Something weird

I Don't Mean 'I Before E Except After C'

Ever come up with wording for a scroll that you feel kinda guilty about writing down. Not evil. Not mean. Not insulting. But something that will make the herald hate you for making them read it out loud. Like slipping in a really bad pun. Or a tongue twister. Or using language that you know will make the herald laugh while they are reading it.

I bring this up 'cause I made a scroll from an unusual inhabited initial..... No. Oh, god no! Not the cannibal depicted above. I have a humorous streak but I wouldn't use a cannibal on an award scroll. Maybe a tourney scroll.... No, better not.

Where was I?

Oh, yes. I made a scroll with an unusual initial with an idea for certain words to go along with it. Unfortunately, as an award scroll, it would be for a very limited set of people. Like, if you were to make a scroll depicting period ice skating; how many people could you use it for so that it would be relevant? But, I was handed a last minute scroll assignment and my mind added up 2 and 2 and got blueberry pie as the answer. So, I took my idea for funny wording for an unknown award for an unknown person and turned it into a tourney scroll and cranked up the wording to 11.

I won't post it here: I want it to be a surprise. See y'all at that event that you might be at.

By the way: don't put a cannibal on an award scroll.

Some kind words

Remember To Tip Your Waiters.

Today, I received a very nice E-mail from Robert of Ferness: the Honorable Lord Robert. I had done the scroll commemorating his induction into the Noble Order of the Fleur of AEthelmearc (GoA level award for Arts and Sciences). In the E-mail, he thanked me for the nice piece of work, and for the silly joke on the back of the scroll.  

Scrolls are freely made and freely given. It is nice to get comments from the recipients of the scrolls that I make. I do like the "Ooohs" and "Aaahhs" when one of my scrolls is held up, but I don't make them for the audience; I make them for the person who will be taking the scroll home. 

I've had several people, at the last few events, come up to me saying something like, "You're Caleb? You did my AoA scroll. Thank you, thank you, thank you." I don't want to sound like a jerk, but most of the time I have to find a nice way of saying, "Who are you? I do so many assignments and blanks" Which is true. Most of the scrolls I did last year were scroll blanks: someone else did the calligraphy and wording (and made my work look great).  I try to do some cold reading and question leading in order to figure out which piece ended up going to that particular person. Sometimes they have a picture on their phones and then I can give them some details on where the image came from.

I hope that I can inspire people to keep doing that thing that they did to get the award, or win the tourney, that earned them the scroll. And I hope that if you receive a scroll, take the time to hunt down the scribe and thank them. THL Robert's E-mail really, really, really made my day.

More fencers

This Challenge Is Taking Years

12 pages into my I.33 challenge. I want to make a scroll based on all 64 pages of I.33, the world's oldest, known sword-fighting manuscript. At this rate, it'll take me another ten years to complete. The image, below, will be one of the scrolls for this year's Ice Dragon two-person melee tourney. This will be for person A and person B will get a scroll inspired by another page of the manuscript. 

I am doing each page using the same color combination, although I have been using less paint, so the images look different. Less intense. 

I've used this manuscript for mostly tourney scrolls, although I have done a couple of AoA level award scrolls. The images are easy to draw and I like how they look. I have high-res copies of the original pages. To keep from duplicating any pages, I have a folder with all of the pages, and a sub-folder with the completed pages. Once I print out the page I wish to work on (so that I can trace it) I move that file into the sub-folder. This way I know what I have done and haven't done. I don't do them in order: I just pick a random image. Also, several of the pages have damage to them and I think that I will save them for last.