Long time no see! No point in complaining about RL, because work is work. I’m saving up for a new laptop, so I’ve been trying to put in all those extra hours when the boss needs me However, this unfortunately means less time spent at the computer making graphics.

Plus, I’ve also gotten obsessed once more with “land” comms over @ Livejournal. I’ve joined four (at the same time… I know =.= probably not the best idea!): Legendland (Legend of the Seeker, Team Richard), Throneland (Game of Thrones, Team Stark), CW_Land (CW shows, Team Supernatural), and Land of Art (a graphic design challenge comm, Team Pop Art). If you’re a member on LJ, you should definitely check them out and maybe sign up!! If you do, tell ‘em rebeldesigns sent you!

Despite the infrequent updates, Shotgun Opera is my baby, and I can never stay away from it for too long!

1 New Affiliate – The fantastic Kallie over @ Zombie Eaterrs. Firstly, what a kickass name for a site! :3 And secondly, check out her site! It’s beautiful.

1 Award - From Challenge 39 at Bevaluable, for my retouch of Candice Swanepoel.

Shotgun Opera’s July SOTM – A special congrats to Marilyne over at Shadow of the Day for receiving SGO’s July 2011 SOTM award! A little early, I know, but as I will be on holiday for the first two weeks of July, I figured I’d do it now. To read more about why I chose Shadow of the Day, click here.

3 Wallpapers -

“Kill Them All” [Game of Thrones] feat. Robb Stark – I made this one in both black and white and color. I wanted to do a sort of picspam-esque, Tumblr-style wallpaper, with repeating images and a grungy texture throughout. I chose this scene because this is the one that sold me on Robb as a character. I was sort of indifferent about him in the books and that carried over into the show… but this scene broke my heart. I wanted to make the text sort of watery and blurred, like tears.

“Almost” [Grey's Anatomy] feat. Mark and Lexie – I only recently got into Grey’s Anatomy about three or four months ago, but the couple that I was more drawn to was not Meredith and Derek, but Mark and Lexie. Maybe it’s the fact that I love the two actors separately, but when you combine them as a couple it makes me so, so happy. I wanted to capture this exchange between them, since it seems like moments like this are going to be rare in the future.

“Will of the Gods” [original fiction] – A wallpaper based on a novel I’m writing at the moment. I’m not really saying much about the work itself since you can never be too careful on the internet these days, but yes, this is sort of how I envision three of my main characters. I’m particularly proud of the manip I did for my main heroine. I had difficulty darkening her skin tone, though… whatever I tried didn’t look realistic enough.

8 Icons – 1 Game of Thrones, 5 The Vampire Diaries, 2 Annalynne McCord. I’m trying to salvage all my old icons, but I’m afraid I deleted most of them from my server when I switched over to WordPress by accident T.T A bunch of them are posted on Livejournal, so I’m working on transferring them over here.

1 Picspam – “Habit” featuring Stefan Salvatore. Something I created for CW_Land’s picspam challenge. Even though I’m Team Supernatural, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell given the amount of TVD graphics I’ve made for these challenges *hides*

1 Manipulation – Created for the wallpaper I mentioned above based on an original story I’m working on. I used a Legend of the Seeker base and ‘shopped Jessica Lucas’ face on there, and worked the skin tone darker to match that of the character.

Lots of updates for you guys today Now that school’s done, I have a little bit of free time before I start work where I’ve been churning out lots of new stuff. I hope that everyone is having a nice May so far! I’m trying to be more active in my various online social circles, so be sure to track me down on LJ and Twitter; those are the two that I frequent the most!

New Layout [V. 14 You Make Me Feel, feat. Paul Wesley] – I figured it was past due I created a layout with Paul Wesley in it. He’s easily my favorite male muse right now. This layout is named after the Cobra Starship song “You Make Me Feel” (included at the top of this post), which I had on repeat while I was working on the coding for this. I managed to churn out this bad boy in three days. I decided I wanted something completely different from the last layout in terms of color scheme, but with the same general structure that people seem to like. I’ve added a navigation bar at the top because I personally prefer that over the sidebar navigation, the coding of which I found kind of crude in my last layout. And the header? Love, love, love how it turned out; it surprised even me! It started out really simple, but then I played around with the Selective Coloring and it turned out really nicely, I think. And to say I’m absolutely loving WordPress is an understatement. It’s so easy! I already am working on another layout after this one!

New Gallery Layout – Borrowed some coding from another layout (with credit, of course) and tweaked it very slightly to suit my needs. Eventually I’ll tackle the Coppermine coding route but for now, I’m content playing in the WordPress sandbox. Check out the new lay over here.

2 New Affiliates – Well, sort of. Timmy of Knighted in Power is back, off from his hiatus of 5 months! I’ve moved his link back to my active affiliates. Also, welcome to Aruna7 of Beyond Hope, who is my newest affiliate! Be sure to check out her gorgeous site.

• I also rearranged/purged old affiliates that were sitting in the “dead links” part of my site. I have yet to carefully go through the main list of affies, but if I inadvertently deleted your link, please let me know.

1 New Hostee – I’ve finally gotten a new hostee, Maddison @ Escaping Oblivion! Her site is still under construction, but it’s already looking amazing! I’m looking forward to seeing her artwork.

1 Colorization – I started this colorization back when I was in a challenge sites phase, and never got around to finishing it. It’s not really the best quality I could do, but I was rusty and needed the practice.

4 Retouches - Featuring the lovely ladies of The Vampire Diaries, Nina Dobrev, Katerina Graham, Candice Accola, and Sara Canning. I’ve been trying to stop being so heavy-handed when it comes to the blur tool. I really wanted to get a more natural retouch, so I practiced on the female cast of TVD. Not that there was much to retouch at all — honestly, they were flawless without it (jealous!). But I dusted over some imperfections and played with lighting. Tell me what you think.

2 Wallpapers – “Some Kind of Poetry” featuring Paul Wesley & “A Little Darker Every Day” featuring Catelyn Stark of HBO’s Game of Thrones. I am so obsessed with that show! My mom and I watch it every Sunday (and my dad grudgingly admitted that he thinks it’s a pretty good show, too). I’ve read the books, so I always say spoilery stuff that makes my mom hate me, lol. Head over to my portfolio to see latest additions to the gallery.

See you all soon! I’m working on some more coded layout freebies for you all.