Belphegor

...Just very busy during the day and knackered when I get home. I've had an actual job since the beginning of September: I work at the "archives départementales" (departments are a subdivision of France; it's country -> régions -> départements -> communes (towns).) for a cleaning company that specialises in restoring old documents.

( Details behind the cut... )

Tl;dr: my job is equal parts yay and meh, I'm happy about it but knackered and glad it's over soon :o)

I've re-discovered Les Misérables again (book and musical), and aside from the fact that I am inordinately excited about the oncoming Tom Hooper movie (I read the script and I don't expect it to be anything but awesome), it's made me feel artsy again, because there are so many great characters. Some of my favourites are the students who fight on the barricades during the June Uprising, and Hugo draws such good portraits of them with words that I just had to try my hand at defining my mental images of them. It's a big picture, so in case LJ truncates it here's a link.

( Les Amis de l'ABC. It's a pun on "abaissé" - downtrodden. Hugo loves those, and so do I :P )

So, from top to bottom/left to right, Feuilly (the only workman of the group), Combeferre (badass bookworm extraordinaire), Lesgles/Lègle/Laigle/L’Aigle de Meaux, known as Bossuet (sweet man, but really unlucky with a healthy sense of humour about it), Joly (most cheerful and loveable hypochondriac you’ll ever meet); Enjolras (statuesque warrior of the Republic), Jean (or Jehan) Prouvaire (sweet-natured poet you do not want to cross), and the three less reputable of the lot, Bahorel (a generous spirit and a first-class brawler given any flimsy excuse), Courfeyrac (a fop and a dandy with a heart larger than Europe) and Grantaire (an often drunken cynic who doesn’t care a bit for revolution but really likes hanging out with the rest of them).

Also, and because I haven't posted anything in ages and I feel the (probably unnecessary) need to make up for it, I nicked this great little Doctor Who "Which Doctor are you" quizz from rose_of_pollux, and I have to say the results surprised me...

( Allons-y! And I'm French, I'm entitled :D )

Fine by me :o)

Hope you're doing well!

Autoformatting's still not working (although apparently I can now embed an image) but I just have to share this, because half an hour later I still find it so bloody unbelievable :o) Also, since the only people I know in real life who know what fanfiction means for me are my fiancé (whom I can always count on for support) and my best friend (who is great, but lives miles away), this is just as good a place as any to gush :o)

I apologise in advance for the outrageous use of smileys and capital letters in this post, and its perfectly egregious length. I'm just excited and happy to ridiculous levels.

( Hope the LJ cut thing works... )

It's now 1:40AM, and how on Earth am I supposed to fall asleep now? :o]

(I have no idea how you make the "LJ user" HTML work in the title... ah well. I'll nose around LJ and find out.)

So I lifted this "Strike-through what you've done before" meme from kcscribbler (who in turn "snitched" it from charleygirl), because I found it darned interesting :o) It's rather long, though - 100 questions :o)

( So I LJ-cut it for F-list friendliness. )

58 out of 100 – not bad :o)

Still looking for a job... After a week of eventful holidays. We went to Spain, we went to Agen, and to Bordeaux... Lots of fun, but also lots of driving. I can't wait for the Best Beloved to take his driver's licence so we can split the time behind the wheel :o)

I watched Lilo and Stitch again the other day - had a bad, highly stressful day, which I knew couldn't be cured with anything other than a hug from the Best Beloved, and failing that, a pint of Cookie Dough ice cream and one of my favourite movies. Turns out, I got all three, we shared the ice cream and it gave me the itch to draw again. So I hit 1) the pause button, 2) my pencil and eraser, and 3) my watercolour pencils and paints.

( A song for Lilo )

(It's a large picture, so if the right side is cut, click right and choose "Display picture" in the menu.) I added a dash of black ink for Lilo's hair and eyes, and still think the background looks funny, but overall I guess it ain't bad. My in-laws got me a book on watercolours for my birthday, and it helped a lot :o)

Pantxika (pronounced pan-tshee-ka) is my real name, by the way :o]

( Real life updates... )

Means we're moving again soon, of course. Darn, we hadn't even opened all the boxes from the previous flat yet :P

Well, Christmas holidays have come and gone. I got really nice presents - a box of watercolours, a hot pebble massage, a box of foie gras (which we ate for New Year's and was delicious), Chinese bowls with chopsticks, a box of Beatles coasters, an invite to a hands-on cooking lesson... but the present I treasure most is a little jar of hard dried pine resin, with a photo of my great-grandfather on it and the words "My great-grandfather was a pine-tapper". In French it's called "un résinier" - or a "gemmeur", and collecting resin was a traditional Gascon job. My mum found a big chunk of resin while emptying my grandparents' house for the upcoming sale and sorting their things; she broke it and she filled two jars (one for me, one for my sister) and kept one for herself. It's a little bit of my Landes legacy, and it made me quite happy :o]

I drew and doodled quite a bit these holidays. I also read a few of the Muppet Sherlock Holmes comics, and laughed and laughed and laughed :D With Gonzo as Holmes, Fozzie the Bear as Watson, Kermit as Lestrade (well, LeStrade) and Mis Piggy as Irene Adler... Holmes is a Cloud-Cuckoolander and a Bunny Ears Lawyer Detective, Watson is a well-meaning bumbling doctor (maybe) and Lestrade is a first-class Deadpan Snarker. Well, it's Kermit ;o)

So I made this (a bit quickly, plus I forgot the little moustache). 'Cause Kermit is the coolest frog ever :o)

( Inspector Lestrade... well, Kermit :o) )

Two pages of the little notebook I got with the watercolours:

( Pretty colours )

Plus a few Megamind doodles, because I saw the film and I loved it. Not OMFGAWESOMESTAWESOMEEVAH loved it, but it rocked and left me with a happy warm feeling in the pit of my stomach. And let's face it, hearing Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train in the middle of what is essentially a cartoon is just plain exhilarating :D

So here's my first drawing of 2011, really - a doodle of a guy and a woman in love. Happy new year, everybody! ♥

( SPOILERS - Look who got the girl after all! )

Roxanne Ritchi, TV Reporter and Serial Kidnapping Victim Extraordinaire, and clearly not impressed :o)

( Oh, *please...* )

Although Megamind is probably my favourite character in the eponymous movie (and I can count the films where I prefer the main protagonist on the fingers of my hand), Minion is a very close second, because that fantastic little fish is full of awesome. And a drama queen to boot :P

Funnily enough, in French the adjective "mignon" (pronounced exactly like "minion") means "cute" :o)

( And cute he is! )

And finally some Metro Man... Because honestly, Captain Marvel and consorts have nothing on Metro Man where ham - and cheese - are concerned :o)

( Some cheese to go with that ham? )

I'm getting up at 6 tomorrow again after two weeks worth of (pretty stressful) holiday, and it's a rather depressing thought - but for the moment... "♫ ♪ Welcome to the jungle, we got fun 'n games...♪ ♫" :D

So lately I played around with black ink and my trusted pencils, and after rereading some Hugo Pratt this is what I got. I had Foxy Lady running in my head at the time - think it shows :o)

( Oooh... FOXY. )

I messed up the girl on the right, and the nose of the woman on the left looks funny, but overall it's not too shabby.

This is Corto Maltese - often sailor, sometimes pirate, adventurer, gentleman of fortune, and dreamer extraordinaire. One of my favourite characters in European comics (by Hugo Pratt, writer and artist). Tried to do him justice with watercolour pencils and ink... Whether I did or not is your call.

( The man, NOT the country :D )

Long, straight lines are a pain with a brush :D

One last for the road - Moira "Banshee" O'Danann is a character Corto Maltese meets and leaves in Les Celtiques (a series of stories set between 1916 and 1918 between Ireland and Brittany. I softened her up a bit without meaning to, but I think I got the general feeling right. And the hat.

( And it's a nice hat. )

That's all for today :o) I'm still writing (or trying to, anyway - I have trouble with the second part) my Sherlock Holmes Empty House fic, and beta-ing takes up a lot of my time too. But I'm working my way through both :o)

Also, bloody cold snap. I can't feel my fingers through my gloves when I'm reading while waiting for the bus :S

...Because marking the 70th anniversary of John Lennon's birth feels more right (I suppose) - less morbid, anyway - than the 40th anniversary of his death.

( White strings on black guitar is HARD to draw... )

Boy, but this takes me back. I must've done this drawing in 2001 or 2002. Anyway, Mr. John Winston Lennon, circa 1965.

Gonna dream a lot today - maybe even more so than usual :o)

...We're in the middle of the moving out/in process right now, and my whole (old) flat smells pretty entirely of cardboard. Also, I finally got my first car (although I passed my licence in 2002) so on one hand I'm stressed out by the whole process and on the other I'm freaked out at the mere idea of having to drive (which I absolutely loathe, but there ya go). François is a dear, and I got friends who help out, but I'll be glad when it's over. And when I can use Internet in my new flat, which is another matter entirely :o)

Still, it'll be much better - we'll have two rooms (a proper bedroom! yay!) instead of one, and we'll no longer need to climb a ladder every time we get in and out of bed :D

Aargh! Duty calls :o) Hope everybody's doing well!
Bel :o]

Well, it's been busy these last few days.

( Cut to make it friend-list friendly :o) )

I can't wait to be settled in our future new flat with my fiancé and for routine to start :o)

My granddad died today. I'm still processing the thought - my mum called me around 4PM-ish, and while it sank in a bit while I was waiting for the bus with nothing else to think about, I don't think it's going to be real till the funeral on Wednesday. You know how it goes. It wasn't really a surprise, but it still kinda was. At least it was painless - he didn't "feel himself die", as we say. Not that it's going to make it any easier once I really come to grips with the fact that my only grandfather is dead (my aitaxi, my Basque granddad, died when I was a year old, but I've known my papi all my life).

I'll deal, of course - I guess I'm essentially a cheerful enough person (at the core, I mean) but for now I feel a little... lost. I spent the rest of the afternoon and the evening with my fiancé and my best friend (my Melody, best girl mate in the world) so it dulls the edges, and François' coming with me to the funeral, which is a comfort. In the meantime, I'll think of my granddad and remember the good bits, and while right now it's a bit hard to reminisce fortunately I actually have a good stash of them.

So... I'll be fine. I know that when I need to curl up and cry I will, but I'll be fine.