The lyf so short

The SWG's Block Party prompt for Monday was: "Take us behind the scenes of one of your own fanworks!" I'm taking a leaf out of Indy's, Narya's and Lilith's book and taking questions from my gentle readers, i.e., you (possibly?).

So! What would you like to know from behind the scenes? Ask me about old stuff, new stuff, stuff I may or may not be working on, stuff I want to write or draw, stuff I probably won't write or draw, whatever. Ask me about writing, my writing process, art, inspiration or whatever else you're curious about. Ask as many questions as you like!

In case you need a handy overview, most of my fic is here and most of my Tolkien art is here.

Sooo it has been brought to my attention that I should have posted this here as well as on the Tumblesite, which I should have realised by myself but didn't. Since I am reasonably pleased with this one for a change, I'll gladly use this chance to repeat my ramble. Better late than never, I guess.

Because this time, I can actually do a walkthrough of the Artistic Process (TM)! Usually, I paint in A4 and only do one scan of the lineart and one scan of the finished thing because I am teh lazy. This time I painted on A3 paper to have enough space for everything, which meant I couldn’t scan it at all. But I was so terrified of messing the whole epic thing up that I took photos of it after every major step. (How I would have gotten these grainy shots back onto A3 paper in order to try again is a puzzle I would have tried to solve if I’d had to. Fortunately, I didn’t.)

So I shall ramble you through How Lyra Paints Stuff... now.

( Click if you dare! )

As you probably know, I'm posting my better and even my worse bits of fanart (or even non-fanart) on dA.
A few years back, just when I'd returned from Japan, I made a Karuta game for Tengwar. That was fun and exciting and a lot of work, and I was actually quite content with the way they turned out. Of course, I couldn't be certain that my Quenya translations were actually correct or at least plausible [/mythbuster], so, when I uploaded the whole load, complete with all my background thoughts, ramblings and linguistic considerations, I also added a line about "If you discover errors in the Tengwar or Quenya, drop me a line".
That was in *dun dun dun* 2009.

Fast-forward to one week ago. I get a message on dA by a very nice, very enthusiastic person. She's discovered my Tengwar Karuta and absolutely loves that project. She's shared it with those among her facebook friends (uh-oh!) who are Quenya-savvy and might be able to say something about it, but meanwhile, would I mind joining the Language discussion thread on The One Ring.com (no, not .net) so we could discuss it further.

... yes, actually I would mind. WHAT ARE YOU DOING WOMAN THAT WAS THREE YEARS AGO LIFE HAS BEEN GOING ON. I mean, seriously.

A couple of days later, one of the Quenya-savvy friends sends me a note on dA. She's likewise charming and enthusiastic and eager to check my Tengwar transcriptions if I send her the Quenya sentences in Roman script, although maybe it's more sensible to wait until the Quenya has been checked? [indeed], and dA is messing with her computer so The One Ring.com would really be easier.

At that point, I'm ready to give in, because now all these nice people are interested in helping with a project THAT HAS BEEN CONCLUDED THREE YEARS AGO BUT NEVER MIND and I'd feel cruel if I just said "Yeah, no, you're too late". I mean, three years ago I had wished for that sort of response. Didn't get it. Now I got it. Now I don't want it. Awwwwkward.

Anyway, so I messaged back and said "Ok, thank you for your offer of help, I have to admit that this isn't currently high on my priority list so it may take me a lot of time to do anything about this, but sure, let's get started".

At this point, apparently, the scope of the project has been broadened a little; a third interested person pops up and goes "Yay yay, I'm super-excited, I hope we can spread this all over the fandom and go viral and actually have people playing this all over the world [yes, that was sort of my hope BACK IN EFFING TWENTY-O-NINE], and I've already looked for alternative pictures we can use [um?] and I've e-mailed the first page of Karuta to Simon Tolkien because I'm so excited!"

Um. Um. AAAAAH.
You do not mail fanworks to Simon Tolkien.
I repeat, you do not mail fanworks to Simon Tolkien.
Not your own, and CERTAINLY not somebody else's, because we all know that the Estate is sort of trigger-happy and has well-paid lawyers and I DO NOT WANT TO BE IN SIMON TOLKIEN'S MAILBOX HELP HELP HELP.
I mean, seriously, in what world is that person living? Certainly not mine.
Of course, realistically, the chance that Simon Tolkien is actually going to look at that mail is slim. It'll probably languish in his spam folder for a week before being automatically deleted, and that's that. But you never know! Do I want to get a CoD letter because some over-enthusiastic person sent a mail to Simon Tolkien? No, dammit! What's wrong with you people, can't you at least bloody ASK first?

Along similar lines, all those alternative pictures are, of course, other people's works of (fan-)art.
For starters, I do not actually WANT to replace my pictures. Yes, they're in my semi-skilled fairytale watercolour style and OF COURSE there are better pieces of art out there, but look, I actually LIKE them that way. (For once I am happy with my art, damn you!) On MY set of cards, I WANT my art. I think they go well together, and they're consistent. Use my text and make your own cards with whatever art you want, go ahead, but don't expect me to go ahead and replace my stuff with somebody else's. I mean, that actually was quite a bit of work. Took me months. And now I'm apparently expected to go "Oh yeah, that person did a MUCH better Turin than I did, let's use that!"
HAHAHA, no.
(Actually, I hate some of the artwork he proposed we used. I'm sorry, but I just very rarely enjoy digital art and/or photomanips - there are very, very few people who can pull it off in a way that doesn't look cheesy, synthetic and just wrong to me, and even they don't always succeed, and the ones he picked? NOT among those I am capable of liking. My teeth hurt when I look at them. Literally. And yes, I used 'literally' on purpose here, I know what it means, dammit.)
Besides, DUDE, copyright? All those other artists probably didn't allow you to use their pics for my (MY!!!) project. (Did he even ask? I doubt it!) It's one thing to "borrow" someone's art for little gifs or something, but on this scale, particularly if you want it to go viral? AHAHAH, no. NO NO.
And finally, I QUESTION YOUR ARTISTIC TASTE. I mean, even allowing for de gustibus, surely it looks better when all the cards are done in the same style, even if it's mine, than when each card looks differently, some are traditional watercolours, some are digital art, some are photomanips, some are modern graphics, some are very realistic, some are very stylised --- THEY ARE ALL VERY DIFFERENT. Ever heard of "corporate identity"? It works for card games, too.

In conclusion, what have I gotten myself into? Or rather, what are THEY getting me into? *flails*
Whatever it is, get me outta there!

Hm... not sure whether this is a good idea, but, you know, can't keep everything to myself all the time, can I? Exactly. Even I need some feedback at some point. ;)
Which is why I present to you...
( Read on at own risk )

In other news, apparently today be Talk Like A Pirate Day (which was introduced before PotC came out, in case someone wondered). So, me hearties, be ye not surprised if me talks all weird t'day... 'cause 'tis too much fun ter be had. Arr.
*g*