Barack Obama gave a presidential speech Sunday evening to announce that the al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, had been killed by heavy fire at a mansion in Pakistan, near Islamabad.  Following the announcement, the internet began to go viral with commentaries on Bin Laden’s death.  People began gathering to celebrate.  Crowds gathered en masse in front of the White House to chant and sing, as well as in other cities.

It’s an odd occasion to celebrate a man’s death so joyfully, but when that particular man has created such heinous acts and his death means then end of his personal sphere of influence, then it tends to become understandable.  The proverbial head of the snake has been cut.  For my own part, I’m relieved.  I would have rathered he stood trial, but I believe many knew that in the end, that would never happen.

While we may yet have difficult trials ahead of us in the future, I believe this is one step closer to bringing a resolution to those of us in the U.S. and the rest of the world.

First up is my RP OC, Caseul.  This is actually the VERY first thing I inked/drew in Paint Tool Sai!  (Technically it was sketched on copy paper first!)  It’s always what made me fall in love with the program… its AMAZING inking qualities!  The only reason I stopped working on it waaaaay back when, is because I couldn’t decide how I wanted his arm to look.  It’s all bionic and crap and as much as I like mecha… I suck at it. T_T  Whenever I can figure out how it should look is when this piece will be done.  But then, I also need to do tons of touch up, such as the eyes…. They bug me. >_<;

And here I have a ROUGH, very rough sketch of a Harry Potter fanart piece I want to do for mah loveleh DiDi.  Since I wanna try a new style with this, it’s been on the back-burner.  Even though it’s fanart, it’s on the upper part of my list because Diana’s been waiting forEVER for arts from me. T__T  Harry x Hermione luff for her!

Now, the next three are all sketch attempts to draw Hellsing365‘s BJD/OC Haru!  Except except…. though feminine males are my FORTE…. for the life of me, I haven’t been able to draw a sketch for her that I like or looks right or anything!  But then, when I was going through my sketches to get them ready for these WIP previews, I came across the third one…. O__O

This one looks too much like the photo reference I had available, so I scrapped it.

This one I could just never be happy with… =sighs heavily= T__T

And this one….. I TOTALLY didn’t remember that it was this far along… O_O; Seriously, I thought it was still in the rough stage (those multicolor thick sketch lines you can see behind the thin inked lines…) Once I saw it, I remembered what happened. I had been working on it back at the beginning of the summer inking it when I became unhappy with the face… And suddenly couldn’t work on it at that time, so took a break to scribble on something else and then the chaos at the end of the summer began…. >_<;;; So in the back of my head, the whole time, I thought it was still just a crappy sketch…. until today….=dies, simply DIES= I did use a stock art reference for the pose on this one, but I’m still unhappy with the face.  Seriously… IGNORE the face!  O_O;;;   I’m hoping that almost a year later will be just what I needed to get it completed.  Hellsing365, hunny, I dunno if you like this one, but I’ma keep working on it and make it better, yosh!

And nao… for teh Iruka-sensei cuteness! I LOVE this little chibi-sensei. Srsleh. It makes me squee. =is a spazz=  Sketched it probably two years ago now and it’s been hiding out on my harddrive… =whistles innocently=  (Ignore the crappily drawn hitai ite konoha symbol… it was temp scribbled on thar!)

And this one I sketched waaaaay back, tried inking it, but was so unhappy about the proportions and at the time couldn’t fix them that it went to the side. Still gonna hafta wait, but I’ll get to it, I will!~ RAWR!

And that concludes Tassie’s walk through a smidge of her art WIP folder! I have several others but I either don’t want to show them off QUITE yet, or they’re on a computer harddrive that is… sorta… not accessible atm……. =cries a river of tears=

Time for an image cut! Enjoy!

Commission for someone on Gaia

After I sent the image to the commissioner, he asked if he could change the hair color to blonde… so I did it for him. ^_^

This is a loooooong time in coming, but it’s finally finished! THIS is such a relief for me, I’m so happy!

And this… I find this one to be GORGEOUS! *_*

And finally, I added the halo and changed the eye color for my bro! ^_^

I quickly began searching other news articles and turned on CNN to see, with my own eyes, that the camera trained on the oil spill was, for the first time, void of oil spewing forth.

I almost couldn’t believe it, and of course, sobered as I heard it could be a temporary situation as pressurization tests are underway.  Ah, but that’s alright.  I don’t think anyone expected such immediately positive results so quickly, especially since it’s an integrity test.  What’s important right now is that true, positive progress has been made in containing the situation.  I know my nerves will be on end over the next few days as I await the final results of the testing and capping of the spill and I can only hope that it remains continually positive.

Because, quite frankly, we need to be over the containment process and move on to the pressing need to turn more attention to the massive clean up and, eventually, helping more people be able to go back to work.

I know I haven’t written any journals on the issue before today, so it may seem strange with this article coming out of the blue, but just chalk it up to the fact that I suck at writing journals consistently, lol.  I and my family have been very affected by the oil spill and I feel no shame in admitting that I cried today just at the thought that the spill had, for the time being at least, stopped.

So, got behind in a few things again, but staying afloat fairly well.  Had to slow down on drawing because it started coming harder, but staying strong at least!  Should have a few art updates soonish.  The hardest has been catching up on old, promised arts, but I am getting there and HAVE gotten some drawn, which is sooooo friggin’ good!

The most important part, I think, is that I can say I actually drew something for myself!  I haven’t done that in a very, very long time.  It just feels wonderful!  Even if it was nothing special.  Even if it wasn’t a dear to my heart character.  It just felt wonderful and free!

So, expect some finished stuffs soonish.  Yoshi!  Anyway, now on to a few links to some awesome stuff while I have the chance.

I came across this in passing and was just amazed by the beauty of the layouts presented in this article.  I had been thinking lately of how “generic” most journals were becoming.  Mine own being subjected to this fault as well.  But I did want the freedom to change things up a bit, do something a little more than the norm.  These collected journals are beautiful and stunning and simply inspirational!  Magazine style FTW!

Go check them out @ Bringing the Magazine to the Web.

Also from NetTuts+, a wickedly awesome bit of coding that I’ve been waiting YEARS for!  A way to make one element have multiple borders.  No more needing to use background images for just a simple box section!  I’m planning on using this for the comments section here, for starters.  Since, apparently, I never coded it for the DiS v.15 layout.  Um… oops?

Anyway, you guys have to go check it out!  Quick Tip: Multiple Borders with Simple CSS

Mirrored from Dreaming in Shades.

Also, still arting!  Which is beyond good.  Getting some older arts nearly finished to send out and show off.  I’m feeling a bit more and more relieved every day.  For the first time in nearly two years, I’m finally feeling a weight lifting from my shoulders!

And, on a lighter note, I’ll end with this beyond awesome vid!

Anyway… in order of first to last, here they are! (These are the smaller, sig sized ones I made available.)  Enjoy!

…. I rather like them, myself! ^__^

Feel free to go check it out: TasiaChiba @ Epilogue.net

I likes teh hair, YUMMMM!!!

For a MUCH larger viewing version, cleeeeek here: RAWR!

In later news…. MOAR ARTS ON TEH WAY!  YARRRR!!!

Finished:

WIPs:

And… I have a few more WIPs that I haven’t even uploaded.  It’s a miracle, really!  =glows with delight=

And yeah, I know… all different sizes, lol!  But hey, I just wanted to show it all off!

Now… off to go fix some supperz, YARRRH!