Now I actually got time to photograph and upload all my lovely Christmas cards! I don’t think I’ve ever gotten this many cards, taking part in the Qbee card exchange was awesome!
A huge THANK YOU to all great people who sent me cards and little gifts!!

All my cards! 19 in total.

From Anna Kirstin, Hev and Mendifae. I got some stickers from Mendifae too, but I forgot to include them into the photo. Stupid me. Thank you anyway, they’re really pretty!

Heather, Meghan and Cristina. Meghan sent a cute ornament too, thank you so much!

Ashley, Kim and Bubs

Jessica, Sarah and Miranda

Cyberdelia and Hanna

Cards from some lovely people over at TheFanlistings.org. Kryz, Kya and Valorie/Morbid Romantic. Kya also sent a cute little froggie charm, thank you!

And finally a card from my mother and one from Zaphod’s breeder. They always send photo cards of their dogs.

I was going to write an introduction to the club, but I realised that what I really want to talk about this year is the thing that amazes me the most about the Q*bee, and what I also think is the main reason for its success: the Q*bee spirit.

I hang around several other online forums and message boards, and many of them have the typical problems. You know… spamming, flaming, cliques, elitism. That sort of stuff.
On some forums you’re almost afraid to open your mouth because you know that if you say one word wrong the others will eat you alive. And some topics you can’t even discuss without things going completely overboard.

But The Q*bee is drama free!
No matter what kind of drama is going on on the rest of the internet, you won’t notice it in the Q*bee. It’s like an online sanctuary, a place where you’ll find nothing but fun and friendship.
A good example is a thread we had about the American election. We all know how heated political debates can get and how fast people can turn against each other, but nothing like that happened. It was completely friendly. Amazing really.
It’s like there’s some sort of silent agreement between all members that we don’t fight in the beehive. Like the club is to important to us to ruin it with petty eDrama.

That’s what I love the most about the club. It doesn’t matter if your website isn’t perfect, if you can’t pixel or if your English is a bit wonky—nobody will laugh and/or think any less of you. You can ask any silly question and there will always be people there to help you. And a lot of the members aren’t even in it for the pixels, they’re in it just for the lovely community. No need for super talent, just be your lovely self and you’ll be welcomed with open arms.
Joining the bee is almost like stepping into a room with a bunch of puppies. As soon as you enter we all start climbing all over you, sniff your hands and nibble your socks going “Whee! New friend! Come play with us!”

Seriously people, if you’re not bees already, come join us.
It’s the best online community by far, you won’t regret it

And after almost 2 years of lolling around moving stuff back and forth with no clue whatsoever I think I’ve finally figured out how to organize things around here. With my art/pixels I mean. I don’t want to put my pixels with my art because quite frankly I don’t know if I consider my pixels “art”. It’s more like a cute hobby or something.
So… now there’s a gallery where I put my drawings and other artsy stuff—and a pixel section for easy access to the dolls and what not. And damn it, I’m not going to change my mind again!

A few days ago I discovered SocialVibe. I guess some of you have already heard about this, but it’s new to me so I’m gonna talk about it anyway
SocialVibe is an online community that allows its users to get sponsored by companies and help raise funds for charity. It’s free and simple and a great idea.

How it works:

1. First I pick my charity. And there are lots to choose from, everything from endangered species to breast cancer to poverty. You can only have one charity, but you can change it as often as you like.
2. Then I pick my sponsor = the company that will actually pay the money. You can have two sponsors at a time, but like with charities you can change them whenever you want.
3. I get a banner to put on my blog/facebook/myspace page etc.
   For every place I put the banner I earn points. I can also earn points by referring new member, visit the SocialVibe forum and uploading photos among other things. There are many ways to earn points, but the main way is by showing off your banner.
   And here comes the good part: those points turn into money that my sponsor give my chosen charity!

It’s like a win-win situation for everyone involved. My charity of choice gets money, my sponsors get advertising on a huge number of websites all over the place and I feel good for helping out. There are stuff for the users to win too, like drawings and contests and such, but the main focus is to allow ordinary people like me to give a little back.

I chose the WWF as my cause since I feel strongly about the environment and animals.
I then chose MAC and Ed Hardy as my sponsors. I like make-up and know MAC doesn’t test on animals and Ed Hardy is a really cool rock n’ roll designer and I figured it would be nice to be associated with him *lol*

Does this really help anyone?

“SocialVibe allocates a sizable majority of our monthly income to charitable donations. Points earned by members determine the amount of our monthly charity funds that will be given to each charity partner. We currently donate to charities on a quarterly basis. As of July 2008, we have donated over $90,000 to our partner charities.“

^ from the SocialVibe website.
If you check out the charities on the SocialVibe page you can see how many supporters your cause have and how much money has been raised. As for my cause it says that 25 000 members has raised 11 300$ for the WWF. There is a goal to raise 3000$ in 19 days, and there is already 1800$ raised.

Sure, there are no way for me to check if they actually give any money, but I don’t think it would be such a huge community if it was all a scam. I think it would be discovered pretty fast.
And there’s a link to SocialVibe on WWF’s own site. I’m gonna take that as an indication that they like it and that they do get something out of it, why else would they have their link up?

Oh, and you get a pink ball!

When you raise 2000 points you can request a pink ball. It’s an actual ball, pink with a white star, that you get sent to your home. I only have 560 points so I haven’t got mine yet, but you can see photos of other users with theirs balls on the website

Now go join! Btw, if you sign up by clicking on the banner up there I will earn lots of points

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
(Btw, the first snow is falling here right now It’s very pretty)

The diagnosis is simple: I’m a slacker and a procrastinator who needs an energy-injection Ok, no more playing around. I have work to do! This is my to-do list for the week:

1. Call my boss about some papers I need from her (first thing tomorrow!)
2. Finish 3 fanlistings that I’ve been approved to run (i.e. make layout + buttons + upload everything to the internet)
3. Reply to every single mail in my inbox
4. Clean the apartment
5. Do the laundry
6. Finish a whole bunch of illustrations I’ve been commissioned to do
7. Make a Halloween treat for the Trick-or-treat activity at The Qbee—done!
8. Fix some things around this place

And I wont play any more Heroes until I’m done, damn it.

EDITED 25/10

Just hope the poor girl won’t die when she sees all my spelling errors and poor english grammar…

Two self portraits made for the welcome activity at GLAM!. Everybody made a doll of themselves and it was put together in a gigant collaboration

This is Gladys Nagita. She’s a model I made for the Flawed Perfection Modeling Agency contest. It was like Top Model with dolls Gladys was inspired by a friend of mine from Uganda, I wanted to make a black doll for a change too. Sadly I missed a deadline and got kicked out, so I only came in 9^th place. But it was fun while it lasted anyway.

Me as a rockstar Made for the Rockstar Me contest at The Enchanted Glade. Of course I made myself into an 80’s glam rocker!

My avatar for the GLAM! forum.

“Site of the Month for September 2008 goes to Rockwitch! This dollers style is crisp and refreshing. Her site is definitely worth visiting!”

Tee hee, this is the first time I’ve ever won anything like that. I’ve won pixeling contests before, but never contests like this when you don’t have to send anyting in or participate in any way. I haven’t applied or anything. And it not just any crappy site either—it’s the awesome Haven of Silindor!
Thank you so much ladies This really made my month!

These past days I’ve been randomly surfing around looking for some directories to join, and found some nice places too, but I’ve also noticed something that bugs me a little. On more than one site I’ve found a rule saying “no doll sites please”.

Um… what? What’s wrong with doll sites?
Ok, if you’re thinking of those hideous glittery palace dolls people used to make in the 90’s (and are very rarely seen today), and those pointless sites with nothing but huge dollmakers filled with graphics they’ve probably stolen from somewhere else. But that’s just one small part of the dolling world.
There are TONS of beautiful, unique, creative and personal dolling sites out there. Sites that any directory should be proud to have in their scrolls.

Sure, some doll sites have poorly coded/ugly layouts, but that goes for ALL types of sites. And besides, most directories have a rule saying you must have “decent layout and content”. So you’ve already ruled out those places.
Saying “no doll sites” in your rules is like saying “no cat sites” or “no sites about knitting”. Seriously, wtf? Is dolling really such a turn-off among some people? Or do you think that dolls = ugly 90’s glitter dolls?

I’d like to know what you people outside the dolling world think when someone say that they make pixel dolls. What do you think of it? Do you even know what it is to begin with?

// Karin, proud doller

It’s named The Blue Room and has a music (mostly rock) theme going on, come join us!

I still haven’t finished everything though. Some links aren’t working yet, like “creative” up there. I have to re-do that whole page. Might be som missing images somewhere too I think.
But I will finish it as soon as possible! I just HAVE to sleep now

But please tell me what you think anyway, is this any better than before?

EDIT
*********************
Ok, it’s all done now Just have to upload some more content, but everything works now.

Even though I’ve been drawing for most of my life I’m still a total n00b in the art world. I’ve only sat at home just drawing for myself and my family, I’ve never been to any art school or even tried to reach out to the world and sell myself.
It wasn’t until I started my web design education I began to realise that I might actually be able to do something with this. I applied for that education mostly to learn about making websites, but classes in how to do vectors and handle Illustrator and Flash was also included.
And along the way I realised that what I really want to do, more than anything, is illustrate. I just have to get better at marketing myself. I’m way to shy and introverted, and I’m really good at locking myself in, away from the rest of the world. Of course I won’t get any illustrating jobs—nobody even knows I exist! I really have to pull myself together…

TO DO:

1. Make more drawings/designs in different techniques and with different styles and directions. I have to many dogs made with coloured pencils, and not enough humans and vectors.
2. Make a classy portfolio. This site is just a personal playground, somewhere to house my dolls and other random stuff. Way to unprofessional.
3. Find out which companies/persons/etc. might be interested in talking to a illustrator.
4. Send mail/talk to everyone on list generated in point 3 above.

Ok, I’ll start there We’ll see how that goes.

I already have a “real” blog, it’s in swedish and that’s where I post toughts, happenings, photos etc. regarding my every day life. And writing the same bullshit in two languages and post it on two separate sites just seem like overdoing it. I’m not that interesting. And this way at least I spare my international visitors
I do have a guestbook and a mail form if/when my visitors wish to contact me. So it’s not like I’m hiding from you or anything.

But I’ve tought of something new now.
This is supposed to be just an art gallery (+ additional personal info just for the fun) so I try to keep my updates on this main page short and to the point. But that’s kinda boring isn’t it? And I actually get a few hits on this site, so why not try to make it a little more fun and personal around here?
I think I want to make this into a blog after all—an art blog Where I can post artsy thought and happenings.

Ok, the truth is that I’m not the best writer. And english isn’t my first language so expect lots of grammatical errors and misspelled words even though I try my best to get it right.
But I think having an art blog would be a little more interesting than just having an update log and it would give the whole site a bit of personal charm, wouldn’t it?

I’ve also made a CG drawing. I’ve done a few stuff in Photshop before, but it’s not until now I’ve finally(!) figured out the the technique
It’s me and my black unicorn *lol* Made it just for practice.

First 3 are some of my characters and the last one is an av I made for Lin over at CC. So no adopting, ok!?
And guess what—Karin has figured out how to make animated gif:s in Photoshop! Knowledge I should have had like… 5 years ago? God I feel so retarded for not learning this sooner…

What else is new?
Most of the changes are for my own sake and you might not notice. I’ve cleaned the back yard so to speak—relocating files, updating code, fixing typos and broken links etc. I’ve also taken down some old stuff that I don’t really want to have here and added some new.

And the layout is new of course I haven’t had a rockwitch featured in the layout for a long time and I decided it was about time.
But the greatest update is the removal of the dreaded splash *lol*

On the splash page you can choose between “blog” and “art & graphics” and I hate that. I hate splash pages and I don’t want to have my domain in sections. I’ve been thinking about this back and forth and finally decided what to do!
I will give my swedish blog its own domain! I’ve come up with a great name that I really want and everything

That means that rockwitch.net will be my english playground and nothing else A place that stores my dolls and pixels, my Qbee quilt and anything else I might want to show my international audience.

But I’m in the process of moving irl right now, me and my boyfriend has found an apartment where we can live togheter But moving requires lots of time and energy so I won’t have time to do the changes here just yet. It might take a month or two.

I know I can’t really stop anyone from doing it, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t adopt the moon-me and the bee girls. Ok?