Tiring Tuesday 3/24/09

The night's spoils of yet another 2 1/2 hour long Art History class, where the lull of my teacher's lecturing (or rather, his lulls tied with facinating history and/or sexual innuendos all over the place like any good art school teacher) entices me to draw the most random things ever. Because if I'm stuck in a class where I don't even really need to pay attention to the teacher to pass his tests (I got a 100 on the last exam...wut I only studied for 2 hours???), I may as well do SOMETHING I can enjoy.

This week: I had a headache in class, Matt had a headache in class, although apparently his is because he can't understand war strategy unless The Art of War hits him in the head. Rogue isn't impressed by that, and Zero just finds it amusing. Oh, and Mets. Mets with different helmets. And a random cube.



Tommorow is a work/comic day. Huzzah. Hopefully it will go well. I have to check the local surplus store to see if they sell any Military MREs (You know, Meal-Readyto-Eat, what our brave and hard working soldiers eat when they're out on the field and not near a place that does hot chow), as in Graphic Design we're redesigning packaging, and in THEORY if I can get my hands on a couple of MREs I'd like to redesign their packaging (perhaps that'll make things in them more...edible...lol). But I dunno. Even in the surplus store in Spokane (home to Fairchild AFB which has SERE school for the Air Force, KC-135 tankers, and a communications squadron), I couldn't find any. If my search is unsuccessful I may have one other option to pursue before I either have to buy 80 dollars worth of food I probably won't eat (as the best contractor/civi version I found of the MRE was only sold in goddamn 12 pack cases), or choose another package to redesign. Eh. I have to get the things inside the MRE because I have to do a "mockup" of my design for the final crit in....a week and a half. Ugh! Wish me luck.

Sleepie times. Later.

New Playlist+Painting WIP

Okay, I <3 the 90's but that dance track playlist was getting old. So I slapped up...oh...about 150 (mostly) video game related music for your enjoyment (hopefully.)

Also, let me show you a painting WIP I'm doing. In the end it's going to be according to our teacher "Adam and Eve in an enviroment". So I have part of the female part done, and then we have a male model coming in later. Plus I have to add a background either from life or from reference.



That is all for now. Maybe more stuff later.

MOAR

I'm on a roll today, apparently. Last character sketch. This one...is a complete mystery. Who is it? Well, it certainly aint Zero, Rogue, Matt, or Keegan. Oh gosh? A new character!? REALLY???



Okay, I'm done now. My brain is fuzzy and I need to go get sleep. Later.

In record time.....

Hello Zero. Lookin pretty snazzy with those guns, aren't you?

こんにちは、リュショさん。ゼロさんの方がお前さんよりちょっと高いですね？
(Hello, Ryusho. Zero is a little taller than you, isn't he?)

I effed up a little on Ryusho but it'll get fixed in the inks. If I can ink him on that paper- I may have to do him digitally because I had to screw with the pose too much.

Zero Pencils

So continuing on the project I've been pursuing of making character designs for most of the major characters I've got in my arsenal, here's the rough pencils for Alexander McNeill, also known as his callsign, "Zero".



This was done in my new sketchbook which I bought in Seattle on Spring break *I lost the flipping drafting pencil I had bought though- goddammit, 7 bucks down the drain!* A cheaper watercolor paper stock sketchbook than the $15+ Moleskines I normally buy...but they're Japanese, so by cheaper I mean a high quality for a lower price! Huzzah! I highly reccommend them I think.

Rogue is supposidly going to go on the other side of this page I've drawn Zero on, but my lunch break is just about over so I dunno when I'll get it done. We'll see. LOL.

Moar dumpage of artwork + thoughts

Hey guys. More stuff outta my sketchbook. Most of this was done on Tiring Tuesday (AKA the day when I have classes from 8:30 in the morning until 9:45 at night...). And I really need to clean my room so I have access to my scanner again, apologies for how cruddy some of the images look-they're just sketchbook pages though. Just some concept sketches for characters and random crap.







And in other news....I think I may try and get some comic work done this month and the next so I can get a table in Artist's Alley at my local comic con, Spokane Comiccon? It'd be a nice experience and might help me get some commission work/ give me some direction in my work maybe? Last year I met some nice guys there, in particular, this fellow named Eric Anderson who works on a little comic I read called "PX!" (the full title is PX: A Girl and Her Panda) and who worked at the only local 3D gaming studio in the Spokane area (*cough* Mead*cough*), Cyan Studios, well, before it met a very languishy demise. I'm at least gonna go and see him this year, but I'd really love to have a table there. It depends. Im gonna try and enlist the help of one of my fellow artists (she has a Deviantart account here, as well as a Blogger account which her comic work will be going on eventually), maybe we can have like, "comic days" where I can actually get some work done.

(Oh, and mentioning PX makes me want to put it in the link category- done!)

Technically I still have that Rebel Forces tale that I started but never finished- (see this post for what little I had done on it.) it was a one-shot that was going to deal with the relationship between Tobias and his father Matt...and by one shot, I meant it as just an exploration of things with the possibility for more if it did well.

And there's also Moonlit Shadows, which was a craptactular comic I started in my freshman year of college (and then my animation coursework got in the way ALOT). It has the pro that these characters and the storyline are all my creation- Rebel Forces has some problems where some of the characters are not my creation AND we're still working out story issues VERY VERY SLOWLY, me and my friend. *sigh*.

But if I did that I would REALLY want to redo all the pages. In Tobias, I'd like, redo the cover and some color on the pages, but I was fairly pleased with the direction I was taking it otherwise. Hmm.

Wish me luck I guess. I don't really have many people motivating me to do any sort of work lately aside from schoolwork- my own work has kinda...languished.

Oh, and also, some work from my Illustration and Graphic Design classes that I did recently. One is a redo of an illustration from the Pacific Northwest trickster tale about Raven (who steals the sun from the Sky Chief in order to place it in the sky and give us light), and another is a poster done in the style of the Stenberg brothers advertising for an false exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (AKA MoMA)





I'll have more work later for viewing. My next project in Illustration involves toys, so I'm gonna design a couple of skateboard decks with some cute punk urban crap hopefully. Yeahz.

Imma gonna go channel the spirit of Jack Kirby so I can get shitloads of work done! Whooosh!!!!!! (I mean- I have a research paper I need to do of Mr. Kirby very soon.....durr....*)

Matt Colors+Wiki

Okay, so, the mouse problem with my Macbook seems to be a software issue perhaps...as when I left my computer alone and it went to sleep, when it came out of sleep the mouse button worked again.

I dunno. I know how to "fix" the problem now, so life goes on as somewhat normal.

So I was able to color the Matt picture today. Yay.



Not as fond of how it turned out as the color job I did on Keegan, but detail wise Matt had a bit more going on than Keegan did because of that accursed jacket of his, perhaps? Or something like that.

Also, last night I had a time when I was supposed to be sleeping, instead I decided to work on the Wiki that I've set up for the world most characters I randomly post up come from. Also, there are more pictures on this site that (most) perhaps have not seen or I enhanced from their original "sketch" version through the power of Photoshop....so there.


http://rebelforces.pbwiki.com


More to come later, maybe? night.

Quickie Things

Oh, and two more things, now that I think about it before I go to sleep.

1) I added a link on my sidebar to a new blog that "I follow" or "I find inspirating",etc,etc, "Joseph's Art". I don't know the guy personally, I saw his work originally on 'skine Art, but he's from Spookaloo (AKA Spokane, WA) , and I like the way he does his Moleskine sketches. Good enough for me.

2) I did do a little bit (but not as much as I would have liked) sketching and things when I was in Seattle, along with some pictures....you can find those here. , although if you want to only look at the Moleskine stuff, it would be in this directory specifically, which is "Moleskine doodles and scraps"/. Just various things, I don't feel like explaining them all- have fun looking at them I guess.

Kay? Kay. Night.

Matt Inks

I have the worst cold on the planet right now, so my productivity level is like.....UGHHHHHH.....right now. But as I'm feeling a little better and I'm back from Spring Break, I inked Matt.



Don't know when I'm going to get around to coloring this- my MacBookPro's mouse button/any USB mouse has mysteriously decided to stop working....although the tablet still works as a mouse....what the efff.....so to be on the safe side, I have to back up EVERYTHING on the computer before I take it over to Ringling's IT- because it's probable that they may take the laptop and either figure out what software problems causing it (OSX reinstall- ugh) or send it in for repairs AGAIN (Last time I had a broken LCD screen- that was $600 bucks of my money gone....) *groan*

Long story short I have bad luck with electronics. My Intuos tablet also refuses to work properly with Windows Vista/my FragBox...the cursor jerks all over the place and I haven't figured out what's causing it. Ugh.

Anyways, sleep now, see you later.

K Bio Colors...

I finally finished the colors for K's bio picture. Thank you, the new Rockman art book I got for helping me decypher the ups and downs of cell-shading like Capcom games have. =)

Now I have Matt to do. Eventually. >_>

Review of Moleskine City Notebook- Seattle...

I'm on Spring Break now. Huzzah! Let me show you my new toy for this break.

(click on the thumbs to see the full image- somehow I CAN'T figure out what Blogger's problem is with outside linked images! =/ )



(No, not the cat! Silly. Let's zoom in. )



Remember I had said I had Moleskine awesomeness arriving? Here ya go. It's a "Moleskine City Notebook- Seattle". Complete with a Marriot Seattle Waterfront pen, lol lol lol.



(I also have one on Prague....but...am I ever going to go to Prague? PFFFT. I can also say that quality control on Moleskines remains acceptable.....the Prague book was published back when Kikkerland had a hand in Moleskine- while the Seattle book is fairly new...I'm tempted to say 2008 for the Seattle book??)



Anyways, reading the inside of the slip wrapped around the moleskine- it reads-

"The first guide book you write yourself:

*to create your personal city map
*to use it to collect and keep everything you need and enjoy: places, addresses, people, stories, memories.
*to use it over and over, modify it, update it.
*to be sure to find, the next time you visit the city, everything you'll need there.
*for exchanging information of all kinds.
* to go back over your travels in your memory and your imagination."

So the basic premise is that this is a book that you have a hand in creating- your own little black book for Seattle. Lol. Anyways, let's take a look inside, shall we?


1) City Map
The city map is split into two types:



First we have a map outlining the Metro ( bus/monorail) routes of the downtown Seattle area. Its a bit unusual in that they decided to print the map in two pieces- the downtown area is from north to south and they chopped the map in half at about the Washington Convention/Trade Center and laid the crops side by side on the 4 page foldout. Hmm. Looks like any Metro map you might find in Seattle...the routes are nicely outlined,etc,etc. The only thing missing is the South Lake Union Transit (AKA the SLUT. *giggle*) streetcar, but eh, technically South Lake isn't downtown so not needed. Its a nice map.

Then there is about 12 pages of a street by street layout of MOST of Seattle....most of the places the average tourist would go, at least. Here's a page of my favorite part of Seattle, lol.



(International District FTW, I <3 Uwajimaya Village...)



There's also a street by street index, which may or may not come in handy when I'm trying to find where the hell I am, lol.

2) Blank pages.



There's about 70 or so pages of blank pages "For Notes and Thoughts" of Seattle....I'm probably going to end up filling it up with sketches-conviently it fits in a pocket. The paper is the same paper which is in the "plain notebook" Moleskines- thinner than the paper in the "sketchbook" or "watercolor" Skines, so don't expect any watercolor pieces in this book....oh well.

3) Address Book



Tabbed pages for listing whatever addresses/information you need during the trip.




There's also blank tabs that they included stickers which you can label yourself....cool.

4) Tracing paper.




I'm going to assume this is for the map/Metro map pages so you can figure out what routes you need to take/where to walk to get where you need to go, without screwing up the maps with pen or whatever. Convenient. Although it says "tracing paper for your itineraries and whatever...so....there could be more to use this paper for! Hmm.

There's 15 sheets of paper that can stick to the book. Cool.



All in all, I'm pleased with this book. They even included pages where you can mark where inaccuracies can be marked/suggestions for improving the notebook...and also lists a website, www.moleskinecity.com which supposedly has "cityblogs with curiosities and traveler experiences." I checked out the website.



Very nice looking, easy to navigate. Only one problem:



No cityblog on Seattle, only New York and Los Angeles. Hurm. Hopefully in the future this will change- as you would hope if they published books on cities not listed here, they would open up the opportunities to have blogs that will expand upon the books+ give ideas to fellow moleskiners to fill up these city books with. =)

I go on my siesta to Seattle tommorow unti Wed- so hopefully I'll have pics and scans to show during my trip. Later!

By the Skine of my teeth.

Yo. First...a gouache thing I did today in Painting (which was empty because my teacher is a softie + doesnt assign homework and things, lol). I only had about an hour to work from this really neat photo book that somebody left in class....I wasnt about to steal the expensive art after all. So sorry it's not...finished more. Gouache is pretty fun though.




Also, it was another boring night in art history class. Durr. But I did draw a doodle that reflected how I felt about that effin class.



I do admit I still enjoy drawing older Matt more than I do the current design I have for him- angsty anti-hero arsehole badass is way more fun to draw than innocent hero naive boringness had was when he was younger. And I like drawing snarly angry things. >_>. Point in case? Well, here. First thing I ever drew in my watercolor moleskines I had bought for 30% off at Borders one day....



I actually still rather like this picture. Now if only the REST of my sketchbook would more consistently look this way....lol...


Drawing this tonight also made me realize that I <3 my Moleskines and I have a freak ton of them. See?



(Only 2 in this pile I'm actually in the process of using though...one is mostly full and the band broke on it, and three others still are shrinkwrapped....)..and not included in this pic because I was too lazy to go digging for them- 1 full pocket sketchbook, 1 full regular sketchbook, and 1 "Moleskine City Notebook- Prague" Why? because Prague is cool. And it was on clearance at a store for dirt cheap. >_>)

Another Moleskine should appear tomorrow as well as I bought a certain one for my Spring Break trip thing....gawd....and this is just Moleskines, NOT including all the OTHER sketchbooks I bought and then failed to finish filling them up....durrrr.....

The madness of my sketchbook addiction won't stop anytime soon either....I'm going to Seattle over spring break. Seattle means Kinokuniya, and Kinokuniya means SHIT LOADS of Japanese stationary/writing+art things. >_________<

Me, Myself, and I.

One more week and then it's Spring Break for me. Huzzah.

You may have noticed that whenever you surf onto my page that there's now random 90's Dance music ripping through your speakers- I decided to put a playlist up. Don't know how long I'll keep it up there, but for now it's entertaining me. If it horrifies you, there's the player client on the bottom of the screen that you could just, you know, turn if off with.

Meanwhile, today, aside from being zooed with work and my insides tearing themselves apart (need...advil...naow....but it's at home and I'm currently in a lab! >_<), I decided to be one of the many who's done this little meme/challenge thing from Katie Beaton's LiveJournal, concerning "what would yourself today say to your younger self?"

I figured it might go something along the lines of this:



Incase you can't read my handwriting:

Panel 1
"So uh...hi younger self. Whatcha' doing??"
"Playing Sonic 2. Hold on, lemme pause."

Panel 2

"So, in the future, is the truth out there?" (*cough* X-Files*cough*)
"Pfff. NO."
"Do I go to CalArts and be a Disney animator?" (I knew about CalArts since I was like...7 and had read about it in a Christopher Hart book- so I REALLY wanted to go there....LOL)
"Ugh...you learn that "artists" are weird + annoying sometimes..."

Panel 3
"Is there ANYTHING awesome in my life?"
"Gah, hold on, lemme think'a minute."
*think* *think *think*

Panel 4
"You can still spend mosta your free time pretending to be a super space fighter warrior."
"THAT'S IT!?"
"LAME!"

*****************

Seriously, when I was a kid....I had great thoughts and fairly awesome dreams. Nowadays? HAHAHAH!!! My younger self has the right to yell at me a little, I guess, lol. (not that I'm ashamed of it- just life and adult responsibilities...)

Anyways, must go. Insides complaining some more. Need to go home. Later.