bus doodles

[egypturnash]

From the past couple of days, actually.



The protaganist of 'Drowning City' all dressed up, and not exactly happy about it. Mostly interesting because it's a rare attempt at elaborate clothes, something I'm going to have to get the hang of for the elven court sequences of the story...


I was sitting behind a girl with a few tattoos and pondered what I might want if I decided to design one for myself. This is not quite suitable as a tattoo, and I don't think I really want one anyway, but it's an interesting variant of some aspects of how I present myself in my art.


Self-portratiness. I'm not sure if I like the ethereal serpent coiled around myself; my reptilian nature has been more apparent in some ways of late, but it may be too obvious. The snake was drawn on the facing page, and Photoshopped in after scanning (obviously).

A thought on the hair sticks bearing smoke: Any character intended to represent me almost always has a little trail of smoke involved somewhere. This is despite the fact that I don't smoke, and second-hand smoke invariably gives me a headache. In a mood to ponder mystic significance of this, I noted the following: In Western astrology, my sign, Cancer, is associated with water. I'm not sure about my sign in other systems, but I don't believe I've ever gotten a result with an association of 'fire'. But what I did flash on was something from voodoo. To quote Blackbeard in Tim Powers' voodoo pirate novel, 'On Stranger Tides': "Low-smoldering fire, that's the drogue that holds Baron Samedi's protective attention." So maybe at some point in my life I've been consecrated to the Lord of Cemeteries and don't know this.

Or maybe it's just that I've drawn myself as a fire-breathing dragon so much that it's become habitual.

Either way, it's an interesting self-portrait I may finish, with or without the serpent.

Comments

[milkpanzer.livejournal.com]

There's a cool Michael Parkes painting that has always stuck my fancy which shows a woman with sticks of burning incense (?) in her hair. I didn't really make the correlation until you mentioned secondhand smoke and I thought "Why not incense perhaps?" It's such cool imagery. I believe ancient Egyptians burned scented wax in their wigs as well. As far as Baron Samedi goes...I'm not sure I want his attention protective or otherwise. At least at the moment. ;D

Mm...Nag Champa Peggy... :D

I've got some recurring symbols that appear in my 'personal characters'. Freckles being one, even though I don't really have any iRL and lithe, almost childlike figures...exactly opposit of me iRL. Attitude-wise my characters seem to be excessively perky. Whatever *that's* about. >.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think ol' Mr. Saturday has had enough influence on my life already. On the other hand, in the book I refered to, his attention kept Blackbeard from dying more than once. I think
i may have to read it for the fourteenth time or so...

All my various 'me' charaxters tend to be smoky, lithe, tall, and somewhat evil.

---

Can I stop being your incense holder?

No.

Just for a few minutes? Please?

No!

But I have to go peeeeee!

Re:

[milkpanzer.livejournal.com]

Dangit. My incense holder keeps doing the peepee dance.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*innocent blink* Um. Helping to circulate the scent through the air. Honest.

. o O ( PEE PEE PEE GOTTA PEE )

[rainwing.livejournal.com]

I like the way you do elaborate.. I could almost be convinced to get into one of those. Goblet in the nailtips is just darling.

Also (I'm too tired to remember if I already mentioned it to you, but I was probably too tired *then* to say it) maybe the smoke is just intangibility and sensuousness? You're definitely those things, at times.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

You started to say something about the smoke last night, but trailed off, into doziness, I presume... it's hard to think of anything as representing intangibility when I'm sitting naked in front of the computer trying to convince myself to get into the shower and off to work, aware of all the little aches and pains. Moments like these are ones where it's very hard to feel anything but solid and real.

*stuffs Rainy into an elaborate confection of a dress*

[rainwing.livejournal.com]

*waggles a finger at you* I'm only going to let you do that if you're going to eat me.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

hmm... Okay!

[brodycatsmouth.livejournal.com]

Not that I am ANY good at mysticism, but one thing I notice in everyone is that people seem to have more than one element when compared to this or that system. For example, my sign (Sagg) is fire, my month and season (December) is earth (says my Druid friend), and my hands are air. Who knows? Maybe this multi-elemental approach is instinctively shown here in your self-portraits.

Or maybe we're all just making it up.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Being unmystical and rational nine times out of ten, I'd tend to agree with the 'making it up' part. I could think of something about it being hidden by another element, and thus expressed only as wisps of smoke (and, in fact, one of the thoughts in my mind as I played with this drawing was some much more overt fire imagery, but it went in this direction instead).

On the other hand, it turns out, according to this astrology book I have lying around, that my 'moon sign' (the sign in which the moon was in when I was born, supposedly an indicator of the 'inner self' as opposed to the 'outer self' that the more familiar 'sun sign' is) is Saggitarius, which is fire. So we do, indeed, have fire 'under' the water of Cancer. But on the other other hand, the description of moon-in-Saggitarius is about half stuff that I say 'yeah, that's me' to and half stuff I am definitely not.

It's all just metaphor. One of the acting-for-animation classes I had in school suggested using earth/air/water/fire as one of several ways to analyze a character for animation; each element has obvious associations in posture and motion that can come through even in still drawings of characters who are otherwise identical. (It wasn't the only suggested way to think about a character, just one of several.)

I am, however, curious to know how you found out that your hands have a particular alchemic elemental association.

[brodycatsmouth.livejournal.com]

"I'd tend to agree with the 'making it up' part"

Me too. I am a staunch skeptic, but it's fun to do all this stuff...I just don't take it to heart.

"It's all just metaphor."

In fact, art, religion, science, and communication is all metaphor for what *is*. Scientific equations are our best-guess as to how the world works, which replaced earlier rationalizations of gods and monsters. Einsteinian relativity is simply our best guess, but even then there are exceptions in nature. Element types (fire, earth, etc...) are categories into which people can be classified, but so are astrological signs, psychological profiles, etc. That's why there are so many LJ/Quizilla personality tests. But in the end, the test/profile/prediction conforms to you, you do not conform to it. Art imitates life, but it cannot *be* life. Why do you have a wisp of smoke over your self-portraits? Cause you like it. Doesn't mean a damn thing, if you don't want it to.

"I am, however, curious to know how you found out that your hands have a particular alchemic elemental association."

Same way you found your moon-sign...a book that was laying around. You're supposed to look at the width of your hand and relative finger length. Long, skinny fingers=water, short stubby fingers, big hands=earth, wide but not large hand=fire, longish, unskinny fingers=air. Whatever, it seemed cool.