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I think I've come to terms with the fact that I have the coolest wife in existence! Or, at least, a very tolerant one She text me from work about, paraphrasing here seeing as I don't have the texts anymore, "I got a surprise for you. I'm planning something just for you." She likes to drop me these little hints from time to time to tease the living crap out of my little brain about things she gets me or things she's going to do for me. The hints are usually very vague and are truthful about the object, but say absolutely nothing about it.

(ie. For our wedding anniversary recently, she bought me beautiful personalized picture frame with our wedding photo in it. The hints about it before hand were, "It's mostly silver coloured." and, "You could place it next to your computer." and stuff like that. Get the picture?)

... ok, went sorta off topic...

ANYWAY, so she starts teasing me that she's going to do something just for me that takes place around the 4th of July. There's only one thing I could think of that happens around that time, and that's AC, but I didn't think that could be it. See, she's not exactly what one would call a fan of furry artwork. She likes it that I like it, and that's as far as it goes. I've even stopped drawing her as a furre, just to respect her and not force my hobbies on her. So, I reply with, "The only thing I can think of is AC."

"Why's that?" she asks.

"Well, it's the only thing that happens around that time of year that is of any interest to me."

"Well, I'll give you one more hint," she says, "It involves aliens."

I had no idea where she was going with this, I thought she was being vague again. Maybe a new game is coming out that I overlooked the release date for that had to do with aliens, like the new AvP game (though that's a ways off). Idly, as my mind was on thoughts of AC and went to the website to see the nice big banner of this years theme, "OMG Aliens!" and lo-and-behold, she was planning on surprising me with a day at AC!

Long winded way of explaining that I'll be going to AC this year. It's just for a day, but at least I'm getting to go again. Had to skip last year. I think we've pretty much settled on the 4th, saturday. Not 100% positive. Anyone else out there going that would care to meet up, let me know. We'll figure out a way of contacting each other and setting something up.

Later! *peace sign*

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OMG Animal Crossing: City Folk is out!!! and even better than that, I bought it!!! Did anyone else? If ya did, note me or e-mail me with your friend code and maybe we can get together sometime and play together. Hope to see someone/anyone there ^-^;

Name: Uma
Town: Midgard
0817-7245-1721
(Native Fruit: Peaches)

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This needs to be said. Apparently I've got friends on MSN that think I'm mad at them, or ignoring them, or something. Note that it's not the case. At the beginning of October Cindy and I went out and bought an XBox 360. I got her the Halo 3 for her birthday (Sept. 23) as a hint saying, "Guess what I'm planning to get you for christmas." Well, after my endless research about and talking about Halo 3 and it's reviews and features and whatnot, Cindy exclaimed, "Look! Either you stop talking about Halo 3 or we're going out RIGHT NOW and getting an XBox!" ...
... so we did.

I kinda got my "buying stuff" rights revoked after that purchase, but it's okay.

Well, created my account/gamertag ("UmaKami" btw, in case you had any doubt) and set it up with an online account. Well, I mistakenly set it up to recognize my MSN account as well and signs me in to MSN everytime I sign on my gamertag on the XBox. People started IMing me and I either don't respond at all, take forever to respond, or put myself on invisible. Let me tell y'all. It's not because I have any vendetta against anyone or am being an asshole or anything. It's just that recieving and responding to IMs on the XBox is a pain in the ass. There's no keyboard, so it takes forever to type and it's impossible for me to pause and respond when Cindy and I are playing Co-op or I'm playing an online match.

So in short, I have a hard time IMing folks when I'm on the XBox. I thought it put a message on your guys' friends list next to my name that I'm using the XBox. If not, and you see me appear and then disappear really quick, it's not that I'm avoiding anyone or ignoring you, k?

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I finally got a scanner up and running on my computer, so I decided to take all the old images I'd started and have no intention of finishing and uploaded them to my dA Scraps gallery.

Guitar Hero Sketch Marina + Jeanne Sketch Stud Sketch

Donkey Sketch Married Sketch Grooming Sketch

Aside from my old (ancient, rather) sketches, I actually put something new in there. Just to show I am drawing, here's my newest sketch:

Work Sketch 8

Enjoy Y'all! x)

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It's August and I'm just now finally trying to get back into art... even though way back in January I said it was my new years resolution to be more active in the furry fandom and do more artwork. I've actually taken steps to try and keep myself from playing so many video games and put the pencil back in my hand. I'm hoping the whole "out of sight, out of mind" idea works. What I've done is taken ALL my games out of their cases, put the cases in a plastic tote and all the discs in a CD folder. The tote is under lots of other totes and other junk in my closet and the games are on the top shelf of the closet. Leaving the games easily accessible for when friends come over, but out of the way enough that hopefully I won't be immediately tempted to just waste my WHOLE day before work on nothing but video games.

Slowly but surely I've been taking out my sketchbook and doodling a little. I've been staring at other artists' works and pulling out my "how to draw horses" and horse anatomy books and actually putting forth a good and solid effort into improving my art. My first logical step, least to me, is to start one piece at a time. Starting with non-anthro horses and trying to draw the horse in parts. For instance, I have myself a page of nothing but drawing the horse's eye as seen from various positions and half a page of just the horses head from various angles. Started trying to give the horse head a few human expressions whilst keeping it more equine and less human. Like a smile, or being angry, etc.

What I'm hoping to do is develop my own drawing style where anthropomorphic animals are as what that name implies; animals with human characteristics. When I see furries I feel they look more like humans with animal characteristics. I'm more intrigued and mystified by the animal qualities of furres, personally, and hence why I love the art of artists who emphasize the animal side of a furre. Kind of like God pointed at an animal and said, "You! I shall give you the ability to interact with human society whilst retaining what makes you (insert animal)!" and they stood up on their hind legs, mutated a bit, and could talk... tada!

Like I said, what I'm trying to do to make this work out so it looks like it might be possible and makes me feel a little better about my own artistic quality is taking the horse apart and working with each individual part. Gonna draw the hinds quarters and hind legs a bit and then slowly morph them, work with the torso and slowly morph it, work with the face and slowly morph it. All the while combining human and equine aspects whilst retaining the things about equines that I love about them.

Basically, in short, I've created this long entry as a round about way of saying I'm attempting 2 things. 1: Improve my artsitic quality and skill and 2: develop a style that's unique to myself (y'know how when you look at a thumbnail of an image and before you even see the artist' name you can go, "Oh yeah, that's (so-and-so)'s work." It's going to take a lot of work and I hope to upload my progress as I go. Hope there's still enough people out there that still remember me to take a look and give me some harsh criticism and serious advice.

Talk to y'all later,
~Uma