What rhymes with Valentine's? Oh.

Ok I do appreciate that this is a fairly early post in relation to the time of year, but I'm sure that I am behind the times when it comes to doing Valentine's Day cards (as a maker of cards) especially as supermarkets already have Easter eggs on the shelves; still not sure why people are complaining about that, I have no issue with there being more chocolate available.
I've not darkened the door of any shops since just after Christmas when James and I went, in the dead of night,  to restock for the Chrimbo Limbo guests, so I can't say I have seen what is adorning the "Seasonal" aisles of Waitrose, Sainsbury's, Tesco or ASDA (other supermarkets are available). Facebook is a reliable reporter of such events, however, so I know that Christmas hadn't even been packed away before the next religious holiday was being packaged, presented and sold.

Doing a quick Etsy search I can see that I'm ok; there are minimal hearts, flowers and chubby cherubs being drafted into treasuries or featured on the front page. Even a search shows that while there are a good few relevant pages, most of them are gift ideas.
When I was making Christmas cards, I battled with myself over a theme, or something clever; I ended up doing some key days from The Twelve Days of Christmas which I really liked - there are still a few that I've done but will add to next year's cards.

Being stupidly head over heels in love makes it a little easier to make Valentine cards, yes yes, fetch the sick bucket, I know; however being the "funny one" to most of my friends throughout school allows me to channel the "Valentine's is for losers" ethic needed to create some "Down With Love" cards too.

I'll post a 2012 Valentine's card image later or tomorrow, but here's one from last year; the number of hearts relates to the message I wrote in them before colouring them; lame but kind of cute. This was done on the Brushes app on iPad, so isn't an HD image, but it means a lot to me.

Resolution shmesolution

I'm going to write on this more; considering I haven't written on it since July I feel that's a positively achievable statement.

So let's start with something fun! I shall ignore all the skullduggery that has passed during the Christmas period (it's been going on for two years, so why make a spectacle of it here?) and just let you know that it's nice to be concentrating on some absolute core geekery: comics.

Let me be accurate about something; while I love comics (ranging from Teen Titans to Lenore) the real attraction they hold for me are the costumes/suits. I don't claim to have any great knowledge of story arcs or origins and, let's face it, the ones I do know have been re-imagined anyway!

Wonder Woman was my first foray into the world of masks and crime-fighting, I used to wind my Pampa up on Saturday afternoons when I wanted to watch Wonder Woman, because he wanted to watch The A-Team on the other side. Seeing Wondie kick the asses of the baddies and still look awesome was fantastic!

I got my first Wonder Woman dressing-up outfit when I was 5 or 6 as a present from my Godfather and loved it! I had little satin star-spangled shorts, a PVC headband, belt and cuffs as well as red vest with the yellow eagle emblazoned across my chest; I was a heroine! It wasn't down to the powers I had been given (to irritate my brother), the invisible plane I flew from the top of the stairs ("Heather, stop playing on the stairs now!" yes, mum!) but the awesome outfit I donned.

Surprisingly, when I grew up I only actually owned one mask suit, and that was Super Girl; I bought it after I had dyed my hair darker (from very blonde to manky dark blonde) so it was silly to have gotten it really and I felt like I was cheating on Diana's image, but it was for a publicity stunt for a show I was in and without black hair it didn't seem right to dress as Wonder Woman.

However if I were to ever release the geek and go to any Con's there would be one woman I would go as; not Diana Prince's alter ego, but Donna Troy aka WonderGirl aka Troia aka Darkstar etc etc.

The way I see it, she's freaking awesome, she gets to be Wonder Woman when Diana cops out for a bit and she has very cool blue-black hair. She's pretty much the only character I've really looked into and her many story arcs just let her be pretty bad-ass. There's tragedy thrown in for good measure and she's not really considered a main-stream DC character but I think she's rather interesting. I decided to collect the DC Super Hero Collection magazine and 78 DC character models later, Raven and Black Canary (she marries Green Arrow) have sneaked onto my radar among others, but it's all about the costume and the physically impossible figures :D

Anyway, back to the sketcHiness link for it all and that is my new designs are based on superheroes. There are other elements of geekery in there (I love Doctor Who, Star Trek, HP & LOTR) but it mainly features those of the masked crime-fighters.

Here's a sneak peek - it was going to be DT, but I thought you would appreciate Wonder woman more.