Apologies

Sorry for the silence. I got a little burnt out, and needed a short break. After all, I don't technically get paid for doing this ;-)

Back on the subject of wallpapers - some are nearly done, and going to go up soon. I suppose I will also release a slew of wallpaper-based icons when they do. I haven't really been getting out and advertising the website, but people keep coming, which is encouraging. Deathbycute.com is a tiny website without a lot of traffic, but hopefully I can change that.

However, on that topic -
Winter holidays are coming up. Hanukkah and Christmas are prevalent in this area of the world, but if you would like to request something for your own winter holiday - real or fictional - all you need to do is ask.

It has gotten surprisingly cold in this region of Florida, although not quite cold enough to snow, but the cold is refreshing.

As usual, if you have requests for wallpapers, icons, software or game skins, please comment in the blog or shoot me an email. I'll see what I can do.

Update - Christmas Wallpaper

The first fantasy-themed Christmas wallpaper is up: a festive elven wizard. He doesn't have a name or D20 stat sheet yet, but I'm working on it :-) I may post those later, just for kicks. For now, enjoy him as a cool wallpaper - you'll find him in the Fantasy section.

There will be several more wallpapers, which I will be producing as fast as I can, and which may be converted into fantasy Christmas icons as well. Keep checking back.

Impending Updates and the Career Front

I'm working on some of the fairy wallpapers as well as a set of Christmas-themed fantasy wallpapers. These tie into another quiz, which is, of course, a way of getting the word out about the website.

I'm currently working on monetizing my website and blogs, since finding a steady job is turning out to be... difficult. Even the newspaper job listings in the Venice Gondolier and Venice Herald-Tribune are not materializing.

The economy in cities like Venice and nearby Sarasota depend, to a large extent, on "Season" - that is, Tourist Season. Unfortunately, with the state that the economy is in, the tourists just aren't showing up. Four restaurants closed in Venice recently, which obviously isn't helping the job market.

There are waitressing jobs in Sarasota, but I can't drive 20 miles to work every day - not with the price of gas lately. It makes me wish that Florida had better public transportation systems.

The "other" job hunt - the long-term one - isn't going so well, either.

I've done the usual - spamming resumes, etc. It's not enough to be passive, I can't just post my resume places and expect employers to pound down the door - on the other hand, it doesn't hurt to post it as many places as possible. Searches in places like CareerBuilder, Creative Hotlist, and Monster.com are as much a part of the war as passively posting my resume on them. They're excellent resources, and if you're looking for a job you need to use every option at your disposal. Anyone seriously looking for a job can't afford to pass them up.

At one point I found an international listing of game companies, A-Z, got frustrated, and started applying to them in alphabetical order. I'd gotten to G, passing up the companies that obviously wouldn't hire me or the ones that weren't a good fit (the website was completely in Japanese, or they produced only interfaces for medical software... why are they in a listing for game companies?), when I got sort of frustrated.

The crux of the matter is that without the right connections willing to help you, genuine entry-level positions aren't necessarily easy to find. Most public listings are for Mid-level or Senior something or other, with 5 years of experience in Underwater Basket Weaving (or a similar skill). I've even offered to work for free - unfortunately, I am no longer in college. I'd still probably do an unpaid internship for the lulz.

New Quiz

A new avatar personality quiz, for the quiz fiends out there.

Which Christmas Avatar Are You?

Holiday Light Kitty

Are you tangled up in the Christmas lights again?! You are lighthearted and sweet, if a little bit mischievous... your idea of the perfect gift is the gift of laughter!

You can find this icon and more at http://www.deathbycute.com
Take this quiz!








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Christmas Icons

A new batch of Christmas and Holiday themed icons is up! There are 12 new icons, with a few stragglers still to come! I'm also working on a Christmas-themed quiz, for you quiz junkies out there.

Which Cute Fairy Are You?

Flower-child Fairy

Spreading peace and love. Spiritual, earthy, and a little unrealistic.
Take this quiz!








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I'm currently uploading all of the new fairy avatars to the website. There are also a few avatars not featured in the quiz, as well, including some Christmas ones. I hope you enjoy them. :-)

Update

I've updated the Girls section - I've fixed the broken wallpaper links and added a new wallpaper.

December

I will be adding Christmas and Hannukah-themed icons and wallpapers to the Deathbycute website within the next week or so. If you're gearing up for December festivities, remember to check back!

Wallpaper and Icon Updates

I've added new wallpapers to the "Girls" and "Fantasy" sections, and added some new fairy icons to the Icons page. Another "Girls" wallpaper as well as a fairy wallpaper or two will go up within a few days. If there are any icons or wallpapers you would particularly like to see, please comment and let me know. :-D

Art Show

Last night, I went to a pretty amazing art show.

Masha, Dustin, and Matt are friends of mine. I recently met Masha and Dustin, but Matt has been a friend for years. We were drinking coffee and repairing our lap-tops over at Big E's, which is between Ringling and New College, and Masha came up to us and told us that Mike Pukac was having a show in downtown Sarasota and we should stop by and check it out. We had to finish repairing our laptops (they were in 50 pieces) but said we'd drop by once we were done. We actually wound up having to give Masha a ride because her other friend's car broke down.

In any case, I was expecting what I tend to run into at art shows - artwork that is very interesting, and very good, but doesn't necessarily speak to me beyond "Hey, that's a good composition and this person is a great artist". That's not what happened, and I'm very glad.

Mike's paintings are gorgeous. Some paintings are powerful, others are pretty, but these were gorgeous. I love art, but I'm not normally the sort to rant and rave about it... everyone has their moments, though. The vivid colors, iridescence, and dreamlike quality of the paintings are amazing. It was difficult to keep from reaching out and seeing if my hands would enter that world, like dipping your hands in the water in a puddle; I wanted to swim in them. He is experimental with his paint, but he backs that up with a lot of skill. If you get a chance to see some of his paintings in person, seize it, because photographs and scans are never going to do it justice.

During the past few weeks, I've been discussing arrangements with a friend of mine in Palm Bay - I've been planning on going over there to do a series of paintings. The apartment here doesn't have the space, and since I'm currently crashing with my mother, who is a neat freak, I don't know if either of us could deal with the stress of the inevitable explosion of canvas and acrylic paint. The show I went to last night was certainly an inspiration, a testament to how vivid a painting can be. I'm not quite the master and can't come close, but it's enough to know that it's possible.

Website Update

I have updated the Horror section of the Wallpapers area of the Deathbycute website. There may be more updates later today, possibly in the Science Fiction section, and I am currently working on a dragon wallpaper for the Fantasy section. I will also be working on a new Myspace template. It has been suggested that a Panda themed Ebay template might be appreciated, so I may offer that as well. Those things will probably go up tomorrow.

I suppose I have been neglecting Skins, although I've been trying to figure out a method for making iTunes skins that doesn't give me a migraine.

Concepts

My apologies, empty space, for the silence.

I've been working on a concept painting for MechaLord, which has been taking up my spare time. That, and trying to publicize deathbycute.com.

In any case, the Mechalord image should make a nice science fiction wallpaper, if Josh is kind enough to let me post it here. I've struggled with it a bit - metal, fire, and rain are a volatile combination to try to paint, especially where the rain hits the fire.

I've been surfing around Yahoo! Answers, as well... and working on my alternate blog, Ghosts on my Heels, which is an online dream-journal. I will be leaving Venice and staying with a friend in Palm Bay in order to work on a series of canvas paintings related to this project. I don't feel that the digital medium is appropriate for such a personal subject.

Ever since I graduated from college, I've been hemorrhaging art. I suppose part of it is the fear that I will stop producing art altogether. Seems like it was an unfounded fear, after all.

Small Sources of Joy / Dead Ipod Shuffle

I figured I'd post this here since most of the people who poke around my wallpaper website (of whom there are not many, at the moment) will generally be inclined toward multimedia, and likely own an ipod.

My ipod shuffle has gotten a little iffy lately, but I manage to keep it working... barely, I suspect. It's about 2.5 years old, has been worked like a dog the whole time (I rode the bus a LOT in college), and doesn't seem happy about it. Anyway, today, I got the blinking lights of doom again. Those lights bring with them a sinking feeling, as my shuffle is a small but reliable source of joy in life. It has gotten a little bit less reliable lately, although Apple's reset utility had saved the day once before, so I figured it would work again.

I used it again, to no avail. I continued to get the 'disk not found' error. I'd read somewhere (another blog?) that perhaps you could only use the reset utility once, which I assumed to be the case. However, in a fit of maddened clicking, I discovered something that the reset instructions failed to mention - you have to shut the shuffle off for a few seconds in order for it to properly reset.

d'oh.

I'm not sure if that was a second time only type deal, a special case with my shuffle just being weird, or what - I don't remember it being an issue the first time.

In any case, the shuffle works again.

Deductive Reasoning

I have a pet rabbit named Bunbun. Yes, she was originally named after the Sluggy Freelance character.





She's a 7 year old grey lop, getting a little old (some of her grey spots are going white) but still full of all kinds of trouble.

For reference - Bunbun's pen is currently in storage in Orlando. It was too big to bring with me in my initial move to Venice. Her pen is her territory, and the rest of the house is human territory, especially the bedroom, which is mine. Everyone generally respects that, even cats, upon whom Bun lays the smack down if they get too uppity. When I live alone, Bunbun gets to roam freely around the house, with the exception of "no-no" rooms she knows she is not allowed in, like the kitchen. Rabbits are stubborn, but they aren't stupid. I would say that Bunbun is about as smart as a sort of dumb dog and she is capable of learning simple commands and rules like "don't go in the kitchen". Other things are harder to work with because you can dampen but can't really override certain instincts, such as digging and chewing. She has been taught not to dig at and chew on carpet, but it has taken YEARS.

For the most part though, when I live with roommates, Bunbun lives in a pen, which she understands she is supposed to stay in. It's pretty much voluntary, since the walls of the pen are only about 2 feet high, but as long as you designate it as 'hers' and the area she is supposed to stay in, and she has plenty of entertainment, she will stay put. The pen's about half the size of the livingroom, so it's not like she's being confined to a tiny cage, and when the household has other pets or household members who are not as dedicated to rabbit safety in it, it's safer for her to stay in the pen.

Anyway, I can't let Bun have full run of the apartment, since I'm currently staying with relatives, but I couldn't make her live in her cage, since it's basically a glorified potty. I've tried taking the cage away but she actually likes it and refuses to go to the bathroom anywhere else. Last time I tried to give her a litter box, she turned it upside-down and wore it as a hat.

Her makeshift pen is her cage pushed up against an entertainment center that's set at a right angle to one of the walls in the corner. It creates a 4 foot gap between the shelf and the wall, and the shelf's about 5 feet long. It's not a huge pen, but it's temporary, and safer than having her run around the house, which is full of cords and dangerous things. The catch is that the shelf is an entertainment center, and has an opening in it about 2 feet off the ground that you can rest a television set in.

Bunbun has a large cardboard box with a hole cut in the side that functions like a doghouse. She also has a shoe box to throw around and play with. Well, this morning she shoved the box up against the back of the shelf and the shoe box up against the box, creating stairs. She hopped up her makeshift stairway into the opening, where she sat looking like she was so proud of herself she was going to burst. Victory thus achieved, she did not do the logical thing and escape. Instead, she started throwing things from her cage out of the opening, which caused such a racket that my mother ran into the livingroom to see what the hell was going on. Realizing she'd been caught, Bunbun leapt back into her pen and hid in her box. I guess she assumed she was in trouble. Of course, instead of punishing her, Mom gave her a treat for being ingenious enough to come up with the box scheme. In retrospect, this could explain why my brother and I are currently so demented.
I've plugged up the opening with a few heavy boxes, and Bun is sulking in the corner.

Busy Work

I recently (as in, today) relaunched a comic that dates back... years.

It's never been a popular comic, or even a good comic, but it's nice to have the sort of distance from a project that only age and occasional failure (and even more occasional success) can bring. I've got new comic ideas, better ones, etc., but itwould be nice to drive the nail in the coffin of this one. I don't plan on making it any more coherent than it ever was in the first place - just more readable.
You can check it out here.
The reason I've hosted it on DD is because at the moment I don't feel like messing around with the php necessary to run a comic website. I got enough of that with pobocks, and the last time the script melted down and barfed all over the internet, I'd had it. Then Drunk Duck went down for the second time that year, and that was it. They didn't have a mass-update tool for free accounts, and there were over 100 pages of the comic, and I realized the comic itself kind of sucked - and that was it for P.O. Bocks.

Once upon a time, I produced a page a day for the comic. Which may explain the iffy quality of some of the earlier pages. I plan on going back to the page-a-day, come hell or high water, because in a masochistic way, I enjoyed doing it. It was like feeding twigs to a fire, watering a plant, watching a favorite pet grow. Finished artwork always brings with it an immense sense of accomplishment, no matter how small the piece may be, which is something I am addicted to.
But life gets in the way sometimes - particularly, college coursework and the need to pay bills. I got stuck on the plot, people didn't particularly enjoy the comic, I realized the story itself was hopeless, and I stopped drawing.

I plan on revamping many of the original comic pages. They won't be entirely redrawn, but they will be redone. The story will be a little more coherent, but not too coherent, because I enjoyed the freewheeling spirit of the original comic, no matter how terrible the comic itself may have been. Ultimately, the plot was a lot like a little kid spinning around in the front yard and screaming, but I've realized that's sort of fine by me, even if the inevitable conclusion is the literary equivalent of falling over and puking.

I have realized how much I miss drawing comics. Actually, drawing in general. My degree is animation-related, since I wound up becoming interested enough in animation to change my major. The Art: animation program at UCF was in flux at that point in time, but they were starting up a Digital Media: animation program. I found that I enjoyed the environment that the Visual Language program offered, in particular the experience of working on teams with other students. The companionship, input, and spirit of collaboration made otherwise daunting tasks manageable, and things that could have been pretty horrible weren't so bad in the long run. Unfortunately, the irony of being in animation was that I didn't get to draw very much, which was pretty miserable. My coursework and schedule were also demanding, so I didn't have any time to draw on my own.

Having come to this realization, I'm re-assessing how I want to proceed in life. Everybody and their brother wants to be a concept artist, but I've realized that I'll be unhappy with most tasks that don't involve a certain amount of painting. Thankfully, I enjoy painting textures a great deal, so you may start seeing game skins and the like popping up here. Nouri in particular has asked for a set of skins that I think most people would actually enjoy.

My problem is that I get backlogged by promising too many things to too many people. Right now is a bad time to relaunch PO/Wizard Party, but it represents the ultimate project that I never finished. My goal is to finish it quickly, within a certain range of quality, so I can finally strike it off my list. But amongst other things, I currently owe Josh banner art, and Austin badge art, as well as various miscellaneous personal projects. I've dedicated time to the website in the hope that I can scrape up some extra cash with it, since times are lean and waitressing slowly drives me batty over a period of time. I enjoy the people, actually, it's just that all you have to show for yourself at the end of the night is cash. Money. Money comes and goes, and it's not enough for me - there's no lasting indication of your efforts. You pay your bills with it, and all that you have left is sore feet and the nagging, compulsive need to wipe your kitchen counter every five minutes.

Blog^2

I just posted a new Myspace template. I'm hoping to feed this site content as I go through my artwork and convert it into wallpapers, skins, and various other things. Requests are welcome, of course. I'll be working on the usual Hana fare - cat-girls, dragons, magical cities, what-have-you. I'm planning on putting up some Ebay auction templates and iTunes skins once I get the chance. If you've just stumbled onto the DeathByCute website, and have anything in particular in mind, drop me a line. I'll do game skins and textures, too, as long as what you want doesn't involve a massive and prolonged effort (you'll have to pay for that). Keep in mind, you might have to wait a little bit. SecondLife is another issue - I'll probably require Lindens for doing anything in Secondlife, due to the fact that uploading anything to SL costs money. If you want concept work done, send me an email with info about your project. I'm currently working on a volunteer project called MechaLord, so I may or may not be able to produce anything immediately.

I'll be moving my personal blog over here from Livejournal.com. I'm not abandoning Livejournal, it's just that if I have stuff to say related to art, news, etc., I may as well say it here.

Just got my most recent rash of resume rejections, but I suppose that's par for the course. Means I'll have to send out another few dozen and pray. In the meantime, I'm listening to Manowar and feeling epic. Nothing makes you more feel like getting up and going out to fight again than songs about Odin kicking peoples' asses. On the other hand, it also gives me the urge to run outside, screaming and swinging an axe, and go on a rampage across the countryside. It is possible that I've been listening to too MUCH Manowar. All I really know is that by now, I am quite sure that I was born with a heart of steel.

Also, on a side note, I have discovered the sole purpose of the water slides at Typhoon Lagoon: if you do the Manowar scream sliding down, and manage to maintain the scream properly, it will carry across most of the park.

Speaking of epic, I've been running a Dungeons and Dragons game for my brother and his friends. It runs every Sunday, and I'll be uploading recordings of the sessions so people can listen in. My friend Thomas was very excited by the prospect of editing and mixing the audio recordings, which takes a lot of weight off my shoulders so I can focus on the really important parts of the campaign - you know, decorating the webpage and painting character portraits.

Kidding. Actually, I care a lot about the players having fun. I felt horrible since I had to cancel the most recent meeting - the one everybody actually was going to show up to - because I was ill. In my personal defense, I was in no condition to run a coherent game, and nobody would have had fun. It was disappointing because I know they look forward to the games, and my little bro is currently DM-in-training. I think he may plan on converting their characters over to the Warcraft tabletop setting when he takes over, which will definitely be interesting to watch.

Speaking of which, I recently got back into World of Warcraft, this after getting back into Warcraft3, except most of the guild I'm in on Stormrage (The Cute Fuzzy Meow) apparently picked up and left for another server. I think Brighteyes may have quit altogether. I've taken to mostly playing Horde on Onyxia, because I can't quite seem to stomach the servers that my brother frequents.
I've also been a bit irritated at not being able to find Warcraft2 anywhere. The game is pretty much unavailable, and when I played it it was on a friend's computer, so I basically can't get ahold of it legally. I wish they'd release a Battle Chest with all of the Warcraft games bundled up together... Warcraft 1 and 2 would possibly require an emulator to run, except for my deep, dark secret - the Pentium 1 locked up in my cabinet.

Yes, I still have a Pentium 1. Its name is Bob, and I keep it for playing old games. The hard drive is unreliable, but everything else works ok, including the ancient TDK burner. As long as I don't try to store too much data on it and back my games up fanatically, I can play plenty of older stuff that doesn't run quite right on new, fast computers. Fallout, Interstate '76, etc. I've considered dropping a newer, bigger hard drive in, except honestly - why?

First Post

This is the first post I've made to the DeathByCute website blog. I suppose that means that it's technically a test. If you see it up here - woo hoo, it worked!

As a side note, I've discovered by accident that there's a livejournal user who shares the same name. To clarify: I am not this person.

With that out of the way...

Welcome to the DBC website. I'm your friendly neighborhood artist, Rihana. I hope to build it into a solid source for free wallpapers, icons, myspace/blogger templates, skins, simple starter-web page templates, and other things. I will update it with tutorials and other interesting tidbits. Please visit on a regular basis - I love painting more than anything in the world, and much of what I do will probably wind up here. If you have a specific request, please, by all means email me. I am busy with other projects (volunteer concept artist, con badges, etc) so be patient - if it's not something quick like an icon, it could take a little while. No requests for copyrighted material, please. I won't be posting any fan-art to this website, but you may luck out and find some in my personal gallery.

Although comments are currently turned off, I'll be allowing comments in future blogs - however, if I start getting overrun with bots - especially ones posting inappropriate spam - I will have to turn them off.
Please don't post links to anything inappropriate, illegal, or pornographic.