Swatchfest! High Voltage shadows

As promised, here are the swatches of my eyeshadow sample haul from High Voltage Cosmetics. I bought about ten samples and got two freebies. I ended up getting an awful lot of purples and blues, which in hindsight was silly since I have a buttload of shadows in both those colours. Anyway. On to the swatches! These are done over Concrete Minerals Electric Eye Primer, under artificial light.

Fairy Blood

Site description: satin blood red.
My description: Delicious smoky dark red. Yum.

Outshined

Site description: skin toned highlighter for medium skin tones or darker skin tones with a slight pearl sheen.
My description: I am buying a full-size jar of this after my bank has recovered from Christmas. It's my absolute perfect highlight shade, swept lightly over primer (it's swatched quite heavily here). Not too much shimmer but not a flat matte either. I LOVE this.
 

Spiked Stilettos

Site description: shimmery golden pink brown with pearl accents.
My description: Beautiful smoky golden pinky taupe! The neutral I didn't know I was missing out on. Looks like a really dusty pink in the jar, I didn't think I was going to like it at all, but once I swatched it I was wishing I'd cracked it open sooner!
 

What A Drag

Site description: metallic orange red.
My description: This shows up as shimmery chocolate-copper brown to me. I can see myself using this for liner a lot, it's a very rich shade.

Alter Ego

Site description: fuschia metallic shadow.
My description: Bright, shimmery fuschia purple. I'm not too sure why this is in the 'pink' section. The only thing I had close to this was a colour in the Sleek Curious palette, which disappeared every time I tried to use it. The shadow I mean, not the palette!

Girl's Night Out

Site description:  indigo-purple with massive gold sparkles.
My description: Dark blue with an explosion of silvery and gold glitter! This will probably need Pixie Epoxy to stay glitzy, but it's really gorgeous! The blue is a bit darker in person - like a cross between navy and royal blue. Dark, but still definitely blue.

Electric Boogie

Site description: royal blue with gold sparkles and a slight pearl sheen.
My description: Electric blue with gold glitter. Very sparkly!

Sunset Strip

Site description: powder blue with subtle purple undertones.
My description: Periwinkle blue with a slight lavender shimmer. This goes a bit pale and matte if overblended like I did in the middle of my swatch.

Saturday Night

Site description: complex shadow that looks purple blue or silver from differnt angles.
My description: Silvery-purple-blue! It's this metallic duochrome... I can imagine even more absolute gorgeousness coming out of this over Pixie Epoxy.

Little Miss Perfect

Site description: light airy blue with strong yellow highlights.
My description: Dusty denim blue with gold shimmer/duochrome. I really, really love this shade.

Cocktail Party 

Site description: bright shocking aqua.
My description: Bright, cheerful aqua/turquoise.

Detroit Rock City

Site description: light aqua green with tons of shimmer.
My description: Slightly darker and much more metallic version of Cocktail Party. I ordered both of these because I couldn't make up my mind which to get. I'll probably end up mixing them together with a splash of TKB Hilite Blue to have a nice standby turquoise/aqua colour, since it's not something I use a lot, but was missing from my collection.


Phew! I reeeeeeeeeally need to stop buying samples and start just getting full sizes of the colours I use. Maybe I should make that a New Year's Resolution :P

Hope you liked the swatches and that you're all having a great Christmas! I've set this to post while I'm enduring enjoying a family Christmas lunch. I should be back pretty soon after Boxing Day - I'm not jetsetting off for a holiday like a lot of my friends are. I'm gonna stay home and relax after the silly season! Sooo looking forward to it.

Dragon of the Second Moon: a review with a side of rant

Sci-fantasy is apparently a new genre which mixes science fiction and fantasy - two genres which are often confused but which are utterly different.

Dragon of the Second Moon is Australian writer Christian Taamblyn's first novel and occupies this fresh, hybrid space, though leaning heavily on the latter.

THE GOOD BITS
Featuring linguistic flaws of the novice writer - choppy sentances, an excess of adjectives, and a few punctuation missteps - this book is nonetheless an engaging read. I've definitely read - and written - much worse, language-wise.  My expectations that the protagonist, Alex (later renamed), would turn out to be a messianic character falling just shy of a Gary Stu were pleasantly unfulfilled. Mistakes, misunderstandings and hardships plague him as any fish out of water. Taamblyn's time compression of the character's learning curves are masterful - without being bored by every minute ticking past, we are given a few paragraphs of explanation which manage to express the amount of time and effort Zanderhall puts into his re-education. The bewilderment, wonder and loneliness of the character comes across well without making him a pathetic character. Learning a language, learning to fight, learning to use magic - these things all take time and effort (well, I wouldn't know about the last one but I assume so) and this is expressed in a realistic manner, rather than just "oh hey I picked up a whole vocabulary in a week and look at my awesome firebolts". It's nice to see a bit of realism trumping a faster-paced, action-packed story. Not to say this isn't fast-paced and action-packed, because it is.

The novel provides a thoughtful perspective on cultural divide, which has two peoples - magical and non-magical, essentially. The non-magical folk are suspicious of their counterparts, who have their ears cut to 'mark' them and are then ostracised. This segment of the population have formed nomadic tribes of people far more 'in tune' with the world than their stodgy, city-dwelling counterparts. The cultural and lifestyle differences that result are well-crafted and provide nice contrast.

Taamblyn weaves some stock fantasy archetypes into this story with accumen, providing some interesting new pespective which tailors the creatures to his world: elves, mermen, dragons, dryaads, were-creatures, even a Minotaur-like creature. I was continually surprised and delighted at how Taamblyn appropriated tried-and-true 'species', not completely deviating so that they were entirely new creatures with a new name, or just re-using the same-old; he really integrated them into the heritage and atmosphere of the story. They fit well, it wasn't just an "insert elf/dragon here" or worse, "well we'll call it a Minotaur because it's similar even though it flies against all of the preestablished norms of the creature" (yeah Smezzer, I'm looking at you).

One of the main difficulties with giving one race, or even a group of characters magic (or mar'jics) is that you give them a a rather large advantage over the non-magical folk. Taamblyn ties magic into mythology and makes it a skill, to be honed and practised, rather than some mystical, disconnected skill. Through the main characters' eyes, we witness some Eleran children being taught how to focus their innate powers (p102). It's a wonderfully crafted bit of world-building. Complicated, powerful magic takes a physical toll on the wielder, which means warriors still have a part to play, and necromancy is pretty much out of the question. These are sensible but often overlooked 'laws' of fantasy.

THE IFFY BITS
My only real disappointment is that Taamblyn has fallen into the trap that nearly all fantasy writers do: sidelining female characters and perpetuating ridiculous gender standards. Taamblyn sets up this seemingly equal society by giving the Eleran people a Queen. He promptly turns around and negates that with Sharna, a character whose sole function is Protaganist's Love Interest and Paragon of Sexual Liberty. Then there's physically dimunitave Kyanne (p152), and brash, outspoken Gail, who are the only two women pointed out among the fighters though in Gail's own words, "Scores of those going North [to fight] will be women. We will fare no better or worse than the rest, be treated as equals" (p316). This forward-thinking statement is immediately sidelined three pages later where we are treated to a voyeuristic affirmation of Gail's feminity, as she undresses in a tent, emphasising the "shapely curve of her ample breasts, even the fine definition of her waist, hips and legs" (p319). It just felt completely unneccesary and quite belittling to the character.

In two instances - there may be more, these are just the ones that stand out - senseless Western male stereotypes are also integrated into the story - Jahlam's refusal of a numbing paste on his ears before he was marked because "it was not the manly thing to do" (p94). That sentance infuriated me. Further on, a (male) character speaking of his lost daughter and grandson gets (understandably) teary-eyed. "He quickly turned his head to conceal his weakness" (p286). Sorry, what?! He's lost his family and he's upset. I'd be more concerned if he DIDN'T react emotionally. Why is this a 'weakness' when Kyanne cried "in heavy sobs" (p159) after winning the right to be a Loremaster? Hello, sexism which does not need to be in a fantasy book. I know I harp on about it a lot, but where there's magic and dragons and swords, is it really that difficult to have women fighting and guys crying and, y'know, aspects of social gender equality which are sorely absent from the real world?

Don't even get me started on page 212.

I was discussing these issues with my boyfriend, as I really do like the book and didn't want to be too harsh on it because of its shortcomings. He said, "honestly I don't think that most authors think about the gendered implications when they write. They're more focused on the characters as individuals and the plot movement." Which is fair and probably true, but like I said to him, the tent scene and the two statements about manliness and weakness stick out like a sore thumb. The book would have gone through several rewrites  and the fact that those sections - not contributing to overall plot, storyline, or character development - are still there means that they were consciously included. I could of course be wrong, that's just the impression that I get.

TL;DR
Gendered stereotypes aside - and hey, these sorts of issues may not phase you, and fair enough, it's very common in the genre - I actually do like this book! I know I did a massive breakdown of the 'iffy bits', but that's what an English degree does to you. Makes you super-critical. When I met Christian at Supanova he seemed like a really nice guy. The sequel will hopefully be out soon, and I will definitely be purchasing a copy. If you can get your hands on the book (it's at Borders and online at his site) I'd definitely recommend it. For fans of sci-fi AND fantasy.

All About Morgana Cryptoria

**IMPORTANT NOTE: Cydonian of Turtle Beauty is having a giveaway. Enter for your chance to win a tube of Morgana's lipstick and TWO full-sized eyeshadows!** 

I managed to get my camera working enough for swatches, which is good since I have 6 Morgana Cryptoria (renamed, revamped Morgana Minerals) lippies to show you - and a good majority of them are new colours! I've already rhapsodised about the moisturising qualities, stunning opacity and longevity of these. So without further ado:

Serenity

Brilliant aqua blue. I love this so much - because of the name and the colour. I took about a million photos of this because I didn't want to take it off!

Absinthe

Metallic, gorgeous dark green.

Cotton Candy

Frosty light pink. I can't see myself wearing this often. It's nice but it's definitely not me.

Apple Plum

Neutral, deep, muted reddish-pink creme with a faint flush of purpley-pink iridescence. If you don't like bright/deep colours, or you need something conservative for work, GET THIS. It's so gorgeous, understated yet beautiful, neutral - I can't imagine this not looking good on any age or skin tone. I don't like pinks at all, but this is such a lovely soft, unique red-pink. I can see myself wearing this to work very often.

Twinkling Rubies

Bright red packed with red, gold and pink glitter - NOT gritty at all! Doesn't give you disco ball lips, but the glitter is noticeable.

Rubbed down on my hand to show the glitterrrrrr.

Otherworldly

Heavenly deep, metallic purple with a hint of blue sparkle.

Morgana is coming out with a pastel collection soon. I want to try and and all of the purples. I also would really like to try Rosy Plum, as Apple Plum is a little darker on me than I was expecting. Can I just say: get Serenity NOW before it's all sold out!

I also discovered on my computer two swatches of Morgana's limited edition shadows which I totally forgot I was going to post about. The limited edition shades don't have names, just numbers. I got #1, "robin's egg blue with blue green sparkle and color shifting violet" and #18, "sage with violet sparkles".

#1

#18

Unfortunately these complex colours are hard to photograph. #18 is a much more mossy green, and the sparkles don't look as gold in person. The shimmers in #1 don't really show up in indoor light; this shade needs sunlight to really blossom.

I did get a tube of Morgana's infamous black lipstick, Licorice, but the heat did something to it and it's gone all funny. I told Melissa right away and she's making a new batch and sending me a replacement. I offered to pay shipping but she wouldn't have any of it. Now THAT is customer service.

Need more incentives?
*You can now get shadow samples in jars for $2.50.
*The order minimum has been lowered to $15 US.
*There are lip pots available for $5 US if you don't want to committ to a tube for $10 US.
*The new Cleopatra Collection features an eyeshadow named Pyramid Scheme.
*She sells vegan eye and lip brushes which are all under $10. The retractable lip brush is what's in the Absinthe swatch photo :)

Go check out the site!

Webcomic review: Cealdian

I was actually checking one of my favourite bi-weekly webcomics for an update, when another reader linked this in the comics, citing it as "An amazing webcomic with not nearly enough readers". So naturally, I clicked.

Be warned, Cealdian only updates once a week fortnight while, but there is a good reason for this: the art is AH-MAY-ZING.

Seriously, it's so intricate, detailed, and beautifully coloured.... but it's annoying because the storyline is so intruiging and you really want to know what's in store but you gotta wait!

It's set in a medieval sort of era, and the costumes and locations are really thoroughly researched and constructed. "Cealdian is based a lot on epic poems like that of Beowulf, the Song of Roland, etc. There's also a lot of Tolkien in there", as its creator says. Already the plot reveals some layers and the characters have quite distinct personalities. I think it's definitely worth the wait to see where artist/writer Anne Szabla is going with this series. 

I could spend a few more paragraphs gushing over this comic, but I won't. Go check it out, you'll see what I mean.

Not a proper review: flakie goodness

This is not a review, though it contains many review-like qualities.

I don't care what you've heard about Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure. Forget the hours you scoured forum boards, pharmacies or eBay pages in search of it. Feast your eyes on this!

Nubar released this piece of flakie goodness to celebrate 2010, as their "we've been creating nail polish for ten years, yo". It's just gorgeous. 'Big 3-free'* like all of Nubar's polishes, it's a clear gel-like base filled with flakes of glitter which shift from red to orange to green to yellow-gold. Toted in the blogosphere as the best Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure dupe, it looks most resplendant over black, (obviously) since you can see all the colours:

That's over China Glaze Liquid Leather, which has a weird but awesome consistency, sort of like a cross between a jelly and a creme. Sorry 'bout the sad one-broken-fingernail swatch, I'm just lazy like that! There are plenty of good reviews of this, so if you need more pics, just Google it. Or if you ask really nicely, I could be persuaded to do a full hand for you ;)

I put it over red (Mode's Racy, my absolute fave red polish, you can get away with a single coat of it if you're careful!) for work, which means on some angles it's very subtle, but the green and goldy-orange tones showed beautifully:

 
It pretty much takes one coat to get that layer of coverage - even and colourful, but not overwhelming. I have seen it swatched over purple, and I plan to try it. I also have plans to try it over green, over nude polish and maybe grey. From what I've seen/heard, putting on a bare nail is a good option if you're looking for something super subtle.

(Note: I have this over Natio Brandy now. I didn't like it at first but it's growing on me... it's very light and sparkly. I haven't taken a photo of it because A) my nails are really short right now and B) I could not get it to show up on-camera!)

The gorgeousness (and affordability) of this polish definitely dulls the sting of finding out that the only way for me to get Nfu Oh, the best and most colourful flakies in the nail polish world, would be to pay $30 a bottle - and that's not including postage! I've heard that Inglot's flakies are alright, but they are almost as impossible to find online as the Sally Hanson, and the only actual shop that stocks them around Perth is just a wee bit too far away for me to get to.

Surprisingly for a nail polish with 'bits' in it, this was really easy to remove - even easier than the glitter Mode polish I have. I thought I might have to go buy something with acetone in it to get my nails clean, but nope! It dries quite fast as well, which is always a plus in my book. I'm so impressed, I plan on buying more Nubar. It's pretty easy to find online, and they have a great big range of colours and finishes. I kind of wish they'd make some more flakies. I definitely want a purple one. And maybe a blue one.

*The 'big 3' of nail polishes are DBP (phthalate), formaldehyde, and toluene. These are pretty freaking toxic ingredients which were used in nail polish until some companies went, "Hmm, that's kind of not good... is there any way we can not use this stuff and still make good polish?" Now it's actually pretty easy to find 'big 3-free' polish, and most of it's good quality to boot.

JulNoWriMo day 7 + LOTD + er, stuff

Write-in, day 7.

Location: Il Cibo, Fremantle

Il Cibo gets ****/***** as a write-in location. I would have given them a higher score if they'd had more power points! They had good music (if a little distracting to a few of our group members), great coffee, good food and really nice staff. I'd definitely go back for a non-write-in meeting.

Attendees: 5 (including me). Two of our proposed attendees didn't turn up.

Wordcount: 11,869 by the time I got home. Yay!

I had the most amazing day today, it was seriously incredible. It started out with me being really worried about how far behind I was on my word count - over 3,000 words. I wasn't sure what Il Cibo was going to be like, and I'd only heard from Elimy so I was rather afraid we'd have a small turnout. While we only had one more person than last week, it was a really good session. I worked through my first block! Yay! I'm both exhilarated and exhausted, so I'm going to sum up the day with pictures and short sentances.

My superboots are getting a lot of wear! They're really comfortable and I just love them.

 

The coffee I had was amazing. Seriously, I would go back to that cafe for another one of those soy mochas, and that's saying a lot since it took me a full hour of train time to get there!

Word-count explosion!

G bought me a smiley-face cookie.

Compliments on the train about my beret, which I got from Lillian's blog sale a while ago.

Wore AL Rocks! jigsaw feeling for the first time in a while. One of my favourite greens.

I stayed behind at the cafe for a bit to charge my laptop. The waiter who'd been serving us came over and asked what we'd been doing. I told him a bit about JulNo and he seemed pretty interested. He came back to the table with a copy of Dot Dot Dash and lent it to me. It's an independant publication based out of Curtin Uni. It looked gorgeous, and Elimy had just been talking to me about it! She showed me her copy of the latest Kill Your Darlings today, too. I hope to have at least submitted, if not been published in one of those two magazines by the end of the year. They're both amazing and I can see I'll be spending a lot of money collecting back issues.

This could well be the plait/ear/neck of a future PUBLISHED writer!

So stoked I'm finally caught up with my word count. I hope all you other JulNos are doing well, and that the rest of you non-crazy people are having an enjoyable July. There is a book review scheduled to post tomorrow morning, and I got a tube of ELF's mineral eye primer in the mail today, so expect a review of that (hopefully) before the end of the month. 

Before I forget, I've started reading a new webcomic, Johnny Wander. It's completely autobiographical, and has little slice-of-life snippets, but I'm finding it really cute and sweet. Something nice to distract me for a bit when I'm all JulNo'd out for the day. This is my favourite one so far, but it was a close call. Many moments of "oh wow, I wish I'd been there" or "I could see some of my friends/family doing that". (Oh ok, this is my other favourite one. Of right now. I'm still reading. Don't pressure me!)

-Jade

Fantasy authors: support local!

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GENERAL BLOG NOTE: I've made a small but important change to my blog, in that I have moved the post labels (tags) to under the post title, instead of at the bottom near the comments link. That way, those who are more interested in comic/movie reviews won't get halfway into a make-up related post and want to cry. And vice versa ;)

Onto the actual post:
Have you ever been surprised to know that an author, musician or artist used to live in your area? Because of the huge amount of American and English media that Australia gets, I'm always excited when I find something Australian. It's just nice to know that we can get our toes into the global talent pool as well. I especially like finding authors who still live in Australia. It gives me hope that, should I decide to pursue novel writing, I wouldn't have to move countries to succeed professionally. This is almost definitely the case in areas like film and music.

Getting to know (and like) the work of local creative types means you have better chances of meeting your icons in person. Two Australian authors I can always count to be at Perth Supanova are Marianne de Pierres and Jennifer Fallon. I'm a little bit embarassed to say I haven't read Jennifer's work. I have read Marianne's Parrish Plessiss series and was bowled over by the pacing, and the gritty, violent and complex  post-apocalyptic universe she's created. Marianne went to a university in my area, something that always cheers me up when I hear derogatory comments about arts degrees (since I'm doing one alongside my major in media studies, and my minor in journalism). I am still eyeing off her more recent series whenever I pass a bookstore.

After news of another Supanova cancellation reached my ears (rather, eyes, as it was on Facebook) I decided to have a look at the current activity and guest information for Perth. I clicked into the author section and saw two unfamiliar names - Rob Kaay and Christian Tamblyn. These two Aussie guys have very recently published their first novels, and both are science fiction/fantasy, which is pretty much my favourite genre. I went into my local Borders, but they didn't have either in stock, so I'm just going to order them off the authors' websites (linked above). Rob Kaay's book is actually avaible in audio and soft-copy format off his website, but I'm a traditionalist, and I like paper books :)

I'll write up a review of both of these books for the blog, but if I like them (which I'm fairly sure I will) what will be most exciting is meeting these guys in person and (fingers crossed!) getting my book signed. I also hope to attend Jennifer Fallon's World Building class, which I've sadly missed in the last two years of Supanova.

There are a few other Aussie authors I love and would reccommend (I have linked to their offiicial websites so you can check them out):

• Kylie Chan, author of the incredible Dark Heavens Trilogy and in-the-works Wudang series. These series are rich in Chinese mythology - I shudder to think of the amount of research Kylie had to do, but it certainly adds a wonderful depth and mystery to the books. They may be fantasy, but all the human characters are wonderfully, well, human.

• K.E. Mills, author of the Rogue Agent series (both of these wonderful women are avid convention attendees, unfortunately neither of them have been to Perth yet). K.E. Mills is actually a pseudonym for Karen Miller, who has written several other successful series under that name. The Rogue Agent series basically takes all the tropes and elements of 'magic'-based fiction and straight crime/detective fiction and turns it on its head. I am re-reading all of the three current books and writing a review which will go up as soon as I finish it.

• Sophie Masson, author of Cold Iron, an absolutely spellbinding novella inspired by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. I found this in my local library years ago, and borrowed it about twelve times, reading and re-reading constantly until I found it in a secondhand bookstore. It now sits happily on my shelf. I didn't realise until this post that she continued writing and amassed quite a long list of both YA and adult fiction! I will have to hit the library and eBay to play catch-up.

• Ian Irvine, author of The View From the Mirror series (I'm having a bit of trouble tracking down book 4, which is a pain, because I neeeeeed to know what happens!) it's an adventure story spanning two worlds. Like most epic fantasy, it has a vast amount of characters and locations, but everything is wonderfully lush and 3-D. No 'description swamps', though!

• Sara Douglass, author of the Axis trilogy, a dark and twisted web of mythology, love, betrayal and politics. Beautiful in parts, disturbing in others. As I said to my boyfriend, "she is certainly not afraid to make a character SUFFER! A LOT!"

These are just what I've read so far! I have many other authors on my Aussie reading list: Jennifer Fallon (of course), Trudi Canavan, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, Fiona McIntosh, and Garth Nix are at the top. I have a few other miscellanious bits of fiction knocking around, now that I've finished uni for the semester (yay!). I'm seeking to expand my literary horizons so I'm not just reading fantasy all the time. I'm starting with A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, and the collected works and letters of Emily Dickinson. I'll probably review most of what I read, hoping it will help me not tear through them as fast as I normally do, and keep my brain from turning into slush over the uni break. I haven't got an awful lot of shifts, even with two jobs (I got the one at that upmarket handbag place, by the way! Total freak-out fluke, and now I'm learning to sell brands I've never heard of and could only afford if I saved for a month).
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Many more posts coming up! I have 4 drafts at the moment, including the long-ago promised banana bread recipe and the Concrete Minerals primer review. And there will of course be occasional spontaneous discuss-y posts, like my Foundation Day one and this one.

Happy reading!
Jade.

P.S. if you've met one of your favourite artists or writers, tell me in the comments! Or tell me about someone you found out used to live, work or go to school near you. I'm also very, very open to book reccommendations.