Hellooooo!

Long time since I've updated eh?

I've been just working at Starbucks and hitting home and attempting to work but then something always steals my time away. Has that ever happened to you guys? What changes should I do to fight against that?

Something that's on my mind a lot haha.

Have you guys heard of Breezy Lovejoy new EP? You can find it pretty quickly if you google it, free of charge.

There will be stuff coming, make no mistake! I just need to find my concentration back haha, I've been thankful for going down this path in life. There are days where I'm completely unsure of what the hell am I "doing" but the days where I'm so sure I feel like I could easily grab on to it I feel like I'm on top of the world. haha

SO YES

STUFF COMING.

SOON.

I HAVE TO WATCH DARK KNIGHT RISES.

Summer Art Camp

A couple of my friends are working together to improve our skills through just doing study-like assignments everyday with a 50 cent penalty if you don't finish it.

So today was based around low-mid-high contrast in terms of lighting, it feels like a productive day!

I oughta look at  more 50s ladies...

So lately my sister has been watching a whole bunch of Game of Thrones, (the show seems pretty damn realistic with all the long panning shots of the sets and scenery!) 

KIND of, what my sister looks like. 

Haha this song is hilarious and really sad, and extremely creepy, but I love Wax still, very epic rapper!
hmmmm videos that inspire.... videos that inspire.....

nope. 

nothing.

I know.

Pretty crazy right?

There is this though!

Calgary based graffiti artist David Brunning tries to live out the answer of improving our lives by removing all things that are considered "unnecessary". He's decided to simply just wear the same clothes every single day (different shirt, but exact same color and type), if we don't care about how we look like to others, do we become more beautiful and attractive? 

I've also been waking up in the morning and drawing using conte of models from a Vogue magazine, ALL THE MODELS ARE SO HOT. But that's on gigantic newsprint and my camera is dead of battery and I don't have the charger... So those are to come later!

Peace! 

Plug suits and The Great Teacher Onizuka

So I think I am pretty bent on drawing more space suits, the possibilities are endless!

Arghhhhh, that wicked ass anatomy! and in a plug suit none the less! I dunno what the hell Ayanami Rei is doing, but I love how he chose to go with more of a muted eye color and browner hair color for Asuka.

After a second take I notice that she's also in high heels, there is so much I like about this picture...

I'm not creepy.

So I tried to copy the design for Mikami girl, or whatever her name was haha

Not too bad if I can say so for myself! At this point I'm thinking of how I can improve silhouettes and making my line quality more dynamic. Play with tone and try to render things now? Yeah I think that's exactly what I'm going to do, if I'm going to use a pencil. I quickly took some time to do some shading on each, but doesn't really show with the scan eh?

Random doodle, trying to do a dynamic pose, weird as hell cyclops. LOL

Videos that inspires me

How Bad Do You Want It from Greyskale Multimedia LLC

Do you have times where you're extremely motivated and then times when you're just a vegetable? Of course you do, and it's in those times that I watch these types of videos to seriously give me a kick in the ass, this life is incredibly short, let's be efficient with it.

HILLMAN from Hillman Curtis 

My friend Sarah showed me this one awhile back, it spells out the struggles and learning curve to becoming an artist so well

keep drawing 

Why do we struggle? Why do we persevere? Why... do we sacrifice? 

Hmmmmmmmm..... might be something I want to think about further for my comic... :P 

So I've been reading GTO after I finished the anime series, and over the 3 days I finished the manga where the anime left off.....

I'm going to write a large ass paragraph all for Onizuka later..... But I AM HOOKED.

Space Woman

Tight space suits, futuristic designs, women?! Pretty good combination if you ask me, I am 100% sure that I will be continuing to venture in this area, and maybe draw more of this character specifically, maybe she'll be the main character of this summer's short comic? :P

Still need to crack photoshop...

(I miss levels)

[She's shocked I'm going to be uploading more]

Good news coming up though, I've got only my finals left for spring courses! So more stuff will be put on here, and more frequently (probably 3 times as much I'm hoping)

My friend and I are starting this kind of  "art bootcamp" where for the next 8 weeks (before my VC program starts) we'll be tackling different aspects of illustration, more focused on the human figure than anything but I extremely do expect this to bring some very strong results to my art. 

We'll be working on

Lighting/Rendering

Human Anatomy

Animal Anatomy
Human Expression

Monsters

Character Design

Environmental Concepts

It sounds grand haha but it'll just be basics with the time that we have, each of those topics you could study for years haha

I'm also going to be working on a short comic (writing and thinking about it everyday, what do I want to tell? what should I say?) 

Doing a sketchbook per month

and I'm trying to figure out where I can put in digital painting practice and traditional painting practice in there, it's just going to be ALOT OF ART. 

I am in need of pho, be back soon!

Edit: Back from pho and did a quick sketch of the girl again, I'm thinking her name might be Kye-Li, not too sure, I wanted to base her off of a generic looking korean girl (pretty one that is) and as I continue to draw her I'll get a feel of her personality and what specific features she will have.

Maybe she'll be my own type of Pepper haha

Getting ready to go space harpooning!

So either I'll continue sketching her/random stuff today or work on my art trade picture with my friend orrrrrr Rapunzel.... ... ah god I should really finish that....

Stuff that I'm looking at:

http://vimeo.com/29402609

My sister showed me this prolific designer Curtis Hillman who passed away battling cancer, as well as designing he had a keen interest in creating films as well.

This is a video of him interviewing Daniel Liebskind superstar architect.

EXTREMELY AWESOME.

You know I should just base my space girl off of Younha shouldn't I? 

I'll post more stuff later! Keep on rocking! 

- A 

Rapunzel WIP (Extinguishing Inner Demons)

Haha this blog is going through lots of visual changes as I try to figure out what looks best and how much customization I can do [within my ability]

Just posting up a WIP: Rapunzel

Rapunzel after she escapes from the castle and cuts her hair with gigantic shears.

(Need to learn how to draw hands LOL I'll be doing them tomorrow)

Need to crack CS5 so I can work on this and raise the levels to make it darker LOL

Yup, this is just the line art for now, I'll keep this post updated as it goes from this to a finished product. It's a commission from a lady that I met at Starbucks, basically her theme/idea for her female advice/story website, Rapunzel's new do.

Here's the kick though.

She's been extremely patient with me but she finally set up a due date, Mid May release.

I've been so busy with school (inefficient use of time) that I didn't have any time to work on this! So, as the date implies, it's SO FUCKING LATE IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY. 

This commission which I refuse to give up (out of pride for my first commission ever) has literially been an extreme source of torment, pain and self-loathing. I hate myself for taking up this project, but I hate myself even more for not being able to finish it on time, much less work on it. Which makes it even harder to take up this project. It's so last priority it's not even funny. 

That's how much agony this project gives me, seriously.

Everytime I think about this project, how I didn't finish it, and how the lady's face as she visits me at work every now and then to subtle-y (but extremely awkward for me) nudge me and remind me that I have to work on this project and how late it is, I start swearing and feeling extremely angry. 

So if she's dropped me already (I don't read my e-mail out of fear of reading reminders of her to complete this commission) I don't really care. I MUST FINISH THIS. I HAVE TO. OR ELSE I WILL NEVER BE FREE OF THIS TORMENT.

That is how I am thinking currently for the past couple of weeks/months.

So what's next? Coloring Rapunzel, the commission is a website type of banner, so I'll be creating the background seperately, which will be the castle in the background, along with shears and a trail of hair leading to her.

Now that I'm working on it it's really not so bad, but the fact that it's extremely late doesn't feel too good, I reallyyyyy hope to finish this soon as you can probably understand, for both myself and her (if she's still accepting it and hasn't dropped me [all these weeks I wish she already had but then she shows up at work to see me])

Keep checking back! Thanks for taking your time to read my thoughts.

- A 

Draft Dodging

I'm not sure whether it's this constant routine of school-work-school-work-eat-work-sleep that I've been having to do that has me completely washed out lately.

At times and sometimes all day I think to myself "I should probably just take a year off shouldn't I?" being always busy isn't bad, but one of my problems is that I just don't know how to take a break from it, and then get right back into the groove right away. So I'm just always always in Charlie Sheen Mode, GO!

Haha, other days I'm excited that I got excepted into Visual Communications, it's quite an honor, a very small achievement, but also very nice that the faculty members overseeing VC consider me a potential possibility of pulling it all off. I look around and see the classmates that I'd get to be with and I'm filled with excitement, fear, doubtfulness, combative spirit.

"What the hell am I doing?" I ask myself this when I'm taking the liberal arts studies for the spring, one of my other problems is that I require a reason before I do something. While I do have the reason for taking these courses instead of taking them in the fall/winter semesters, I just have no lack of lazyness when it comes to doing them.

Even now I have a crapload of late assignments piling up as I type this.

I'll get to it.

I'll get it done.

Just don't know when haha.

Things to Share:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9JIFIjWe1o&feature=share One of my favorite animes period, Katanagatari, a song track from a very solid OST.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M48SZn83sPY Beyond: Two Souls, from the makers of Heavy Rain, Quantic Dreams, fantastic what they've been able to achieve.

It's supposed to be a game play trailer but it just seems like a cinematic short film at the moment....

No sketches lately, all this thinking, and liberal art studies hw is just disrupting my sketching. I am coming up with a couple ideas to make the background my own though, as well as coming up with an idea for the cover picture for my Facebook, personal stuff but good to get some kind of project going haha.

I hope I make it out all of this in one piece, seriously. Losing my mind here.

Over and out.

Sketch Round Up

Some things to share today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dou4Gy0p97Y&noredirect=1

"Kara" By Quantic Dream, it's a tech demo and a short film all nicely wrapped together.

Topic of E3 came up as I was scrolling across the IGN page looking for new games coming out (I don't play them since I don't have any of the consoles, I just like to see what game developers are doing)

But isn't that video great!?

My most favorite scene is where Kara is taking her first steps forward, and you see quite clearly that this is a very personal moment for her, overall I'm impressed how quickly I could care for a character I just saw for the first time 3 minutes prior, maybe the fact that she's good looking has to do something about it.

I've been doing a lot of figures off of www.posemaniacs.com

While none of these are from the website, I tend to branch off and want to do my own thing.

Here's to trying to get better at anatomy~!

Have you guys seen this website? I was introduced to comics by my friend at ACAD and I just can't get enough of heroes (especially drawing female heroes, addicting!) http://hero-art.blogspot.ca/2012/01/casshern.html It's a blog that dedicates to displaying other artists renditions of their favorite heroes, seems like a lot of people on the website are fans of Gatchaman, I wasn't alive during the time it was release I think...but the illustrations do make me very curious.

She may not be in the film, but she is an original avenger:

The Wasp! She's in the cartoon of the Avengers: Earth's Mightest Heroes, and she's so freaking hilarious, definitely will be trying to draw her later.

I think I'm kind of "done" with the sketching phase (impossible) since I want to do more full illustration pieces now. I'll try to keep this place posted!