ATA: Bionic Boyd

Did I post this one already? If not, I’m posting it now because I need to reference it for a joke on tumblr. Click on it to go fullscreen.

Behind a cut for MAJOR FADE SPOILER

ATA: Boyd’s (Bad) Advice #4.5: Naming the Boyds

The votes are in! By popular demand, Hot Mess won out over Under Covers… but to thank the people who gave feedback (and to say sorry to the Under Cover voters) I made this.

 

ATA: Boyd’s (Bad) Advice #4: Seducing your lover

 

 

 

I kept having problems with the really long pictures I used to do not showing up properly so I split this one into 3 pages. Hopefully that helps.

Study Date Boyd should probably stop trying to get Hot Mess and Forever Emo to ever do anything, tbh…

PS: Help me decide–I still need names! Right now it’s:

• Study Date Boyd
• Hot Mess Boyd (or Undercovers Boyd or Under Covers Boyd)
• Forever Emo Boyd (or Kill Me Now Boyd, Suicide Alley Boyd, Mo’ Emo Boyd, or…??)
• NO IDEA on our Fade friend. I just call him Srsface for now but he needs a legit name. I’m also trying to decide if I should have the black line show or not on him, because that’s technically a spoiler for people who aren’t through the series. That’s why one page he has it and the other he doesn’t… I wanted to see which looked better. Thoughts?

WIP Files: Julian Files Scrivener-fying

I’ve been sadsauce lately so I’m resurrecting WIP Files. This pic is from me migrating Julian Files to Scrivener to work on it further.

Currently, Julian Files is 72,405 words. I don’t know how long it will end up being in the end, but I’m going to guess at least 100,000, and possibly closer to 150,000. That will depend largely on how much I go into the lives of the Beaulieus and Julian or if I start being much more strict about only following the main plot. The former is more fun so that may be what I end up doing.

Sugar Skull (WIP Files 11/1/14)

I got done with my NaNo quota for the day early (actually, I went over what I needed), so I took a break and ended up deciding to draw a sugar skull with my watercolor pencils.

A close up so you can see a few more details:

I used Prismacolor watercolor pencils and a watercolor brush with a tip to do this.

WIP Files: 10/26/14, ART: “Loss” – Vivienne

I’ve been useless again this weekend as far as getting anything done in writing. I was watching a video (Girl by the Ocean by ThePortraitArt on youtube) and stopped at 0:38 when I had inspiration. I wanted to draw Vivienne looking at a candle lit in Cedrick’s memory, with the darkness pooling in around her. I didn’t want to lose the idea so I did a lot of things wrong–used the wrong kind of paper, didn’t realize at first that the pencils I had were watercolor, had very limited color options so I accidentally made her skin too close to the color of her hair, made her lips bleed out, couldn’t decide on an angle for the table so I let it just disappear, plus her proportions are all wonky– but that’s what WIP Files are for, right? Not care about all the things wrong and just DO something.

So, here’s Vivienne, mourning her loss. The songs that were in my head while drawing it were Safe & Sound by Taylor Swift, and Castle Walls by Christina Aguilera.

WIP Files 10/18/14: RESEARCH, Vivienne, Cedrick and Julian Jones

 

It’s funny how many tabs and various pieces of media I collect when researching. And how starting with one question pushes me back one step, and then another.

For example, I know certain aspects of Vivienne and Cedrick’s lives, but I have been sitting down and finalizing dates and details in order to continue writing Julian Files (Cedrick and his friend Julian from 2005-2006), and to write Domino (Vivienne’s backstory from childhood to 1/27 anthology).

I know Vivienne worked for the CIA prior to the Agency. I’ve been determining the exact title she held, how long she worked there, and more.

• This means I’m looking at the requirements of working for the CIA, two important points of which are that you must be a US citizen and at least 18 years old.
• The question then is when did Vivienne gain US citizenship (and trying to make it realistic).
• This question gets into types of citizenship in the US: birthright or dual citizenship. No one in her family had American citizenship, so she has to do naturalization.
• Looking at the timeline for that is dependent in part on whether she is married to a US citizen.
• That leads to the question of whether that includes dual citizenship, and whether Cedrick was able to have that.
• This gets back to Cedrick’s situation: while he was born in Canada (as I have it now), his mother was American and so was all of her family.
• In researching whether he could have dual citizenship, it will fall in part on whether or not his mother could have dual citizenship in the US and Canada or, barring that, if she was able to remain an American citizen while living in Canada.
• Which then gets to the question of when she would have become a dual citizen, if ever, whether she was able to do so, and thus at what time in her life did she meet Braeden, and at what age did she move to Canada.
• Knowing that (as I have it now) Cedrick and his siblings were all born in Canada, that means that most likely the timeline has to be before 1976 or between around 1976 (when Amy and Braeden were married) and 1977 (when Riley was born).
  • Cedrick (and Vivienne) weren’t born until 1980, and then Aiden was born 1983.
• Meanwhile, I know that Vivienne had Boyd in 1999 (at age 19)

Incidentally, Jesus. The Beaulieu family is cursed. Whenever I look at the genealogy I wrote, I remember how much both sides of Boyd’s family were fucked as far as not having long lifespans. A lot of his family died young, in accidents, or they lived to an old age but it was before Boyd was born. By the time Boyd is born, his living family members are very, very few– and the ones who know of him even fewer, and of those the ones who want anything to do with him are down to one: Cedrick. Just Cedrick.

I also realized how awful the end of  the 1990s were for Cedrick:

• 1994: paternal grandparents Olivia and Bevan die in their home from carbon monoxide poisoning
• 1996:
  • maternal grandfather William Daniels dies of a heart attack
  • paternal great-uncle Damon Beaulieu dies of natural causes
• 1998: younger brother Aiden Jacob Beaulieu killed by a drunk driver in an accident. Age: 15. Driver gets off on almost nothing in court.
• 1999:
  • maternal grandmother Evelyn dies of a stroke
  • Cedrick’s only remaining family killed in the Lexington bombs (mother Amy, father Braeden, brother Riley)

And then Vivienne… her life will be fun to write, but I need more proper research materials. Once I answer all these questions about dual citizenship and CIA and the like, it’s going to be frustrating because I’ll need to focus more on the French aspect of her life, and I really wanted to have better source materials for that.

As it is, I’ll have some wikipedia articles but… I wish there was an equivalent of Born Rich or The One Percent for the wealthy French.

Because Vivienne was really fucking rich in France.

I don’t know if it’s ever been properly explained in the series–probably not, since she rarely talks about herself or her life. If someone wanted to call her princess, while they would be incorrect as far as her not being royalty, they would not be far off as far as considering the amount of wealth, privilege, but also responsibilities, pressure, and expectations she had as a child/young woman. At least, after her parents were killed. Her parents had protected her from that life but their deaths took that more simplistic, loving atmosphere away from her for good.

If anyone knows of good documentaries, or films, (in French with English subtitles is ideal, but I could get away with Spanish subtitles too) or books in English that talk about the wealthy or privileged in France I would LOVE it.

ATA: Boyd’s (Bad) Advice #3: Body image

An anon asked on tumblr:

Boyd’s answer:

ATA: Boyd’s (Bad) Advice #2: Baking

Another Boyd’s (Bad) Advice column. Camry said she wanted advice from Boyd on baking, so I made her this. (Camry, you probably shouldn’t follow any of the Boyds’ recommendations…)

ATA: ICoS quote for inspiration

 

I love art supplies but rarely do anything with them. I was rereading ICoS making notes for future editing and in Fade, a quote stood out to me. I’ve been feeling emo and I thought I could try to use it as inspiration.

I’ve had an oval piece of paper for years that I kept aside for the day I might finally have a purpose for it, and last Sunday I realized this was it. I used oil pastel crayons for the words and then used watercolor to wash over it. I taped it over a big art piece that happens to have the same coloring, because it’s the only space I have above my computer.

If you can’t read it, this is the quote:

“But that was the way it went anytime a person was on the precipice of change. The fear of the future mixed with the loss of the past. At those times, all a person could do was step forward.”