I'm not dead...

... just very busy with other things.
If you wanna see what I'm up to you can visit my other blog:


Nero e Cristallo


See you there! (^_^)/

Happy 2011!!

Merry Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas to you all!! \(^o^)/

Happy New Year!

That time of the year again!

Happy Easter

...Bur my thoughts fly to the victims of the earthquake in Abruzzo and their relatives and friends...

2008 is finally over and I won't miss it!

Merry Christmas to all!

Hope you all have a wonderful time with your families and your loved ones!

What have I been up to?

There must be a valid reason why I left my poor blog alone for all these months, right?

Well...

Not really!

The thing is that when I finally got the spare parts for my airbrush it got so hot over here that I couldn't work at my models at all... really, I'm so glad this terrible summer is finally over!

Plus, I finally bought an apartment and I have masons, plumbers, all kind of workmen to supervise, tiles to choose, paint for the walls to choose... Maybe by the end of the month that will finally be over too... hopefully.

So! I'm finally working on resin again! I'm making another Asuka Angel for a dear friend of mine (but she won't look like Asuka at all once I'm done, since she'll have purple hair and eyes!) and in the spare time between putty and primers I'm trying to fix Chii's hair... a total nightmare, the parts seem to be coming from different models! I wonder why the hair wasn't casted as one piece instead? So much easier if you ask me!

Some totally meaningless photos will follow...

It's been a long time...

I know I haven't updated in a long time... I've had some health issues (not sorted out yet, but nothing serious), some airbrush issues and... well, many other kind of issues. I hope to be able to do a nice update soon, even though I haven't been able to work on my models for a while. But this means also that I have to do that, doesn't it.
Ok, this is a plan then. Excellent!
See ya all soon!

Happy Easter, everyone! ^_^

The Year of the Rat is about to start!

Why didn't new comments from Dec/Jan appear before?

Simply because I didn't receive the email notification.
And why didn't I receive it? Well, because I didn't update my new email addy into the notification section, but only into the general one. And to think that I thought nobody watched my cra...ehm, my entries anymore!

Gomenne! _(_ _)_

First post in 2008: greetings and news about another Wip!

I realized I didn't even wish you all a happy New Year... shame on me! Hope I'm still in time, after all we haven't even passed the middle of January... gomennasai! ^^'

Well, the year started with a very pleasant news, at least for me: I've joined the team of moderators on E2046 forum and I sure hope I'll be able to do as good a job as they've done so far.

You don't know the place yet? I don't believe it!

Ok then, click on the banners if you wanna visit there, but remember, you have to register to have access to the forum!






Now, talking about E2046, I'm posting there a Wip regarding Asuka Santa. The Wip is actually about the base as I'm trying to make a very small snowy vignette. If you care to have a look here is the link:

http://forum.e2046.com/viewtopic.php?t=22268

And here is a sneak peak:

I might post the whole Wip here sooner or later, but for now if you wanna see the rest it's there! ^^ Right now I'm too sick with the flu to go ahead but in a couple of days I might finish it. As for Asuka, she's 90% done, but what's left to do is the worst, being it a very low quality Thai recast. (I've stopped buying them long since, but I still want to finish this one)
Ja ne! ^^

Merry XMas!!!

Finally my display cabinet!

So, after long procrastination, because I *hate* going to Ikea, I finally got my display cabinet, the mythological DETOLF almost any modeler in the world has!
Why do I hate going to Ikea? Well, I don't know elsewhere, but here whole families take trips there as if they were going for a nice pic-nic or something. They bring their kiddies who are free to run around and climb on every piece of forniture. So it's really a nightmare, considering I always get migrains in malls under the best circumstances!
So, after a dreadful Sun morning spent in there, and a dreadful Sun afternoon trying to put the pieces together (not easy!), this is what it looks like:

Too bad I don't have room for another next to it, because it's already almost full!

I've been tagged, here are 8 completely pointless things to know about me!

Baxojayz tagged me, so let's play along, shall we?

To start:

1) Post these rules


2) Post 8 random facts about yourself


3) Tag and name 8 more bloggers


4) Let them know that they're tagged at their blog


Here we go:

1)My name was supposed to be Giulia, but then my parents fell in love with Ilaria and so that was it. In case I was a boy I was supposed to be called Riccardo, apparently! My father decided I didn't need a middle name: he said it was pointless as one name was more than enough and so it was better to avoid confusion. I actually like my name, so I guess I'm lucky, as so many people I know really can't stand theirs... but I just couldn't imagine myself being called anything but Ilaria!

2)Technically I'm an accountant: the thing is that I hate accountancy and I know absolutely nothing about it. I don't wonder how the hell I managed to take my high school diploma simply because I know how Italian School works: if you heaar that our system is superior to others from a cultural point of view (Italians tend to believe this happy crappy), well, that's just bullsh*t: I went through 3 years of accountancy and bank subjects and I never studied any of them... and yet I managed to get my piece of paper and with quite a nice final grade at that! My real passions are artistic subjects and languages!

3)I used to make soaps from scraps! Big, chunky ones made with caustic soda, olive, almond and coconut oil, cocoa butter and a lot of other nice ingredients. I use to cut them up in pieces and they almost always had a lot of stuff in them: flower petals, glitters, bits of soap in other colors and fragrances... I had a lot of fun making them and they also made very pretty gifts. But I had to give up as I picked this hobby up while living in UK: back to Italy it was really hard to find the raw materials I needed (except for the olive oil of course) and it became quite expensive. So I stopped and a little later I picked up Garage Kits instead! Either way, when I need to relax I have to go creative: messing up with colors, materials, tools and whatnot really helps me unplugging from everything else. This of course doesn't mean I'm good... it just means I enjoy messing up my room (or my kitchen, when making soaps).

4)In London I used to live in a purple room: it was an attic, and I had my bed just underneath the skylight... it would have been very nice if I lived in a country where you could see the stars every once in a while! My friends used to say that my room looked just like me: when I moved in the walls were a horrible yellow, but after a couple of months I decided to paint them purple... well, more like wisteria, I guess! Anyway, it's always been one of my fav colors and by mere chance the door was already purple at the time, so I got a nice lampshade made of tulle the same color in Covent Garden and... well, some paint and brushes. I also used to have tons of candles burning and a blue light pointing at a row of circular mirrors hanging from my skylight, so at night it felt like a cross between an aquarium (and besides, I did have 3 goldfishes, Pippo, Gippo and Carmelo) and a cathedral. I miss that room, it was a mess, but it felt right for me!

5)Got a 3 and 1/2 years old black cat named Akira. Well, at least on the Vet's papers that's his name, but in truth we never call him that since my mother never liked the name. So... well, we usually just call him "gatto" ("cat") which sounds a lot like Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany, I know! What can I say, not everybody shares my passion for Japan and Japanese culture, apparently not even my cat since he doesn't come if I call him Akira!

6)I used to play the guitar: I've never been that good at it but I could manage a summer bonfire with my friends or a couple of hours to entertain myself. I love the folk one, although I'm dying to get an electric one too, but I never really had a chance... besides, unfortunately I live in a condo and my neighbours are already in love with my compressor, which I use mainly in the late evening/early night! I haven't really played in a couple of years, but lately I did find I miss it and so I intend to pick it up again. So a couple of days ago I went to get a new set of strings since mine were really old and one was broken. I couldn't find my usual brand and I was advised about this other one, that was supposed to be even better in quality... Well, as soon as I started the tuning process I broke one, and then a second too... that set sucked, and I also hurt myself with the first one! I wish I had the time to go back to the store and strangle the owner with the remaining ones, but unfortunately I was in a hurry as I was moving to my summer house for the rest of the season... so here I am, with a guitar and no strings! I still hope to find a shop here so I can buy a new set, but I'm so pissed off that the first appointment I have on my agenda in Sept is with that shop owner!

7)When I'm asked which is my fav movie I never know what to answer as I don't really have one. I love to watch the ones I like over and over until I know them by heart and I can act over them, even respecting the pauses and all ( I wish I could really act though!).
I'm really eclectic: among the ones I like the most are Gone with the Wind, Dawn of the Dead (the G. Romero one, 1978), Heathers, Amelie, Thelma and Louise, The Crow, The Godfather, Tootsie, Battle Royal, Breakfast at Tiffany... I don't even remember all of them! Why stick to just one kind when there are so many stories out there to be told? And the same goes for music, books, anime...

8)3 years ago I had eyes surgery: I never got used to wear glasses and I abused contact lenses, so that at the end my eyes were rejecting them. I'm a cry-baby when it comes to pain and so I was pretty scared, but I was also sure I wanted to go for it as I was oh-so tired! The whole operation lasted a couple of minutes per eye, but it took the doc some 15 minutes to have me ready as I kept shaking, and I wasn't supposed to move. In the end it went very smoothly, it was quick and quite painless... but what I'll never forget is the smell of something burning while the laser was doing its job, and thinking Oh my goodness, this is my eye burning! That really could have freaked me out, but in the end I didn't have the time to panic because everything was very fast!
Now I'm perfectly happy and I advise all my friends (well, all my glass-wearing ones) to go for it, but I tend to not to tell them about the smell... I mean, why freak them out? Besides, it was a rather... interesting experience! Let them find out by themselves as I did! Afterall, nobody told me!

Tagged:

Machine Mess

Annya

Christopher

Sophie

Gmobile

Pitanga

Kyle

cwmodels

Not much to report because...

...yesterday I had a very busy day and so I was just too tired to paint last night. Too bad: it was too good to be true for me to finish a model in 2 days... oh well, welcome back to reality!

My cat has a mycosis (a fungal infection) and we have to treat it, but with him it's just impossible: between my mother and I we couldn't slap some of that purple crap on his paws and now I wonder, since she's moving to Palinuro tomorrow, while I'll follow next week, how the hell she's gonna handle it alone! (?_?)

Thanks God tomorrow is Friday!

Shoot...

Almost a month with no new posts!
I just came back from Spain last night, and the truth is that lately I've been so busy that I couldn't update my blog nor finish poor Holiday... and to think she was supposed to be ready in few days!
Anyway, I'll try to post something about my trip soon, including the goodies I got there! (modeling-wise, i don't think anyone would be interested in seeing my new skirts and shoes and stuff like that! LOL)

Time to wish you all a...