Sharkysaur

My name is Mallory. Hi!

I love drawing and crafting and making things with my hands. I used to sell my artwork at geeky conventions. It was so much fun to hang out with other artists and share my artwork with people. I mainly sold realistic food jewelry sculpted from polymer clay. However it took a lot of time to make them and I couldn't really keep up with it, so I stopped selling at conventions. I would love to sell art again, but I want to move into prints rather than originals. I am working on some cool projects with that in mind, like static cling dress up dolls and art prints.

Professionally, I work at a public library. I love my job. My library is an awesome place to be and we have an amazingly supportive community.

At home, I have 2 cats with very different personalities. Carmello is a calico who is charming, cuddly and very photogenic. Unfortunately I am the only human she likes. They call her Satan, and for good reason. She is really scary. However as I type this she is curled up on my lap sleeping. My other kitty, Custard is a very sweet and chubby lion. She is the color of sand with pumpkin colored eyes. She loves everyone, and loves to be petted everywhere from her tummy to her toes. She is employed as a paper shredder. Or really she has this annoying habit of tearing up any available papers. She is also a hoarder. She hides all of my hair ties and bobby pins under my bed.

One thing I would like to accomplish in the future is to make a video game. At last years Global Game Jam the team I was on made a tiny version of a game I pitched. It was just a weekend project but we were able to make a simple jumping platformer by the end of the weekend. I also met my boyfriend there. Overall it was a cool experience and I really encourage anyone with an interest in it to participate.

My favorite holiday is Halloween. I like decorating for my Halloween party, making fall foods and dressing up. I'm not into scary or grotesque themes for Halloween, but I like antiquated skeletons, witches with potions and adorable ghosts. More Harry Potter and less horror. Last year I did have a Hogwarts Halloween and made chocolate frogs and dressed as Hermione Granger. I even hung a ton of letters from Hogwarts from the ceiling to look like the scene from the first movie where the owls shove the letters down the chimney.

Genres.. I like Fantasy and Science fiction. I love fairy tales and super heroes. I love steampunk too. I feel like our world is full of magic. Things we used to only dream about are things that we have. We call it Science. I'm still holding out for a teleporter. I really like reading Diana Wynne Jones, L.E. Modesitt, and Douglas Adams. If you like comical fantasies you should check out "The Dark Lord of Derkholm" by Diana Wynne Jones.

I also love to watch Doctor Who. I love it so much I even learned how to write circular Gallifreyan. It is a beautiful script made entirely of circles, lines, and dots, and is read counter-clockwise. Circles within circles within circles.

I love playing video games, especially visually stunning video games. My all time favorite game is Okami. It is beautiful and the graphics are style after sumi-e ink paintings. The concept revolves around Japanese mythology and it is very satisfying to play. Each of the boss battles were epic enough to be the final battle.

I love tons of art styles, but I have a weakness for ultra cute art... Kawaii, and miniatures.

I love tea. I especially love spicy Masala Chai, Tiger Spice Chai and Earl Grey. It is overflowing my tea cupboard. I really need to try different flavors.

Matchboxes -I love tiny things, like decorated matchboxes that hold a surprise, a tiny piece of art or a tiny creature 'living' inside, made from paper, cloth or clay.

Artist Trading Cards (ATC's) -I started collecting these in a binder when my art group made them monthly.

Dimensional Paper Art -I love how layers of paper can create an image full of depth. Whether you are making your own image or altering art, I love it all.

Scrapbook Creations I recently fell in love with the beautiful scenes and scrapbook albums made by Anne's Paper Creations.

Polymer Clay Mini Sculptures -I love sculpting miniature food, and cute animals. I'm working on a little café shadowbox and I would love to get more sweets and decorations to put in it.

Sketches and Ink Drawings Generally I doodle little monsters and animals in a cute cartoony style. I also like to draw flowers and plants in a more realistic style.

Watercolor and Paintings -I can't paint to save my life... but I am positively envious of people who can.

Digital Art -I do a ton of digital art, but I joined Swap-bot to make traditional art.

I love a lot of 80's and 90's fantasy movies Lady Hawke Labyrinth Neverending Story The Dark Crystal Robin Hood Men in Tights

Animated Movies by Studio Ghibli Nausicaa in the Valley of the Wind Howl's Moving Castle (The only Ghibli movie I don't like is Grave of the Fireflies, because it is heart wrenchingly sad)

Pixar Movies especially Wallee

The Avengers and Xmen and all of the movies in the Marvel Universe. I especially like Captain America and Iron Man.

Period Dramas Pride & Prejudice with Colin Firth The Count of Monte Cristo Twelfth Night

These are the things that I wouldn't necessarily say are a hobby, but I have a habit of collecting them, because I like them.

Dollhouse miniatures I don't actually have a dollhouse, but I do have 4 ball jointed dolls that are each 5" tall, from a Japanese line of dolls that are no longer produced, called Ai dolls by Jun Planning. I have grand plans to build some dioramas for them. My first will be a Hogwarts common area with bookshelves full of miniature books, scrolls, and potions, and a sitting area, and some Quidditch equipment. So far I have crafted several books including a volume of Quiddler magazine with real printed pages on the inside. I also folded some tiny chocolate frog boxes. There is still so much left to make including wands, owls, candles, and tons of other tidbits from the books. I would love to make some clothes for my dolls, but so far my attempts and sewing have been absolutely terrible. I posted a few pics on instagram.

I also collect video game figures. I have Skylanders which I bought to play with my nephews and neices, and Disney Infinity which I really just bought for me, and Lego Dimensions. I recently constructed a display for my Lego minifigures from a 12 x 12 shadowbox that I painted white and adhered white Lego pieces to. You can see pics of it on Instagram. The funny thing is that I swore up and down I was not going to get into Lego Dimensions, for the sake of my wallet but when I saw that Doctor Who was part of it, and that every time he died he regenerates into another doctor, and even the inside of the Tardis changed to match the Tardis that each doctor had, I just couldn't resist it any longer. I should have prefaced this by saying that I have almost all of the other Lego video games, because I love the game play. It you want to relieve stress and enjoy some therapeutic destruction, play a Lego game.

I also collect Tarot cards. I don't actually believe in tarot readings, but I do adore the visual symbolism in tarot cards. Seriously its amazing to see how uniquely artists can interpret the meaning assigned to each card through pictures. I have 3 sets at the moment. My first and favorite set was created by Rann Poisoncage. My second favorite is the Mucha Tarot which alters the art of Alphonse Mucha best known for his Nouveau advertisements. Lastly I have the traditional Rider-Waite deck which has established most of the imagery found in modern decks. I wish I could get my hands on the DNAxCat tarot from Taiwan. It features cute cartoon cats.

Flying whales.... I LOVE them (actually if you attach wings to anything..)

Cute Ghosts

Pocket Watches and Feminine Top Hats

Victorian and Edwardian clothing

Characters and art of video games like Journey, Okami, Bastion, and Don't Starve.

Robots, and Automatons and Gears

Bees

Hexagons and triangles

Tarot and fortune telling (I don't actually believe in it, but I think that the visual symbolism is beautiful.)

Foxes and woodland creatures

Food with faces... is that weird? I have a couple stamp sets from lawn fawn and mamma elephant that have smiling cookies, coffee and fruit.