Lindsay Mays

Hello,

As some of you may know, I have two blogs. Here on livejournal I like to write about art, and on Myspace I write about everything else. It gets a little annoying keeping both, so I decided to start over on Blogger. I won't be writing here any more (although I'll still be here for the groups and my friends) and I won't be writing on myspace anymore either.

You can now find me on blogger...

http://silentorchidstudio.blogspot.com/

After two days of training, I quit my new job. They had advertised for a photography assistant, but almost all of my training was for sales. Not my thing...so I'm back at the beginning.

In other, much better news...Barack Obama will be president!!! Yay!!!

Tomorrow morning I start my new job at JCPenney Portrait Studios. I keep going between feeling really happy and being really freaked out. I haven't had a "real" job in a very long time. I just hope that I'm good at it and they like me. I have training every day this week...I just want to pick everything up quickly and not suck.

Wish me luck!

Happy Halloween everyone! I had such an awesome day!

First, I found out that I got the job at JCPenney. Yay! I'm employed!

For Halloween night, Justin and I went to the party at Barnes and Noble. It was really fun. They had scavenger hunts, where they would say some clues about an author (mostly horror writers) and the first to bring back one of their books got a prize. (Justin got one!) And of course there was a costume contest.

I dressed as a Medieval plague doctor.


And I won!

I got the most awesome trophy ever...and a gift card, and a fortune teller/ghost writer kit.

Then, we came home and watched the Doctor Madblood Halloween special. It was fun, as usual. Madblood really needs to get another weekly show...I miss him.

This was definitely one of my best Halloweens ever :)
You can see some more pictures of my costume on my Flickr page.

I got a very interesting message this afternoon. A French book publisher is doing an art book on contemporary plushes, and they want to include pictures of my work!

AAAAA!!!!! wait....what?...Please excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor...

This was very unexpected, to say the least. I don't even have my own website yet...how did they find out about me? (especially since they're in France...) Did they see my DeviantArt page? Did someone I made a plush for contact them?

I looked at the publishing companies website, and they make beautiful art books, full of gorgeous pictures. A bit like Taschen, but all in French.

I just replied to the email. I'm giddy with excitement about this opportunity! I'll update you all when I hear back.

Leeann won Project Runway! Yay!

Monsterfest was last weekend, and I had a blast! Two years ago I had a booth of gothic and monster themed jewelry...it didn't do very well. But this year I brought a bunch of my plushes to sell, lots of monsters and freaks and skulls, and I nearly sold out! (for the first time ever!)

Here's some of the things I made. (I have the patterns for all of them, so if you're interested I can make more.)

Siamese Twins plush doll by ~silentorchid on deviantART

Cthulhu plush by ~silentorchid on deviantART

Nosferatu plush by ~silentorchid on deviantART

Robot Monster plush by ~silentorchid on deviantART

The movie marathon was really fun this year. I love-love-loved The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra...so fucking funny!

And I made another cake (you may remember my severed head cake from last year...) This time it was a zombie graveyard!

Zombie Graveyard Cake by ~silentorchid on deviantART

I can't wait for next year's Monsterfest!

Sorry for not posting anything lately. I've spent the last month getting ready for MonsterFest, a local horror convention here in Chesapeake VA. I'll be sharing a table with Justin. He'll be selling preview copies of his novel, Divita (which I did the cover art for) and I'll have some of my plush toys and dolls for sale (all monster themed!)

We made a preview video last night. Have a look, and I'll see you at Monsterfest!

You may have noticed that I haven't been posting lately. All summer I've been feeling really bad. I've been sick and worried. Everything I ate seemed to make my stomach hurt and bloated, which made me worry more...which made me feel even worse.

I finally saw my doctor last week. After talking to me for a bit, and doing a couple of tests, she knew right away what was wrong with me. A combination of IBS and anxiety disorder.

When she was talking to me about anxiety, it all made perfect sense. I've always been a worrier, and I've never dealt with stress well. On really bad days, even thinking about stressful situations will make me panicked and upset. About six years ago, my parents were separating and I was worried about school and the future and everything around me changing. My doctor tried to put me on anti-anxiety meds then, but I didn't think I was that bad...just stressed.

So for the last week I've been on meds (for anxiety and IBS) and I'm feeling so much better. I haven't felt that panicky twinge in my stomach at all and my digestion is getting back to normal. I feel like my old self again...the old self I was on really good days.

I'm also supposed to change my diet. More fiber, less dairy and fried things. Oh how I miss cheese! My grocery store doesn't seem to carry much dairy free things. I need to find somewhere that I can get soy cheese. I did find some substitutes for deserts. Odwalla Bars (the chocolate chip Peanut ones are wonderful) and some yummy non-dairy chocolate "ice cream."

Anyway, now that I'm starting to feel better I'm going to be posting more often. I'm working on a bunch of things at once...Queen of Spades character designs, some new plushes, and drawing the cover of the Divita preview for Justin. And I've been playing with watercolors! So much fun!

Yesterday at the book store I picked up "Drawing Words & Writing Pictures" by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden. It's a brand new book about making comics, written in text book format (with homework assignments and everything!) I'm going to be doing the lessons and posting all of my work here in the blog. There are 15 lessons, and I'll be doing at least one every week.

I'm hoping that it will help me with the technical side do comics. I'm feeling more comfortable with the actual art, but things like layouts and storytelling still confound me. Everything I know about comics right now has come from reading them. I have no experience with making them. I want to have some idea of what I'm doing when I start on Queen of Spades.

I also joined the unofficial livejournal group, nomads_ink, and will be posting there as well.