Author Archives: littledragonblue

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About littledragonblue

Dreamer, Writer, Artist, Lover

Happy Birthday, Foxy!

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Foxes like chickens, according to cartoons I have watched in my squandered youth. 

It’s Fox’s birthday! Happy birthday, Foxy! I made him this Foxy play set, which includes 1 fat little fox, 1 splendid otter, 1 roast chicken, 1 green salad, 1 mushroom pizza (he was so confused last week when I sent him an email that just said, “What’s your favorite kind of pizza?”), 1 gallon of whole milk, and 1 birthday cake. We’re going to have a real life picnic of Jamaican takeout and I will give him this present and maybe even bring 3D Dragon with me, so our alter egos can have a picnic too.

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I probably could not ice a real cake so beautifully. My real life chickens look a little bit better, though. 

Normally I wouldn’t post pictures of his present online until after he received it, so as not to spoil the surprise, but the odds are against him reading this blog before I see him.

Dragon Comics 119

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I’m not naming any names, but we all know who’s been saying the worst mean terrible things about people they don’t know on the Internet.

It’s about a few things, but in the end it’s mostly about how my stepdaughter is sort of weirdly saintly, especially for a little kid. I’ve never met another human being so naturally full of empathy and love for her fellow organism. Everyone is her friend; everyone is worthy of her friendship. She’s easily the nicest person I’ve ever met. Her secret eludes me, but any could take a lesson in kindness from her open.

Some people could take a lot of lessons.

You know what I mean.

Now it’s 5:01 pm, and this comic is precisely 17 hours late, because last night I accidentally went out and partied like it was 1999, or at least like I had the stamina and endurance that I did in 1999. Must post, make dinner, and then get cracking on tomorrow’s post. Cheers! Hope you enjoy.

#notallhumans

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I promise, this comic has a porpoise, and it’s a good one, too. 

I’d like to believe that dolphins and whales don’t judge all of us on the behaviors of some of us. You can find plenty of videos of cetaceans in some sort of anthropogenic trouble–usually being bound up in plastic trash we’ve left in their habitat–approaching humans as if they hope we might be able to help. And of course there are stories of dolphins rescuing humans foundering at sea, helping them to shore or boats.

And if they know we come from boats, they must know that some of us are dangerous.

Some of us are dangerous: to dolphins, and to ourselves. But most of us are OK. You can’t tell from the outside, though.

Probably, dolphins aren’t bigoted. You never hear about dolphins attacking humans, and there are certainly times when they would have cause to hold a grudge or feel that they might have to defend themselves.

Anyway, you can’t judge all of us by the actions of some of us, or even a large group of us. You sort of have assess us on a one by one basis, because we’re all individuals. At least, we should be.

Broken Pieces Mandala

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You break it, you buy it.

Ooh, menacing mirror reflects all-seeing evil in shattered shards. And that’s about what there is to say about this mandala. It’s really deliberately off kilter, smashed fragile things not tending to break in really reliable ways.

This weekend I folded some more cranes–I’m up to 60 now–so it seems like 1,000 won’t be impossible. I just have to keep the paper at hand and can make them when I’m on the phone or doing things that don’t require my hands. Have some ideas about stringing them all together, too. Folding 3 or 4 at a time is vastly preferable to folding 37 in a row.

Photo on 12-6-15 at 7.49 PM #4The Girl liked the rainbow of cranes so I showed her how to do 1, and then she wanted to do some other things: she chose the sanbo, which is like a little tiny box, and a rabbit. She would have liked to learn the lotus flower, which is the only 1 I remembered from childhood–had to look all the other stuff up and puzzle through the directions, which, as any American who’s done origami from a book knows, are always bizarrely confusing–but it was a bit too complicated for her.

Working on one of the “pretty” comics for tomorrow, meaning using photos for source material and getting a very particular style that is still very cartoony in terms of color but maintains some photorealism in terms of shape. The comic itself is still pretty nerdy.

37 Paper Cranes

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So majestic! Watch them swoop and dive across the marsh, reveling in their freedom.

I thought I could try to fold 100 origami cranes as a sort of a symbolic intention for peace but as it turns out there’s a vast difference between doing origami as a kid and doing origami as an adult, and the difference is that when you’re a kid you can do whatever you want with your body and not feel it. When you’re adult, you might start off with, say, nerve damage in the thumb of your dominant hand, which makes it difficult to keep your creases straight, and then, after a while, your terrible posture activates the bad disc in your cervical spine and before you know it, you can barely even hold a piece of paper. And it doesn’t help that you didn’t start until 11 o’clock at night, because people wanted to talk to you before that, and it also took you a while to remember how to fold a paper crane.

So you fold paper cranes until you’re in terrible pain all over and also kind of nauseated, about 3 hours, and you end up with a rainbow of 37 paper cranes, proud and proper, if not perfectly straight.

Should have started earlier. Could have gotten at least halfway. Something just snapped, though. No more paper cranes today.

If Stock Photos Could Talk

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These things had to be said.

Some weird things are going on in my country. We’re having a difficult time being respectful to one another, and it seems like the value of human life has diminished in the eyes of many. People are hurting, but everybody hurts, and really, hurting other people doesn’t help us to hurt any less.

I try to answer hatred with love, but, admittedly, a lot of the time I fail at that and the best I can muster is sarcasm. At least I’m really good at sarcasm. But if I had 100% control over my responses, I would go with love every time.

For example: I saw the Dalai Lama speak in Tucson about 10 years ago. While we were queueing up to get into the convention center, we had to pass a protestor holding a large sign declaring that the Dalai Lama was going to hell. This upset everyone who read it, and no one really knew the right response. We all sort of uncomfortably shifted our gaze away from this person and tried–unsuccessfully, because he was also yelling–to ignore him.

Later, in his talk, the Dalai Lama discussed his own encounter with some protestors in Europe, carrying signs angrier and more virulent than the one we had seen outside. But he didn’t ignore them. He bowed to them. And they were so–surprised? enchanted? shamed?–that they bowed back.

That’s who I want to be. I want to be the person who bows to my detractor, because I know that their anger steals from them, not from me, but that my love builds us both, and that ultimately, there is nothing between me and anyone else on this planet. We’re all the same, once we look past the surface.

Anyway, yesterday was a difficult day. I couldn’t think of anything funny on my own, so I Googled “hilarious stock photos” and captioned the 4 most ridiculous ones.

What It Feels Like for a Grown Woman

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I’m just going to come out and say it: manstruation.

To me, it’s just another argument against intelligent design, like why would an omniscient creator build an amusement park next to a sewage treatment plant (so to speak)? This body is 41 freaking years old, and I have no desire to incubate a tiny human inside it. Why must my uterus so frequently prepare for an event that will never come to pass, and why must it be exhausting?

So here it is: period humor. Super unpopular. Inaccessible to 50% of the population and unwelcome to most of the other 50%. But when that’s all you have, that’s all you have. It’s been a pretty lousy day. And now the world knows.

The point is, if your period was a person, it would be a tone-deaf dudebro in a backward baseball cap who didn’t get that every single one of his pranks fell flat, so he just kept making them, laughing to himself and elbowing you in the ribs even as you begged him to please stop because he wasn’t funny.

Metal Zentangle 1

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Going for the gold, and the silver, and the bronze.

At the same time I acquired 3 pounds of polymer clay, I also picked up another set of Sharpie Metallics to replace the defective ones I bought for October’s Black Cat Bulletin Board. These came from Michael’s, rather than Walgreen’s, and probably hadn’t been sitting on the shelf long enough to completely dry out. Then I got really excited to do a zentangle on black paper, so excited that I somehow failed to notice that this paper was substantially larger than 8 1/2 x 11 (i.e. somewhat larger than my flatbed scanner). So the edges of the design got cut off in the scan, but otherwise this one looks really nice.

Even though this piece was drawn yesterday, I’m still uploading it an hour late today because it’s hard to get back into a rhythm after a vacation, and also other reasons. Needless to say, I never got the chance to actually make anything today, except, of course, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So now I’m behind on everything.

If you’re going to let a blog slide, December is the time to do it. No one has time to screw around online in December. In related news, my holiday sales are booming: 2 Tshirts and 2 stickers in 2 weeks. Success. Yeah. Please, buy my stuff so I can pay for all these art supplies.

Top Leaf Mandala

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Yeah, I know what it looks like. My lips are sealed.

I’m back, and I have acquired 3 POUNDS of polymer clay for all your teeny tiny viewing pleasure. There’s one specific project I need to complete in the next couple weeks but after that, who knows. It’s 3 pounds. I could create a grocery store full of teeny tiny produce, or a teeny tiny city for the polymer Dragon to stomp through like a friendly blue Godzilla, or a garden of teeny tiny flowers, or more teeny tiny figures to wander through fantasy landscapes.

Today, Mrs. Kitty and I took a walk in the desert with the new Macro lens that Fox gave me, and we took giant pictures of teeny tiny things. I foresee a hilarious comic that involves little cartoon adventurers and a large cartoon spider, set against a backdrop of a series of landscape images that actually comprise about 6 inches of rock. Had some other comic ideas, but now it’s late and my fine motor coordination is probably compromised. I don’t think either Mrs. Kitty or I were really prepared, physically, for this particular hike.

This week, I have a paying assignment to write about pediatric cancer research and funding. Pretty sure there’s something else I’ve forgotten about, but it will definitely come to me, hopefully before the person I promised to write it for asks me when they can expect it.

 

Thanksgiving Gratitude

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Sometimes we need to stop and appreciate how much we really have.

It’s pretty common knowledge that a person can improve their overall state of mind by thinking of 3 things every day for which to be grateful. Living with constant gratitude simply makes you happier. For example, we have so much food. So. Much. Food. Some people in the world go hungry, but we never do. That’s something to be very thankful for.

So here I’ve sculpted 51 tiny fruits and vegetables out of polymer clay because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Mrs. Kitty and I were hanging out last week and needed something to do with our hands. She made a bowl and some jewelry, including a hilarious pendant that reads, “Be Kind, Asshole.” Genius. And I made a bunch of produce. I already had a bowl and a couple pieces of fruit from my trip to Flagstaff in 2014 with the Owl, and then earlier this week, I added a couple more and made another bowl and a basket, and Mrs. Kitty also made a bowl. And then I spent seriously THREE DAYS setting up this shoot.

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Pretty basic setup here

You can see my photo studio. I love this Flower Fairy popup book for a subtle backdrop. When I don’t use the bookshelves for the setting, this Ikea Lack table typically serves as the stage for 3D comics, and this old lamp, which once belonged to my grandmother, is always the light. The tripod ended up being useless because it wouldn’t go low enough.

Some close ups:

IMG_7789IMG_7808IMG_7871IMG_7876IMG_7878There could be another 10 photos to this post. I mean, you can hardly see the details on the basket of carrots, or the pumpkin, or the eggplant! But you get the idea.

Pictured here:

  • Apples (2)
  • Asparagus (6)
  • Bananas (1)
  • Broccoli (1)
  • Cabbage, purple* (1)
  • Carrots (6)
  • Cauliflower (1)
  • Corn (1)
  • Cucumber (1)
  • Eggplant (2)
  • Garlic (1)
  • Grapes, purple (1)
  • Grapes, red (1)
  • Lettuce, romaine (1)
  • Mushrooms (5)
  • Onions (2)
  • Pear (1)
  • Peppers, chili (2)
  • Peppers, orange bell (1)
  • Peppers, red bell (2)
  • Potatoes (2)
  • Pumpkins (1)
  • Squash, butternut (3)
  • Squash, yellow (1)
  • Tomatoes (5)

The cornucopia is made from a paper bag.

* You can’t really see the cabbage because it’s too deep in the cornucopia. I banished it there because I wasn’t happy about how it turned out.

If you’ve enjoyed these seasonal miniatures, or anything else on this site, why not consider supporting QWERTYvsDvorak by visiting my shop and purchasing my designs on some fine merchandise, or simply sharing links to your favorite products or comics with people in your network who might appreciate my work.

QvD will be on vacation for the rest of the week. Here’s wishing everyone a peaceful week, especially if you’re in America and spending time with your family. If you have people to spend the holiday with, that’s something to be grateful about too.