What I'm getting up to these days...

[unicornempire]

 Just a quick post, nothing major. I'll give y'all three guesses as to what show I've been watching recently xD ( It was brought to my attention that I never shared a finished Tennant doctor, which I did manage to finish in time for the Boston Convention. So I'm adding him in here next to Amy. I also finished Rose, but I can't find her preview

Comments

[badapplebettie]

Okay, this may be total crazy talk, but could you maybe rely on the kindness of friends for a few months? Do you have friends in the lower 48 who would put you up for a little while until you got on your feet? Heck, at this point, just through the Sherlock fandom, I could likely stay for free in any number of cities around the world. I mean, not indefinitely, obviously, but at least for a week or two.

There are any number of folks I'd be willing to help out in that way.

I moved to Los Angeles at 28 with no job lined up and slept on my friend's couch for three months until I found a job and got myself settled. I wound up not particularly liking L.A. and now I'm back on the East Coast but I lived there for 5 1/2 years, I don't regret doing it. I think it's worth it to find out if you could make it. You're really talented and I think there's definitely a market for your artwork. (BTW, I checked out the paper dolls you're doing for Taku Graphics. They're really lovely!)

I'm not suggesting you move to L.A. Just using that as an example. In fact, I strongly discourage you from moving to L.A.!!!!

This might require too long an explanation and it's sort of beside the point anyway, but how did you wind up in Juneau to begin with? Did you grow up there?

Also, if you do a David Tennant/Doctor Who paper doll, I will buy one right now. Seriously. Right this minute. :-D

[unicornempire]

You know I never thought about asking around for somewhere to stay, I've never moved anywhere without a solid plan and an apartment lined up before. The biggest move I ever did was going from Anchorage AK to Minneapolis MN for school, and I lived on campus there so I've never even done the apartment hunt thing before. It would really help if I could go there and then spend a week or two actually going to apartments to look at them. I mean I can look at all the pictures I want but when it comes down to it you really don't know if it's a skeezy part of town or not until you're actually physically there you know?

(And thank you! The paper dolls are selling relatively well but I have to sell 600 before I make back my initial cost, but we're a little less than 1/3rd of the way there. It's more of a 'slow and steady' thing.)

I wound up in Juneau because my sisters and I have no parents pretty much, so we live with our single grandmother. She's been dating this guy Jim for ages, so he's like a step grandfather. She has a tiny one bedroom house in Anchorage where we all used to live, and believe you me it was cramped as all get out, I actually lived in the basement crawl space back in highschool. Anyway Jim got a job offer in Juneau right after I graduated college, and it was either move back in the small one bedroom house or move to Juneau in a somewhat bigger house.

Unfortunately it's minimum 1k a month to have a one room apartment here, which is entirely too expensive for me to swing. Working at Taku I make about 1k a month if I work full time, and they don't actually need me full time now that the spring rush is over, so I expect my hours will get cut pretty soon. It's a great job and I love it but I could always come back to it too if I left and it didn't work out, it's a very casual place and they like me there, and I know how most everything works now.

And I actually DO have a David Tennant doll, I made him for the Boston Convention but never got around to posting him I don't think! I have Rose too, and I want to do Donna and Jack Harkness and Ianto as well. He's the only thing I sold out of at the convention, people just loved playing with them lol. He's a bit rushed so I didn't get to deliberate on him much, I may or may not redo him in the future but I have so many other things to work on I'm not sure if I'll get around to it. Here he is:

http://i742.photobucket.com/albums/xx70/unicornempireprints/SM_Tennant.jpg

[badapplebettie]

Gah!! Want. Can has? (But only when your life's not crazy. Don't want to stress you out with my wantyness!)

And I say take advantage of your friends -- you know, in a nice way. In addition to the friend in L.A. who let me crash on her couch for the summer until I found a job and a place of my own, when I first moved to Raleigh, my best friend let me stay with her for a month, which I will always be really grateful for. I was able to find some place I liked rather than having to take the first thing I found or, like you said, having to take some place where I didn't really know what the neighborhood was like. I made dinner and cleaned, just so it wasn't like I was a total sponge or something.

I mean, maybe I'm a weirdo or maybe I'd be willing to do that for a friend because I've been fortunate enough to have friends who did it for me, but I say find some place that appeals to you and ask if anyone would be willing to put you up for a limited period of time.

And maybe pick a city that you know has a major convention or is relatively close to a major convention. At least that way you know there's one major event per year that you're likely to do well at and you don't have to pay for a plane ticket to get there.

Do you have some idea of where you want to go? Am I remembering correctly that you were thinking of Seattle? You could always find some place in Puyallup or Olympia or Tacoma that might result in lower rent but still offer easy access to the city.

Boston's cool, and you've already been there and if you can survive winters in Alaska and Minnesota, you would do fine in Massachusetts.

[unicornempire]

Can't has just yet I'm afraid D: I haven't made any more and I have been working with Taku and AK Litho to find a way to get a smaller quantity printed for cheaper. Before I had to charge $10 each to cover my paper and printing costs, but I'm hoping to get the price down to $8 or $7.75. I have to gang it though and get them printed 4 at a time. Hopefully soon, I've decided to aim for opening my shop again at the end of the month or July 1, but I might be able to sell you one sooner than that.

I was thinking of Washington, but anywhere in Washington would be fine by me. It's close to Alaska so that I can still visit easily enough and there's a few conventions near by. I really don't care what area it is because I'm used to having to drive an hour and a half to get anywhere major. Here in Juneau there is no road out so you're buggered either way.

Boston would be nice and exciting but visiting would be hard to do and expensive, and I'm not sure how I'd get my car there. I'd have to drive and it's kind of an older Subaru so that presents some problems. I mean, I guess I could leave it here for Brenna, she'd need to be able to get around, but then I'd have to buy a car once I got to wherever I was going and I'd rather not add that to the expense list... Augh I wish this weren't so complicated. Like I said, it's something I'm very conflicted over and there's a lot of factors.

I do have a friend who's going to graduate school in pullman who I could probably stay with for a little while while I found an apartment though, so I'll probably be asking her if I can do that. I need to find the right balance between cheep and not-druggie-infested xD.

[badapplebettie]

I can wait. :-)

BTW, John and Sherlock are now on display in the cabinet in my living room.




Pullman would at least be somewhat close to Spokane. My dad's side of the family are all from Washington State. Wish I lived there. I'd totally give you a guest room for a couple weeks.