In other news, cats are really hard to paint.

Just a short entry today, I’m afraid. I went to Chelsea’s funeral. It was a good funeral, as they go. I’m not blogging about it or anything. But it looks like some other people who knew Chelsea (and don’t know me) found my blog entry about her last week, and appreciated it. They are glad it exists, so I feel it’s justified even if it makes me sound weepy in a way I’m usually not.

I’m in a bit of a rush today because it’s July 1 and that’s my self-imposed deadline for a work project. I’m ghostwriting a book for somebody! It’s lots of fun, and it’s going really well.

On a vaguely related note, here’s a painting I did for Johanna, my Rae cosplayer/cover model. She just graduated from college with her B.A., so as her graduation present I’m turning her into a Masks character. She picked out the name (amusing, considering what I’m doing this week), and asked that her beloved cat Tasha be included as her character’s sidekick. You’ll be seeing more of this character eventually; once I finish the story for Johanna (which will probably be called "Ghost and the Machine"), I’ll hold onto it for a few months and then release it to y’all as a freebie. It started life as a short story but will probably be a novella before I’m done.

"She's called Ghost. She has a cat like Tasha.
And her costume is purple, blue, and maybe brown."

And yeah, turns out I suck at painting cats. Or drawing them. As a kid, I was a fan of the celebrated children’s illustrator Wesley Dennis (if you’ve ever read a Marguerite Henry horse book, chances are he illustrated it), and the whole time I was trying to paint Ghost’s cat, I kept thinking of how Dennis complained about having to illustrate Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin. He hated to draw cats; “They have no bones,” he said.

I totally get that now. Stupid cats! So fluffy and internet-friendly, so bloody impossible to paint.

What happens at WonderCon stays at WonderCon ...

Hawkeye and Thor went to WonderCon once. It was terrible.

I went to WonderCon!

No, don’t recheck old blog entries. I didn’t announce it. I deliberately didn’t announce it, because it was a last-minute decision to accompany a few friends and I wanted to just go as a fan this time. Well, a fan and an interior decorator.

You see, now that I’m settling into the new place, I’m noticing how bare the walls are. Sure, my wonderfully nerdy flatmate has gleefully participated in hanging Captain America’s shield (hers) up in our coat closet and a giant Hobbit poster (mine) on one wall, but my own personal space in the apartment has nothing hanging up but a whiteboard with my to-do list (essential if I’m going to keep to a writing schedule) and a little enamel figure of a fairy holding a typewriter. I’m not used to decorating, as I did most of my growing up in a room where the major blank wall was covered by decorative wood paneling. Now I suddenly want things on the walls, and because I’m me they must be geeky things, so to WonderCon I went, off to see the Artists Alley.

Oh, and that photo? I went with a gang of my friends, temporarily dubbed the Casual Saturday Avengers. That’s Hawkeye and Thor up there with Grumpy Cat. I was Loki. You can tell I was Loki because I’m not in the photo. Tricky that way, aren’t I?

Anyway, major discoveries at WonderCon include …

Cats as absolutely everything (the artist here is the wonderful Jenny Parks, and I particularly recommend her Lokitty and her Doctor Mew images):

Sorry for the low quality on Captain Amerikitty--
had to use a cheapo camera because my good one's on loan.

 A Moriarty comic series from Image that somehow completely flew under my radar:

I did buy a copy of this, but the photo didn't come out.

And Jessica Cathryn Feinberg’s Artlair, also known as the booth where I spent ALL THE MONIES. I walked away with two prints to use as wall hangings—a gorgeous watercolor of a dragon reading a book and a fascinating clockwork coyote. She’s also put out a terrific book called The Clockwork Menagerie that I suspect will be very, very useful in creating Street of Bakers art because it breaks down the process of drawing steampunk clockwork to the reading level of an eight-year-old. Which, as you might have noticed, is about my level of artistic understanding.

You heard it here first—if I ever get a deal for Bakers and am allowed to recommend an illustrator, she is the top of my list. Actually, right now she’s the whole list.

I mean, come on—a clockwork unicorn!