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Feb. 3rd, 2006 10:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenLast night, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ivy03 returned my Battlestar Galactica season one DVDs, and roommate Lisa started in with the miniseries after aborted writing group (shame on us all, not having anything!). Since I had no interest in Slayers, I went to watch BSG with Lisa. We got through about the first half of the miniseries.
It's amazing how different everybody looks in the miniseries. When you first get onto Galactica, it's so packed with people, and they're all spiffy and clean. Edward James Olmos looks ten years younger and fifty pounds lighter than he does in the series currently. Starbuck and Apollo have the worst haircuts, and she comes off mainly as bitchy and he's incredibly prissy (not to mention it's clear Jamie Bamber worked on both his accent and his physique between miniseries and show, improving both immeasurably). Boomer is weepy and weak as she leaves Helo behind (Helo is fairly unchanged, good for him). Baltar is...he's like the Baltar we know and love only less twitchy, and I almost wondered aloud what was--should say 'wasn't'--wrong with him.
But Roslin....wow, she has always been amazing. The miniseries is about the only time she allows (or the camera follows) her being scared about her iminent death, and it's heartbreaking. Mary McDonnel manages to convey her pain in the series, but she's always so strong about it--seeing her weak makes me respect her that much more (and hate toady little Doral who wants, of all people, Apollo to be in charge instead).
Mostly, I was wowed by how little pathos they seemed to have, even in the midst of the Cylon attack. Lee's harping on his Dad is so whiny compared to what they go through later and have issues with each other. Starbuck's smacking Tigh across the nose seems incredibly brash for the gal who tends to resort to heavy, insubordinate sarcasm through most of the series. Tigh orders the decks on fire vented to space and kills a bunch of people, and yet, it's like they're so....innocent, so trusting...
Also, while we were watching the miniseries, I started up my long-neglected cross-stitch. Turns out I'd managed to get done a lot more of the back-stitching (which is basically stitching on lines to give shapes definition) than I'd realized. Then I actually started stitching and saw that, no matter how much was already done, there was still A LOT to do. The pattern is a samurai, and his pants have these dragonflies on them that I have to outline the wings with little loops. Half the loops are one color, and half of that color had already been done. It still took me an hour and a half of the BSG miniseries to finish that one color. There's two more colors to do, then some edging at the bottom that will require beads, more detail on the samurai's face, and outlines of the tree branches in the back. My estimate is 10 hours to finishing, if I am really lucky and get the beading and the cords on his swords done right the first time. If not, 15 hours.
15 bloody hours, I ask you. 15 hours for the most painful, least fun, yet most necessary part of cross-stitching. You could seriously skimp on the cross-stitch stitches, but if you don't have the backstitch, it's just a blob of color for the most part, even on something as huge as the samurai (he's about 15"x10"). Oh, here's a picture (you'll have to click to enlarge it, or you won't see it in its ::cough:: glory), and apparently he's actually 18"x12". Yippie.
ivy03 returned my Battlestar Galactica season one DVDs, and roommate Lisa started in with the miniseries after aborted writing group (shame on us all, not having anything!). Since I had no interest in Slayers, I went to watch BSG with Lisa. We got through about the first half of the miniseries.It's amazing how different everybody looks in the miniseries. When you first get onto Galactica, it's so packed with people, and they're all spiffy and clean. Edward James Olmos looks ten years younger and fifty pounds lighter than he does in the series currently. Starbuck and Apollo have the worst haircuts, and she comes off mainly as bitchy and he's incredibly prissy (not to mention it's clear Jamie Bamber worked on both his accent and his physique between miniseries and show, improving both immeasurably). Boomer is weepy and weak as she leaves Helo behind (Helo is fairly unchanged, good for him). Baltar is...he's like the Baltar we know and love only less twitchy, and I almost wondered aloud what was--should say 'wasn't'--wrong with him.
But Roslin....wow, she has always been amazing. The miniseries is about the only time she allows (or the camera follows) her being scared about her iminent death, and it's heartbreaking. Mary McDonnel manages to convey her pain in the series, but she's always so strong about it--seeing her weak makes me respect her that much more (and hate toady little Doral who wants, of all people, Apollo to be in charge instead).
Mostly, I was wowed by how little pathos they seemed to have, even in the midst of the Cylon attack. Lee's harping on his Dad is so whiny compared to what they go through later and have issues with each other. Starbuck's smacking Tigh across the nose seems incredibly brash for the gal who tends to resort to heavy, insubordinate sarcasm through most of the series. Tigh orders the decks on fire vented to space and kills a bunch of people, and yet, it's like they're so....innocent, so trusting...
Also, while we were watching the miniseries, I started up my long-neglected cross-stitch. Turns out I'd managed to get done a lot more of the back-stitching (which is basically stitching on lines to give shapes definition) than I'd realized. Then I actually started stitching and saw that, no matter how much was already done, there was still A LOT to do. The pattern is a samurai, and his pants have these dragonflies on them that I have to outline the wings with little loops. Half the loops are one color, and half of that color had already been done. It still took me an hour and a half of the BSG miniseries to finish that one color. There's two more colors to do, then some edging at the bottom that will require beads, more detail on the samurai's face, and outlines of the tree branches in the back. My estimate is 10 hours to finishing, if I am really lucky and get the beading and the cords on his swords done right the first time. If not, 15 hours.
15 bloody hours, I ask you. 15 hours for the most painful, least fun, yet most necessary part of cross-stitching. You could seriously skimp on the cross-stitch stitches, but if you don't have the backstitch, it's just a blob of color for the most part, even on something as huge as the samurai (he's about 15"x10"). Oh, here's a picture (you'll have to click to enlarge it, or you won't see it in its ::cough:: glory), and apparently he's actually 18"x12". Yippie.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 03:57 pm (UTC)My mom does cross-stitch and she always does the backstitch as she goes along to minimize the 15-hours-of-pain. She is very sanctimonious about it =)
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Date: 2006-02-03 05:19 pm (UTC)Doing it as you go along might not be a bad idea, as you can probably securet the threads better. However, this one has some huge runs of stitches and a lot of the backstitching was properly supposed to be couching, I just got lazy (and it looks fine the way it is) so it required huge stretches of the thing to be done anyway. I just left it. Le sigh...