bhanesidhe | Q's & A's

Hello.

Went m.i.a. for perfectly legitimate reasons.

Id here...

...has been ill & misdiagnosed for a little over a year. After a particularly graphic incident (at the very beginning of a very long) labor-day weekend, I rushed her to the animal-hospital. After a week of tests they performed a painful surgery to remove stones from her belly. She's finally home, de-sutured and in tip-top ninja-kat form.

Also, randomly I'm suddenly moving house! Having kept residence in the same apartment (on-and-off) since childhood, its both exciting and hella-random. :D

So, due to impending cat-bills-of-doom + scary transition to a new home/work environment, I've thinking of having my annual year-end Art Sale! early! This works for so many reason because;

keeps me from going stir-crazy
happy kitty with new expensive diet
if your going to New York Animefest, I can deliver art stuffs in person
makes holiday shopping maddeningly more efficient, what with advance notice and time to package & ship things, etc.

*The other thing this would help with is themes. 2009 nearing it's implosive end, I'm searching for ideas for what to put on a 2010 calender.

tl;dr - new house + fixed cat = Art Sale!;

$10 busts and/or chibis
$15 sketches
+$5 for additional person(s)
+$whatever shipping might cost should you need it sent.

I'm can only take requests till Friday. That's when the phone & cable guys are supposed to transfer things to the new place. So, accessibility is wonky after then.

(Feel free to link to or re-post accordingly, you know if you like saving kittens, feeding artists and shiny new homes!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sure, I'm still interested! I understand how life gets in the way. I hope things are better, and your ninja-kat is doing well too.

The story is really long; you're absolutely more than welcome to read it if you like -- link (http://mahoni.livejournal.com/tag/bandom+pirates+and+thieves+au) -- but I can drop the relevant passages here to make it easier.

The short version is: the dragons' facial appearance takes a lot from Eastern dragons in terms of square, blunt heads and whiskers. They're built like lizards, with long, narrow bodies and long tails, and very lizard-y hind legs. Their forelegs are merged with their wings like a bat's but with several fingers at the tip of the wing joint instead of just one (this is the element I can't find in other art featuring dragons -- they're always portrayed with forelegs separate from the wings). Coloring is very earth-camo, shades of darker green on top and lighter greens/golds/tans on the underbelly and underside of the neck/wings/legs/tail.

From the story:

It didn't take long for him to see details. The creatures were enormous, giants compared to the albatrosses, giants compared to the people on the ship, practically giants compared to the ship.

They didn't head for the ship immediately. First they banked high in the sky, taking a wide, cautious turn around them. As their broad circle tightened and their altitude slowly dropped, Jon saw the pale bellies and the pale undersides of the wings. Long, arrow-shaped bodies tapered down to tails that trailed behind them, whipping and rippling through the air. Their hind legs tucked up tight beneath them.

"Oh shit," Jon breathed. "Oh shit, oh shit."

Wings like bats', only hundreds of times bigger, scooped the air like webbed hands through water -- until suddenly they folded up flat and sent the dragons into a dive, straight for the ship.

Jon yelled, threw his arms around Ryan and dragged him down to the deck.

He didn't see the first pass as he struggled to tuck as much of Ryan beneath him as possible, but he heard the roar. It wasn't an animal sound, although it thundered just as loud and angry; when he looked up he saw the tops of the masts engulfed in flames.

A gust of hard wind hit him, and he caught a glimpse of something huge rushing alongside of the ship. He saw a bent wing, dark and veined; he saw the huge clawed hand at the tip of it. He didn't see a head or a face, though, just a shimmering blaze too red for real fire. He covered his head with his arms and pressed himself against Ryan as the flame and the heat rolled over them.

--

The dragon's hind foot had crushed and collapsed part of the high, rear railing wall above Jon. Its huge talons, as long as Jon's forearm, pierced what remained not far above where he lay, giving it an unsteady perch. If he hadn't been frozen with terror, Jon could have reached up and touched the smooth, silvery-black talons, or run his fingertips over the leathery skin stretched taut over its knuckles.

The wings still beat, slow and steady, keeping it balanced where it clung to the ship and sending cool gusts over Jon. As it leveled more of its weight onto the ship the back of the ship tipped and sank, sending the prow out of the water and up into the air.

In its other hind foot it held an albatross pinched almost daintily between two talons. Its long, serpentine neck curved; its broad head dipped down. Jon smelled heat -- not burning, not sulphur, nothing like he expected, just a clean, sharp heat -- as it curled its lips back from huge teeth and snipped the bird in half.

A jerk of its head and a flick of its foot tossed the remains of the bird behind it into the sea. Then the head drifted down toward Jon.

Dark eyes looked at him, set at the front of its dark green face like a human's or a cat's. Long, fleshy whiskers, shaded to black, hung down like a beard from its chin, and its muzzle was wide and flat. The air shimmered in front of its nostrils from the heat of its breath.

--

(Continued, because I am verbose.)

(Additional excerpts)

The darkness outside the cave writhed and resolved into dragons.

Jon couldn't even count them; they swooped and skimmed in and out of sight too fast. Then two broke suddenly from the mass and the back draft from their wings as they plunged through the cave mouth knocked Jon and Frank down.

Both dragons landed carelessly, their talons screeching across the cave floor as they skidded to a stop. One opened up with fire immediately, engulfing the foremost ranks of the metal soldiers. The cave filled with sharp-scented heat.

The other dragon plowed into the cages at the end of the row, scattering them and towering over Jon and Frank. Its wings folded up, turning into awkward, knobbly arms. It used the three-fingered hands tipping the wing joint to help itself walk forward and to shove more cages aside as it headed for the back of the cave.

Jon and Frank were right in its path. They scrambled backwards, penned in on both sides by cages. The dragon huffed continually, angry shimmers of heat gusting over them as it swept its head back and forth, glaring down at them with dark, gleaming eyes.

The other dragon still bellowed out fire, melting its way through the metal soldiers. Either it scored a direct hit or the heat was simply too strong; either way, the gaslights strung on the wall beside it suddenly ignited. All along the walls at the back and sides of the cave, the gas pipes exploded. Half of the wooden back wall blew out in a spectacular fireball as the gas reservoir behind it went up.

Humans weren't fireproof like dragons, and when everything started exploding Jon curled up on the ground and braced himself for blistering pain. Wave after wave of heat pulsed around him, but the touch he finally felt wasn't fire.

"Jon, Jon," Ryan shouted. His voice almost drowned in the roar of burning wood and raging dragons. "Up, go, come on, run --"

Ryan bent over him, shaking hands grasping Jon's arm. He pulled; his hands slipped away and then came back and fisted in Jon's shirt.

"What --" Jon gasped, grabbing Ryan's shoulder and staggering to his feet.

He couldn't stand up straight, and he realized with a shock that the dragon was standing over them. Its hind legs splayed out to its sides when it stood on the ground, leaving its belly hanging low. It would have slithered over top of them and crushed them, but it had paused, holding itself hoisted up on its taloned hands with its wings spread just enough to shield them from the bulk of the explosions and fire rolling through the cave.

Ryan was already turning away from Jon to duck around the dragon's hind leg. He flung words over his shoulder that Jon couldn't hear, but he got the gist of it -- the dragon wouldn't wait on them forever. They had to fucking move.

He caught Frank by the arm and hauled him up, half-dragging him in the direction Ryan had gone. Frank caught on fast and shook loose, sticking close as they wove through the scattered cages and ducked the dragons' lashing tails.

--

They lay coiled together in a huge tangle. Gerard thought of snakes in a den, wound together messily so that there was no telling where one ended and another began. There were only a handful of dragons, but their long bodies seemed to go on forever. The twitch of a folded wing; the endless slide of a sinuous tail; an enormous gray-green head rising up and wavering on its long neck -- he couldn't tell which bit belonged to which dragon.

And they were so fucking big. Only a few and they filled the cave.

"I thought you were them," Ryan said.

His awe made Gerard's breath catch.

"I keep expecting them to. I don't even know."

Gerard understood. The one with its head raised had turned dark, unreadable eyes on the humans. Just being on the receiving end of that gaze by proxy was unnerving. Gerard remembered the sea serpent, so he knew how much more intense it would be in person.

That may be description enough, but if not please feel free to clarify anything.

And thank you! Your art is really beautiful, I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

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