arkster | /falls over (Reply)

Oh howdy, folks.

My life's been pretty exciting as of late.

I was in the first group dancing in the Dance Parade last Saturday. Souran dance, same as in Mie. The group was full of great and friendly folk, the dancing more strenuous than remembered. Then again, in Mie we never did it six times in a row, in one hour, marching down Broadway in between each set. By the end I was not the only person whose bright red complexion had melted off most of the kabuki makeup.

Today I went to the Book Expo of America. It's pretty snazzy. Relatively quiet, though to be fair what I have to compare it to is NY Comic Con. And Javits is such a vast gaping pit of madness that nothing really fills the space even if the booths are wall-to-wall.

Javits convention center sucks the life from all things. The lights are harsh and the air is always blowing cold, the distances are hiking-trail long and nourishment is scarce. The only creatures that thrive in this wasteland are the pigeons that roost in the rafters, which appear to have set up a small civilization. This is what you get for having a ceiling so high that we might as well be outdoors.

Anyway I trolled BEA for donations, had a good time. Picked up some free comics, as is my wont - Darkwing Duck will never not be cool. And then I dawdled my way over to the jeweler's bench at 3rd Ward, four hours before casting class.

I proceeded to fine-detail sculpt for four hours straight. And then took the three-hour class. As a result I now REALLY need to go to yoga, and soon, and fix all the crap I just did to my back, shoulders, and eyes. But! Absolutely it was worth it, assuming my pieces cast. And they had better cast, (dammit.)

During class time I carved up my first cuttlefish bone for a quick cast, but we couldn't get the tiny jeweler's torch to properly gooify the bronze so the casting failed. The not-hot-enough metal of course burned through the bone in the process, crumbling it, so I'll have to carve again next week. It'll be nice when the rubber mold of the duelist ring sets up - there's less worry when a failed casting doesn't mean you have to start from scratch.

And I never, ever, want to restart the duelist ring from scratch.