WHOOPS UH. UPDATING MY JOURNAL. That's a thing I should have done a long time ago.

Sorry in advance for the TL;DR, I just wanna cover everything that's happened since early February! xD I'm gonna split it into major sections so you can CTRL+F stuff throughout:

Part 1: Katsucon 2012
Part 2: April Shoots + Sakura Matsuri
Part 3: Commissions + Misc goings-on

KATSUCON 2012

Katsucon was pretty fucking amazing, all things considered. First Homestuck-filled con and thus a lot of unexpected insanity and occasionally feeling totally AWOL from my group, but ultimately it was a lot of fun. My groups each day were so rad and it was wonderful getting to hang out with everyone. More and more, I'm realizing how cons are social above anything else--I just want to hold all the babbies all day long.

Imma just post a pic or two from each group our hotel room did and some stuff about that day underneath, short con report go!

///////   FRIDAY   \\\\\\\




Lovely day in the God Tiers with *shadowhearts as John, ~Kusariku as Dave, and ~skwinkography as Jade! We did a shoot with Katsuya ~sleepycreator in the beautiful weather outside, then attended the 3:14 Homestuck shoot with the lovely Alex in charge keeping us crazy Homestucks in line. Got beautiful times with ~HeavenSealed as John and ~phoenixstarr44 as Dave, too, for AUSA nostalgia! ;u; Then we met up with *jaypoynotgpoy as Elder Price (The Book of Mormon), ~Lin-ZB as Erza Scarlet (Fairy Tail), ~Kwippy as a ginger (herself), ~Yveinge as Mami Tomoe (Madoka), and ~firewolf826 as Zuko (Avatar) looking fabulous and sort of just hung out the rest of the night. At some point, beta kids group morphed into the Alpha Kids + Jade and we went drunkstucking with ~bluucircles and ~neoangelwink. GOOD DAY

///////   SATURDAY   \\\\\\\




TROLL DAY oops. The lovely *jaypoynotgpoy and ~Lin-ZB were absolutely adorable in Aladdin and Jasmine abububu, along with *shadowhearts reprising her lovely Chii cosplay that she didn't get to properly shoot at Otakon two years ago. We all managed to get the rest of us into troll makeup, and Joey ~Kusariku as Gamzee and myself as Terezi (FLARP outfit) hit the Ask a Homestuck panel, hosted by ~phoenixstarr44 and ~HeavenSealed and a plethora of our good friends being fabulous and hilarious as always. ;u; We had a beautiful trolls shoot outside later in the day with *shadowhearts as GodTier!Vriska, ~Yveinge as Aradia, ~Kwippy as Feferi, ~ceschiii as Karkat, and her sister as Nepeta, and got to hang out with the awesome Brian (notasenator) and Kyle ~kyll! Later on, Steph and I changed into Mindfang and Redglare respectively and then I joined a (near) complete ancestor group for the evening. We briefly hit up the draw meet to bother ~021, and I got to hang out a bit with ;devjapanimeclarinetist: too! Also *jaypoynotgpoy and ~Kwippy did Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable and it was glorious, thank you guys for letting me try out my amateur photo skills on you.

///////   SUNDAY   \\\\\\\


ACE ATTORNEY DAY AW YEAH, *jaypoynotgpoy and I transformed into Jake Marshall and Angel Starr, respectively, from PW:AA case 5, Rise from the Ashes, to join a beautiful group organized by ~HeavenSealed as Edgeworth, with ~phoenixstarr44 as Nick and several new friends, too. Despite dumb stress I brought on myself with trying to get things accomplished for my mom while being 300 miles away, it ended up being a nice day and I got to see ~sorairo-days briefly, too! ;u; Headed home with Steph in tow and then attended the bridal shower of my beautiful bestie from high school, ~mentalmentos.

Overall, wonderful weekend and I miss everyone so much, and I'm happy I've gotten to see most of them a few times since. c: If I forgot to mention anyone, I'm so sorry! Also Corey *MindFall, thanks for the GORGEOUS con-floor photos as always and for being our navigator at 1am in Washington DC picking friends up from the train station. xD

Speaking of ~mentalmentos, she got married this weekend! I'm actually typing this journal in the car on the way home from Connecticut. She was kind enough to ask me to be a bridesmaid and I was so honored. The ceremony was beautiful, as was the reception, and the day went off without a hitch. We had beautiful weather too! I'm so happy for her and her wonderful husband, whom I got to meet pretty soon after they met, and I knew they were made for each other, sappy as it sounds. I'm so honored I could be part of their special day. NOW PICS.











IT WAS A REALLY BEAUTIFUL WEEKEND ;u;

Onto Part 2: April Shoots + Sakura Matsuri...

I've been spending practically every other weekend in NYC for various reasons over the past couple of months. I just want to cut the crap and live there already. I can't wait to start browsing around for an idea of when I can get up there. On April Fools' weekend, I had a wonderful time hanging out with ~Sake-Kohei for a delicious food tour and general catching-up, and then both of us fabric shopping/Ninendo and Disney Store derping with ~HeavenSealed, ~phoenixstarr44, and Sami ~skei! Crashed at *Mostflogged's place and the next day, had a wooonderful Meteorstuck shoot with Jenni as Kanaya (like always <3), Tara as Dave, Kitsy as Karkat, and Emily as Terezi. Thanks so much to Carroll *ckdecember for coming through when we were down a photographer AND for putting up with our shenanigans! GETTING KICKED OUT OF CATHEDRALS, THE BLOG.





Then after a lovely Easter weekend chilling with mah moirail ~skwinkography, the following weekend we headed up to the city again for John Egbert's birthday on 4/13. Had karaoke with our lovely John and Dave, along with Alex and KT! Crashed at Vikki's place and then spent the whole next day with the beautiful Kat ~mostlypasta wandering around Queens as Karkat, Terezi, Sollux, and Nepeta for an epic-proportioned shoot in honor of Homestuck-weekend. Sami ~skei was also a complete doll in airbrushing RT and I gray and in general helping us out hardcore walking around the city as a bunch of trolls, and she took a lot of really beautiful pictures and videos, too ;A: The results of which will be slowly going up on here, but here's a few previews!





We also managed to cover like a total of 14 pairings via the 8 costumes we had among ourselves, it was kind of amazing.

Then I headed to the Philly Sakura Matsuri with my beautiful Moore babies, the majority of which I met via being Ancestors with at Katsucon. ;u; Had a nice trip to the diner with them afterward, too! I also had a great time at their Zoostuck Pooplord trip where we crashed the Philadelphia Zoo as respectful, casual, dorky Homestucks. Some pics are below!




TL;DR I HAVE TURNED INTO A CRAZY HOMESTUCK BUT AS IT TURNS OUT, I DON'T WANT TO BE RESCUED, OH WELL

Following that was the Brooklyn Sakura Matsuri! I was really excited, this was the first year that school hadn't interfered too much for me to attend. My friends asked me to do Magic Knights Rayearth with them, which was such a ridiculously lovely time, with ~HeavenSealed as Hikaru and ~phoenixstarr44 as Umi! It was a beautiful day running around and seeing all the NY babies and being magical girls, and thanks so much to Kat ~mostlypasta for giving us a shoot ;u;




Then a LOVELY Mindfang <3< Redglare shoot with ~Ceriene in Philadelphia with the beautiful Kacie ~Edwardroxmysox as photographer! I'll be putting more of these up, too. Hurrrrrrrrrr.




On to Part 3: Commissions + Misc goings-on...

COMMISSIONS

As you may have guessed, I am briefly halting commissions for the time being. I have been a bit down on myself as an artist lately, mainly for my apparent inability to do facial turnarounds properly, and trying my absolute hardest to be able to classify my style as "stylistic", "Disney-esque", or "vaguely inspired by realism" rather than "LOL ANIMU". Not that there's anything wrong with animu; it's just that Tumblr has been introducing me to such a plethora of beautiful styles that I have been wanting to improve various aspects of my art and hopefully take it in a variety of directions to keep getting better. So for now, I will only be doing artwork I promised people (such as ~spikensalem!), art trades decided among IRL friends, plush gifts, and whatnot until I feel I have had enough "me-time" with my art to open them back up.

However, I am probably going to offer very basic commissions (like $10 pencil sketches with colorized lines) via Tumblr in the meantime sometime soon, so please be sure to follow me at vintage-aerith@tumblr to keep up on that.

A HUGE THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS COMMISSIONED ME RECENTLY and all of my love and hugs for being so patient with me, dealing with my tendency to not want to work on commissions when down on myself about my art and its quality, and I hope you all enjoyed your final result. Even though part of the reason I am taking this break is that I have not been able to draw for myself guilt-free in something like three years because of constant backlog of commissions, that shouldn't suggest I do not 110% appreciate your support and generosity. Thanks so much again. ;u;

I WENT TO DISNEY THIS WEEK, I'm not gonna spam pics though because lol I have done this enough already. It was a beautiful vacation though! ;u;

Uhh. Yeah, I'm going to wrap this up before it gets any longer.

I'll also be at AnimeNEXT in Somerset, NJ in June! ALL REWEARS. It will be glorious. Probably Redglare/Terezi, Chrono, Naomi, and whatever else I decide to wear wandering around.

SERIOUSLY OKAY I'M GOING TO CAP THIS NOW AND UPDATE MORE FREQUENTLY SO I DON'T HAVE TO WRITE A NOVEL AGAIN NEXT TIME OOPS

love you all <3

Laur