Unexpected Guest

I occasionally have weekends that make Mondays seem like no big deal.  This was one of those weekends.  On Saturday I was nearing melt-down point when in came a small blue parakeet.

Yes.  A parakeet.

I was just finishing my laundry when a bird waddled up to me, chirping for attention.  I'm pretty certain our apartment doesn't allow pets other than fish, so a parakeet was the last thing I expected to find in the laundry room.

After informing the manager of our strange visitor, I took her back to my room and constructed a cage out of a milk crate, a mesh laundry hamper, and a handful of knitting needles.  Having no money for birdseed I decided to feed her Cheerios, which took her a minute to figure out how to eat (I'd imagine it's like eating a bagel with your hands tied at your sides).

I have never owned a bird, and only once had a chance to play with one.  I'm more used to rodents, cats, and dogs. The parakeet, which I quickly dubbed Headpet (for her affinity for perching on my head) flitted about my room and tested the perching potential of each piece of furniture and the window shades; experimented with the noise-making potential of my house keys; stood on my laptop and tried to make sense of my homework; and generally never held still.

Fortunately parakeets are diurnal. As soon as I got Headpet in her makeshift cage and turned off the lights, she quieted down and went to sleep.

On Sunday I made a few phone calls and found an animal shelter to take Headpet off my hands, get her some proper birdseed, and hopefully find her owner.  In some sense, having to babysit a bird should've been another stress on top of a big pile of stresses, yet somehow it came off as a refreshing change of pace.  At the very least it makes for an amusing story.  Sometimes getting knocked off our game gives us a chance to start playing something different.

Earworm of the day: Why Should I Worry from Disney's Oliver and Company

Alien Slang and Cartoon Eyes

So I was inventing some slang for my alien characters today, specifically the ones that have some involvement with their planet's military.  This was way more fun than it should've been.  For example, book rookie:  a person who claims they know how to do something solely on the grounds that they read it in the manuel.  Or drilled: to have removed through a process, such as one runs practice drills to replace blind instinct with useful training.

Then it occurred to me that "drill" in the military sense might itself have originated from slang or metaphor, though I'm only speculating.  A quick google search provided an explanation of why the Marines do drills (the marching kind) and a couple of ads for power tools.  Clearly I need more research.

My Design Interfaces class has started using a new mockup tool called HotGloo.  It's a new experience having a tool that can design and test out website functions without being tied to any particular computer, or wait for a hundred libraries to load like an Adobe product.  Not that I have issue with Adobe.  It's how I make things like this: 

I'm currently working on the rest of the picture.  Points for guessing who's eye it is (hint: he has been pictured on this blog before).  It occurred to me that I could do a short tutorial on cartoon eyes, but I don't have a screen-cap program to make a video with.  Any ideas for a solution?

Earworm of the day:  Please Don't Let Me Go by Group 1 Crew

Beth Redesign

Character expression sheet for Beth's redesign.

As artistic skill improves, so occasionally must the design of one's cartoon characters.

I've pretty much drawn Beth the same way since the day I finally figured out the significance of construction drawing (a very nice tutorial on that here by the way).  For a while I drew her head as an egg-shape, but the trouble was always how long to make her nose.  It was never consistent.

I've changed Beth's head to be two separate circles for the head and the muzzle, which has several benefits:

1. A circle looks the same from all directions, so it's much easier to think of it in 3D.  
2. It helps establish the placement and boundaries of her mouth and prevents me from drawing her nose too big (which has been an issue in the past).
3. Beth's a hamster.  Have you seen a hamster's muzzle?  Hold that thought...

Pocket-sized adorableness.

They got the round nose thing going on, so it fits with her species.  (btw, the hamster in the photo is the real-life Beth the hamster.)

The final bit of the redesign is her hair (er... headfur?).  I've always drawn her with no hairstyle whatsoever, but most of my other important characters had some suggestion of a hairstyle. Beth looked  like an extra in her own cartoon.

I decided on a half-way point between her parents' hairstyles with a lot of extra bed-head thrown in.  Three lines facing forward and two facing back over the base of the closest ear.  This lends itself to more expressiveness, like standing on end when scared or drooping when tired.

Earworm of the day: have we done Raver's Fantasy yet?  We have now.

Head in the Clouds

I have finally picked up a Discworld novel.  This is a surprising development, not because it isn't something I would do (I totally would), but because I'm only getting around to it now.  I started with book one, The Color of Magic.  Thus far it is a very funny, and slightly hard to put down.

Having figured out Harold Washington Library's system for categorizing fiction, I hunted down another two books by another author, Richard Bach, who's apparently obsessed with aviation, but that's ok because his novels are nice short reads filled with a child-like imagination.  The only word I can describe them with is "charming".  Charming in the completely serious, un-ironic sense.  Pure day-dream like flights of fancy.  The series I picked up is called The Ferret Chronicles and it sounds exactly like something I would've written in middle school, with the big exception that Bach actually knows how to write novel and my middle-school self didn't (not that I didn't try).

In other news:  a friend of mine shared this video with me.  Post-its are versatile little things.

Earworm of the day: Take Me Into The Beautiful by Cloverton
(They also have a free download of the song at their website, just a note.  Free stuff is always neat.)