Days 36-38

Day 36

Thursday I didn't go into work, again, because Joseph was still sick and Donny was too. Thankfully, I still feel fine. So I spent the day working on touching up images so that they are ready for printing. This is an incredibly tedious and annoying process. It involves flattening the image and then duplicating that layer. Then I adjust "levels" which changes the contrast/exposure. Then I go through and use the burning/dodging tool to make certain areas lighter (and therefore come forward) and others darker (and thus drop back). When that's done, I can toggle that layer to see if I like the changes. Assuming that I don't feel like anything is too dark/light, then I can do the last step which is to enlarge the image and go through it in a grid pattern while taking out specks of pixels that don't seem to flow well. This part is the worst because it's so up close, but it really does make a difference. It's like with any detail work, it ends up making the piece stronger, I just can't stand doing it.

Day 37

I wasn't sure if they were going to want me to go in on Friday, so I started working on some buisness cards. I figured that I could get some printed like Donny did when we went to AnimeExpo; they were fairly cheap and we had to cut them ourselves, but i think they looked pretty nice. I figured that if there was a FedEx Office close to where I live (so that I could walk and get some printed without having to bother Donny) that I might as well get some printed for FaerieWorlds. Thankfully there is one that is about a half mile from my apartment, so I began the day designing them. I did so while watching Angel, so it took me the majority of the day, but I think the design turned out rather well. We'll have to wait and see how they look printed.


While I was just starting to work on the buisness card, Donny texted me and said that they were taking Joseph to the hospital. I still have yet to get the full story, but I gather that everything is mostly ok. I just hope he's feeling better by Thursday, since that's when we leave for Eugene.

After I had finished the buisness card, I decided that I really needed to get out of the apartment, even if it was just to walk to the Yum Yum and buy a donut. But as I got to Yum Yum, I decided that I really wanted to go on a longer walk than just to the corner and back. So I decided to walk to try and find the FedEx Office. This wouldn't be that odd if it wasn't for the fact that it was already 1:30 am. As Joseph pointed out, LA really is not a late night town; as Donny pointed out, no one walks in LA. I think I met maybe 3 people walking around on my mile walk. Which was fine with me.

I do like cities in a certain way. They have this energy about them that the country lacks. But in turn, the city lacks the energy of all the plant and wild life that the country has. It depends on what type of mood I am in which type of energy I would like. Last night I was definetly in a city mood. And even though LA is not what I would typically think of a city, and even though there were few people wandering around, it still had that vibe. It's hard to place. I think part of it is all the lights. When I walk in a city at night, I feel like I'm walking through the stars in some weird alternate universe where the sky is made of electricity and is on the ground.

While I walked home I was struck with the memory again of how when I was in high school, we all dreamed of going to LA. We all said that one of the first things we would do would be to run through the streets barefoot. As I thought of this, I decided that I would fulfill that oath. So I ran for a block or more with my flip flops in hand, laughing the whole way. I'm sure if anyone saw me they would have thought I was crazy; I guess they wouldn't be wrong.

Before going back to the apartment I decided to actually buy a donut, since I was hungry. I also made the mistake of getting a Mocha Chilla (which is like a dutch ice/slushie but with actual coffee in it). I didn't think anything of it until it was like 6:30 am and I still was not remotely tired. I ended up calling Alicia as she was getting ready for work so that she could wish me a goodnight. It was funny because I had been awake the entire time that she was asleep. I did, eventually, get to sleep. I'm definetly going to have a hard time adjusting to a normal sleep schedule when I get back to New York. Not only will I have jet lag, but I'll also want to stay up later than I can in order to go to school/work on time. But we'll deal with that when it happens I guess.

Day 38

Today I got to work from the apartment while Donny, Joseph and Maxwell worked on printing images to bring to FaerieWorlds. My goals for TOTF stuff were to update the blog on their website about getting ready for FaerieWorlds and also to add all the images that I put in their store into the Etsy store. That took a lot longer that I expected, but it got done eventually. In addition, I finished up two images that I was only half happy with. I still have to do the final touch-up stage (see Day 36) but I can do that tomorrow. For now, I think I'm going to read some of Brisingr (since I finally finished Eldest and am on to the last book in the Inheritance series!) and go to bed. And look, it's only 4 am. Gotta start somewhere, right?


PS: 9 days til I come home!

Day 15-Day 18

Day 15

Thursday was yet another shooting day. I helped Donny work on Erin's street faerie costume (I made arm warmers out of a torn up shirt and just generally assisted). Donny had some issues with the styling of this shoot; nothing seemed to be working for her the way she expected and they were not feeling thie outfit as a whole. But after they added a few things and took away this piece of blue lace that wasn't working, they liked it better.

Along with Erin was her boyfriend who they styled as a classical male faerie (which they had never done before, so the shoot was kind of experimental). He had a great smirk which really made the shoot.

Unfortunately, I missed the end half of this shoot in which the guy was outfited as another skater boy faerie and Erin was turned into a modern. In between these two shoots, I was feeling sickly (my throat had hurt all day and i then began to have a headache and feel fever-y, so they took me home so I could feel better for Friday, which was the day we were planning to go to AnimeExpo.

So I went home to rest. I slept for a while, woke up, ate some dinner and watched some Charmed (I finished the 5th season in one week; I'm on a roll). Then I tried to go back to sleep, but even though I felt icky I couldn't get my brain to shut up enough to sleep. So I decided to give up. I spent the following two hours researching circuses, freakshows, and magicians online. I really want to find someone who can juggle...maybe someday.

Day 16--AnimeExpo!

So, thankfully, I actually felt much better Friday afternoon, despite the trouble I had sleeping. When Joseph texted me to see if I wanted to go to AnimeExpo, I wasn't entirely sure if I felt up to it, but I really wanted to go, so I dragged myself out of bed, took a shower, and got dressed. Since they had mentioned going in a costume of sorts, I decided to throw something fun together to wear. I ended picking out the red petticoat that I got at FaerieCon (with white shorts underneath), the white and black stripped tube top, and the red lace shirt that I got from the Salvation Army. It looked pretty cool, although it would have been better if I had brought my combat boots with me, but it worked any way.

The convention was in "downtown" LA, so as Joseph says I finally got to see the "city" part of Los Angeles--all 16 skyscrapers, hehe. (Well, there might be more now; Joseph counted 16 a while ago). It was nice to get to see some more typical urban parts of this flat, sprawling city. It was kind of sad because where we found parking was actually in an old abandoned building that used to have some store fronts in it. There was a gorgeous staircase and some nice floor tiles. It was weird.

As for the convention itself, I was immediately struck by the number of people that were there. Having only ever been to FaerieCon, I was a little dazed by the sheer number of people. These pictures are just from the lobby. Think this times 15 at least.

What was perhaps even more impressive was how many people were in costume. Some were relatively simple; others had full body pieces and masks. There were--at last count--18 pikachus, at least 10 Chis, countless Naruto characters, and thousands of characters I did not reckognize at all.


It made me truly sad that I have not kept up with my Anime/Manga as much as I used to. I miss Inuyasha and other Anime madness. I just never seem to have enough time for any of that any more. le sigh.

Joseph was mostly there to scope out the costumes for ideas, so we went around and took pictures of people in cosutme. I took a few, but not as many as I could have. One of the things I'm working on over this internship is becoming less shy. I didn't take some photos to begin with because I was nervous about asking people if I could take their picture even though I know it's silly. I do think I've made progress on this front, but I still have a ways to go.

Other than that, we went around the dealers room and artist alley. There were some cool things for sale, from goggles and funky wings of foam, to hats with ears and tails and kimonos. There were awesome lolita dresses that I could have poured over for hours.

There were some great artists as well. This section of the convention really made me want to draw people again. If I don't end up doing some cliche verre thing in Mixed Media and Drawing next semester maybe I'll try some more illustrative stuff again. We'll see.

After taking a break to eat over-priced convention food, we took more photos. Joseph hunted down this group of steam punk kids and took some shots of them outside the convention center. They did have really awesome styling.

There were these three girls who were dressed in neon (80s and very cobra starship-esque) colors that for some reason I really liked. This is an instance where I really wish I had more courage when talking to people, because I really wish I had gotten some more photos of them. I thought I had one of all of them, but apparently I didn't take one. The other girl had my black and white piano skirt. It was odd seeing it on someone else. I really have a love hate relationship with neon colors. I think they look kick ass in some cases, but then I'm reminded of how 80s they are and it makes me dislike them.

We decided to end the trek to the convention with watching an anime. Donny was all insistent that we watch an anime since we were at AnimeExpo and it only seemed fitting to do so. Of course the theatre we ended up choosing was actually showing a live action film, so we actually didn't see any Anime at AnimeExpo, but it worked out alright. i actually don't know the name of the film we saw...it was basically about a girl who was so powerful that she was encouraged not to fight because fighting would cause destruction. It was good, although the end was a little cheesy.

Before we left downtown, Joseph and i took some more photos of the scenery. I mostly took light painting ones since I didn't have a tripod. I got some cool ones though. And then we headed home.

Day 17--July 4th

Day 17 was a day off for me. I had a list of things that I was trying to get done, including uploading images to my new DeviantArt account and updating my blog...the latter of which clearly didn't happen. However, this was partly because my roommate, Tanja, asked if I wanted to go with her down to the beach for a little while. I jumped at the chance to finally visit the ocean. We had a hard time finding parking, but eventually we found a place and walked the rest of the way there. On the walk, I saw all these little houses and assumed we must have to walk down a hill to get to the ocean. As we got closer, however, I realized that what I thought were houses actually was the ocean.

I was greatly impressed by it. I was again struck by how different things are in person than how they look in photographs. I took quite a few pictures, but none of them can really convey what it was like to stand there and smell the salt and fish and feel the wet sand. Unless, maybe, if you've been to the place before; then I think you could recall the sensations.

We unfortunately did not stay at the beach very long (only about a half hour) so I didn't get a chance to go swimming or really spend as much time as I would like. I really wish that it was within walking distance. I'd probably go there every other day.

Other than that, my Independence Day was kind of dull. I didn't see any fireworks; although there were people setting of illegal ones in our back ally. I had a nice, relaxing day, and although I didn't get to update this blog, I did actually do some of the other things on my list. (For instance, you can now see my art at kendra-matott.deviantart.com) I'm slowly dwindling the list down...although as I take things off there always seem to be new things that need to go on it. Such is life, I suppose.

Day 18

So if on Friday I got to see the "city city" part of LA, and Saturday I saw the ocean, it was only natural that I would get to see some other, exciting part of town on Sunday so that my weekend was complete. And this is, in fact, true. I had to get up and be ready by 9:15 this morning to go with Joseph back Downtown so we could shoot with Yaya. Yaya is a model and costume designer that they have worked with before and has worked with several other artists in the fantasy industry (check out her website here). It was awesome to see her model and the shoot in general made me want to get working on my own photoshoot. Which was, actually, the next thing on our agenda.

After the shoot with Yaya, Joseph drove me to Hollywood Blvd to a Halloween/Costume store so I could pick out some masks to use in my shoot that is scheduled for Tuesday. I wasn't really expecting much of Hollywood, so I wasn't really disappointed or blown away. I was just another street. It is cool that I can say that I've been there now though.

I was, however, pleasantly surprised with their selections of masks. I easily could have spent a couple hundred dollars there (and each mask was only like $20). They were fairly good quality too, surprisingly. I ended up buying 3--one feather one, and two that are the same shape but different styles. One is grey, blue, white and gold with a feather and gem accent. The other is cream, red and black which I think works quite nicely with my Harlequin dress. Sadly, there weren't actually any masks like the one I was planning on bringing to go with that dress, but that's ok. This one matches nicely and is much more comfortable than the other one. There was this really neat bauta mask that had a sculptural hand on it as well. It was very cool, and a little cheaper than the other masks, but it was really uncomfortable and I knew I didn't want it for my shoot with Maxwell, so I passed on it. Maybe I'll find a similar one that is better some where else.

After the Hollywood store, Joseph took me the long way home so I could see more of the city. I was particularly excited because we drove on Sunset Blvd and La Brea. Sunset made me want to listen to Eve 6 (which I did while I was writing this lengthy entry) and La BreaIt made want to reread the Daughter of the Moon books. The whole drive gave me severe flashbacks to high school in general. We clearly had a thing for LA. I had kind of forgotten about it...it's kind of weird that I'm here now, after all that time.

One of these days, I need to run, barefoot through LA just to complete that dream.