Cleolinda everywhere

Not feeling so well today, but! Quick note to say that the Aromaleigh X-Files inspired box (I'm helping!) will go up for pre-order at 3PM EST (what is that, about half an hour from now?), and here's a look at swatches of one of the eyeshadows, inspired by a scene from "The Sixth Extinction."

Also I got very cute alien socks and the Crimson Peak art book for my birthday.

‏@aromaleigh: Red Dragon extras are up, + a few remaining boxes! http://aromaleighcosmetics.com/exclusive-box-sets/

@aromaleigh: "DRACONIS" fragrance from the Red Dragon box, pre order now up. http://aromaleighcosmetics.com/draconis-pre-order/

(The notes are bergamot, linden blossom, honey, parchment, beeswax, dragon’s blood resin, labdanum, and blonde patchouli.)

@aromaleigh: "Dragon's Kiss" lipgloss pre order is up, as the available extras have sold out! http://aromaleighcosmetics.com/dragons-kiss-pre-order/

@cleolinda: (I'm so proud it sold out)

Here's a quick visual tour of the Red Dragon set, and here's the in-depth inspiration/swatch discussion; as with the This Is My Design collection, @tattle_crime and I consulted on both this box and the first-half-of-season-three Primavera set (pictures; inspiration).


I'm not addressing world events at the moment because... I don't even know where to begin, y'all. Is everyone around here okay?

So! The Aromaleigh Primavera boxes that Freddie (@Tattle_Crime, reporter extraordinaire, hair game too strong) and I consulted on should have all arrived now, and the very limited-quantity extras are available. (GO GO GO!). So I wanted to walk through the themes and the visual inspirations and all of that, because honestly, matching the colors to the pictures has always been my favorite part.

First things first: the seasons 1-2 collection, the thirty "This Is My Design" colors, continue to be available. (I highly recommend Chrysalis, as it is both sparkly and easy to wear.) This year, though, Kristen's wanted to get into smaller batch collections, so she decided to do pre-orders for two boxed sets, one for the Florence half of season 2 and onse for the Red Dragon half. Thus, Kristen wanted to pull the themes for the first box from a painting that ended up being a major plot point in the first half: Botticelli's La Primavera.





( Read more... )

For the full multimedia experience, hit Storify #1 (general adventures) and/or Storify #2 (only Hannibal-related happenings plus the Fan Expo in Canada the same weekend). Also, I'm on the latest, Hannibal series retrospective episode of A Matter of Taste, and they give me the first half hour to tell Dragon Con stories. (I was also surprisingly emotional about Hannigram. "He just wants to be with his mongoose!!") Emily and I also--after a great deal of technical trouble--have posted a fully Dragon Con-themed Made of Fail with our collected adventures, including the un-Hannibal-related ones. The AMOT stories were recorded second and so are a bit more practiced, but MOF has Emily's side of the experience as well. (Also, me shouting "FUCK A FUCKING DUCK!") So I've listed time codes throughout for your convenience, and you can actually hear me tell these stories aloud if you so desire.

( Read more... )

Thank you so much for all the support in the comments Thursday--and for all the courage in sharing some of your own stories. I tried to answer as many as I could, and then had to take a break for the day--I'm going to go back and answer some more, but even if I don't answer yours, please know that I'm reading them all, and I appreciate them all so much.

@cleolinda: Top LJ posts currently are ONTD and my ovaries. Good times.

( Health updates )

( Dragon Con plans )

IMPORTANT:

@Tattle_Crime: TC has procured some fantastic goodies for the #Hannibal fan panel at @DragonConHorror! @DeLaurentiisCo @lorettaramos [signed script picture!]

I was in charge of giving away a couple of those last year as a surprise, and that was really my favorite moment of the entire fan panel--the collective gasp when I read off the actors' names (and you know exactly whose name I saved for last, for maximum astonishment). This year, Scott Thompson and Aaron Abrams will also be at the convention, so if you are a Hannibal fan, this is definitely the year to go. I don't know if I'll get to meet them or not, but if I do, and manage not to run and hide, I will report back.

Unfortunately, I am pretty much out of Movies in Fifteen Minutes books to give away. (I owe someone one from last year; I'll bring that and try to find you.) I do have some books with the short fantasy story that got published this year; I might be able to bring a couple of those. As always, I will sign basically anything anyone puts in front of me, because I am still somewhat amazed that anyone wants me to. Last year I had people sign a little Evil Supply Co. notebook, so it was more like "omg sign my yearbook!" "you too!" As far as I know, I'm doing just the one Hannibal fan panel again, no table signings; I will be roaming free this year unless something else comes up. Who knows, I might even get to attend other people's panels (GASP).


ALSO IMPORTANT:

@aromaleigh: Save the date - Hannibal "Primavera" exclusive box ordering is 8/17 at 3 PM EST!

Which is to say, TOMORROW. While there are still tons of open-edition collections (including the 30 This Is My Design eyeshadows from last year. Read the back stories here), Kristen wants to move towards smaller batches. So this year's Hannibal colors are a really, really limited edition. There will be two box themes, I think--the Florence-themed Primavera, pre-orders of which will go very quickly on Monday (SERIOUSLY IF YOU WANT IT SET AN ALARM AND JUMP ON THAT), and a later Red Dragon box, which we'll be working on after the season ends.

That's all for now, I think? I am getting very close to finishing the "Secondo" recap, and I'm already feeling so much better that I'm hoping to blaze through "Aperitivo" pretty quickly (I have probably just jinxed it). Anyway, keep an eye out for "Secondo," it's a big one, huge Dracula tangent, you can only hope to contain me, etc.

(so, yeah, Italian leather is a thing that's happening)

(Please note that we're back on Thursdays again)

(P.S. Zachary Quinto is going to play THE PATIENT)

So I am trying to make this the occasion of my return to recapping. "Mukozuke" creeps ever closer to being done. Pray for me; times is hard.

(That said, Kristen may have a Murder Sparkle surprise soon.)

Speaking of Aromaleigh, because I can never resist a good segue, I'm in the middle of Blade Runner/More Human Than Human robot eyeshadow inspiration posts. Tomorrow will be the Incept Date color, I think. We also announced that we're developing Twin Peaks eyeshadow, although I'm not sure when that collection would come out and I remain hellishly behind on the pilot recap. Also, there are new Asteriai star nymph and Galactic duochrome collections that I didn't even have anything to do with; I am pretty sure that Kristen never sleeps.

More cheerfully than it would have been last week: My sister had a serious emergency surgery (I'm being vague on purpose, not my health issues to talk about, etc.) at the end of February, but she's doing much better now. Still recovering, but I think this past Thursday or so was the first day she seemed like herself again.

A couple of weeks before that, I had a Sudden Dental Panic that turned out to just be "stop clenching your jaw." This was, therefore, the Best Dentist Visit Ever. I promptly went home, slipped on a sweetgum tree-ball, fell down the deck steps, and twisted my ankle. Except that it still hurts (but only sometimes, at some angles) a month later, but more the top of my foot than my ankle, and I think maybe I have a hairline fracture. Which... there's not much to do about that but stay off it (which I have not been able to do) and wear a Deluxe Ankle Stabilizer (CVS, $12).

I have started trying to get the ball rolling and the money saving for Dragon Con 2015, but I'm also concerned that at some point in the next six months I'll just be standing around somewhere and spontaneously fall down and break the other foot. However, I live in hope.

Also, I have a fantasy short story set in the War of the Seasons universe, through the latest Silence in the Library Kickstarter, with art by Dawn Murphy.

Also-also, foresthouse and I just did our first solo episode of Made of Fail, in which, among other things, I try to explain Jupiter Ascending to her (1:29:00ish) over the course of about seven minutes. That said, we do start off by discussing my haunted teeth.

I think that's about it for now, though.

Let me not bury the lede on this one: THERE ARE THIRTY (30) COLORS AND YOU CAN GET THEM HERE, INDIVIDUALLY OR AS A SET, AS FULL SIZES OR $1 SAMPLES.

We started in March when I started talking about Aromaleigh eyeshadows with Freddie at Tattle-Crime.com, who (being far more intrepid than I am) bounced up to Kristen on Twitter and asked if she could make Ravenstag and Tattler eyeshadows. So, on March 14, IIRC, Ravenstag went up--I'm talking less than 24 hours later here, that's how creative Kristen is--which was the day "Hassun" aired, I think? And Tattler followed the next Friday. One she started watching the show and got interested in doing more, I suggested that the new one(s) go up each Friday to coincide with the season two episode broadcasts, since fandom basically considers that a weekly Hannibal Day and gets festive all day long. And so then we just... started making it up as we went along. We started with twenty as our projected number, because that's generally the size of a full Aromaleigh collection. And then... we kept going. So we ended up finishing with thirty. Freddie and I were basically sounding boards and creative consultants, and I did Tumblr posts each week explaining where each color came from and what it was inspired by; it was important to us that you could point to a specific image and say, "You can put this on your face," and that the color would have some kind of thematic resonance. We wanted to be able to put them together and have the palette of the show:




Then, after a second year of no Emmy nominations and the fandom's grieving indignation thereunto, Kristen suggested we go ahead and put up the final color on Thursday (and also put the whole collection up for the weekly Thursday-Wednesday sale, until July 16th. SAAAAAAALE), so the Grand Reckoning happened a day early. Which is, of course, the name of the final color:

( RECKONING )


AND NOW, A MASTER LIST OF ALL THE COLORS, WITH PICTURES AND TRIVIA, FROM ABATTOIR TO WOOF

Click through each color's link to get to the inspiration pictures and/or meta post. Also, I like to refer people to this How Do I Eyeshadow post to explain how to apply multiple colors to different kinds of eyelids (I realized along the way that I have hooded eyes). A number of the This Is My Design colors have duochrome or sparkle colors in common: copper, gold, blue/teal/aqua, rose, even a couple of chartreuses. Some have olive undertones; others like Antler Velvet and Cygnus, have surprisingly smoky bases, while Woof and Unorthodox have similar tones and can be worn together. I'm still experimenting, but a bold red like Tattler can be softened up with Phoenix or Veneer for more of a sunset effect, for example.

Generally I get samples, test them on the back of my hand (where you can also see which colors might look good together), do a test run on my actual face to see how it looks with my complexion and eye color, and then get a few full sizes accordingly. Sometimes I just buy something sight unseen because I know it'll be one of My Colors; other times, the samples surprise me. There are a number of You Gotta See This In Person colors, but in terms of what will look good on just about anyone, I'm going to guess Chrysalis (seriously, it blends with tons of stuff), Gotcha, Feast, and Bellissima (purples tend to work on various complexions), Cygnus, and Lure. Bone Arena, applied with a light hand, is also a good brow or inner corner highlight, rather than a lid color itself (not that I would stop you). Also, my cheerfully doofy amateur swatches at each individual post show the colors applied dry and then with a damp brush ("foiled"), which sometimes reveals a completely different color (Ravenstag, Starling, and Entrapment are examples of this).

Almost all the colors are vegan (with, as far as I can tell, the exception of Bellissima and Ikebana, which have carmine), and most of the thirty are lip safe (the exceptions being Craquelure, Entrapment, Feast, Gotcha, Lucid, Lure, Murder Tie, Perception, and Sublime), meaning you could mix something like Folie à Deux, Bellissima, Ikebana, Tattler, Persuasion, or Phoenix with lip balm or gloss. (Or Ravenstag, for that matter.) Persuasion and Phoenix are actually all-in-one colors that you can also use as blush as well.

So here's a master list of the colors and their conceptual backgrounds--characters, quotes, episodes, imagery, what-have-you. As a bonus, where applicable, I have added the unofficial name I tended to use conversationally for each color. It's a lot easier to say "Cherry Tree Is People" than "Ikebana" ("Ikewhat?" "Ikebana." "What's an ike--" "Flower arranging." "OH THAT ONE") to, let's say, my mother, who enjoyed watching the posts go up each week even though she has no idea what's happening on the show. ONWARD:

( Read more... )

And there you have it. Also, I just got some interesting news about my Labor Day plans (maybe I will take eyeshadow with me). But more on that once I find out more.

Okay, I just saw Maleficent and I kind of loved it so if you would like to discuss it here, go for it, but I have to warn you, I'm also finishing Penny Dreadful tonight, and my thoughts are already so scattered that I'm considering doing voice posts just because I let text entries sit here for weeks at a time and constantly re-edit them to keep them current then don't post them anyway. In other news, my Zoloft reduction is actually going a lot better than this paragraph would lead you to think.

Previous entry! I forgot to actually link to the e-book anthology containing my Black Ribbon short story, which is a ghost story about 1) Rose's mother and 2) making life decisions and 3) thus I kind of wanted people to feel a little changed after they read it. You'll have to tell me if it works. Also I will have another short story coming out soon, although this is fantasy-themed.

Eyeshadow! The last three colors in the This Is My Design collection have been decided and named, so we'll be finishing up in the next couple of weeks, with a total of 30. For #28 this past Friday, champagne and something pink: ( Read more... )

I've really liked that we've had bold, experimental colors--things I wouldn't have tried except for the show theme--but also colors that are pretty everyday-wearable, while still interesting. I think I'm going to try this one with Cygnus. On the other hand, this week's color will be the one we discussed in the comments of the previous entry, the one where I explained why I thought we shouldn't do it, then promptly turned around after that discussion and said that maybe we should. I threw out a name, and Kristen immediately thought of a new way to do it. So we'll see how that turns out.

Meanwhile! Here's A Matter of Taste's discussion of Alien; I am currently prepping to record the Aliens episode with them tomorrow. Later in August, I will return... for reasons.

~;;;~

Of course I'm not finished with "Mukozuke," so I'm going to be juggling two recaps--once again--because I have a project to finish, and my request for more hours in the day hasn't gone through yet. My request for a Beverly eyeshadow did, however!




Click through to see them next to the inspiration pictures, which show how wonderfully Kristen actually captured the concepts.

ALSO: It is the show's one-year anniversary, and tonight's episode is gonna be WILD. *people confetti*

GUYS

GUYS MISS FREDDIE AND I DID A THING

WELL MORE LIKE WE SUGGESTED A THING TO HAPPEN

RAVENSTAG EYESHADOW AT AROMALEIGH




}:D


( Oh also there is a recap )