Dreambiscuit

Drawing: My favorite pencils are Wolff’s Carbon pencils, which lay down nice, strong blacks very smoothly. I also use a gum eraser which looks like a little grey blob. It can erase without destroying delicate paper surfaces and it can be kneaded to reach hard to reach areas without disturbing the surrounding artwork. Strathmore 70lb Drawing paper, usually 9”x 12”. It’s heavy but not overly so, with strong texture on one side and a smoother texture on the reverse, able to accommodate different kinds of art projects. My approach to drawing is simple; I start with a loose sketch on a piece of scrap paper until I get the composition where I like it, then I trace the final rough onto a clean piece of good paper. Once I have the outline established I add the details freehand until it looks good. Sometimes I use reference materials but mostly I don’t. Painting: I use oil colors but I’m not specific to any one brand. There are many brands and each have something unique to offer. I never use acrylic or other water-based paints because their colors change slightly when they dry, and they dry much too quickly for me. I paint SLOW, so I need paint that will stay wet until I’m done. I sometimes use linseed oil to loosen up my oil paint, or add a glazing mixture with the linseed oil to darken or add contrast to my paintings once the brushwork is initially finished. I use stretched canvas of any brand (excluding Walmart or cheap store brands), and I further prime it with several layers of gesso, sanding between each layer until the surface is very smooth. I never use board canvas because its rigidness never works well for me. I apply the basic drawing to the canvas in the same way I do for paper drawings, with a rough sketch on scrap paper. But I transfer my roughs to canvas using carbon paper, which a carefully erase and replace with clean outlines drawn with colored pencils (usually soft Prismacolor) similar to the colors I’m going to paint with. Most of my brushes are soft sable or synthetic, and my favorite size is 0/20, which is about the size of a needle. It’s great for fine detail work. I clean it all up with mineral spirits. Sculpture: I use Sculpey modeling compound almost exclusively. And I prefer the original over Sculpey 3 because it retains better detail. It remains pliant until baked in the household oven and it’s sand-able, so you can really polish the work after the initial sculpt. I paint most sculptures with Ceramcoat or other water-based paints. Sewing/plushies: I make plushies by shaping aluminum foil to the shape of the plushie I want to make. Then I draw pattern outlines on the foil with Sharpie markers. Next I cover the foil form with paper towels and tape them in place, cutting the towel pieces to fit the pattern outlines I drew with the Sharpie. Once the paper towel patterns are finalized and fit together properly over the foil form I lay those patters on the reverse side of my fabric, which is usually minky/micro plush, and trace the outline with dark carbon pencil (never ink cuz it can bleed through the fabric). I only make patterns for one half of the plushie because the same patterns can be reversed and therefore matched perfectly to make symmetrical cutouts. Then I cut the fabric and add guide lines and marks to line up each piece together properly. Then I sew, by hand. I’m not good at using sewing machines so my hand stitching takes forever, but I can control the project that way and make fewer mistakes. Once I have the outer ‘skin’ of the plushie finished I stuff it with Poly-Fil either loosely or tightly depending on how firm I want to plushie to be. I sometimes use foam to make shapes and structure inside the plushie, to help with faces and other areas where stuffing alone doesn’t work as well. That’s the basic stuff I can think of at the moment.

I bought a treadmill. It has a slight incline as an upgrade to my usual laps around my apartment or the grounds outside. It’s a little noisy so I’m not sure it’s going to be a long-term solution, but under the right circumstances it’s nice. I also bought a Jasmine plant, which a bit silly considering they’re growing EVERYWHERE in California right now. But this one is MINE, ALL MINE!!!

Yes I do, constantly. I apologize to my car all the time for revving her up to high or going over a pothole. This evening I apologized to it after bumping it with my shopping cart at the store. And I didn’t fail to thank the car for taking me around town after I got home. I treat everything like it’s a living, thinking being and have done so since I was a little kid. Plushies ARE living beings so it’s not strange to treat them as such.

I’ve got a real splitter of a headache, but I’ll live. I took a little something for it and it should take effect soon.

Gotta give a shout to some really great ponies. @TheRockARooster @Sparklefan1234 @Starlight Serenade @Tropical Melody @ZiggWheelsManning @Fluttershutter @Snoopy Fan @Dawnshine Wonder @Ice Princess Silky <3 If I left anypony out, it's not personal; I just have a hole in my head. I love you all.

Oh dang, leave it to me to post this on a Sunday!! Okay, my bad. So now that it’s Monday, my mailbox line-up consisted of some charging cubes I ordered and letters from three charities asking for donations; I must be on a mailing list somewhere.

Yeah, I knew something tasted a little ‘off.’

Didn't have time to do this digital, so you get Stickbiscuit looking a bit 'sketchy.'

@Tropical Melody I watched this on a streaming service but I think I’m going to buy an official copy. It’s good and it belongs in the collection.

Thanks @Starlight Serenade, I really appreciate the advice, which is far more thorough and insightful than my doctor gave me! I looked up cognitive behavior therapy which gave me a lot more to think about than the group chat/AA meeting style that always expected such therapy to be. Typically I’m very analytical and pick things apart to find root causes, effects and remedies, and I’ve done so most of my life with mixed results. I never thought anyone else could do better than me, since I know myself better than anyone else. But after reading up on it, there may be some possibilities and I’m going to talk with the doc about therapy on my next visit. Meds are probably fine if you get the right ones, but the Zoloft I was prescribed was giving me brain fog and was threatening to kick-start a previous heart condition that I’d finally gotten under control, so different meds and probably a combo with therapy will be my next step. Thanks again for your help, for me and everypony reading your post. I’m sorry for all you’ve gone through with your own painful experiences, but you’ve used them to make a positive difference for others and that’s a great gift. Many, many thanks indeed. Thanks also to @TheRockARooster, @Snoopy Fan, @Tropical Melody, @Dawnshine Wonder and all you lovely ponies.

That could work, and it looks good on a bumper sticker. (My idyllic world doesn't overlook the benefits of cheap advertising)

As the title says, what did your postal delivery folks bring you today? A bunch of bills? Something fun or interesting? Let’s make a big deal out of this and talk about today’s mail.

I certainly hope it’s coming to an end! But it’s too much to hope for. Sites like Facebook and Instagram seem to be more interested in how fast they can cancel active accounts, with or without any reason. I guess they don’t want the business. Many others are just too hard to understand; if they aren’t intuitive enough to navigate and use, no one’s gonna use ‘em. Youtube is a wasteland because they keep a stranglehold on everything; they won’t allow any negative votes and want to control interaction. No one can communicate in that kind of environment. Most forums like MLPF are gone; maybe this format is out of style or whatever, which is unfortunate because it works. But many such forums failed because they either keep too tight a rein on members, or not tight enough. Everything is about control, and people are changing the channel.

I do enjoy a well-written villain with an interesting story, but I’ve seen way too many characters who are just plain crap being treated like they’re just poor little victims and everyone else is to blame. Modern movies portray so many characters like this because they think being dark is so cool and being good is not, and they glamorize the dark side like something to be embraced while falsely twisting the rest of society around to feed this delusion. Bad writing is one thing, but irresponsible writing is quite another. I don’t like either, but the latter is far worse and grossly prolific these days. I have no use for it.

While I’m fairly dubious when it comes to Looney Tunes movies, considering their less-than-stellar track record, I am intrigued by seeing a 2D animated feature, so maybe I’ll give it a whirl if I get the time.

I love every song in Muppet Christmas Carol, but I’ll go with One More Sleep Till Christmas and When Love is Gone. Paul Williams is the best writer of Muppet songs and most of the best songs are in Christmas Carol, hence my choices. Rainbow Connection is also pretty hard to beat, so it obviously has to make the list.

Strike Witches. This show is so gratuitous, but hey, whatever gets it done. It's silly but easy enough to watch.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and most of the early Rankin Bass productions are high on the list. I remember Davey and Goliath being pretty good too.

Linus all the way. Snoopy may be "Man's best friend" according to the rule book, but let's face it, he's a little turd. And entertaining little turd, but a turd nonetheless.

I assume this is in reference to video games as opposed to board games. As far as video games are concerned, my first were Super Metroid and Soldiers of Fortune for SuperNES.

Outland (1981) Starring Sean Connery as the only law on a mining outpost on Jupiter’s moon, Io, this is a pretty decent movie with a good story and sense of fun. Connery has to stop the distribution of an illegal drug which is used to maximize productivity in the outpost’s miners, at the ultimate cost of their sanity. The cast is good, the script is good and it’s well directed. I’m surprised that Peter Hyams was never tapped to do a movie for the Alien franchise. He would have done a lot better than David Fincher (Alien 3), who effectively destroyed it. It had been years since I saw Outland and I had forgotten how solid it was. 7.5/10 The Rocketeer (1991) An absolutely perfect movie. Director Joe Johnston clearly cared about what he was making and paid attention to every detail. He put together a mini classic that went under the radar with most audiences. I’m glad to have this movie among my list of favorites. 9/10 Muppet Treasure Island (1996) After Muppet Christmas Carol, Brian Henson had a good vision of what the future of the Muppet franchise might become, and this movie had the same beautiful cinematography and style to add to that burgeoning concept. Unfortunately this movie fell dramatically short of expectations. Brian Henson started off with some of his signature directorial touches that made Christmas Carol such a masterpiece, but while he had total confidence and command of that movie, he seemed distracted and uncertain with Treasure Island. The songs were competent and even solid, but nothing that could compare with Paul Williams’ line-up of perfect songs that came before. He would have improved this movie had he returned to write the songs. The humor was hit-and-miss and, while harmless, lacked sufficient charm to put this movie into the higher echelons of great moviemaking. A good idea indifferently handled. 4/10 Gladiator 2 (2024) It was alright, at least as good as the first Gladiator movie. It was reasonably well made, for Ridley Scott, and it kept me interested without going off track too far. The action sequences were better than the first movie, having less bullet-time nonsense, and the characters were engaging. *Spoilers ahead* Denzel Washington played a complex character with more going on than what initially appeared as a mere trainer of gladiators; he had a much loftier ambition. But what perplexed me was the fact that this ambition was literally seconds from fruition when he essentially sabotaged his own long-standing and well-orchestrated plans. He inexplicably threw away all his subtle maneuverings for power by jumping the gun and killing everyone, making himself the badguy rather than putting the blame on others while taking control and favor in their stead. This seemed out of character considering all that had happened up to that point. The main character, Lucius, was lauded as having such success in the arena due to his rage, but he was about as raging as a fleecy snowflake. He was strong but very laid-back, even in his fight scenes, but that’s a minor issue. I still liked his character. So, all things considered, I did enjoy this movie enough to give it 7.5/10 Keeping Up With the Jonses (2016) I was surprised by this gem of a comedy about suburbanites dealing with a pair of super spies moving in next door. The comedy is tight, well-directed and subtle when it needs to be. A refreshing and fun movie on many levels. 7.5/10

I love the soundtrack for Your name/Kimi no na wa. Radwimps put together a great lineup and I could listen to it every day. It's not even my favorite style of music, but for whatever reason, it works.

The term is used erroneously. It was never intended to be used as a descriptor of disgust, but, in my opinion and belief, something that makes someone wince with embarrassment or discomfort at something that goes too far in one direction or another.

I joined in April of 2016, and I’m not leaving till I’m dragged away by the hooves.

I haven’t created my own country, but I have created, so to speak, an alternate world. It’s very detailed and populated by many wonderful inhabitants that defy description. I’m not the ruler of this world but just a happy inhabitant, and it’s been a major part of my life for many years. I also create small places within this (‘real’) world, in my imagination and even on paper, that represent my own idealized versions of things that are real but have become less desirable than they should be. So I have my own worlds and places, if not specifically ‘countries.’