" fake stained glass, as in: use some sort of dimensional paint for the leading then fill/colour with a clear coloured plastic "lacquer", but then I realised HOW wibbly my lines were with the dimensional "leading" so I gave up. ;) (Besides, I've got about a billion shades of green and no firking ORANGE. I don't think they MAKE a proper orange. So... curses.) I may post the experiment later.

Anyone got any ideas for more creatures?