A follower!

So I have a follower now! My first follower! So I just wanted to say hello to Allison! Lovely to have you here Allison! Thank you for being follower #1! You get a cookie!

Now It's been awhile since I've updated so let me fill in the gaps.

Since the last time I posted I finished a magnum opus of a pony. It was the pony I did for the Epic Saturday morning cartoon swap over at the My Little Pony Arena.   She was the most heavily sculpted pony I've ever done and she was painted with metallics, which I've absolutely fallen in love with.

Beyond that I've also accepted a commission for a g4 pony who is based off of a g1 pony named Truly. This g4 will be the unicorn version of Truly.

Also I'm getting paid for a custom big brother pony I've made. He's Daddy Parasol and he will be being shipped out to his new home tomorrow, assuming I get the payment sometime today.

It's kind of crazy for me. People are starting to notice my artwork and pay me actual money for it. I'm having people want to commission me for ponies and it's just very cool.  Especially since growing up everyone always told me that I would never be able to make any money doing art.  Well, true, I'm probably not going to get rich doing this, but it does at least support my pony habit and pay for my art supplies. And that's enough for now.

As far as my arthritis goes, I feel it most on cold days and have shamefully not been wearing my braces. Any time I get a cut or injury on my hand and the braces hit them, it hurts so bad that I just can't wear them.  But I think the place where the rocks bit me is healed enough that I'll probably have to start wearing them again.  My only question now is,  how do I wear them while doing dishes? Should I be wearing them while doing dishes?  I don't know.  you'd think they'd get all smelly and dirty if they get wet....

overwelmed with work

I have to admit, I never thought there would be a time in which I had TOO MUCH art to do. But that time has come. I have no less than 4 ponies that are in the process of being worked on and they are all being put on hold to create a charity custom for relief efforts for Japan.

It took me forever to figure out what to do for such an important custom. It had to be something that wouldn't require too much time, considering how many time sensitive ponies I have to do, but it couldn't be something incomplete or cheep looking either.

I'm proud that I finally have a koi/water lily theme for the pony and I have the bait already so It shouldn't take me too long, unless my painting absolutely sucks, which it well may. I have been sick the last week. really really sick. wish I knew why.  I think the fish and the water will be easy enough. It's the water lily that I have concerns about. I'm not especially good at flowers. I keep hoping the muse will desend and I'll get a bunch pumped out at once. I guess it could still happen.

The problem with horns is....

Unicorn horns.  At one point in time more valuable then gold or saffron.  To possess one was to possess immortality. Great depictions of hunts and gatherings all in the quest of obtaining such a rare and valuable commodity are depicted repeatedly throughout movies and literature. For awhile there was even advertisements of medicines and tonics claiming to be made from them.

Of course common sentiment is that unicorns aren't real and so therefor, neither are their horns.  However we have plenty of toys and images of them so it should be no problem at all for me to sculpt one out of apoxie right? I just have to look and copy what I see. I just have to follow the directions, right?

NO!!!

I just spent two hours trying to make a horn and failing miserably. I almost wasted a whole glob of apoxie. I noticed it starting to get to that "unworkable" stage and gave up on the horn and sculpted some feathers for the other wing instead.  good thing too. I was barely able to get 3 usable preening feathers out of it before the rest dried in a small, sad, little clump.

The problem with a unicorn horn is that they are based off of the Narwhal tusk, which has a long slender spiral tusk that looks exactly like what we think of today as an alicorn or "unicorn horn".  But the narwhal tusk is actually two teeth that have grown together in a spiral formation, giving it that distinctive look. So in order to sculpt one, you have to do the same thing. I was told in the tutorial I read, that you make a "snake" out of apoxie that tapers at the ends and then fold it in half and twist. Try as I might I could not get the base  the right thickness for the darned thing to stand up. and then it wanted to droop at the end.

I think next time I'm going to have to try using super sculpy III instead. It doesn't harden until you bake it and at the very least I should be able to practice with it without having to worry about it getting ruined. But this pony needs a horn and I refuse to give up on that horn.  Especially now that I've committed so much time into it that my back is killing me!

~Nichi Moondancer.

The wings they are a changing.

So, as I said in my last post, I really feel like my wings have gotten better. Today I finished the top of one of the wings and wow! I love the shape and I love feeling like I'm growing as an artist in my sculpting abilities.  However, I just realized that the way I want to color my wings may not work now because bird wings seem to have like colors with like feathers.  I was going to have a gradiated color scheme with (in essence) horizontal stripes, but now looking at this new improved wings, I am just not sure how to do it.

Oh well. I suppose I should just let it go and finish sculpting the wings before I start stressing about color. One thing at a time. One thing at a time. I need to learn that. One thing at a time.

Night all!
~Nichi Moondancer.

Watching apoxie dry

So I'm sitting here watching apoxie dry.  Apoxie Sculpt is one of the most beloved and yet most detested substances I work with. The finished product is absolutely wonderful but it's so sticky when it's first mixed and then if you wait to long for it to set before you start sculpting you don't have enough time to get as much done as you wanted.

But I have to use it on the current custom I'm doing. It's really the only substance that allows for really good feathers on wings and this pony does have wings. Of course it had wings originally but I hated those wings so I removed them and now I'm starting on new wings. Better wings.

This is only the second set of wings that I've ever done and even though I'm just starting on this set of wings but I can already see the improvement between this set and the first set I did. I really wish that this had been my first set of wings. When I made the first set I was so proud of them, but now I can see how novice they really were. I wonder if everyone goes through this? Looks back at their previous work and see something completely different than they saw it when they first finished the piece?

Oh well, I guess I should get back to the apoxie.

Best Wishes,
Nichi Moondancer.

De-hairing pain

Well now that the steam punk pony is done and sent off I've started work on de-hairing my next baits, A Remco Unicorn and a Starcatcher (G3 MLP). My hands are in so much pain now. The glue on the Remco mane wasn't so bad but the tail was a nightmare. I'm not used to tails being so securely fixed into a pony.  The Starcatcher was just the opposite. The tail came right out but the mane was secured with what seemed like Super Glue! It took about an hour of boiling the head off and on and making attempts at pulling the mane stubble out little bit by little bit.

My hands feel like they have been crushed by a large fat guy in cleats. And I still have news papers to fold and deliver today. I will most likely have to take an aleve or two in order to make it through the night. I don't like having to take pain pills so this is disappointing.

I really love making custom ponies but much of the process causes so much pain. plus I haven't had a commission since before Christmas.  I'm hoping that after I'm done with the latest swap that I'm in I'll have time to make some customs to sell and to finish up some personal pony projects. And hopefully I can find a way to do it pain free.

Clipping Screws

So I've found new and interesting ways to test the limits of my hands. I recently, to complete a custom pony, clipped the heads off of some brass wood screws.  While it didn't hurt at the time, I will admit it did hurt the next day and actually has continued to hurt the next few days.

Also I haven't been able to wear my hand braces for the last couple of days. I've been trying to domesticate a ferral cat and it got a little irritated with me the other day and left some puncture wounds in my hands. After trying to wear the braces in the healing process I found out the the braces press right on the wounds and it hurts worse than the arthritis does.  How is that fair?

Sometimes I have to wonder why God would give us the ability to use tools and create things only to slowly rob us of the ability later by giving us arthritis.  I think I almost had an answer earlier today, but I've lost it again.

That's about all for now. I'll try to get some pictures or something up soon of my latest pony.

Stay well,
Nichi Moondancer.

A space in between...

Today my hands and wrists hurt today. I spent a great deal of time sanding on some sculpted wings I have been working on and they started to hurt. So I put on my wrist braces and wore them to work.  It's terribly inconvenient though because I can't fully close my hand when I'm wearing them so it's difficult to put papers together while wearing them.  It also makes it much harder to throw papers because of the fact that my wrist is immobilized and so I have to make much bigger, sloppier motions using different parts of my arm.

I just wish there was a space in between pain and function.  I hate having to choose between being efficient and being free of pain.  It always seems like it's one or the other. Never both.

According to the doctor it is likely rheumatoid arthritis rather than Osteoarthritis.  He says that the good news is that it's so slight according to the x-rays that it can only be diagnosed as "MAY have MILD rheumatoid arthritis in her hands"

Well May and Mild might be encouraging words to the doctor, but I can tell you when my hands get to hurting there is no May or Mild about it.

Wishing everyone all the best,
Nichi Moondancer.

Arm Braces

Well I am supposed to use arm braces to help with my arthritis. They are supposed to help me to keep my hands and wrists in a good position and take pressure off of them or something. They are really itchy though. I know I'm supposed to wear them all the time but I find that I only ending up using them every other day. And not even for the whole day.

I've also noticed that when I wear them my upper arm and shoulders really start to ache. I guess that is because I was always using my lower arm, wrist, and hands to do most of the work. With my wrist basically immobilized, my upper has to do all the work now. I'm kinda hoping it will get rid my "granny arm dippers".  You know that flabby section on the bottom of the upper arm that never seems to go away, no matter how much weight you loose?

I absolutely can not draw well when wearing the braces though. They take away all the small muscle movements that allow me to draw well. I guess that's fine for schematics of customs and stuff, but it will never do for drawing actual pictures. I've heard that fingerless gloves  could help, but I haven't actually gone out to buy any yet. I should probably get on the ball with that. Those are probably more of a seasonal product.

I kinda wonder if anyone else tries to draw with arm braces on. Is there anyone else out there who has to wear them all the time? How long did it take to learn to work around them?  Oh so many unanswered questions.

~Ever yours,
Nichi Moondancer.

Entry #1 An introduction.

So welcome to my blog. If we are all very lucky I'll keep up on this and you'll never have to wonder where I am or why I haven't updated. So you must all be wondering about who I am and what's with my blog title.

Well for all intents and purposes you can call me Nichi, or the G1 Moondancer Pony, as that is my favorite Hasbro My Little Pony. I'm in my 30's and I enjoy doing art, especially pony art and making custom my little ponies.

I've been doing horses since I could hold a pencil but drawing MLP's has only been the last 5 years or so. I've only been customizing about a year, but have really taken a lot of enjoyment from it. Recently however my hands have started to hurt really bad, especially when re-hairing and I've come to realize I have the beginnings of arthritis in my hands and now I have had to adapt my methods to accommodate the pain and stiffness.

Over the years I have watched my Grandma, an artist in her own right and an excellent seamstress and cook, be slowly robbed of the ability to do the things she has always loved and been so good at as a result of arthritis in her hands and slowly but persistently moving into other places making it hard to stand for long periods of time and walk around as much as she should.  Because of this combined with my own condition, I've become aware of the challenges of being able to create and enjoy things when you have to worry about your body working against you.

So I decided to create my blog, The Arthritic Artist, where I will probably talk about balancing pain and creation, making accommodations so I can still do the art I love- such as learning to wear wrist braises while working- , frustrations and triumphs, as well as sharing my art with you.

I hope you enjoyed my first post. I look forward to getting to know you along the way.

~Ever Yours,
Nichi Moondancer.