Sketch Dump

Hey guys! Man the deadlines are just coming down on all sides! But I'm feeling fine, yes just fine....

There are so many good kids in my class! Truly the cream of the top haha, even though a lot of them reapplied, or did schooling else for awhile...or 5 years older than me.....

ANYWAYS I AINT HATING. I've just got to catch up, so I've been drawing like nuts. NUTS I TELL YOU.

I've been doing transit sketches daily, among sketching others in class. I figure monthly I'll just dump the majority of them in one go, I'll of course, take out the very bad ones. 

GO! ZOOM!

Till next time! There's shit to do! 

P.S I'll put up studies, different sketches, homework projects as they come through and time permitting. 

Just Like a Star

Hey how are you?

I've been busy. Busy is a great thing to be. There are plenty of sacrifices though.

This mellow mood is fits my wind down mood.

I've been sketching a lot, as I was sketching I wanted to combine my love of anime and drawing into something more literal. Allow me to reiterate, or.... reanimate? I've been wanting to do anime reviews for so long now, but I just can't seem to bring myself to do it. Partly I believe because, I just don't want to be another anime blog website with a nice banner and screen shots (I do enjoy looking at those blogs every now and then I admit). 

But I love drawing, a lot. More than ever. I feel like my hand wants to devour the world with all that it holds and knows. I feel like my left hand wants to experience things that only it can experience.

So why don't I make anime video reviews, but... not so much a review... but a reanimation? A video of me retelling the story (some serious, some funny) and what makes that story/anime so interesting [or completely terrible] and while I do it some scenes from the anime I can animate myself, some would be a trace over, some would be my version of seeing/explaining it. 

This is a lot of work. 

Especially keeping up with my course work (which I'm doing not so bad of a job btw) and still doing my own personal sketching. 

But I just feel this is just fresh idea, that may or may not catch on. Instead of doing that generic review on whatever so and so on is so bishie (don't even know) or the animation was so-so, what if I could just break it down to basics and sell/destroy the anime based on retelling the story in a way that I see it? 

I'll keep it in mind though, the week starts again, and so does another 17 hour work day.

So I have to go to sleep, illustration fundamentals tomorrow.

Wake up at 5:30 ish, pack and head off to school to be there at 7 and start working

That doesn't sound so bad right now because I don't have homework busting out of my bags haha. No, but I have to sleep, but before I rest my eyes I'd just like to say one thing. I never thought I could draw all day, today I didn't push 12 hours in one sitting, but drawing was about the only thing I did today.

I did a lot of drawing today.

The thought of that makes me happy.

I already feel after this weekend that I'm in a different space that I used to be, a week ago, 2 weeks ago.

The classmates in my class that are drawing like crazy really brought it out of me. Part of this sudden increase of drive is reading Malcom Gladwell's book called Outliers. It out lines the reason of success of those that are on a completely different level from the crowd.

The people that do great things.

Long story short, one of the things that greatness has to do with the time put in towards doing something great. Talent or not, time is still included in this factor of greatness. He sums it up to 10,000 hours.

10, 000 Hours? Well I have to start now, is what I'm thinking. But what about painting? Digital painting? I think about that as I'm typing this up, that's a lot of time.

Draw all the time.

You will get there, I promise you.

Now that I'm almost drawing all the time (There's this kid in my class that is the prime example of this, literally every second unless he;s eating or going to the bathroom, or looking up to talk for a quick second) I feel the great satisfaction of the pencil fitting nicely in my hand. It belongs there. With the increase of improvement, my mind goes forward towards the future, in a year, how good will I be? Where will I be? I can't see it, I don't know how much change can happen if I"m doing 12-18 hours a day on work.

I'm drawing things I didn't know I could. It's great, it's the feeling of discovery.

Shit that's more than one thing, off to bed to start another day!

Anatomy Red

I can happily say that school has energized my focus entirely, I can work for 8-10 hours no problem, I still stand up and get distracted but I get back in my seat pretty quickly.

Okay so it's not a pure zen focus thing going on, but it's a pretty big difference to how my summer went haha.

My teacher for anatomy is pretty freaking awesome, so I worked on my comprehensive rough of the skeleton chart for like 5 hours, measuring, getting exact centimetres for each thing and the whole thing is still like a centimetre or something short.

Damn. LOL

Anywho, so I finished it, e-mailed him to just get a look-over, look at how much digital red is on this thing.

LOL. Well if anything, the lines are clean.

I'm not sure if I want to tackle it at this exact hour... But I'll be right back on it 6 AM in the morning.

Update: Okay make that 8 AM, drank some sweet ass coffee (Tribute Blend) while sitting outside taking in the soon to be cold forever temperature.

Check this out:

Before

After

See any of the changes? This is actually the horizontal flip of what I'm looking at right now, what I can see is that the left arm of the skeleton is a bit too stiff for my liking (that's what she said) aaaaand.... the right knee is still too thin. Some thing to fix I suppose (screw fixing the arm).

Full Speed Ahead

Y'know Later this week I think I'll just do some legit scans of the work I've done, the webcam photos are pretty bad huh? LOL

So I started anatomy this week, I've just been drawing the skeleton to get a better feel for it before I have to do my actual assignment (due Sept 10th)

I think the rib cage (thoracic something) is the thing that interests me the most because of how complex it looks and the repetition. Basically it takes me awhile to draw.

Some good ol' skull stuff, the webcam takes out a lot of the value for both.

Anatomy is the only homework I've got this weekend (head start! YEAH BITCH) so I'm going to take my time doing studies, but I plan to finish it this weekend even though it's not due this Monday cause of the holiday. Good habits! ...

Anyways.

My VC class is full of people are that way ahead of me, part of me blames their age, they're just older and they've had more time to work on their craft than me right?

Wrong.

Way of thinking, they are a lot older than me, most of them haha.

Just seeing how much these kids draw, and holy shit they draw a lot, it makes me really want to up my "obsessive game" too. It's going to be a really good year, 6 months from now I will be so fucking good I promise. 

Sketching-wise. Still need to learn how to paint digitally and traditionally, that crap will take uh. awhile.

Till next time! Comin' soon! 

Cause It Spins That Way

I have left Starbucks, yes I really have. 

An end to something just means the beginning of another however haha.

I realize that I've only put up WIP on this blog recently, where is the finished stuff? Well. There isn't any! LOL I have about 6 days left before school starts so I want to finish up some works and post them up here with pride! So stay tuned for that....

Cross Notebook Journal given to me by Ty.

Besides the song being extremely awesome, the directing for this is both simple and genius.

Indiana Summer (Version for Newestra) Man I've been listening to this guy for the entire 2 week ish so far, this stuff just gets me right into the working mode haha.

Till next time! (With complete stuff hopefully)

- Alex

The Journey Forward

So I've been taking a liking to this new hobby called, "reading"? Have people always been into reading or is it just a fad that died out while I decided to finally jump on to the wagon?

I\ve just started to read Frankenstein already it's peaked my interest, starting my new ACAD year into Visual Communications and design, there's a lot of expectations that I have for myself and the program.

First off is fail, a lot. This thought process is centered around the idea of experimentation, and learning. Maybe I'll do something wrong, do something bad on a project, fail to meet expectations. Fail. But I don't want to these bad experiences to overshadow my journey into this world of illustration, design and art. I want them to strengthen me and build me into something formidable. In the first few pages of Frankenstein this to-be named protagonist is writing a letter to his sister as he sets sail on a voyage to some new experiences, discoveries and failures ahead. It's reflective of my current situation that I wanted to share an excerpt from the 3rd page, something that conveys my thoughts precisely:

            "My life might have been passed in ease and luxury; but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path (I am not rich in any sense of the word LOL) Oh, that some encouraging voice would answer in the affirmative! My courage and resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all of my fortitude: I am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing." - Frankenstein, Mary Shelley.

Isn't that so eloquently written? Something spanning a little less than 3 centuries ago can explain my situation, the context of voyage and trials that lay ahead so beautifully.

Man I seriously LOVE READING.

So as of this writing I am one closing shift at Starbucks away from resigning and having a week off to do what ever I wish and then VC starts. The friendliest of customers I've shared experiences with are definitely the older mature female customers, I'd like to think I haven't been putting it out there constantly about my resignation but I've told probably roughly 10-30 (out of 700ish people) and one of the customers that orders a Grande No Room Dark Roast, has always been extremely happy no matter what time of year and always brightens my day to see her. Check out what I got for a good bye present.

Some of my co-workers felt like writing message on the post-it with sharpie....

THREE MOLKESINES?! AGH SHIT I DON'T EVEN HAVE MONEY TO PURCHASE MOLSKINE, SHIT IS EXPENSIVE. 

Ah.... the thought of filing these up with my mind is fond fantasy.

I MEAN I WILL FILL EM UP, FUCK FANTASY.

Seriously an extremely nice customer, I gave her two hugs when she gave it to me (I was on my break so she went to the back room to call me out)

There's a lot of cheesy things that can be said about people believing in you and encouraging you on your way to.. whatever you're headed. Honestly this is such a sincere gesture.

Thanks for reading (art to come).

A.