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The New Yorker Fashion issue arrived the other day, and I loved the cover, so I drew a dress based off of the pattern. I think it looks nice and springy, if a little busy…
I always enjoy the fashion issue, probably because I love clothes and I don’t have a particle of style myself!
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Now, this one requires some explanation. The Wikipedia page gives more information than most humans really want to know, but I’ll explain here, too… There’s a huge Japanese image board (like a message board, only based around images) called Futaba Channel, which has spawned a bunch of memes and original characters. XP-tan here is one of them, along with 2K-tan, OS X-tan, Linux-tan and so on… They’re all representations of operating systems. (Although it’s expanded since then…DS-tan is an example.) The “tan” is a corruption of “chan,” which is an affectionate, informal Japanese name suffix. XP-tan here is essentially pretty but useless…
I was thinking about XP-tan because I use Windows XP for my job, since it and Internet Explorer are required for the ETS test rater setup. Thanks to Brian setting up Bootcamp on my system, I can switch back and forth easily, and since I work at home, it helps with the feeling of being done with work for the day… to switch from annoying, ugly XP to my lovely Mac OS is like coming home. (I use the wrong keyboard commands for about an hour, though…) There are various Mac OS-tans, but I couldn’t find one with a design that was as well-recognized as the Windows-based ones, and I didn’t really like the green one that Wikipedia bases its image on…
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I was reading an old Far Side book the other day and I swear, half the women wear this dress. So I drew it, because I think it’s funny. (And “I think it’s funny” is always more than adequate justification for paperdolling. Yeah, I do it for the lulz.)
Now that I’m trained in teaching English as a second language, I often read things with an eye to explaining them to a non native speaker, or using them in a lesson. The Far Side fails those tests, 90% of the time, or at least it’d be really darn complicated… It’s amazing the amount of cultural background that goes into just a single one. I’d love to use them in a larger lesson plan, though…
Click for larger version; click for the list of dolls.
I play a game called Urban Dead, a browser-based, text-based, player-versus-player zombie apocalypse game. If you play as a survivor, you spend your days hoarding ammo, freaking out about the barricades of your safehouse coming down and often getting killed in your sleep by another player anyways. Those of us who play zombies have much lower stress in our unlives: we have fun and dine on brains. (You can enjoy the benefits, too, if you already play as a survivor! Just stand outside and one of my zombie brethren will hook you up.)
I play one character and I think that before the outbreak, she was a leasing agent. (Having felt rather like a zombie at points during my time as a leasing agent, it’s funny to me.) She used to wear pastel suits and comfortable shoes, and her smile was as non-threatening as it could be. Now she’s overcome her problem of weak, splitting nails with a set of admirable claws, and she’s quite interested in high-density housing units and commercial properties. Her favorite green suit is, alas, a little worse for the wear.
I suppose that in real life, however one chooses to apply the term to a zombie apocalypse, the outfit would be more dirty and torn and less green. What can I say? My time drawing mermaids didn’t prepare me for this. Although… it was nice, for once, to not have to worry about accidentally smudging the red into another color.
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