    I've been drawing a lot of ACEO commissions lately! They are so much fun to do, and a really neat challenge to try and capture a character on such a tiny piece of paper. Here's a selection of some of my favourites. You can see all my ACEOs, commissions and personal work, over on Reaperfox.com!
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 Well, it's a kind-of Battlestation! This is where I spend most of my days at home! Ever since I got a new PC, I've wanted to set myself up so I could use my Yiynova with it (my old PC didn't have enough connections to install multiple monitors). The Yiynova is on the left - it's a Cintiq alternative (at a third of the price!) that I treated myself to a few years ago now. I'd played around with Cintiqs before and really wanted one, but this review convinced me to try a Yiynova and I'm so glad I did! The screen on the right is actually a Samsung Smart TV. It's hooked up to my PC via hdmi, so I can stream videos to watch in bed! I need a television! I'm one of the few nerds that actually loves regular TV, I've always got it on for background noise if nothing else. I'd much rather watch a show like Doctor Who on live TV than streamed later - it's something about the comradery of knowing I'm watching with the rest of the nation. Speaking of Doctor Who, the Doctor Who Van Gogh picture was a gift from my friend DC, and the Tetris Blocks are actually an amazing light that Moose gave me for Valentines a few years ago! Behind it hides my PS2 and 360, and you can just see my PS3 under the monitor. I have an iPod touch as well as the ancient old iPod docked there, but my old iPod holds so much more music. I don't really use either, since I'm usually watching television or listening to Spotify, but they're nice to keep around. It's important that this little nook of my room is colourful, fun and (relatively!) tidy! This is where I draw, game and do all my social media, so it has to be calming and nice to sit in. I have a small pull-out table that I set up next to it all for my real media arts and crafts since the PC desk isn't really large enough for it. Yes, that's really how much room I allow for my mouse. Office desks really aren't made for gaming! Anyway, that's about that! I figured you guys might like a glimpse at where the magic happens, as it were. I love seeing other people's desks and setups so if you've got any pictures to share I'd love to see them!  Tags:
Inspired by You Fancy Me Mad's recent 'Everyday Cosplay' post, I thought I'd post some old photos here of one of my favourite cosplays! I absolutely love cosplaying, but I'm really bad at making the clothes (not to mention really bad at the time management needed to make really good cosplay outfits!) so I don't get to do it as often as I'd like. However, when my friends and I first started watching Gravity Falls, we all fell in love with the characters, animation and amazing stories. I realised instantly that we should do a little cosplay group! We went to MCM London Expo in October 2012 and were spotted by the lovely RavenBlakh Photography, who offered to take some wonderful photos of us all! 
Mabel was so much fun to cosplay as! She's so goofy and fun, I spent the entire convention just bouncing around and enjoying being a complete dork (so, not much different to the norm, really!) Her cosplay was super easy to make, I found a second hand jumper in the perfect colour, bought some felt strips to make her trademark rainbow motif, salvaged a purple skirt from another cosplay I once had, and wore a pink headband! So simple! 
The rainbow was super easy to make, though I admit I had my Mum's help a little bit since I can't use a sewing machine to save my life and my hand stitches weren't all that tight on the stretchy jumper! I simply cut three stripes to form the rainbow and cut out a yellow star, easy as pie. I also put together most of Moose's Dipper outfit, since it was literally just a blue vest top and orange shirt, both salvaged from a second hand shop somewhere locally. The only bit of work I had to do was draw a blue pine tree on his trucker cap, which I bought super cheap from eBay. Like I said, I'm not very skilled at complicated cosplay! And last but not least, my buddy Luke created his own Grunkle Stan cosplay, complete with eyebrows over his fez - authentic! 
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 It's not easy all the time. Usually, after we spend an extended period of time together, it's very hard to say goodbye at the train station, knowing he'll go back to being words on a screen or a disembodied voice through my speakers. I love that we're so similar in our habits (read; both complete nerds) that 'hanging out' online is easy and natural for us, but sometimes it just plain doesn't cut it. Real Life Moose is just so much better than Online Moose. But, y'know, someday he won't be Online Moose anymore. There's an end in sight, now he's out of university and making plans to move closer. There are a lot of big changes coming, and the next five years could be really crazy. It's still a slow process, but it's happening, and I can't wait until the dust has settled and we'll be able to look back and realise that, yes, we survived the long distance relationship.    I met Moose online, during a game of Team Fortress 2, and honestly I think the way we met has saved us from a lot of the hardships that come with long distance relationships. He and I are gamers, and our online circle of friends (and, heck, offline friends, too) are gamers as well. We met on TF2, and grew closer because we spent every single evening, often for hours at a time, on the same silly map together. Some of my favourite people right now are people I met on that map, and most of them are still a part of my daily life, years later, because we're all part of a community that connects every day to chat and 'hang out' and play games together. And when we're not gaming together, Moose and I talk all the time. And I'm not even really exaggerating. If we're both home, we're both on Steam, typing away. In the evenings, we'll both be on TeamSpeak chatting amongst our friends, too. If one of us isn't online, we'll be texting, Whatsapping, sharing photos and calling each other. He calls me every lunch break when he's at work, and most commutes to and from, too. With all this, I probably spend more time 'with' Moose than anybody else, even though we only get to see each other face to face a couple of times a month. We're both such a huge part of each other's lives. We both love each other's friends. We both want the same things in the future, so that's the goal. Isn't it everybody's? In light of Moose and I celebrating our fifth anniversary as a couple, I figured it might be nice to talk about long distance relationships and how on Earth they can work. Or rather, how on Earth one seems to have worked for us. I have to preface this first by saying that I'm aware our 'distance' really isn't so bad - Moose lives currently in London and I'm down in the South West, so we're at most a three hour train journey from each other. It's not much, and it's doable even for a day trip, so we're luckier than many.
Still, we are a long distance relationship. I don't get to see him after work. I don't get to watch Doctor Who with him on live television, or eat dinner with him, or warm my hands on his belly after a long walk home. He's probably quite thankful for that last part. Tags:
 I set out to blog about this trip with the best intentions! I wanted to write down every day and what we did, in the right order, but ultimately I just never found the time. I'd remember to document the day's activities over dinner, and by the time I got back to our hotel it was long forgotten in a haze of well-fed exhaustion. We had five days in the park, generous for Disneyland Paris, really, but filled every one of them with a lot of walking, rides and laughter. I won't be able to do an accurate, day-by-day recap like I'd initially wanted, but I'll hopefully remember enough to capture the holiday perfectly! We went from Bristol via Easyjet, thanks to my very patient dad who gave us a lift at 7am up to the airport! Because it's really out of season, Disney were doing a special deal where you get two nights and days free if you book two nights, so Moose and I had booked Sunday-Thursday at the Sequoia Lodge hotel. I'd never stayed in a proper Disneyland hotel before because they're always so expensive, but this deal made the whole trip, including breakfast and park tickets, just over £500 for the two of us. Considering park tickets alone are 80€, I'd say it was a heck of a bargain! However, because the only flight we could take Sunday would get us in far too late to enjoy the park, we booked a Saturday morning flight and planned to stay in Val D'Europe, just down the road from Disneyland Paris, and right outside a big mall. The plan was to check out the mall, grab some essentials and dinner on Saturday, and then enjoy a full day of Disney on Sunday. We stayed at the Séjours & Affaires Apparthotel after reading some reviews. It was super cheap (around 40€ for the night) and basic, but perfectly adequate for what we needed. It was easy to get there from the airport (TVG train down to Disney, and then RER back up one stop - it was hard leaving Disney behind even though we knew we'd be back tomorrow!) We rested up and then had a long look around the mall (turns out, malls everywhere are busy as heck on a Saturday!) and grabbed dinner in Del Arte, an Italian restaurant we'd visited before on my birthday trip a few years ago. I had fond memories of the meal we had there before, but my meal this trip wasn't very great. I don't know if I just chose badly, but it was very boring and kind of canteen-y. Moose had a yummy looking pizza though, so I think it was probably just a bad choice on my part. On Sunday we grabbed a McDonalds before heading towards the park. My suitcase wheel melted as we were heading towards the mall, so we decided to get the free Disney shuttle bus. We went straight to Sequoia Lodge and oh my gosh! It was just the most beautiful place! The second the bus turned into the forest I was in love. The hotel was wooden and brick and birdsong played in the lobby and around the bar. The staff all wore National Park uniforms! It was adorable and cozy and lovely. We had opted for a Golden Forest Club upgrade, which offers free drinks and snacks during the day, so we took advantage of that before we jetted off into the parks.  The first park we hit was Walt Disney Studios Park, because it closes earlier than the main park and because the best rides are there!  We did Armageddon, which was a sort of behind the scenes of the special effects walk through, and then queued up for the Aerosmith Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, which I'd never done before! Don't I look like I enjoyed it? Though honestly the lady in front doesn't look much happier!  I know we rode the Tower of Terror next, but honestly the rest of the holiday is a complete blur to me, so, here's a collection of some of my favourite pictures! We did pretty much everything open in both parks apart from the Disney Junior show, and the Motor Stunt Show.    
   This is our 'We're On A Small World' face  
I love Disneyland Paris! Sure, it's not the American parks, but it doesn't try to be. I've been to Disneyland in California and Disney World in Florida and the first time I went I was so worried I'd compare it unfavourably to those, but really it has a charm of its own. Here's a mini summary of the five days we spent in the parks.
And I'm sure tons of other wonderful stuff I've forgotten about! And then it was home time! As we were about to take off, a snow flurry hit the plane and we had to wait around hours to get de-iced before we could take off, which meant we got home super late. I've never been inside a plane as they de-iced it before, but it was rather like being in a car wash. We didn't back home until 1am, by which time we were absolutely shattered and pretty much fell asleep where we dropped. Absolutely can't wait to go back to Disney though. I can't wait to 'do' Florida with Moose, since I haven't been in years and he hasn't been since he was a kiddo. Hopefully in the next couple of years! If Disneyland Paris keep their cheapy deals on though I might just have to sneak back to France in the meantime!  Tags:
 Sorry for such silence here lately, but this is why! Last week, Moose and I celebrated our fifth anniversary in Disneyland Paris! I'll do a proper photo-post and recap soon, but suffice to say the whole trip was magical and I'm so sad to be back to reality now! However, one thing about finally being back in my normal routine means I can finally get serious about blogging here on Dream Somehow! I really want 2015 to be the year this place transforms into something great, and that means actually posting regularly and throwing myself into the wonderful community online around geeky girls and their awesome blogs!  Tags:
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Hi! I'm Selena an artist, blogger and gamer!
Dream Somehow is my little corner of the internet where I talk about life, the universe and everything! Here, you'll find travel, adventures, vintage style, life in the South West of England, a little bit of Disney dreaming and a whole lot of geeky nonsense. If you'd like to learn a little more about me, click here! Instagram
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