Spasticsnap's Lost Music

You Want Flies With That?

2012-01-30T12:51:00.000-08:00

The first watercolor is inspired by the photo of the underside of a peacock that I came across on Pinterest. I loved the unexpected coloration there, and kept seeing a woman in amongst the feathers, so I developed the Peacock Flapper painting.

The portrait is the second phase of my exciting mystery project (now with added marshmallow mystery)! Actually, scratch that. No marshmallows, just some flies. Which is sad, because marshmallows taste much better in milk than flies. I might be speaking from experience on that one.

Egocentric

2012-01-10T13:13:00.000-08:00

The new year has begun, and it's time to work on some new projects while finishing up the old ones.

Currently I'm working on an illustration where I'm using myself as the subject - this is a new element for an older project I'd like to finish up this year (which sounds vague, but I'll post its advancement on this blog). What you have here are two self-portraits done in slightly different styles. I like how dark the watercolor feels, as well as the textures of the skin in that version, but the composition is a little too unbalanced for my taste. I then made a more balanced, almost sanitized version in pencil, but I'm having problems with that, too. These are just raw elements (with some minor adjustments in Photoshop), but I'm going to try putting some watercolor textures into the pencil version. I like the progression I'm getting here - my original rough composition is starting to fit together, but I'm still a long way off.

Fresh Paint

2011-11-14T14:20:00.000-08:00

Finished up two new paintings last night - this one and another pouring medium piece. The pouring medium paintings don't photograph very well (at least with my limited resources), and this one is a bit too large for my scanner, so I'll have to figure out another way to save them.

This is a painting I've developed from a sketch a few months ago. It's all done in Japanese watercolors, which have a nice vibrant tone that I'm awfully fond of. Ink and pencil were also used. There's koi, sakura (or cherry blossoms), and the figure is a geisha. I think I was channeling a lot of themes my stepmother awoke in me a long time ago. Enjoy!

Spark and Monster

2011-10-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

This is what I drew tonight. I kinda like the characters a hella lot, and wanna play with them some more. Also, I don't know what kind of weapon Spark is toting around, but the ammo around her waist is totally too small for it. Maybe she's hiding another gun INSIDE the gun!

We're Having Soup Today

2011-09-12T19:27:00.000-07:00

Pretty recently I was experimenting with Liquitex Pouring Medium and some soft body acrylic paints. Over the course of my experiments, I kinda sorta fell in love with the medium. No, I'm not paid by Liquitex in any form - this is a genuine love story.

See how wet those paintings look? They are actually dry. The pouring medium turns paint into this glistening, kinky stuff that looks absolutely lovely at the end of the day. You merely mix it with your desired acrylic hue and then manipulate it any way you please. I used plastic bottles to squirt the canvas, of course there are extra elements included.

The darker painting was done with a lot of underpainting - I thinly painted some of the pouring medium elements on top of a piece that I sketched out with unmixed soft body hues. The painting with a lot of red in it includes some collage elements from papers I had around the house.

I definitely want to perform further experiments with the pouring medium in the future - it's easy to work with, and gorgeous when it's done.

As for the title? It's from this awesome show. Plus, I really am making soup for dinner tonight. Plus, the pouring medium makes me think of soup.

New Zazzle Store!

2011-09-07T12:18:00.000-07:00

It's a work in progress, but I'm excited to announce the beginning of my new Zazzle store! Feel free to check it out. ^_^

As a side note if you click on "See all products" in the above widget, you will NOT go to my shop - you have to click on a product and then select "buy" - or click on the trusty link provided below.

My New Zazzle Store!

One Paladin, With Bubbles

2011-09-01T00:29:00.000-07:00

I go to Wow Insider a lot (think: at least once a day), so when I saw this request by Alex Ziebart, I couldn't resist (you have to scroll down to the bottom of the column to read it). After sketching this out, I was inspired to take a soak myself.

As per your request: one paladin, with bubbles.

Anatomie Lupus Homine

2011-08-29T16:24:00.001-07:00

New t-shirt design up at Threadless - feel free to go over there and give a little love to it (of course when it's no longer pending approval). Thanks in advance for all your votes and support! Y'all are the best. :)

One day I will win a contest on that website, and it will be an awesome day.

Also, because this is a horror-themed competition, I'm going to go for the submission limit and post two more designs in the days to come. Warm up your clicking fingers, me beauties, because there will be a mighty wave of clicking to cozen those little digits with.

Sewn Watercolor

2011-08-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

So here's a quick and dirty picture (unlike my usual painstaking scans) of what I was twittering about last night! Yesterday I painted an original watercolor, then added stitching to it as a final touch. That's right - all the stitching you see is hand sewn into the paper. I punched holes using a regular sewing needle, but I'm thinking of using a paper awl for further projects. I do own a paper awl, but I was concerned that the resulting holes would be a bit too large. I'm thinking about using this mix of techniques in the future to create some more interesting, stitched-up pieces.

There's a loose thread dangling from the girl's needle, which gives the work an extra liveliness I like in particular. Looking forward to sewing up more pictures - perhaps even going for more textural elements by adding fabrics, a variety of paper types, and maybe even a thicker variety of paints.

New Post: Now With More Stuff!

2011-08-02T14:53:00.000-07:00

For the last month I've been working as a video game design instructor and camp director at Planet Bravo, so I haven't posted too much on my blog. The following musings, links, and stuff are an attempt to make up for the hiatus.

I worked on a design that I entered into a Beastie Boys poster contest that I think turned out pretty cool. Go check it out here.

Ghostmilk edited together an *awesome* SCAC music video - you should go check that out too!

So it's back to work on my list again!

To start with I'm trying to get back into working on my novel. I made quite a few notes last month, and I'm re-reading before I start writing again to apply them. My computer is being fickle and unstable - it keeps trying to update, but when it does it promptly refuses to recognize the existence of any and all available wireless connections. I've decided to ignore its pleas for updates until morale improves.

The Artsprojekt store is going to be coming soon - need to finalize a few more designs, maybe generate a few new ones this week. I've been really itching to make something creative, so this is a great release.

Hope your summer has been all kinds of wonderful - I'm looking forward to a (brief) vacation soon...

How to Customize Your iPhone Wallpaper WITHOUT Jailbreaking Your iPhone

2011-07-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

So I've spent much of this early afternoon figuring this out. As an artist, I thought it would be pretty cool if I could customize my iPhone 3g's wallpaper with an image I had made. Here are the steps so that you can do it at home.

First of all, check the dimensions of your image. You need a 320 x 480 sized jpg file. The dimensions, of course, are in pixels. I used Photoshop to resize one of my previous illustrations.

Next, plug in your iPhone to your computer. Make sure you have iTunes installed beforehand. I did this with my Alienware laptop so yes, this method works with both Macs and regular PCs.

When your iPhone is hooked up and iTunes is open, click on the name of your iPhone under "Devices" in the left hand toolbar.

You will see a great big honking image of your iPhone in the center of iTunes, with a description of how much space it has left, etc. Look for the tabs at the top of the screen - you should see Summary, Info, Apps, etc. Click on "Photos."

Check the box that says "Sync Photos from My Pictures (or choose another folder where you previously stashed your jpg file)." Then click on "Selected folders" and if you're feeling cheeky, "Include videos."

Now click on the folder below that you put your jpg in, OR find a folder, open up a separate browser window, and stash your image inside of one of those folders that is listed.

Click on the Sync button in the lower right hand corner of itunes.

Go to your iPhone, click on Settings, Wallpaper, the large button that shows an icon of your iPhone's current desktop, the folder you just synched with, then your image. This is a lot of clicking, but it's fairly straightforward at this point and shouldn't need much more elaboration than that.

Your image should be the correct size if you followed step one, so don't click on Move and Scale, just hit "Set."

You then have the option to set it for your Home Screen, Lock Screen, or Both. I picked "Set Both."

Your iPhone wallpaper is now way cooler than it was a few minutes ago, and you didn't have to jailbreak your device. Potentially this should also work for your iPod Touch, or your iPad. I don't own either of those devices so I can't test it out yet, but if you - gentle reader - can, please let me know how it works out.

Congratulations! Go eat something delicious.

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-19T11:13:00.001-07:00

All the weeks are busy ones - or so it seems lately. I've recently acquired my first smart phone (an iPhone) as an early birthday present, and I made the fatal mistake of loading up on apps over the phone network instead of wifi, almost capping my data transfer usage for the month. I couldn't resist the adorable games and creative apps out there, but I'll be sure to be much more moderate over the next few weeks.

I'm studying on how to promote my Etsy store a bit more, while at the same time looking for more regular work, and developing solid designs for my highly-anticipated (the apartment is seething with anticipatory energy) artsprojekt shop. In the interim I've created three new tattoo designs that are up for sale at Createmytattoo.com. Check out the tiger, the fairy, and the bad girl - they're eager to meet you all.

And a hearty appreciative tip of the hat to all those caring, kind fathers out there! To the mean, cruel ones I thwart you all with a brutal fist shake. Not that the bad fathers particularly care about my shaking fist, but it's still out there somewhere, quivering with menace just in case.

Painting, Painting, Painting

2011-06-11T12:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I attended my first ever Etsy Party, which I think was especially charming since no one there really knew each other, and we met with that mixture of butterflies and nervousness that a complete group of strangers generally has. We quickly warmed up to each other however, and it proved to be a pleasant early evening full of potluck goodness and supportive discussion.

I have been painting quite a great deal this past week, as well as working on my novel! Tons of watercolors are up for sale in my Etsy store (well, that's hyperbole - but it's difficult to get up to a ton of anything when you're working with paper). I also created the above illustration of the Girl With Furs, but I've watermarked it so I can do something special with it - possibly gently rework it so that it will be material for my upcoming Artsprojekt shop.

The Ducks Love Umbrellas and Friendly Skies postcards are available in my store - I may decide to do something else with those images too! Altogether I feel like my compositions have been very successful lately. I'm going to start working on constructing some simple blank journals to post in the shop, that should have some fun surprises to them. Hope your summer is going well!

Making Heads Roll

2011-06-06T12:01:00.000-07:00

The first step in my four-phase plan for world domination (or rent money, but I like my version better) is complete! I have now sculpted some amazing beads out of polymer clay and painted each by hand, then labored over the photography with my go-to photographer Mr. Ghostmilk, and voila - an Etsy shop has been made!

But lo, this is not the end of the Etsy shop, only the beginning! Expect more beads, watercolors, and even some porcelain work to arrive in the days to come!

She's Got Plans

2011-05-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

The past couple of weeks have been full of surprises and visitations. A friend from out of town, in addition to all kinds of family, have made my life very busy lately. Despite all the bustle, I've been focusing on a kind of multiple-pronged plan of attack - methods to make money while being creative without selling my soul to the highest bidder on craigslist. The following list represents all my brainstorming efforts. Oh yes, and the Grim Reaper on the violin above is a design that was not chosen by an individual as their final tattoo at Createmytattoo.com. He was fun to draw, though!

My Upcoming Plots:

Open up an Etsy store. This will happen next week, with an E.T.A. scheduled for Friday at the latest. My Etsy store will feature hand-sculpted beads, original watercolors and collages, embroidery artwork, and eventually prints and a zombie coloring book. You have been warned!

Post some tattoo designs in the Createmytattoo.com Marketplace. Instead of creating tattoos for individuals on an edit-by-edit basis, this will allow me to post up ink and get a (probably small) income from people buying my ready-made designs.

Create an Artsprojekt or Zazzle store. I'm on the fence deciding which of the two to really pursue, but I can upload artwork to either and have people buy my designs on things like t-shirts, electronic device cases, mousepads and the like. This will be happening at the end of next week after the Etsy store is up and running. Check out Artsprojekt.com and Zazzle.com to tell me which one you think would be better... Or are they both perhaps the same company with just two different faces? Curious!

Get E-Published. I have a large amount of short stories I've written over the years, and I'd like to edit and create a collection of them for sale through Amazon. This will undoubtedly not be my direct path to fortune and glory, but I think it will be nice to get published for multiple reasons - the primary ones concerned with developing a history of publication, and satisfying a long-term personal goal.

And yes, I'm still working on my novel! I'm getting a handle on budgeting my time, and spending a great deal of effort on design and preparation for all of these ventures. If you catch me scribbling in a notebook, I'm most certainly plotting one of these sinister ventures!

Braaaaains

2011-05-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

Because I've been on kind of a zombie kick lately. I've been consuming obsequious amounts of zombie films, zombie anime, and masticating some zombie ideas while writing out some zombie subplots for a novel largely about...werewolves. That's right, not zombies.

Anyway, more zombies soon to come! I drew them, don't steal them. Thanks. ^_^

More Tatts

2011-05-03T15:58:00.000-07:00

This blog post is a bit lazy - it's more a reference for me to use to direct clients to larger, more detailed versions of their tattoo designs (hence the watermarks). These are from a couple of contests at Createmytattoo.com. Even if the client doesn't like the geisha, I'm totally painting it and turning it into a print.

In other news, I'm thinking of starting up a Cafepress shop using some of my (in my humblest of opinions) best designs. We'll see how this goes, but some kind of profit would be nice. Enjoy!

Fresh Ink

2011-04-21T13:18:00.000-07:00

Since I've become a part time employee of Tattoo.com a couple of interesting things have been happening. The first is that if I mention that I work designing tattoos to a stranger/acquaintance/etc. I get automatically corrected - that is, I'm informed that I am a tattoo artist and not, as I state, a tattoo designer. That seems incorrect to me since I just design the tattoos, I don't actually tattoo anyone. I am distinctly under the impression that I need to poke someone with a needle in order to be designated a tattoo artist. Let me refine that statement - I need to poke someone with a needle and create actual inked art in their skin in order to be called a tattoo artist, not just come up with the art. Otherwise I'm just a sadist poking you for my own personal reasons.

I also get to see a lot of homemade art right now, which is pretty sweet. I particularly loved the graffiti that a guy who works at my local grocery store showed me from his iphone after he asked me what I do for a living. When you say you're an artist, people really like sharing their own artistic endeavors, and I think that's pretty damn fun.

The above images are two aspects of the same custom tattoo I've been working on, including the linework and the color reference pass.

Things To Do

2011-04-12T11:06:00.001-07:00

Here is a simple truth everybody knows: sometimes it's incredibly hard to be optimistic. Despite - or perhaps to simply spite - my ongoing struggle with optimism, here are some good things going on in my life:

I have a (sort of? kind of?) part time job with Tattoo.com.

I have a scanner at home now - an inexpensive but sturdy one.

My art is definitely improving all the time.

My writing is improving all the time.

What I really need right now is a steadier form of income, but I'm working on that. It can be hard to find work when you don't have retail experience, and your administrative experience is pretty patchy, but with perseverance I'll get something.

So! Go vote on my current Threadless design - I'd really appreciate it! Voters I know personally will get taken out for drinks and/or lunch if I win. Hooray!

Another Week, Another Design Contest

2011-03-23T05:14:00.000-07:00

I've decided I must be some kind of masochist because I've entered yet another t-shirt design contest - this time while being quite ill. If you'd like to vote on it, bear in mind that only people who have previously purchased a shirt from shirt.woot can vote. Also, you need to set up an account and log in. Or you can just look at the pretty picture and think that it's nice, too.

The Bridesmaid

2011-03-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

Since my t-shirt design for the Jinx Warcraft contest did not win, I've decided to post it in all its glory here! If you click on it you'll get a larger-sized version of it. The details are fun to look at.

It was a close competition - congratulations to all the winners!

A Tauren, Some Pin-Ups, and a Novel

2011-03-12T14:16:00.000-08:00

I have been busy. "Busy" is a terrible word that can imply a lot of effort without results, so I'll amend that. I have been very productive. Artistically productive, creatively productive, there is a bounty of wealth out there that I've bee authoring, and I'm proud of it.

Some of my sketches will soon be appearing in UCLA graduate filmmaker Christina Sun Kim's short film "Pretty Pictures." Links to the project and the artwork will start popping up when the project moves into post-production. In other exciting news, I entered a Jinx Warcraft-themed t-shirt design contest and my design scored second-highest of the submissions in the public voting round. In a little less than a week I'll find out the results, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks to everyone who voted - I always appreciate your kindness and support!

Throughout all of this I'm steadily working on my novel, which had a setback of about a week due to an influx of work. I'm in the second act, which is always a tricky place to be but fun to work through. Taking an online class in Java coding, which is interesting and fairly similar to C++ so far. Due to an unexpected eyeglass tragedy I recently replaced my usual specs for the new, dandy pair below. I am inordinately pleased with them.

The image at the top is a photographed sketch of my Warcraft main, Stirfry. Going to play around with her and color/paint in Photoshop - possibly to make a forum signature. I'm working on a couple of other projects at this point, so it's nice to have something to be a bit freer on.

Victorian Escape!

2011-02-13T19:29:00.001-08:00

So this is the final watercolor result of something I'd eventually like to use for the cover of my Kindle 2. As it stands I really enjoy the image as a narratively terse, stand-alone illustration. I've been working on some more t-shirt contest artwork that I shall dutifully post as they are finished, and I've also been starting some preliminary work on the pin-up girls for my new film gig. I'll ask the director if I can put up some of those images as well.

On this illustration specifically - I love the bright tones you can get from using the Japanese Sumi-E watercolor set by Yasutomo. You can get really slick, thick patches of paint that definitely pop off the page.

Harrowing heroine hounded (by hirsute pursuants)! Live telegraph feed at eleven!

Audition

2011-01-28T13:44:00.000-08:00

So I'm trying to get a gig working on a film drawing stuff, and here's my rough "audition" for it. It's just done with pencil, and the woman is completely from my own brain - no models used for her face or whatnot. Enjoy! Oh yeah, and a belated happy new year to all. :D

She Had A Bit...Of An Accident

2010-11-12T13:50:00.000-08:00

It's National Novel Writing Month! Good thing I'm always fashion-forward and already in the middle of a novel I've been working on for the past year or so. I've just passed page 150, which puts me squarely in the second act, and in the "middleish" for those who like technical terms. The image above that I sketched out has nothing to do with my novel, it was just for fun (because my "fun" consists of drawing the grisly remains of a woman who has apparently fallen from a great height? /sigh). The novel is actually a fantasy epic about werewolves.

Ah, fantasy! The genre best butchered by beginners and amateurs! Here's hoping I don't do the poor darlings any injustice. Because werewolves are pretty concerned with things like justice. And they have a better work ethic than I do when it comes to things like staying physically fit. Basically, any one of them could rip my head off and replace it with a teapot, which might be considered an improvement because hey, at least a teapot knows how to whistle.

Also, in the Warcraft section of my life, I've started a guild with a pretty unusual mission statement. So hopefully that'll do well, and we'll end up raiding into the sunset with pretty purples together (if that was a load of nonsense for you, just insert the shrill sound of a teakettle whistle here).

Happy trails to everyone! Pick up a pen or start picking at a keyboard and contribute to the novel cause - I can't wait to see the results.

Unusual Heroines

2010-11-04T01:14:00.001-07:00

I've been drawing quite a few heroine-type characters out lately - just the kind of beings that creep into your brain and let you daydream stories with them. This is my Steampunk girl. Enjoy!

An Introspective Moment

2010-10-29T17:22:00.000-07:00

I have had all sorts of things happening in my life lately - from getting a brand new car to a heavy installation of influenza - I've been living in interesting times indeed. Since today marks the first time in quite a while that I've woken up without dissolving into a fit of nasty coughs, I decided it would make an excellent blogging day.

This weekend will be filled with all kinds of last-minute Halloween preparations. I've been looking up spooky cocktails and treats, and working on my costume (which is pretty ambitious for someone who hasn't used papier mache since the third grade, so we'll see how it turns out).

Despite my illness (intermingled with obsessive vehicular happiness - I've never, ever owned a brand new car before so this is incredibly exciting for me) I have been drawing, so this post is featuring a self-portrait I composed using a fude ink pen purchased from JList (I can get the particulars of it if anyone's interested).

In other news I did not win Blizzard's writing contest, but am still incredibly proud of myself for actually entering this year. I know what a lot of the flaws in my story were, but enjoyed working on it purely as an exercise in and of itself. Next year I plan to: set aside more time for working on it, keeping it more strictly canonical, and policing myself to keep the story self-contained as it ended rather more like an opening chapter than a short story.

But for now it's back to looking at gummy spiders and mask sketches. I'll post with the bewitching results. Happy Halloween everyone!

The Writing's on the Wall

2010-09-22T19:30:00.001-07:00

My friend Meghan so graciously donated her wall to me a while back. It's a birthday present that was supposed to last a year, but has become a sort of tradition whenever I visit and it hasn't been changed in a while. I come over, she bleaches out the last doodle I put on her wall, and I doodle up a fresh one with washable markers. So here's the latest doodle:

I've been working on a sort of shadowbox sculpture that I believe I'll finally finish this week, so there will be plenty of pictures of that to look forward to.

Also, if the blog looks weird or fails to function, it's because I gave it a complete lobotomy. Let's see what happens now...

New Twitter BG!

2010-09-13T16:42:00.000-07:00

So I decided to change up my Twitter background with an image that I drew by hand, scanned, then doctored in Photoshop. The drawing itself is from a few months back, but the coloring and such is all brand new.

In Twitter you can only see part of her face at the moment, and I'm debating about a monster resize or leaving the interesting effect as it is. But you'll only be able to see the image in its full-sized glory here, folks!

Alas, You're "Your"!

2010-09-05T12:22:00.000-07:00

There is a disease on the internet. It’s not a virus, but a withering cancer of the English language. I don’t know when it started or who is to blame, but whether it was mommy and daddy demanding t.v. time instead of a bedtime story or the trendy apathy of the nineties bleeding into English class doldrums, it hardly matters. Because our problem is everywhere.

Language is important, and yes, even spelling is important. Correct spelling allows people to read sentences swiftly and without hesitation. Mistakes bog the reader down, forcing them to interpret a sentence instead of actually read it. While the creative centers of the reader’s brain may be lit up like Times Square, that’s not actually a good thing. After all, you want clarity in communication and ease of understanding when you’re telling someone something important, not an interpretive dance starting up in their skull.

So I’m going to tackle the symptom of the disease that’s most prolific: “you’re” versus “your.”

Don’t complain, don’t whine, don’t wiggle in your seat! This is important!

Very simply, many people seem to have problems understanding when to use one or the other. Hogwash. This is easy enough to grasp, and we’re going to go over it together. But first, a diversion.

‘

What is that tiny mark just above? It’s proper name is the apostrophe, which is pronounced ay-poss-trophy.

It’s best to think of the apostrophe as an assassin, a brutal slaughterer of all vowels who goes on bloodthirsty rampages, usually hanging on desperately to the end of a word. Just as “don’t” comes from “do not” (and thus marks the death of the “o” in “not”), or “can’t” is the vicious demise of the “o” in “cannot,” the apostrophe is on the hunt for your vowels, and can’t be stopped!

So why is there a mean old apostrophe in the word “you’re”? Surely it’s not up to it’s old tricks again? Ah, but it is! Because “you’re” means, for our purposes, “you are.” We’re just holding a funeral for the letter “a” with that one.

So let’s use the word “you’re” in a few sentences!

You’re the one responsible for peeing in my cereal.

You’re just going to look at me like that?

You’re a heartless, cereal-peeing soul.

See how easy that was? “You’re” means “YOU ARE,” and you can substitute that in many different circumstances. Go on and try it. I won’t even watch you while you mumble to yourself. I’ll be standing over here looking at this interesting wall hanging instead.

Oh good, you’re back. Excellent.

Now for the second word, “your.” This one is even easier. To wrap it up in a nutshell, it’s possessive. What does that mean? It means that it’s talking about something belonging to the subject “you.”

Examples being:

Your dog ate your kid sister.

I’m kidding, but your sister looks upset.

Oh, your sister’s mad because I peed in her cereal.

You could sit there and list things that belong to someone else all day, but we’d all get bored at that point. So instead, pat yourself on the back and practice. Try writing your own sentences, or texting them to your friends and family. Cull the spread of the dread disease that’s choking communication to an early demise simply by remembering the vicious nature of the little apostrophe assassin. Your colleagues will be grateful for it.

You’ll look a heck of a lot more intelligent, too.

Something From Azeroth

2010-09-01T23:35:00.000-07:00

Tonight's blog entry contains a brief excerpt from my entry in Blizzard's short story contest. Expect to see it published in full here if I don't win after their judging is over. Ah, and if you don't know what a "tauren" is, this is taking place in their Warcraft franchise story world. Think "Native American minotaurs" and you've pretty much got it. Enjoy!

The great gray tauren pushed through the snow, his usually stoic features twisted with distress. Behind him other tauren sent by the Elders accompanied him, all bearing heavy packs, lanterns, and ropes. Flurries fell around the small party, at times driving them back in their paces, but these gusts of snow were inconsequential.

For too many months the pass that linked Eyota’s home to the great plains of Mulgore had been blocked, impenetrable by anyone. The snow had fallen that winter like it never had before, storming and raging with a fury that no amount of prayers or practical efforts could alleviate. It was the snow that had isolated the tauren camp from the rest of the world, and what burned Eyota’s thoughts until he could no longer think with reason was that his family had been trapped there all this time without him.

Moving Right Along

2010-08-29T15:33:00.000-07:00

This week has been surprisingly busy, what with reworking a design for a company (and resizing without using vectors for a bitmap image can be surprisingly bumpy), doing classwork, and rearranging/cleaning all my furniture in a fit of fall pique. But I've still managed to find some private time to myself to play the mmo Atlantica Online which I've been enjoying quite a lot. The image above is a quick sketch of my character Ellekali in her ever-so-adorable sheriff's outfit. Shoot 'em up, cowgirl!

Saying Goodbye to Satoshi Kon

2010-08-26T15:22:00.000-07:00

Satoshi Kon has been one of my favourite directors since I was a teenager in high school. I remember slowly being exposed to Japanese animation back then like a dormant flower, opening up to it and responding to the art with increasing excitement and fervor. The first film of his I ever watched was Perfect Blue, and it resonated with me. After watching it I spent my days in a pitched fugue, thinking about all the Hitchcock I'd ever seen, all the film noir and animation, all the books I'd read about dreaming and schizophrenia - from Jonathan Lethem to Shirley Jackson and everything in between and beyond. He opened up a world to me, and it only got better.

There was Tokyo Godfathers. There was the television series Paranoia Agent. And there was Paprika - a film about the dreaming world that predates Inception, but cannot be surpassed for it's vibrancy and creativity. I saw Paprika in a darkened movie theater and left feeling as if I'd entered a new place rich with life. I blinked and stepped into light and flew, and he was the man responsible for that.

He was truly an inspiration. He was an inspiration to me and to so many other people I've known. He told stories that were complex and sophisticated and clearly for adults in a format that tends to be regarded as family fare in the United States. He challenged our concepts of what animation should be by showing us what animation could be. He did it well.

When I heard that he had passed away I was in shock. I literally could not believe he'd left us. He had so many stories left to tell us, he was so young, he was even in the middle of working on another film. Losing him made no sense, and it still doesn't, but death has never been known for making much sense.

I never met him, and I wish I had. I wish I had been able to tell him just once how much his work meant to me, and others like me.

Please go read his final words to us. They're beautiful.

Illustrated Adventures in Illustrator!

2010-08-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

This week has been hectic with projects (not all of them creative or very visual, either). This is my first venture into Adobe Illustrator and the exciting rectangle/polygon tools. I actually discovered some nifty shortcuts I wasn't previously aware of - such as holding the ALT key (or option key in a Mac) to draw shapes out from their centers. My favorite new shortcut though is hitting the CRTL (or command key in a Mac) to de- and reactivate the Pen tool.

Two Universal Truths and Page One

2010-08-05T12:10:00.001-07:00

So as a preliminary I took about a week off from blogging, and this post is coming a day later than I'd like it to, so an apology for not warning about that beforehand. A rare combination of working hard on other projects, feeling a bit under the weather, and meeting a new mmo (hel-LO sailor!) have combined to make blogging a bit trickier for me.

But I have learned a few universal truths about blogging over my time off, and here they are:

People often take time off from blogging because they are "busy," not necessarily lazy.

Writing a lot makes for a definite lack of cool images to post.

Not profound, but good enough to work with as a starting point. So in sad memorial of the absence of nifty pictures for the past few posts, I've decided to put up an excerpt from the novel I've been tackling. This is subject to change, it's rough, and it's the first page. So hold onto your hats and knickers (firmly gripping both to prevent wind shear) and read away.

The day was just beginning to get hot. The dust seemed to rise and linger a bit too long when the merchants and peasants lumbered by. The early hours kept the sun dulled behind a haze, but this brief mercy was apt to be revoked before long.

Tents and stalls were hastily being set up, small sleepy children squalled at each other from across the square. Hot mugs were passed along from hand to hand filled with bitter tea. Already there was some selling going on - a few sly barters between poultry and beef, herbs and dairy. Each vendor felt like they’d come away with the better deal, and grinned into their tills.

And amidst the slowly percolating commerce she stood there, eyes bright, staring avidly at the chickens.

There was such an intensity in her gaze - so lurid and vaguely inappropriate - that the poultry merchant shifted himself a bit more protectively towards the crates. He assessed her dress through pursed lips; older style, expensive material, worn but not shabby, but not fitting her quite right and somewhat slapdash in the lacings. She might have money, but that money wasn’t in the current coin. Perhaps her family had fallen on harder times and was sending out the daughter or maiden aunt to market for them - she wouldn’t know the value of the goods she was out to buy. Mentally he quoted her price and found it acceptable, even if he failed to find her hungry eyes so.

“Here now, good morrow m’lady.” His voice was gravelled with the hour and ill-use.

The lady in question shifted her eyes to his, and he shrank slightly. She was grinning - a most unladylike grin that exposed all of her teeth with such enthusiasm that he almost half-feared a bite. Her eyes glittered; they were an ugly color like a blue shirt left too long in dirty water, and there was a liquid avarice that moved across them just like water in a pail.

“Good morrow!” She enthused. “I see you have chickens!”

“That’s what I sell,” he returned cautiously.

“They look healthy. Very fat.”

“That’s why my prices are a bit above, you know. If I sold lean chickens they’d be half as much, but my birds are the pride of Hope.” He threw this out casually, leaning back on his stool behind the shelf of his stall.

“And soft! They look wonderfully soft.”

“Aye, no down would be sweeter stuffed in a lady’s pillow or a sweetheart’s favor.”

She laughed - when she laughed it was a spectacle that tossed her head back and made her hair glint and bounce. Hardly a cultured or pampered thing, this was the laugh of a madman or a sailor.

“I hardly think my sweetheart would want some bloody chicken feathers...although perhaps you do have a point there. Such odd customs!”

The merchant laid his finger alongside his nose. He was beginning to wonder if the lady was a bit daft, and could be taken for even more than he’d originally assumed. As he sat there ruminating, she reached for a crate and began to pull off the wooden slats. Immediately the chickens began to scream - not cluck or cry - but scream like fresh widows. The merchant stumbled to his feet, knocking over his stool, and his assistant at the back of the stall came forward to help, tripping over the stool and falling against one of the supporting poles of the stall.

The awning blanketed the trio, guards were coming, and in the middle of it all the strange woman was crowing with delight.

Contested Territory

2010-07-21T22:22:00.000-07:00

In the middle of my thesis work (and progression on my novel, and searching for employment) I've taken on a few contests wherein I try to pit my wits and skills against the cursed, cursed monolith of Not Winning. So in addition to the Bruery contest I've entered recently, I'm trying to come up with a feasible and diverting tale for Blizzard's short story contest, as well as try my hand at a few designs for Create My Tattoo and Threadless/Jinx. Yep, if anything I'm persistent. So what are you up to, gentle readers? Crafting projects or wondrous hobbies? Writing the perfectly honed haiku? Whatever you dwell on, may it bring a little solace and sparkle to your hours.

The Bruery T-Shirt Contest

2010-07-18T23:19:00.000-07:00

So the Bruery had a t-shirt contest and I simply had to enter. Here are my entries, the second one (which I humbly dub the Rugbrod Bandit) galloping to the entry deadline as my last creative brain cell caught fire and exploded. Good job to all the entrants. I'm keeping my fingers crossed until the 23rd!

Out Of Character

2010-07-14T16:33:00.000-07:00

At times you can reach a point in your story (whether it be a script, novel, storyboard, personal roleplay, or comic book boards) where you want a particular course of action to take place, but once you write it out it doesn’t quite work. There can be plenty of reasons why this is so. Perhaps the action is too contrived (Are aliens arriving in the midst of the unicorn cabal? Have you set up previously the idea that aliens might like to hang out with unicorns, or are you dumping them on the reader like an unwelcome house guest that has a tendency to pee in the potted palms when no one is looking?). Perhaps the action is arriving too early or too late within the plot and you need some major structural surgery. Or perhaps it can be one of the simplest sins and Character X has just done something that he or she would never do.

Just because you are the god of your own little paper and pencil world does not mean that you can whimsically tear it down whenever you feel like it (and if what we just read on the last page was “it was all just a dream” I’m looking at you...hard).

Action needs to flow naturally from the behavior of your characters, and basically within stories there are two types of action - what I’m going to dub internal forces and external forces. Charming Aside: I’m fairly certain other writers/instructors have tackled this concept, and even given the same or similar names to these forces, but I’m going to take a lazy pass and blame the zeitgeist on this one. That’s right, I’m not even freaking Googling this. In any case internal forces are actions that are motivated from the characters within a story, while external forces are actions that are motivated from the world that the characters inhabit. A hurricane is usually an external force. The hurricane can be a perfectly natural occurrence for a crew of people to experience out by some coastal town. That same hurricane can become an internal force if Character Y is a charming elemental-channeling sorceress bringing down the hurricane to devastate her fellow cohorts - either wittingly or unwittingly. Here’s where the fun comes in.

Is Character Y malevolent because of some past event and she’s out seeking meteorological revenge? Is she a bumbling ditz (beloved by virtually all Japanese animated series) who tried to water her sunflowers and got off to a bad start? Or did you just want her to summon a hurricane because you needed something spicy and wet happening on page seventeen? Normally I’d recommend another diversion if you need some mindless spicy/wet combinations (burritos are excellent you perverts), but if you absolutely need a hurricane there, you’re going to have to do some soul-searching. And by that I mean you’re going to have to search the souls of the characters you’ve created.

It can feel pointless and frustrating to list a bunch of likes and dislikes of a character at times. You don’t really need to know Nancy Drew’s favorite ice cream flavour in most situations if you’re trying to figure out how she’d react to uncovering secret military silos. However, you do need to know what your character would tend to prefer, want, or detest overall. Start big and then narrow it down from there to distill out the information you really need. If you have honestly examined your story and the way your characters are behaving and still find the action coming off badly, then perhaps something else is lurking amongst the lines and symbols, wrecking havoc on your sweet little world. If that is the case gentle readers, then you might need to break out the bigger scalpels.

Make, Then Take

2010-07-10T08:56:00.000-07:00

Make, then take.

This is not a new idea. I’ve read its iteration with increasing frequency, from the stern but beneficent guidance of Julia Cameron to the stoic injunctions of adbusters. Here is my interpretation: before you absorb the work of others around you, create.

This is a lot trickier than it sounds. It’s easy to wake up and get caught in a tangled web of news, emails, advertisements, facebook - our modern mythologies are constantly in flux, and acting all around us. Our attentions can be diverted by nearly any little thing. But this is why it’s so important to take the selfish moment first, to divide ourselves from the glowing herd and cultivate our own inner creativity. Whether you write, draw, craft or bake - no matter the incarnation of your creative soul - it should be a priority to dwell on the self before engaging in the created works of others. This isn’t just for artists either, this is a concept for any human being.

People who don’t examine the world around themselves, who stop questioning, are often the ones who grow bored the fastest. You lose the ability to wonder if you flip through life in shorthand - one experience becomes much like another, and everything is indeed similar if you stop delving into the details, stop dragging the toughest questions into the light. Sometimes the hardest questions to ask can still be the simplest: “Why am I doing this? Why am I saying that?”

We’re losing ourselves in the world around us. Sometimes this can be a positive thing. The phrase is “lost in a good book” after all - in someone else’s world we hang, suspended - and being there can inspire a lot of great thought and innovation.

It’s when the feedback dies, when the creativity only goes one way, that we die. Merely absorbing worlds passively, becoming sponges to the television or films or jingles, is the beginning of inertia.

The hardest thing for me to do every day is to remember to innovate before I intake, to not only open my mind but perpetually reopen it at every turn. It is so easy to merely have a feeling or thought without examining it, it’s a lot harder to investigate why something evoked that in the first place.

Because I’ve been thinking about this idea quite a bit, I ended up shortening it into a brief rhyme - it’s how my mind works. And that’s what I’m sharing with you gentle readers. I hope it takes you someplace special.

Make, then take.

Evolution of a Matte Painting

2010-07-07T19:49:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago I was working at an internship where I got the opportunity to help create a digital matte painting for a shot in a live action short film entitled The Hunting of the Snark directed by Michael McNeff. The following images chart the general development of the matte from conception to the final product. I studied a Gnomon workshop DVD about matte paintings before attempting this one, and learned quite a bit along the way!

This was the first preliminary sketch for the matte painting. The mountains are intended to communicate a frightening, almost alien world that certainly does alienate the characters. I indicate lighting in a rough way so that the moonlight gave kind of an eerie feel. At this stage the time of day was determined to be early twilight, combined with some dusk tones, but those were quickly eliminated early on. Note the red safety zones indicating what part of the image would not be seen in the final result.

At this stage I was developing the texture of the mountains using pieces of a photographed source material (mountains that were actually very brown in tones and photographed during the day). Hues were adjusted and a great deal of darkness and light were implied using the dodge and burn tools. Some shadows were also painted in and blended here.

Here's one of the preliminary passes with an earlier time of day implied. The foreground was largely unnecessary as actors would cover up most of that area in the final composition, but was included to cover up any empty areas between actors, and continue the illusion of realistic space. A kind of fog is made predominant as a temporary experiment.

In this version the time of day is obviously later, and the mountain on the right was narrowed in an attempt to make it more jagged and scarier. I was told to imitate shale, and a lot of research on shale followed.

This is the beginning of a series of versions where I was imitating a fellow matte painter who had used a more painterly style to create their images as requested by the director. Here the textures feel quite a bit more artificial. Even though these weren't chosen in the end, they still have a fairly interesting feel, and were fun to experiment with.

Michael was dissatisfied with the painterly way things were going, so we ended up scrapping that progression, and I drew a few more rough sketches and refined them. We ended up choosing this one to work with.

Using a similar process as before, textures were tweaked until this was the final result. Note that the lighting is perhaps a bit lighter in the sky, while the mountains are largely dark, helping to encourage a twilight feel. Although the edges of the mountains are sharp, they will be adjusted in the final composite in After Effects once atmospheric distortion is applied.

Here's an approximation of what the final composition would feel like. Overall the lighting in the background balances nicely with the foreground elements, and while the background gives a feeling of claustrophobia, they're not too interesting to detract from the foreground action. Michael liked the results quite a lot!

Secret Enterprises in the Living Room

2010-05-02T23:43:00.000-07:00

While saying "I've been busy" can be a great (and honest) excuse, it's never very satisfying in the long run. All those days spent away from the blog (and my friends) - what was I doing that was so damnably important that I could neglect updating this oddball collection of art and random musings?

A novel, that's what.

Of course it may be yet another novel that will reach the eyes of only one or two close friends before it finds its home wedged behind the couch, but I'm rather enjoying this endeavor regardless. It's amazingly cathartic to materialize all these daydreams I've had for so many years (this is an idea I've been picking at since middle school...ew, I know) into the gorgeous, fat lines of text I've been spewing. And spew, spew I have been! Sweet, delicious...spew.

Perhaps I should rethink my choice of secret passions. Nah.

In addition to the novel I've been working at my internship diligently, and I've started learning the ropes of digital matte painting in addition to picking up SynthEyes. I rather love the matte painting, and my boss lent me a tutorial DVD by the Gnomon workshop to study before I started cracking open the ole Wacom. The DVD was extremely interesting, and I'm now delving into Photoshop's Extract filter, which is a world of confusion and delight all on its own.

I'm also getting used to living alone - cats exempt from this statement of course. You'd be surprised at how fascinating setting up your own schedule can be when you're not used to it. Compound that with the complete liberty of a free space, and quite a lot of shenanigans end up taking place. Think of the spew! Oh that scrumptious spew!

I'm also beginning to go over my thesis concept again - boards, script, research - everything needs to be redone, and it's a weighty occupation I'm enjoying quite a lot, but having difficulty refining to my satisfaction.

And because I haven't posted art in quite a while, the image above is another scribble stolen from my sketchbook. I think I'll have a lot of fun working on different ideas for color when I finally get around to her.

Even though my secrets have been revealed, be sure that there's always another project on the horizon waiting to materialize and possibly devour some wiggly bit of your anatomy!

The Education of Miss Lopes

2010-04-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

As I engage ever deeper into the realm of internshipland, I find myself learning all sorts of interesting tidbits about the special effects world. If you're unfamiliar with my internship, I'm doing compositing work on a short film narrated by Sir Christopher Lee. Mostly I pull track marks in After Effects, and matte out bad green screen while trying to make the image retain it's inherent beauty. It was shot on a Red, which has a gorgeous silky look to it that's very reminiscent of film.

Collected here are a few hodgepodge things I've learned that I believe retain some element of interest to the most casual of sfx-lovers.

Gareth Edwards created an entire army for BBC's Attila the Hun while working with primarily two-dimensional effects. Quite an amazing feat for one man working alone. The video below will illustrate how he did this.

"Rolling Shutter" occurs when digital camera information comes in at the top of an image faster than at the bottom (at times in milliseconds), creating a skew. The foundry is creating a plugin to correct this distortion. Click here to watch a two minute film describing both the distortion and their plugin.

And if you're going to shoot a 3D camera movement with green screen, always, always, ALWAYS set up a C-stand with a track mark on it near the characters/figures/objects you are shooting that are standing away from the walls. You will be a lot happier you did.

Getting Sketchy

2010-03-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a lot of rough art in my sketchbook lately - some of them are different ideas I've been toying with for stories (some are illustrations for a novel I'm working on, for example), others are pieces I'd like to elaborate on for personal crafts, and still others are for homemade comic books I'm going to take a stab at doing (yet again!). I won't say which sketches are for what here - you can take your best guesses.

A Life Like Citrus

2010-03-09T10:05:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted for a couple weeks, and I could claim the regular culprits - my life is so busy! Everything is happening at once! I couldn't make time! This would be true, but I should have made the effort to post regardless, because posting gives me some balance in all the chaos.

My life right now in summary: Moving out of my apartment at the end of the month, but I have no new place picked to live in yet. I work at my internship twice a week and do a lot of keying and green screen matting - love my internship. The video game project is coming to its startling conclusion, and our demo presentation is looking fairly grim.

Creatively my ambitions have been reduced to a lot of quick sketches in a notebook, and a couple of pale stabs at writing caught between the business of living. One of my writing sketches is up at Gather. Life should be a lot more bitter than it is; I'm in transition, but mostly I'm a bit numb, a bit happy, a bit all right.

Enjoy this video by Ira Glass - it's the third one in a series about storytelling, and completely made my day.

Watercolor!

2010-02-10T13:14:00.000-08:00

The camera now has batteries - huzzah! This is the watercolor I've been painting with Sumi-E inks on Yupo paper. It's actually extremely textural, which is difficult to see with this photograph, but it was very, very fun to manipulate.

The image comes from a kind of half-dream I had as I was falling asleep and thinking about a story I've tackled off and on for years. In the dream a yellow ribbon was fitted under my chin, pierced the undersides of my lower eyelids, covered my eyes tightly, then was threaded through my upper eyelids to tie on top of a huge rusty cage on my head. The creature in the change kept on changing restlessly, but often settled on being a sort of raven man glaring out between the bars. The idea is actually rich in symbolism and portents, but I'll leave that to your glowing insight to dredge out.

Enjoy!

Oh, and I prefer the sideways version, but it started upright - that's why there's two.

New Post, No Art

2010-02-09T12:06:00.000-08:00

Aesthetically-inclined citizens, sorrow! The batteries in my camera are dead and the scanner I have access to is out there, in the windy rainy area I see when I peek out between my blinds. So today's post is art-free, and sad to be this way.

An apology in advance for the lack of posting, but life has been topsy-turvy as of late. I've started an internship at Unthinkable Images working on compositing and green screen replacement. This is fascinating stuff, very detail-oriented, and fun to learn. Even though the company is very, very small, the people and the work are phenomenal. I'm learning quite a lot, and having fun doing it.

I've posted an essay on The Art of Unemployment at Gather, so feel free to check that out and chortle along.

I've also finished a watercolor that this blog posted the underpainting of - but alas I can't share the final results yet (see paragraph one)!

Also, I've joined facebook finally, and Johnnie Grinder is both my facebook cohort, and newest member of my blogroll. Go check his stuff out! It's awesome!

The Living Desert...

2010-01-27T16:29:00.001-08:00

Everyone has a holy relic - an object symbolic and profound even it its very mundanity. For some it's a place, a memory, a piece of jewelry. My object is a book, battered and much-loved, the corners rounded because everything gets rounder with age.

It's a copy of Walt Disney's Living Desert, a book that attempts to be educational by being anecdotal, but succeeds best with its photography.

For it is a picture book after all, with many color stills taken from Disney's documentary series of the same name. Illustrations in clean black lines alternate with harrowing photos of bobcats and rattlesnakes, threshes and hornets.

Because at its core, it's lurid, beautiful heart, Living Desert is about curiosity and wonder at the simple and wonderful savagery of nature in its raw form.

No matter the anecdotes and the cinematography, my holy relic speaks about man's love for blood, and the constant struggle between admiration and horror within that no one resolved into an appreciative, family-friendly format like Disney could.

And when I flip through it I am comforted, recalling my childhood sorrow and delight as the bobcat escaped the wild boars, and the red-tailed hawk devoured his freshly-slaughtered rattlesnake. Because we are animals too, and in our own lurid hearts will never end our romance with our primal selves. To remove that would be to sterilize our selves, and our very souls.

Underlings Arrive

2010-01-17T23:32:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me when I was looking at the Ripper blog post that the art is all very...small. So I decided to post some of the character designs here where they'll be big and friendly and want you to click on them. The quality of the scanner I used at UCLA is simply amazing - I'm going to write down the specs of the machine when I go there tomorrow to see if I can wrangle the tech gods on high to send me one of those bad boys. And of course I'll let my faithful readers know what the specs are too!

The illustrations are painted with Sumi-E watercolors and have a beautiful opacity and density to them - I'm loving working with them. There are two underlings - henchmen of Jack the Ripper - and a sidekick of the protagonist, a little street urchin girl who dresses as a boy.

Enjoy. ^_^

Pulling Aggro 1

2010-01-15T17:35:00.000-08:00

So here's my first attempt at a Warcraft-related comic (that I promised a few days ago). The characters are roughly based on my main (Stirfry) and my friend Sinnerchrono. Note that Lawl isn't based on anyone in my guild, but just on the general principle of horrible tanks - i.e., the guy who knows everything about what everyone else is supposed to be doing in a raid but doesn't, quite possibly, seem to know much about tanking. And actually Sinnerchrono has much better armor than I drew here, but my Wacom pen decided that life was too much for it to bear and took the easy way out via the trash can. In the future I think I'd prefer to draw on either a Cintiq, or hand-draw and scan like the villainous scum I am. /sigh

Oh yeah, and if you click on the pic you get a bigger image, you techwizards, you.

Anyway, enjoy! ^_^

Ripper Game and a New Demo Reel

2010-01-15T16:15:00.000-08:00

I've put a new post up at the Ripper game site - feel free to check out some of the new character designs and concept art I've uploaded. Also, the video below is a brand new demo reel of my work. This is the first pass at the reel, and will probably get tweaked along the way, but it's got some fun stuff going for it. The song is "Daylight" by the band Matt & Kim - it was great to edit to.

New Portfolio Site!

2010-01-11T15:08:00.000-08:00

I'm trying out a new portfolio site at carbonmade.com. Feel free to check it out here.

Officially Kicking My Butt

2010-01-05T22:21:00.000-08:00

Marrowgar bugged one day which let me take this screenshot of him, and if you have no idea what that is it isn't important, and carry on with your life as usual and so forth.

I'm working on a short comic strip that's Warcraft-related, and coloring it is kicking my butt, much like Marrowgar above. So in a day or two you'll get to see my attempts at being humorous in three panels. Which is far different from savoring my delicious wit via a short story, or a pithy one-liner, or pointing at me and laughing at my haircut.

Because yes, I need a haircut, and I'm too broke to get one. I'm hoping that my standard upswept bun will cleverly hide my passe shabbiness should any employment interviews be forthcoming. You hear that universe? Forth...coming!

So far my clever disguise is working! Hooray!

Underpainting!

2009-12-31T12:59:00.000-08:00

So here's (finally) a picture of that watercolor I've been working on. I'm using a watercolor paper called Yupo, which lends itself to some really interesting effects. If you look at the lower arms of the figure, they're "outlined" by prepping the page with an eraser, then applying watercolor over it.

This is an underpainting, so there will be a lot more color and tonality and detail coming up, but I love the raw shading you can get from basically one note. Blue has an infinite web of variety, and it's great to explore every strand of it.

The image comes from a half-dream I had - from that hazy twilight time when you're just falling asleep and a million things are still running through your brain - relating to a story I'm working on. It's a bit ominous-looking, but the little crow-man is more complex than just a wicked figment ready to pounce. :P

Have a Happy New Year everyone! May your days be creative, productive, and filled with love.

Beginning Again!

2009-12-10T14:14:00.000-08:00

I've been crazily mired - between looking for work and working on art for my Jack the Ripper game - life has just been a total rollercoaster. But I promise I'll have some stuff up soon, even if it's just a quick digi doodle. :)

Much love from the Lopes!

New Painting Up Soon!

2009-10-19T14:21:00.000-07:00

I've done a bunch of sketches for a new painting I'm working on, and I think I'm getting close to an end result I'd like to really focus on. I'll be sure to post both sketches and final artwork as soon as I'm done. Happy Monday everyone!

Bird Going to Fly

2009-10-04T22:14:00.000-07:00

I'm about to go visit my dad for a week, so tomorrow is a *big* day. Need to go to school to return some equipment from the Gamebryo training session, stop off at the Registrar's office, and then hit the road from here to Vegas. I'm not a huge fan of the drive, but it's not bad as long as I remember to charge my ipod up tonight. Then I get my vintage radio programs to keep me company (Suspense anyone?).

All of this is a little stressful, and I'm hoping a weird sprain I got on Saturday will be totally cleared up by then (it's in the center of my chest and makes practically everything uncomfortable...yuck).

I wanted to draw something for this post but everything I put a pen to just seems to fail. Next time. :P

Getting Ahead...

2009-09-25T13:13:00.001-07:00

Yes, I like puns. That's what happens when you raise a girl on Piers Anthony books.

So! These are photographs of a head I sculpted for the Jack the Ripper game I'm developing at school. I wanted her neutral expression to have some tension in it and fatigue, while still retaining some vestiges of beauty. The character is a prostitute about to challenge one of the most infamous prostitute killers in history, so I believe some fatigue and tension are definitely in order.

Using this head as a model, a Maya head is going to be made based on it. I'd say my biggest critique is that there's something uneven about the jawline, but that can be doctored up.

Joy in the Clouds

2009-09-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

Another new design for a tattoo contest from Createmytattoo.com. Fingers crossed that the lovely lady likes it. :P

New Twitter Background and Signature

2009-09-11T12:22:00.000-07:00

I made myself a new Twitter background and signature for fun and to surround myself with prettiness! The signature is in reference to my "missmeat" screen name (which I often use), and the background just combines quite a few of my fave visual memes. For fun, go check out the Top Ten Things No One Ever Told You About Being an Animator while I stroke my one long chin hair pensively.

Life Is Complicated - I Know, Right?

2009-09-06T19:14:00.000-07:00

So a million trillion unlucky little things are happening in my life right now, and I'm trying to focus on doing creative stuff but feeling a bit glum. So here's a list of places online I like to sneak away to when I'm a bit down and out:

Shiny Shiny - where all things gadget-y and girly crossbreed. A story about a connect-the-dots tattoo caught my eye (it's the last pic in the gallery).

Gather - because reading things that other people write can either really intrigue me, or really annoy me, depending on my perspective at that moment. I don't understand the new pinging system and sincerely hope that at some point someone will either explain it to me, or hold me and tell me it's o.k. to have no idea.

Deviant Art - I don't know why I'm not a member - I never feel like I have enough interesting pieces I want to share with them...yet. Anyhoo it's fun to browse this site.

The New Music Video King Rat by Modest Mouse - I linked this video because I really love the use of limited animation in the video, and it matches the song so well! A beautiful piece overall.

There's other places, too - I'll try to think of them so I can add them in another list next time. Happy browsing!

Fun Things and Stuff...

2009-09-01T15:35:00.000-07:00

So I have a meeting tomorrow to help get the game I designed into an official bit of code - and thereafter demoland (yay!), and let's see, what else is going on?

I'm doing a bunch of sketches for a painting I'd like to do - having problems with the right angle I'd like.

Archiving five years of notes for a novel I'm starting to tackle - yippee yay! I like research. Researching myself is a bit weird though.

Hit number one for multiple minipet collections at warcraftpets.com (silly, but nifty).

Bought the coolest handwarmers ever from super sweetheart Dottie at etsy - I'm using them all the time when I'm at the keyboard!

Still looking for work, but trying not to stress about it - it'll come. :)

Nine Premiere Party

2009-08-27T22:44:00.001-07:00

Tonight I went to a premiere party for the upcoming film 9, which I worked on as an intern for the art department! I helped paint the texture for the protagonist's weapon, among my other duties, and I'm super stoked to see how gorgeous this film turned out. It's based on Shane Acker's Oscar-winning short (also named 9) which I recommend you see if you get a chance.

Good work, guys! Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard on the film!

What I'm Reading

2009-08-25T10:25:00.000-07:00

I'm a pretty omnivorous reader, and so in the middle of my job search/portfolio work I thought I'd share what books have been on my mind (and in my bag) lately.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke - A beautiful novel set in Duke Wellington's England where magic is both malevolent and malnourished, reawakening in a land that has long deserted the principles of English magic's proponent, the Raven King. A great, easy read that I've been savoring for a month or so, simply because I hate leaving a compelling Victorian world.

The Were-Wolf by Clemence Housman - A short novel/novella where the werewolf is actually a female. The piece is primarily religious allegory, but exciting and interesting for its own merit. Published in 1896, I read a version off of my Kindle.

Black God's Kiss by C.L. Moore - Sword and sandal fare with a blend of the supernatural, the supreme female protagonist Jirel faces off with all sorts of beasties in this collection of short stories.

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett - This is a re-read for me, but I felt compelled to return to England (perhaps Mr. Strange took me by the hand to lead me there) where a Cinderella-type story simmers in the well-done atmosphere of a moody, bleak boarding school. This is also traveling via my Kindle.

All of them are heartily recommended - Black God's Kiss is especially delicious if you've been missing some pulp in your fare.

Ipod Cover!

2009-08-14T17:32:00.000-07:00

For a while I've been kind of dissatisfied with my ipod case - even though it was skintight, it tended to get dirty, and somehow scratched my mp3 player, which I didn't like. Plus I wanted something cuter, and kind of personal.

I made this cover for my ipod using a pattern I invented myself. I'm not even sure how to follow a real pattern, so this was kind of a challenge. :P I first sketched out my design, then measured it out onto tissue paper using my video ipod to help me make sure the final cover would be snug, but not too tight or too baggy. I then ironed the fabric, cut it out, marked the fabric using pins and an ink pen, and sewed away! I kind of wish I had a sewing machine, since working by hand took me a bit of time, but it was still really fun to sink my teeth into a project like this.

I only made a partial lining so that when I flip the case open the backside of the lid won't look ugly. Lastly, I sewed a charm my mom found a while ago onto the lid to act as a weight. I was debating about adding snaps or a handle, but so far I don't seem to need them.

The whole project took me about four or five hours to make, and I'm very happy with the results. I purchased the fabric from This n That From Japan, and absolutely love the Bremen Town Musician theme - it's super cute! ^_^

If anyone would like a copy of the pattern I made, let me know and I'll scan it in and post it.

In Brief

2009-08-11T15:33:00.000-07:00

My life as it stands: Entered a contest, didn't get into the final running. Sent in at least five job inquiries yesterday, no news back yet. Wrote an article on Gather reviewing the Kindle 2. Started a new blog about something I'm pretty good at - making money in Warcraft - and received one comment about the income tax rates in Los Angeles. The comment part actually cracked me up. Haven't broken into my ipod cover project yet, but I'd like to this week.

When life is a farce, it does it in full force. :P

Contests, Ipod Covers, and More...

2009-08-07T20:59:00.000-07:00

The job search continues! So far I haven't had a lot of luck, but I'm still persevering. The art for today is from a contest I entered at createmytattoo.com. It's very specific to the wishes of the contest holder (a Suicide Girl named Antigone), so it's not 100 percent Michelle here, but pretty fun nonetheless. I omitted putting mold on the "dead" mermaid, for example. Mold and visible bones occasionally poking through is much more my style.

I'm going to be working on sewing an ipod cover using some adorable fabric from This and That From Japan. The theme of the fabric is the Bremen Town Musicians - a fairy tale I really loved as a child. I'll posted my methods and result right here, and if I'm successful, I'm thinking of making my Kindle a new cover, too.

Hope everyone's been having a good summer - one of my fave times of year is coming, the fall. When stationary goes on sale, the air gets chill, and summer turns into a memory you get a time for reflection, and plenty of snuggling.

Woman in a Wolf Mask

2009-07-26T15:16:00.001-07:00

I finished this painting last weekend. It's painted with oils, using turpentine for thinner, on a wood board. It's actually part of a series of images I'd like to do - let me know what ya think. ^_^

And because I love fabric, and I really think this blog is very cute - try out Rae Gun Ramblings if you're in need of some idyllic crafting fun time.

New Painting in Progress...

2009-07-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

Actually, it's an old painting! But it's going to finally get finished up this weekend. I'll post all the delicious (and/or chaotic) results once I'm done. Have a fabulous weekend, everyone!

Vectorized Drunken Owl...Yeah

2009-07-08T01:15:00.000-07:00

So I pulled out Flash 8 to kind of keep my hand in it today and came up with this drunken owl. He made me fairly happy today amidst the crush and pull of the crazy mundane crap. I think he probably needs more contrast, but I'm going to try some other techniques out tomorrow.

I wonder why my vector art never tends to turn into a jpg very gracefully? (I.e. retain its beautiful vector crispness when it's a jpg) Is there a way to do this that I'm overlooking?

Edit: So I solved some of the problem by exporting the image from Flash at a higher dpi resolution - 300 dpi instead of 72 - and exporting as a png file. If you click on the owl below, you'll actually see a much improved image. However, the shrinking Blogger does in order to make a button for this post currently makes the vectors look a bit yucky on this page. I'm still wondering if I can preserve a vector-friendly file that will present itself gracefully once it's been turned into a button. Hmm...

27 Whacks With A Paddle...

2009-07-03T23:49:00.000-07:00

I turned 27 today! In celebration, I took a nice long hike with my guy at the Will Rogers State Park. Also, Little Dude was introduced to the family and as you can see, he's quite fond of cake. Or screaming at people. One can't be quite certain...

My Foothold On The Public's Attention is Slipping!

2009-06-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

According to imdb's STARmeter, my popularity fell 80 percent this week. DEAR LORD IN HEAVEN, HOW COULD THIS BE? Could it be, perchance, that I'm not actually a star? Well paint me disillusioned. I'll have to cancel my catered dinner for seventy I was holding tonight...in my one bedroom apartment. Yes, the canapes were going to be by the litter box, and I suspect it would have been extremely awkward to talk shop around the leopard geckos, but really? Take away my glittering stardom? How utterly heartless!

No Posts Makes Lopes A Dull Girl

2009-06-20T13:51:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted recently because I wanted newcomers to the blog to see my movie before they caught a gander of anything else. Life has been pretty hectic, and yet static all the same. I've been running around doing errands (getting money and a smog check for my car registration, taking care of a sick kitty that went to the emergency room, and all the little things in between) and been absolutely stagnant creatively. I worked on some drawings, but need to go into school or Kinko's to scan them (and after drawing them, discovered I'd run out of paper...yeesh). In the interim, I've been making notes on a post I'd like to do about female characters - specifically protagonists - in animation. That'll get posted once I get a moment to breathe a bit.

I'm reading (and probably going to finish today) The Fabulous Clipjoint by Frederic Brown as a recommendation from the Kunz. It's a clean, easy read with a lot of neat language that harangues and pulls and plummets all at once - very good stuff. The crime is mildly interesting, but the characters are the real treat - complex, yet tidy in description and execution. This will be my Kindle read while I wait out the twenty (or thirty, or forty) minute smog check today. I gotta say, knowing what percentage of a book I've read doesn't compare to having good old-fashioned page numbers.

Flicker

2009-06-10T02:02:00.000-07:00

This is the film I made for my computer animation requirement. I used primarily After Effects and Photoshop, drawing a great deal of it by hand in computer and offline. It's a little choppy to play at the moment, so I'll likely recompress it and try uploading another version soon.

Edit: I swapped it out for another version which you're watching now.

Fixed? Perhaps!

2009-06-08T15:16:00.000-07:00

I think I fixed my html for this blog, but I'm still unhappy with the archive set up. I'd like a cascading style archive section perhaps - something that would hide that long, intimidating column of dates. Nobody knows how intimidating dates are like an artist. Deadlines, like sharks among ducks, are rather suspicious and altogether deadly if not paid the proper respect.

The Final Finals

2009-06-07T06:44:00.001-07:00

I somehow broke my template while I was trying to fix the ugly archive thingy on this blog to the right so now if the posts are beyond a certain length, the stylish green strip in the center will not grow in length to match it! Fie on you, html! Double fie!

This is my last week of finals for graduate school - very sentimental and stressful all at once, like a wedding or something. But with less prenups.

I'll post my film up as soon as I get the sound/editing done. I tried to have it done in time for the Prom screening at school, but I failed at that and ended up making myself exhausted and unwell in the process. I went through a couple days of utter failure blues, but I'm up and at 'em today to make the workload go round once more (and screw up my blog's html).

Enjoy today's image - it's a portrait of me with a very weird expression on my face. That's probably the expression I usually have though...so that's the "normal" expression. Weird would probably be the strained stewardess-type grimace most people pop when the flash goes off.

And Today...Foliage!

2009-05-27T15:45:00.000-07:00

Mmm...shrubbery...

This is a rough composition for my opening shot in Flicker. The forest and foliage will definitely be used, but there's going to be more of it - if that makes sense. And yeah, the ground is a temporary surface, so if it looks weird to you, that's because it is.

Also, I'm voracious. I think it's time to grab a bite or two.

Titles!

2009-05-26T20:05:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty productive today! Thus far I've finished fixing a scene that had some hangdog problems in Flash, and I designed the opening titles for Flicker. The image I posted shows a piece of the title design. I love racking focus, and being playful with darkness and light - it communicates something very primal and yet cultivated to me. Now back to work!

F is for Fabric...

2009-05-21T17:56:00.000-07:00

I'm really excited about a purse I've been making off and on for about a year now (sad, but true...some projects take me forever). It's aquarium-themed and with some embroidery and hand-painted business on the silk. I'll be sure to post it when I'm done.

But this post is about my newest object of fascination - Twitter - and how it led me in a roundabout way to a contest for free (adorable) fabric. A day or two within joining the Twitter community and following a couple of blogs (Wowinsider and Craftzine) that I also keep tabs on with my Kindle, I've picked up a few followers. Some of these followers are entirely random, but quite a few are craft and/or Warcraft related. So I have Twitter to thank for finding the gorgeous fabrics from This And That From Japan, and This and That to thank for finding The Crafty Crow. Oh what a tangled (inter)web we weave!

Black and White

2009-05-16T15:03:00.000-07:00

These photos were taken by Brian Kunz a month ago. I messed with them in Photoshop afterwards.

I love the simple poetry of black and white - how everything complicated can be pared down into hard edges and angles and shadows. I also have a secret love of power lines - dirty, sharp, and magnificent - power lines are ubiquitous, important, and mysterious all at once. Their presence can be linked to disease and industry. Their hum is nasal, constant, and something like a prayer.

I could go on a while about them. :P

Flicker is Coming!

2009-05-15T02:56:00.000-07:00

I'll be screening the film I've been working on, entitled "Flicker," this year at UCLA's Festival of Animation. It'll happen on June 6th, at 5:30 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. Here's a link for RSVPs and further information - hope to see you there!

The above image is a still from my film, which is a very experimental piece. If that's not your cup of tea, don't worry - there's tons of narrative pieces screening this year too. :)

And Now I Twitter...

2009-05-13T12:14:00.000-07:00

I just joined Twitter today. To follow me (or let me follow you) look for spasticsnap. See you there!

Oh yeah - you may have noticed I've changed my blog around a bit. I like the new color scheme a lot, and am still mulling around the subscript in the header a bit. Lemme know whatcha think - constructive criticism is good. :)

Where Did the Myspace Go?

2009-05-12T16:54:00.001-07:00

Just to let my friends and family know that I cancelled my myspace account, so it should be slowly melting (or abruptly falling? or violently crashing?) off the internet fairly soon. I've always loathed the ugliness of myspace, and I'm thinking of taking up facebook instead within the next month or so.

As part of the spring cleaning extravaganza going on in my life, I'm going to (finally) tackle a new blog banner, finish up this hunky dory computer film I'm working on so I can move onto my thesis (and find work - yay!), and start working on a new novel! I have a few different ideas for novels, so I really want to find one that will not only be interesting to me for the next few months and/or years of my life, but will have a nice firm structure I can pick at. I have notebooks full of notes for each of my novel ideas (I couldn't resist the pun...really, no, I couldn't), so each venue is fairly fleshed out already. Let the adventure begin!

Spring Cleaning!

2009-05-04T18:43:00.001-07:00

I don't know if my cleaning is early or late, but I was working at school on cleaning up some lines on the above image and thinking about how this week is all about cleaning! I want to give my apartment a good scrub-down - bathroom floor and all, and clean up my schedule so that I get more stuff done in the period of a week, and clean up the desk at home to finally find my renegade Wacom tablet pen (please come home if you're reading this, pen, I miss you very much!).

So bust out the ammonia and rubber gloves! It's time to get squeaky!

The Yard Tub

2009-05-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

There's a house not too far from where I live where they keep a bathtub in the front yard filled with water. To top off the ambiance there's a doll floating in the tub, solemnly proclaiming the moral of bathing children in any yard tubs screened by vegetation. Apparently the sheer swampy nature of the situation either led to crazy hijinks (so the kid lost their dolly in the shuffle), or something far more sinister...

I've doctored this image to bring out the extra creep. Copyright retained by the fabulous Lopes!

Hooray!

2009-04-09T18:07:00.000-07:00

My computer is back home again! But...I'm going away this weekend so this is my only opportunity to use it...

Cruel, cruel fate.

/sigh

Get Well G5!

2009-04-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

My computer died two weeks ago, and I've finally scraped together the money to go get it out of the shop. Hopefully, it'll be happy to see me...but not so happy that it goes into shock and dies again.

:(

Before and After!

2009-03-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

I'm actually pretty peeved because I think my Wacom tablet's pen is slowly dying. As I fought the pen, trying to make it write only while the nib was pressed to the tablet (and not up in the air) I growled and cursed up a regular storm. Below are the results. I like the colors fairly well at the moment, and just need to clean up the trees I think. And...here we go!

Before:

After:

I'm reading Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way right now, and feel like it's really helping me recuperate artistically. I sort of need direction, and the book is awfully *nice* - nothing completely out of left field...it kind of rings like a conversation I've had before but forgot somehow along the way. Resonant like remembering things, I suppose. I'm going to start doing morning pages tomorrow, and hopefully progress from there to other activities.

And you know what? I really want to be a writer. And...I already am. :)

I'd Buy That For a Dollar

2009-03-24T16:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a nifty site that lets you generate whatever message you want on a church sign board! And if you like your cleverness terribly well, you can buy your image on a little magnet for a dollar (and ninety five cents). I haven't gone so far as to purchase a magnet from them, but that's due more to a wealth of possibilities on my part than any lack in shiny-shiny from them.

And no, the mice don't really love you - they just love to lick things.

My Current Preoccupation

2009-03-23T21:21:00.000-07:00

Warcraft...writing...let's combine two of my favourite "W" things-to-do and voila! A World of Warcraft Writing Contest! The prizes aren't really my kind of bait: although I would definitely be excited to meet the Blizzard writing staff, I'm not sure what I would do exactly with a giant sword replica. Perhaps I would impress my new neighbors with my ability to garden with an oversized relic from the fantastic realm of Northrend? More likely I would get drunk and wave it about wildly in the perfect solitude of my living room, hoping to avoid any permanent scratching on the wall plaster - but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Story time! Oooh la la, let's write something fun, kiddies!

You Know What You Need?

2009-03-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

I love that question. It's so rife with possibilities! "You know what you need?" A lime green waffle iron? A leatherette collection of classical literature from Spain? A bicycle with a dildo seat?

Alas, the real answers are usually quite mundane: a Philips head screwdriver, a new light bulb, an oil filter. Fie on you, mundanity (not a word)! Double fie!

The above image includes some flora I'm working on painting for my final - which has been delayed (due to a hard drive nosedive) for a few days. Mmmm...painting stuff in Photoshop...I'll post the trees when I make 'em look pretty, too. I drew those trees with my fave mechanical pencils, the good ole Papermate Sharpwriter - plebian and friendly through its hearty plastic soul.

Something Green...

2009-03-17T15:21:00.000-07:00

Here's something to prevent the omniscient pinching of my blog...I've been using pics like this in my project for textures n' stuff, and I really love this one in particular, although I don't think it'll get into my final film.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Everyone I Draw Looks Like Me

2009-03-16T20:26:00.001-07:00

I don't know if that statement is entirely true, but I do tend to draw a lot of strawberry blonde chicks with overly large peepers. My final is on Wednesday, which means that this image will become one part of a vainglorious whole including: decay! houses! rampant tearful orbs raising their orisons to the heavens and hells!

Which in turn means more content for this blog - goody goody!

Personal: I am stressed due to finals and apartment hunting (I need to be out of my old place by the end of the month), and am therefore napping a lot, much to my personal dissatisfaction. Despite this narcoleptic stress release factor, I am actually progressing very rapidly on this project. Magic eight ball sez: done on time! Go go magic eight ball!

Thanksgiving

2008-11-29T20:56:00.001-08:00

I hope all your Thanksgivings went well. Mine was...interesting. Which is standard when dealing with my family. I'm going to abstain from entering into further details at this point.

I'm entering another Threadless contest, and working on colors and image clean up. The theme is horror (from Rue Morgue...whom I adore by proxy), and unfortunately I'm going to be forced to enter it at the last minute due to hideous computer problems. Enjoy the snippet of an image! I'm going to go find a quiet corner to hide/weep/slaughter defenseless spiders in.

And before you even think it - no, I'd never do that to spiders, you sickos.

Rotten Pumpkins

2008-11-21T22:41:00.000-08:00

It's a bit belated, but I carved a couple of sweet pumpkins this past Halloween - templates courtesy of zombiepumpkins.com. I did two - but the other one looks a bit wonky in the photos since the poor bride of Frankenstein ('s creature?) began to wither straightaway, possibly a result from being mostly made of dead bits. The one in these photos is the infamous Lucio Fulci zombie of Zombi 2 fame...which you all should watch merely based on the fact that there's a scene where a zombie squares off against a shark.

As for the pumpkins, they promptly decided to mold and rot within a day of being carved.

Photo Essay

2008-11-20T14:35:00.000-08:00

I recently created a photo essay of a place that's very important to me. It's a powerful place, one I often return to when I'm searching for continuity in my life. Can you figure out where I went?

The Best Hospital Ever

2008-05-01T02:46:00.000-07:00

I'm tired and I'm not sure if this is funny anymore, but I'm submitting it to the UCLA Spotlight Festival tomorrow nonetheless. The video quality is absolute crap compared to how sexy the 24p really is...oh well. <3

If You Can't Beat Em, Wacom

2008-04-30T23:35:00.000-07:00

Wacom - pronounced "whack-em." A tablet I use to draw stuff on my computer with. Also, a delightfully expensive coaster if someone leaves a glass on it.

The above image was drawn in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet...so that I get into coloring my film again.

If you steal it, I am a sad panda.

Sheafs of Lost Music

2008-04-04T03:25:00.000-07:00

I have not posted in...well, a very very long time. I've been through a whole quarter of school and the finished product of it - while I'd like to post it - is not *quite* done in my opinion...when it is finished, it'll certainly be up here. I'm trying to have it edited in time for submission to the Spotlight festival. Even if I don't finish Blood Blossoms this quarter, I would like the truncated version of The Best Hospital Ever to be completed soon.

Funny because we abandon things, then pick them up again. Spring break has ended, and I'm slowly getting into another quarter at UCLA where I feel a little out of sync with everything around me. I suppose that's fine. I will either feel like I'm a part of things, or merely apart. Don't ask for rigorous psychoanalysis here; it's late and everything's a muddle. Which certainly isn't bad, but it certainly isn't certain either.

Today's image is from a storyboard I've been peering over, trying to put together a dream I once had to make it into something for all to view. The vision isn't entirely lost, you see, but has changed a bit in the translation of time. If you're not careful, your dreams will change too without you even realizing it.

No New Drawings

2008-02-08T02:05:00.000-08:00

Alas! I've been doing a lot of work by hand recently and the scanner at school is broken! So instead of new stuff I'm posting a background from my computer film. Like everything else in Blood Blossoms, it took me an absurd amount of time to complete this image because I kept "fixing" it. At the moment, I'm satisfied - insanely saturated color palette and all. Hopefully by next week the scanner will be up and running and I can treat ya to some primo cheesecake weirdness. See you then!

Storyboarding in Russian

2008-01-27T16:59:00.000-08:00

This image is from a storyboard assignment I did from a recent class - of all the images I drew that day, I'd say this was my favourite. His emotions are very simply drawn, and when I can manage that, I'm content. I'd like to say something today about the 180 degree rule - that is, basic screen direction during any given scene. Typically, if you follow the 180 degree rule strictly, you keep the placement of a character consistent (if a character is on the right hand side of the screen facing left, you wouldn't change his or her facing and placement throughout the scene). However, I find myself disliking a strict adherence to the rule. I think if you establish character placement enough through long shots and cut away from (or very close into) a scene, then the 180 degree rule is really unnecessary. It was basically established to not confuse the audience, and I can appreciate that, but whenever I shoot something I roughly start with the rule, then begin to work away from it accordingly to the emotions, ideas, and compositions at play.

Go here for more info about the rule, and see what you think.