Please Help Me Support A Friend And An Important Cause!!

Hello Everyone!

This Sunday, September 26, my husband and I will be participating in the Hydrocephalus Association's Walk 2010. I will be walking on Team Allison in honor of the daughter of one of my co-workers and a dear friend. Last year, with your help, my husband and I were able to raise almost $2,000 for the cause. I'm hoping you can sponsor me for the walk. Here is the link for my donation page. From there you can also find a link to the Team Allison page. http://walk4hydro.org.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=346211&lis=0&kntae346211=00FDC477279C4FC1A5CAC4AC9630B9FD&supId=304984623.

Even if you can't help out with a monetary donation, it would still be fun to walk together! The event takes place on September 26 at Belmont Lake State Park. The Walk begins at 10am, but registration starts at 9am. Your support in this cause is greatly appreciated!!

Thank you,
Christine =0)

New Website Design!!

I just decided out of nowhere to re-design my website. I'm a creature of habit and was really attached to the old look, but it's time for a change. Check it out here: http://www.christinecaton.com!

Oh, Tablet.. Where have you been all my life??

So.. I got a tablet yesterday. Best purchase I ever made!! Seriously, I wish I would've done this a year or so ago. Then I could have been practicing all along! But it's okay. At least with NY Comic Con to get ready for, I have an excuse to do nothing but play. =0)

Here's my first attempt at drawing with the tablet:



This was my second attempt:
Yay!! Toy Story Peas In A Pod!!















Here's my third attempt:

My First Ever Attempt at Making a Boy Doll

Of course would have to be Woody from Toy Story!



This one took about 9 hours to do (from concept to finished product) because of all the detail.... He's a 6" poseable doll made of muslin with polyester fiberfill and a small wire armature. I used the fibre craft pattern I use when making my Emma Collection dolls.

The shirt took a really long time to do. It's painted on, but there's tons of detail in the shirt. The boots, hair, and face are also drawn on. The pants, belt, buckle (with hand-drawn detail), vest (with hand-drawn detail), sheriff's badge, and hat (with hand-drawn detail) were all made of felt. The hat took the longest to make because I couldn't find a pattern for a hat small enough. It was a lot of trial and error, but I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

I think the pullstring might be my favorite part... it's just a small white ring with a piece of string sewed to his vest.

Since Woody has really long legs to begin with, the next time I make this character will be using the 14" version of my Emma Collection dolls. I also plan on doing a 6" Jessie.

New Convention Dates!

Come see me in the I-Con 29 art show!! March 26-28 at SUNY Stonybrook. Visit http://www.iconsf.org for more information on the event.

I will be bringing tons of great stuff to the show-- lots of prints and postcards, more original artwork than ever before and even some Emma Collection dolls, including a never before seen Gwendolyn doll! I am very much looking forward to this show as it is surely to be a blast! Hope to see you there!

The Magic is Back!

So I saw The Princess and The Frog last weekend. What a movie! Drama, suspense, romance, angst, horror... this one's got it all! P&tF was definately worth the 5 year wait for Disney's return to traditional 2D animation.

The backgrounds were gorgeous, the animation was flawless, the whole color palette of the movie was just beautiful. The costumes were amazing, the voice acting was great, the music was astounding! There were these three little girls sitting two rows ahead of us and they actually got up and danced whenever a song came on! Randy Newman hit it big with this score! And the writing was just amazing. There's a very important lesson to be learned from this movie. And of course, it's a love story within a love story!

The thing I never liked about the different versions of this story was that the characters never learned anything. In the Grimms Brothers' "The Frong King," the princess is a spoiled little brat who is horrible to the frog and in the end gets to marry the king without learning anything or going through any kind of transformation of her own. Sadly, the same is true in many Mother Goose versions of the fairytale, as this is the one that those are likely based on. In "The Frog Princess," by Alexander Afanasev, it's the woman who is under a spell and the prince who is a spoiled, selfish brat.

Thankfully, Disney has done the classic story justice as each and every character, from the two main heroes to the dastardly villian, to the spoiled friend and cute animal sidekicks, learns an important lesson about the difference between what they want and what they need. The journey to this realization takes place through such emotional songs as "Almost There," "Dig a Little Deeper," "Ma Belle Evangeline," etc.

The whole movie, from beginning to end, is absolutely beautiful. The ending, however, is perhaps the most beautiful of all fairytale endings where everything is just as it's meant to be, but in a way that's the complete opposite of what the viewer (and the characters) would expect. What an inspiring film!

More Toy Story Accessories

Just because there aren't enough Toy Story accessories out there! I made this out of pajamas. The bag part is the shirt and the handle is the pants. Or was. I wrote "There's a snake in my boot!" on the back in orange, but it wouldn't come clear in a picture.