I'm sorry for spamming, but I totally gotta show this off! Look what I got!!! :D



Tabbie Crisp! :D drawn by Rodney Five at FA!

I've been thinking what to do with all the sketches and drafts that I keep producing and never show anywhere, since there too sketchy to post to any of my official galleries, so I thought I would start posting them here, to my livejournal, like all the other magnificent artists do! ;)

Today I'm gonna show my most recent lineart I did for Spike, my sweetheart and the most awesome girl I've ever met! I'm absolutely happy that she liked it as much as she did :)

 

OUCH! x.x

Ok, so we had a little hurricane right now.. it tore down the roof of a building next to mine. it was just being reconstructed and it was an apparent fault of the company responcible. However, the result is - 12 destroyed cars.
My car was just 1 car away from the disaster, it survived with just a scratch. However if I was standing on my USUAL place, I could forget about.. well.. pretty much all the plans.. I had a huge luck this evening.. Im still shocked.. Thanks God..



( More pictures )

Thought it would be nice to share a little of my music discoveries with all of you. I've been thinking about it for some time, to become regular in showing off some of the tunes that moved me and that I love to return to, for one reason or another. However I'm not sure how many of you would actually like to be spammed by something like this ;) If it bothers you, I can probably create some filter for such content in the future.

One of the people I was keeping in my mind for such occasion was deffinitely Nathan Fake. I came around his work in late 2005 when his album "Drowning in the sea of love" came out. My first impression was very positive because he managed to create music with very intense and complex sound that would work well with melodies and nostalgic harmonies he used. Kind of like Boards of Canada, if you need an analogy.

However one song was deffinitely a highlight since the first hearing of his album - The Sky Was Pink. The harmonies of this song are so nostalgic it physically hurts.. what's more, the accompanying electronic sounds create such colourful spectacle of tonal relations it makes you sink into a pool of thoughts, dreams, and wouldn't let you out long after the song ends. Such is the power of harmony Nathan Fake perfectly managed to take into his hands and translate his emotions and thoughts.
A year ago I searched youtube for a possible music video to this song. Unfortunately there was none. However, his fans created something that works so well I cannot imagine the music without. A timelapse of northern lights - something that's been fascinating me since like forever. Behold:

Later on this tune got a pretty interesting remix of James Holden ( watch here ). It's a pretty fluent attempt to dress this track into more modern sound, more subtle, to satisfy the ear of present clubbing audience. However, as much as I am happy this track is not forgotten yet, I can only state that NOTHING beats the original.. yet ;)

This tune's been making my days for a long time now and I think it should be spread around more.. There is already a huge number of mixes but this one is clearly the winrar for me ;)



( Listen to the AWESOME original version here... )
I would totally suggest giving Passion Pit a try, the melodies of their album "Chunk of Change" are certainly like "stars burning holes right through the dark".

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NUM8!!

I promised myself I wouldn't give up writing the Confuzzled report. After all, it's one of the memories I want to preserve because as I mentioned in my previous post - it was really an awesome experience!

There is a variety of factors that make a succesful convention, usually these are gained along with the many years of organising, overcoming and learning from the early errors, trying out different ways and choosing the right path.. with Confuzzled you don't have any of that. Althought this year was only the second one of its existence, it didn't feel that way at all. It comes across as a very solid con in terms of its goals, presentation, and standards it offers.

Looking back at it I have to admit that it's a type of con that I was starting to miss since Eurofurence 12. Since EF started to grow, local cons remained small, there wasn't such a thing as a medium-sized con that offers both plenty of space for socializing that is usually a domain of the small cons, and professionally performed entertainment that we know from big sized conventions, all under one roof. Such was Eurofurence as I remember it from years ago, and such is Confuzzled, that - as far as I understood correctly, wants to keep itself in this way. In fact this simple attribute played such strong cards that I'm deffinitely considering to think of this convention as one of my yearly "must-attend"s.



( On to the long report + photos! )

P.S.: Don't get too drunk and don't decide to pass out at a public place. You WILL end up like this to attract BBF's camera ;)

Returned home from Confuzzled today, tired and struck down by a rather massive PCD. However bad it might sound it's actually a good thing - a sign of a fantastic time spent with people who rawk!!
Unfortunately my report will be running late because I haven't been able to finish it today, but before I leave the case open and drop to bed I need to thank all of you guys who ran, supported and attended Confuzzled and helped it become such an unforgettable experience!!

Thanks, it was highly appreciated!
Also... chew on this! ;)

OK im not sure how many people will actually like this kind of post but I'll give it a shot anyway ;)
I guess some of you already know, some of you don't - I am "suffering" from a phenomenon called synesthesia. It's not really a disease rather than just some mental condition, the most basic description published on Wikipedia is a good way to give you an idea:

"Synesthesia is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway."

There are quite a few ways how this phenomenon influences one's thinking, in fact, just recently I was pretty surprised how many people from around me actually relate to it. Well but with me it's pretty simple - I "see" sounds and music that I hear. It's not easy to describe it too deeply since it's a rather personal and non-verbal thing. To give you an idea, I was always fascinated by the tiniest nuances in music, the noises, specific kind of resonations that the sound make together. I can remember listening to certain parts of songs as a kid, not because they had touching lyrics or were popular at that time, but just become of some particular resonance that triggered my inspiration. I always interpreted it as colors and shapes, dynamics, or as flying over a scenery in a certain way - doesn't matter. Every new song brought something different.

Later on I found electronic music that offered an endless "food" for my head, the colorful waterfalls of inspiration since suddenly the music received a new dimension, after the standard variables like melody, rhythm and volume. That new dimension was the sound.. the construction of the sound, or however you want to call it. It wasn't too long and I stumbled accross this style called IDM (Intelligent Digital Music). To vast majority of people consider it just an unlistenable noise, to me it is a source of endless fascination. Of course I'm not giving up any other style, I love music! Any kind at all. But this particular style is something more for me. It's the special thing that takes me into a totally different world, that triggers my deepest visions, that suffices to put me into a trance immediately..

Thanks to this I've always been quite interested in ways and methods of visualising music. Unfortunately, most of the visualisations and video clips I've seen were just way too weak. It's very rare to find a well ballanced vis, that actually reaches to the complexity of the underlaying music, and that makes a sense! There aren't many people who get the music they are working with. Sadly.
The most inspiring music video creator I've seen so far has to be Chris Cunningham. I know, he's the guy who created the legendary video for Björk's All is full of love, the controversal Windowlicker by AFX, the recently adored and spooky masterpiece Rubber Johnny.. Sure, he's using a strong force of topics that get people moving.. But this is not what fascinates me about him. He sees the music! And he is able to depict it in his videos! Be it with the soft lights and tints, specific distortion, etc., or by heavy mathematical combinations, reflections of the sound vibrations.. not too many people know his works like Flex, or possibly the best IDM video of Autechre - Ganz Graf that are mostly built solely on this basis.

What made me write this post is a need to share my latest discovery in said area. Guy called Lucio Arese who created a project of visualising music through the score of shapes and colors that emerges as the music progresses. I found his beautiful video of Aria from the Goldberg Variations:


Goldberg Variations: Aria from lucio arese on Vimeo.

But what totally took my breath away was his attempt on possibly one of the most difficult IDM projects - Autechre. Same concept, yet totally different music. How did he perform? STUNNING! ..or maybe im just sick! ;)


Autechre - plyPhon from lucio arese on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas everyone!!

I hope you all have a wonderful time celebrating this day!!!
This year I didn't manage to create any fancy Christmas card to put here because I was too busy finishing arts for my dear friends. To me, having a chance to make others happy was the best and most valuable present I could receive this year, and not only for Christmas.
Seeing so many great friends around me is the biggest value that nothing else can surpass. Therefore I would hereby like to thank every single one of you for being there, and for making my every day's life worth living.

I love you all!

Yayz i wants!!! :3
Christmas Gift Toy & MySpace Layouts at pYzam.com

I'm sure I am not the only one who is wondering what does the letter "E" stand for in Wile E. Coyote's name.
Well, the mystery is solved, according to a comix book from 1975 it stands for Ethelbert.
Now I wish I never knew.. x)



( View the whole page... )

So, it’s finally my turn to share all my positive thoughts about the most awesome trip I had this year. It was pretty exhausting in general as I didn't really stay at one place for longer time and also, meeting up with my awesome friends and partying just didn't bring much sleep at all. Some nights even none, but I guess I should dip your faces into the whole story without this unnecessary introduction =)

The pros of the pre-Cologne Furdance (CFD) era:

• Flight to Amsterdam with karpour using the cheapest possible airline. It was funny when we were taken to the far black end of the airport to board our small old plane. Also, it was filled with local football fans who were heading to Amsterdam match. They were screaming, laughing, drinking their own alcohol (which almost made the steward cry) and at the end when we landed, they started to cheer and clap, it was really cool =)
• Meeting up with  pegla and  sonnypup at the airport and basically spending time with them because they just simply rock! We spent the first night at Pegla’s place, had a very nice evening watching Boondocks, also Pegla was nice enough to show us some bits of his amazing collection of highly valuable, pricy and limited Disney merchandise (some of which we got to sleep on), cels, publications, paintings, … the amounts of stuff he keeps hidden there is simply stunning!
• Byron the Skunk ( he ain’t got his LJ account??! D: ), Pegla’s loyal pet. He was so cute, I took ONE MILLION PHOTOS of him >:]_ There isn’t much to say about that, but the bottom line is – I want a skunk now :3

Byron with Pegla the skunk. Do the maths ;)

• I hope pegla wouldn’t read this, because although he strictly prohibited it, we DID open the closet… However, we made a Hyena-Ass-Pact that we will never ever talk about this again. -.-

The following chunk contains no photos. We didn’t have much sleep and waking up at stupid-o-clock to travel to the city of Amsterdam made me forget my cam. Therefore I took the liberty of illustrating some of the events by hand.

• Meeting up with henriekeg and Mr. Tim Artz® two totally awesome artists who spent the entire day with us.
• Subway sammiches! Om nom nom :9 Althought eating them at a huge square with quadrillion instances of flying rats does not classify as a good idea at all. ‘=)
• Our first stop was at a local huge comix store Lambiek followed by a very cozy art session at a restaurant, where we also met a legen.. -(wait for it)- ..dary Disney comix artist Mau Heymans. Apart from regular sketching we also did several fun socializing stuff like drawing with a wrong hand or blind drawing, which returned quite impressive results.

A recreation of a photo I would have probably taken if I had my cam :P

• Running around Amsterdam, well, Amsterdam is a very nice city and I’m very sad that I didn’t have my camera with me. We visited several more comix stores, plush stores, had the best chocolate in the world (courtesy of pegla), etc.
• When we returned back to Hilversum, pegla took us out to try out the most orgasmic spare ribs I’ve ever had! Unfortunately that night  karpour and henriekeg decided to travel to Eindhoven, to be able to visit the Gaia park next morning. I decided to stay a bit longer at pegla's place and hang out with him and sonnypup a bit more, which I absolutely loved!
• The following day was just pure lounging which was a nice break. I hung out with sonnypup all the time and had a very easy-going day. Thanks a lot for that!! :) *hugs*
• I FOUND THE MOROCCO TEA! The one me and many friends of mine were after for over a year now (it's no longer sold here, nor anywhere around). So, another reason to come visit (actually very often because I already drinkd one whole pack) xP
• In the evening I also travelled to Eindhoven to join henriekegand karpour. Almost immediately after exiting the train I encountered the most amazing store that was selling pain! T_T. The evening was very nice, we talked, watched classic cartoons, had fun with Henrieke’s cool friend who came over, and also generally seeing Henrieke in her natural environment was a gem for every zoologist. =) She and her parents were very nice hosts.
• On Saturday’s early morning (d’oh) we travelled to Cologne to meet up with kataraviech and her mom. After chewing our way through finding the places of interests we sat down at a typical cologne restaurant in the centre, faced the utterly mean waiter, ate utterly overpriced (yet delicious) noms, and learned some fun facts about Kölsch, the popular local beer. I *think* I understood it (Katara’s mom explained it to me in German), there was a massive gesticulation exchange.. words I’ve never heard in my life.. but the beer was good! =) Also, it was a very nice surprise when we all received a Kölsch beer glass as a gift. Thanks a lot!! :)
• After the lunch we wandered off to the streets to find a Starbucks coffee. Of course because we wanted to draw. However Cologne being a popular city, each coffee place had minus one million seats left. We eventually found a spot, but it involved giving angry faces to the people occupying our desired places.
• During the search process we stumbled across this. There were two of them. Scary x)

Katara, Karpour and Henrieke at Starbucks in Cologne.

• The Starbucks art session was pretty productive. Along with lots of individual sketches for each other we also collaborated on something.. erm.. I don’t dare to name it x.x also, if you see yourself in it (e.g. you have a jet wing on your back), please keep in mind the resemblance does not reflect any living source. Although sometimes when I go out to the streets in the evening I could swear I’ve met this quite often already. x)

 

The CFD

OMG I wish a groundhog day effect could be applied to that day! You know the one when you wake up and realize you are living the previous day, over and over again. Well, the party was really that great! The unfortunate thing was, since we were waking up very early that day I didn’t have much energy left to go nuts and dance my ass off, however I totally don’t regret a single second spent there. I met the most awesome people likegreyshay,codydawg,keenora,bigbluefox,kenai, kwisa, mylo_the_husky, nekotorisha, tanidareal, eosfoxx, shivonhusky, fawksbeaumont, trmeerkat, akifox, cheetah_spotty, locutusdeer, *hyperventilates*.. (I am aware that I missed out a lot of people but I aint got your LJ pls wave your paw infront of my face, I have a really low IQ and wouldn’t react otherwise) Also, the music was very cool, all the DJ’s did a wonderful job!! :) Actually, as far as I remember we did some pretty stupid stuff that was also captured on cam but.. I kinda wish it wouldn’t appear in the CFD footage x)

Also, keenora had printed t-shirts with the furry jumpstyle motive I designed for me and him. It looked AWESOME! Better than anything I could imagine before! Thanks a LOT for such an effort to make it in time, it really boosted my mood :) *hugs* I just realized we didn’t take a picture together in the shirts x.x man.. uncool!

The most awesome thing however was when we met aside and beatboxed. Dude you totally blew my mind! Unfortunately I am only capable of pulling off a drum’n’bass beatbox, however Keenora has mastered a broad portfolio of multiple styles and also a chunks of real songs. He absolutely must do some stage performance at EF or somewhere else!  

 

Me and Fawks Beaumont at Cologne Furdance
There is not a lot of wordsworthy footage from that night since the room was very fogged and every picture taken with flash just showed a white mist. All the rest taken without a flash were shaky :( Well, have at least a malformed headfeet version of Frappuccino. =)

The post CFD:

• The partay ended around 5am and keenora took me, karpour  and shivonhusky to Oberhausen, where we stayed at codydawg’s place. Yet again I didn’t sleep too much and the following day actually started to have a visible effect on me, my brain just turned off and I couldn’t speak English x) Also, the sad part was that karpour had to leave back home in the early afternoon. But apart from that we had a wonderful time, a big big thanks for that! It was a really big fun when Draconius came over, Cody pulled out the fog machine and Derby light fx, Shivon went nuts and fogged the entire room so we couldn’t see a shit captain and we all started a big blind pillowfight %) Poor Cody, the room was a big mess when the fog went away! Later that evening Shivon had to return back home too, and after a nice evening at a Chinese restaurant at Centro even Keenora had to go. So it was just me and Cody left.
• The latter part of the evening was amazing! Firstly, we had a nice easygoing talk with Cody, turns out we have so much in common it’s pretty scary x3 Later on he totally shocked me for suddenly suggesting I should try out fursuiting as Cody. I totally went for it and I loved every single second of it even tho it lasted only around 10 minutes :3 it was amazing! Honestly made me even more eager to have my own suit already :D Later on Cody suited a bit too and.. it was magical, definitely the highlight of my trip. I can’t thank Cody enough for everything he did for me. *hugs*

Me suiting as Cody :3~

• Like every other time, it was yet another night when I totally forgot about the time. I think it was 3am when I realized that hmm, I am supposed to wake up at 6, stackenbloch up my bags, and continue my trip to Frankfurt. Of course I woke up late, the railway station was 10 minutes away, I didn’t have time to eat or drink anything, ran for several minutes to the station.. and then I almost fainted in the train x)
• I spent the last day of my trip with an awesome accompaniment of atimon. I was supposed to meet also one of the keenest Sylvester fans who I’ve been in contact with for *counts*… umm.. yea, long time ‘=) Unfortunately it turned out she didn’t have time that day. Well, but that wasn’t a problem at all because it was a purrfect day as it was. I really have to send many thanks to Atimon for spending the day with me and making it a wonderful experience! Although I was totally worried I would be traumatized by flying all the time, which didn’t happen at all. We talked a lot, drew a bit at a coffee (of course), visited several plush stores (spent omg way too much money (and I still wish I would have spent more on certain stuffs x.x)), it was really a great ending of my entire trip, which SUCKS BECAUSE MY PCFDD (Post Cologne Fur Dance Depression) IS EVEN WORSE NOW OMG I HATE YOU ALL D:
• Also I rcvd the best and cutest pictur!! *pounehugs meerkat* =) the only one actually, next time ppl draw for me more pls k thnx bye!
• In the evening I literally died. The lack of sleep and tiredness got all over me. The flight was a horror, I was flying a plane that had a big fat-ass fly as a mascot, and I totally hate insects! My flight trauma caught me on board and I spent the whole hour with just counting sheep.. at home I immediately faced the "optimism and zest for life" of some unnamed people.. found out that my salary from teaching at high school was much less than I expected (so much less I doubt I will be able to afford to lease a car as I planned, not even a pony), and along with the super mega PCFDD I caught some bug and felt like crap and and and… I WANT TO GO BACK! -.-,

I miss you all like hell. Come here! >.<;
orly I’m srs, all the invitations are valid. Me and karpour would be thrilled to have you over! ;)
 

The namelist:

Sorry, no namelist and individual thanks this time. I love you all, that’s all you need to know. I am fed up of forgetting someone and sounding rude. So – do it yourself:

<Your name here> - <something awesome> :D

Thanks for a wonderful time y'all! Hope to meet you soon!

Be sure not to miss 1:25.. ;)

This simply doesn't need much comments... 
(and yea, regular posts coming soon, not dead ;)

This made me spill my coffee xD

It was absolutely amazing!!! When someone asks me about it, I usually find myself sinking in thousands of great memories instantly and just staring like crazy until the other person starts to be seriously worried ;)

The feedback I received from all the participants was immense! Everything worked out like it should, and massively surpassed my expectations. It was a constant flow of fun throughout the entire evening and I really can't remember when was the last time I had such a blast. The people who gathered were completely awesome!! Thanks for coming, you made this event one of the best I've ever encountered!!

Let's point out the highlights:

• Only 10 days before the actual con the situation went so much bad I was more than sure it wouldn't work out at all. Luckily, the problems were resolved and we were back on track with even more to offer. Unfortunately, many people went sick or had finantial issues so the number of attendees was very uncertain until the last day. The reality was much brighter than I expected! People who claimed they would not make it eventually arrived and it really added to the wonderful mood :)
  
• One of the funniest ways of getting 2 more bonus attendees who didn't plan to come at first was caused by the omnipotent chaos. We had to borrow a projector from another town and
  lokosicek  , kimanilioness  , Gryf and Taotao were sitting in the back... well, sitting... 3 of them were squeezed, 1 of them was laying on top. They did a great job pretending to be only 2 people in front of the policemen, so we didn't get stopped =)
  
• And now the actual party: it consisted of planned, yet spontaneously arranged program of DDR clash, karaoke, furdance and many other little things in between - like spreading soft blankets on the ground with many pillows and creating a waterpipe smoking chillout furpile, glowstick fight (that was such a great fun! *g* i got hit in the head way too much tho D: ), drawing sessions, magnificent fursuit performances by taibu  and lokosicek  .. there was always something to do!
  
• Also, the people got easily connected to each other. That was probably the greatest part! We had about 6 people from Austria, 7 from Czech republic and another 8 from Slovakia. The czech and slovak fandom is pretty much aware of each other (or lets say - joined together), however having so many guests from Austria was somehow worrying for me - would it work out? Would the people interact?.. As it turned out - it was worrying without any reason. We had such a great fun together!!
  
• The karaoke! Before the party I was receiving many negative impulses from people who worried to get embarassed or being too shy to do such thing. Like many other things this worked in a completely different direction. After the fist song more and more people were joining the main singer, after 3 songs the people were fighting over the microphone, after 5 songs the entire pub was singing!!! It lasted very long and I'm sure this has to be done again should we get the chance.. awesome!! It was even working as a small furdance because the songs were mostly well known and very catchy! :)
  And that's not all! We had some curious people coming down and watching, some even wanting to join! There was a different event going on in another room of the pub and the people there ordered a striptease show.. well, the actress literally escaped to "our side", we fed her the promised cookies and corrupted her enough to make her party with us for some time x)
  
• The furdance! That was very easy to start as the people were already warmed up from the previous karaoke. It was a really energic one! I even had some problems deciding what to play because the crowd seemed to be wanting it faster and faster all the time and there was never a real break.. I wonder how could everyone sustain so much, even the fursuiters, it was extremely bouncy! =)
  
• And finally the "afterparty" stuff - there were about 13 people sleeping at my place. The sleeping place distribution was pretty much a game of tetris - but it was somehow successful ;) The following morning was interrupted by our neighbours who decided the best thing to do at 7am on Sunday would be getting new plastic windows :P So yea, not much sleep that night... the day was somehow sad and stressful again. First, all the guests went away, and then me and Gimmecat went to the pub to de-construct the decorations and technics. We prepared everything near the pub entrance and I went to get the car I left parked nearby over night. Apparently, I mistakenly stopped at some private reserved place and one of the wheels was wearing a nice smiling immobiliser. Luckily I can pull off puppy eyes so the policement fined me only 5 euros xD
  We drove the stuff home (on snow with summer tires.. ugh), I pulled everything from the car back home, closed the door and dropped on the sofa. Suddenly I felt really alone and had some time to recapitulate what happened.. it was when I realized that it indeed was the best, the absolutely best party I've ever attended. The pressure made burst into tears, but I really needed that. The weekend was magical. It will never be forgotten!

I would like to thank all of you who had your paws in the first Danubian Furmeet. Whatever you did to make it better was, and still is VERY appreciated! Every single help or even a distant support is worth a lot to me!
Special thanks go to:

• Henrieke - for creating a MARVELOUS flyer and poster artwork!!!
• Greyfur and Zrebec - who were the first to show me the "green light" and making me feel that my dream of this party was indeed a good idea. Also, they were the ones who helped me find out the right name for the event and who supported me the entire time!
• Tygrik - for his unbelievable czechnology skills! He is capable of creating everything from .. anything!! It was a treat to have such a skilled helper around. What's more, althought he was just a regular attendee, he was always there, eager to help, anytime he was needed. He took a lot of stuff off my shoulders!! I'm still stunned how much he managed to do to make the party better! THANKS!!! *fluffs*
• Lokosicek - for having enough nerves with me and standing by me the last 2 days before the party. He not even helped a lot, but also kept my mood up and that's sometimes the best help when everything gets wrong! I couldn't work out so well without him! Also, big thanks for bringing your magnificent fursuit and for spreading the great mood around with it! *huggles*
• Xkun - for bringing the projector and for actually staying at the party even tho he had so much work to do! It really means a lot to me!!
• Kimu - for helping out with the technology and stuff, again, a big thanks for easing so many things!! *hugs*
• Gimmecat - for being the only one who was willing to help me pack stuff at 1pm on Sunday ;) And she did a wonderful job. I still owe you big time!!
• Taibu and Kimani - for eventually deciding to join us, and for bringing the wonderful atmosphere in! The party wouldn't be so great without you guys!!!
• Karpour and Yamavu - for spreading the drawing mood a lot. Creativeness is good, lots of great pictures were produced that evening! im just sorry I couldn't join in!
• Lweek and Sinar - for... COMING!! I was sure I wouldn't see you guys at all, you really made my day! ;))
• Alpha - for taking a great care about decorations and waterpipe!! You were the atmosphere maker of the day, and I am very glad for it!!
• Rados - for creating such a massive collection of footage!!!! ;)
• Taotao, Gryf, Greywolf, Spike, Vlk00 - for spreading the great mood and for being there with us! I love you guys!!
• and last, but not least - EDEN PUB FOR HOSTING US!!!!!!!!

See you again soon (hopefully).. we still have some cookies left! ;)

Don't forget to visit the Danubian Furmeet Gallery !!!!! 

Come to our side!

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