RJEzrilou

So, things have been busy and I've been neglecting all my lovely dA friends, but hopefully I'll be able to be around more often

Anyway, it's a little-known bit of information that I actually have two accounts here on dA. One is this account, and the other is I've kind of split my stuff between the two accounts. NebulaDraconian has photos I've taken, all my old poetry, and my crafty-type things like painted ceramics, flower crowns, and the jewelry I've made. And this account has my colorings and story bits (poor neglected story! lol).
If you don't mind, check out my other account and see what I've done lately! I promise I'm gonna color some more stuff soon, really!




AAAAAAND, because she's fabulous and made me a fancy cool RJ Dragon hat!! in exchange for a custom necklace (in progress), you should check out my friend's dA. She's all kinds of talented, and has been on a hat making rampage lately. Go look!!

As if I haven't already REstarted this story enough times.

Now, I'm not really starting from scratch like I did a few months ago. I know where the story's going, who the characters are, all that good stuff.
However.
I am going back to "the beginning" of the story--the real beginning, not the teaser piece I started with--and writing from there.
This time, I'm not going to be lazy about it, writing the skeleton with plans to expand it later.
I'm going to include all the detail that I used to love writing. (It's not that I don't still love it, I'm just out of practice!)

And then, maybe then, I can finish this story the right way.

So if you've read the past pieces, I'm not throwing them out completely, but they will be drastically revised.
New pieces will pop up soon enough.

-RJ

I really think these are a cool concept, and a great way to show off other peoples' art.

featured me, so now it's my turn.

For each of the 10 first people answering this journal I will put his/her avatar and the three deviations I like most from his/her gallery on the list.

IMPORTANT: If you answer, you'll have to do the same in your journal, putting me on the first place, completing the list with 9 other people. The idea of this is not to get a free feature, it is to spread art around for everyone.

Sadly, I can't seem to make the thumbnails work. If your name is included in the list, be kind enough to click the other artists' links and give them a look.

Ready? Set? Go

1. fav.me/d3k17xb fav.me/d3jb7vu fav.me/d3ipaoi

2. fav.me/d32kow9 fav.me/d395swj fav.me/d3dx1z0

3. neonpenz.deviantart.com/art/Ha… fav.me/d3k7152 fav.me/d3hq4hv

4. fav.me/d3jq16q fav.me/d3ks870 fav.me/d3l9cwx

5. fav.me/d13kyev fav.me/d30mdy0 fav.me/d275nyt

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

And then I see I've been tagged by the awesome in her journal. So I'm doing both of these here lol


1→You must post these rules.
2→Each tagged person must post 10 things about themselves on their journal.
3→You have to choose and tag 10 people and post their icons on the same journal.
4→Go to their pages and tell them you tagged them.
5→No tag backs.
6→No crap in the tagging section about "you are tagged if you read this". You legitimately have to tag ten people.


1. I'm afraid of open water.

2. I will listen to almost any kind of music from any time period or place in the world. I like it best when I can sing along.

3. I enjoy coloring not because I think I'm good at it (even though I do think that ) but because it relaxes me and makes me happy. Just like with my ceramic painting, I enjoy watching the whole thing come together.

4. I'm (sort of) teaching myself Japanese. It's not because I like anime, though. I've always had an interest in the Japanese language and culture, since back before I understood that there was a difference between American and Japanese animation. Watching anime in Japanese is just a bonus.

5. The story I'm writing, The Mcinei Project, is 10 years in the making. When I finally finish it, I will do a happy dance, cry tears of joy, and faint from shock. Probably in that order. (If you haven't read it, you totally should. Make me happy, pleeeeaaase.)

6. I want to learn how to draw better.

7. I spend most of my online time chatting on Solia Online. Join me? bit.ly/ltBvbM It's fun.

8. In our house, we have 6 dogs, 3 cats, 4 fish, a parakeet and 2 hamsters. And every last one of them is horribly spoiled.

9. I own more books than I have room for, but I keep buying more anyway.

10. I have a katana. (It's just a display piece, but it makes the nerd in my head soooo happy.)

All right all right there's my 10 things.

Now then, I'll tag these people:

After several people have commented on my colorings with comments about the lineart, I'm beginning to be a little frustrated. Not because the commenter is talking about the lineart rather than my coloring, but because the comments imply that I am the line-artist. When I refer people to the original artist after such a comment, sometimes I get the impression that people think I am misleading them. I was recently sent a note saying I was an art thief and should be banned for claiming someone else's art as my own. (I will say I am glad they were decent enough to note me rather than commenting on the art or my wall, but that makes it no less infuriating.)

So let me state once and for all, and hope I never have to again:

I.
Do.
Not.
Draw.
Lineart.

I'm a colorist. I have never claimed anyone's lineart as my own. In every submission, I mention the original line-artist multiple times, and state that I only colored it. I comment back to the line-artist and let them know I colored their work, providing a link to the finished coloring. While I do not always first ask to color the lineart before proceeding to do so, I only get my linearts from coloring/lineart clubs, or the artist mentions in the description that it is okay to color it. If I obtain a lineart from another website, I link back to the site. If I so much as use a picture for a color reference, I link to the picture.

So the back-and-forth "Don't claim this as yours, you didn't draw it" is crap and offensive to me. I won't waste time arguing with people who clearly cannot read what I type in the deviation description. If people would take a few seconds to read my descriptions, they'd see I never claim the lines that other people have made. Now, I understand that sometimes I write long-winded descriptions because I'm commenting not only on the piece itself, but the coloring process, and not everyone wants to read that, but I give credits at both the top and bottom of each description. Surely you can spare a moment to read that much.




On the other hand, to all of you who know and understand that I am strictly a colorist and think it disgustingly wrong to claim someone's art as my own, obviously this isn't aimed at you. In fact, I am immensely grateful for all of my deviant-friends, not only for their amazing artwork that I get to see every time I'm online, but also for appreciating my art for what it is.

An extra special thanks goes out to all of the line-artists whose works I love to color. Without you, I couldn't do what I do.



I'll go back to coloring now.

Today we took a drive down to Houston to see the end-of-year recital for the dance studio I used to attend. I took classes at that studio for 9 years, and 11 years later, I finally got a chance to go back and see the recital. Very nostalgic.

Driving in Houston, or any major city, is always interesting. I don't mind driving, not even through Houston at rush hour or 2 am--I've done both. However, today's drive reminded me of some funny things I was utterly terrified of as a child.

We lived in Pasadena (the one southeast of Houston, not the one in California) until I was 11, long enough for me to start being curious about driving. I wasn't one of those kids that begged and pleaded to drive the car, or even pretend to do so. I often fell asleep in the car so I wouldn't watch what was happening outside.

One of the things that always worried me was driving up--or down--a steep incline. I was convinced that if (while going uphill) you had to stop, you'd start rolling backwards and quite possibly into another car. If you're going downhill, you might be unable to stop and go speeding down so quickly you'd lose control of the car. I'm not sure why I thought that would happen, but I was forever convinced it was a possibility. Being the person I was (and still am) I certainly never mentioned this obviously irrational fear to anyone, because I was more afraid of being looked at as a paranoid idiot.
When I got a little older and understood the concept of braking, I was reminded once again how silly I had been.
But the bridge itself wasn't the only thing that would've worried me 11 years ago: I also held a very profound dislike for those large concrete barriers. I understand completely that they are there to keep cars from going off the bridge, or into the opposing lanes, but that didn't stop me from wishing they weren't there. I would think, "What happens if a car hits one of those?" and then my twisted, twisted mind would start imagining what the wreckage would look like.
I'm older now of course, and while I have seen a car move one of those divider/barrier blocks by colliding with it, I've never seen one been moved far enough to, say, allow the car to fall completely off of the bridge it's on.
Which of course brings me to another weird thing about the bridge and my imagination. Houston (and many other major cities) have those twisting, winding, seemingly-stacking overpasses to connect intersecting highways. They twist and turn and dip and dive, all at 50+ miles per hour. Now, that's not especially fast in comparison to how fast I know cars can drive, but it's fast enough to cause a potentially fatal accident, especially on those unusual roads. My apparently gore-obsessed imagination then showed me the fascinating image of a car driving on one of those overpasses...and failing to make a curve. The car of course launches spectacularly off of the highway, and continues in a downward arc to its inevitable doom--perhaps even taking a few more cars with it.
(I still have those kinds of dreams about roller coasters, though that's not why I don't ride them. That one is explained by nausea, pure and simple. But that's not the story I'm telling right now.)
Also, as I mentioned, this particular bridge also goes over the water, something that I wasn't too fond of--with or without vehicles. Sometimes my "car goes launching off the bridge by ramming violently into the concrete barrier at an out-of-control speed" waking-nightmares would end with the car landing in the water, rather than the pavement. The car is now not only mangled and torn, but sinking rapidly into the depths of whatever body of water my mind conjured--and the passengers are of course still inside, and having somehow survived their previous beating, will now drown inside their damaged car.
I can't even swim in my pool, why would I be able to swim my obviously injured self out of a sinking car?!



All of these thoughts passed through my head while driving across the Beltway 8 toll bridge this afternoon. I chuckled a little at this, thinking how irrational my younger self had been, and decided I'm glad I got over it.

Although... some of that might explain why I didn't get my drivers' license until after I was 18.