What have I been up to

I didn't do a lot of art over the summer.
I did a lot of talking to people, and I started making sure that my body was okay from the sorry state I was in during the school year.

I started a job as a Tour Guide on my campus, which was wonderful and fun and nervewracking and awesome.
I got to be a homework mentor for my school's precollege program, which means helping and hanging out with 15-17-year-old comic book geeks. That worked out pretty nicely.
And lastly, in the week before school I was part of Orientation again.
And I started feeling like.... maybe I'm just not that good at doing art. I mean. I'm okay.
And classes started and now I feel like.... this is what I'm doing and I can do this forever.

I cooked. I prepared food and ate healthy and started doing beginner work-outs and walking miles. I feel great.

So as a last note on the summer, I got much better at talking to people, I gained a little more independence, I dyed my hair bright pink. I came into school knowing a lot of people and mentally prepared for the year.

I'll add drawings when I can scan them.

Aquarium Visit #1

Watercolor fish sketches in an aquarium. It sounds like a good idea. Until you figure out that the halls are dimly lit so that the children can scream "I SEE NEMO!" because they have a better chance of seeing fish with the tank being lit.

So when all the colors look like they're mud, I was working with basically no light.

Fish and some abstract... underwater.... coral? rock? background?

   

plants!

They grow up so fast! morning glories in my window, with some dying cilantro.

Summer ^_^

All of the summer

So what will I do with all of this summer?

Write a DnD campaign! It would be short, based in storytelling, and would feel like a Terry Gilliam movie. And I haven't started yet.

And I sort of want it done by the end of June, so I'll see what happens. I'll start as if I've never played any game at all, and work my way through the first 3- Player's Guide, DM's Guide, and the Monster Manual. All in version 3.5.

this seems to be the 500th post.

I'm so close to being done. 1 exam away, and I still have to study for it, but only 1 exam. My final animation projects didn't quite turn out as well as I wanted them to, but I guess all I can do is break them up into pieces, fix them up a little more, and make a better demo reel out of it.

I want to get back to the labs as soon as possible to make small vignettes of my days. I guess they would be autobiographical?

I don't want to call my summer list a bucket list, but I do want to get them done.

This blog is pretty old at this point. But a new layout should be coming soon.

When everyone around you sacrifices so much that by comparison, have you really done anything?

When they have been living on coffee, do you still cook?

Even though, by comparison to the normal world, damn, you've done more than ever, ever before.


to add to my summer list:
finish projects that weren't finished.

In the trenches of finals, but I've got it mostly under control. Just a little under control.

my shoddy after effects final:
http://vimeo.com/41361966

Finals finals finals. I don't have to kill myself over these, but I need to work pretty damn hard. I want everything to be done- but that doesn't mean I don't have my work prioritized.

And it's only Tuesday. I live day by day, and they go slowly.

On another note, how has 2 years gone by so fast?

Upcoming: lists of things I'd like to do / books I'd like to read / games I'd like to play for summer.


For now, this is a part of my animation final, and I think it's the cutest thing in the whole world ^_^ That is, if it loads.

art history, and a story of internships

Today I've applied to my 6th internship (it turned out that I'd applied to the same one twice). I've gotten amazingly better at writing cover letters I've also contacted a couple (but not enough) places on campus about summer jobs.

Halfway through April, and I'm still at a no-go for summer.

But my backup plan, my last-resort plan, is still to work on my own art all summer and build up a portfolio. But it's a last plan. A nothing-else-goes-through plan.

Besides this, I need to finish my 3 animation pieces. Each is 30 seconds.

But I'm almost done with my art history essay, and it's not due till Thursday. So. There's some hope?

shading adventures

Brown paper, some kind of pastel? and black marker. And the last one is one black paper... and looks like a mess.

more caricature

And then I accidentally drew Kirsten Stewart. Not looking up if that's the right name.

 

Caricatures

From my drawing for animators class.

Beethoven's 7th, mvmt 2, Allegretto

As I listen to more classical music- mostly from the Beethoven symphony compilation on my ipod- I would love to play bassoon again, just for the sound. Just enough so that I can play bassoon with a recording of the symphonies and play along and become even closer to music- just like singing along with an other song.

Right now, this is one of my favorites, Beethoven's 7th Symphony, 2nd Mvmt, the Allegretto.

But my art! Last semester feels like years ago as the weather brightens. I have a strip of sunlight coming through the window and warming my face every morning, begging me to get out of bed.

Last weekend was I-CON, which just was a mess of transportation, but I got to meet the nicest people and didn't spend nearly as much as I thought I would. And I survived without a jacket, too.

I have 1 month left of school. In that time, I have main projects to animate, I have 3 papers to write (one due each week starting next, and I've barely started them), and I have finals in the same classes.

Then, summer.

Because it's been forever.

I did my midterms. And today, I drew this lady, and I enhanced it in photoshop (I don't actually know what I'm doing in photoshop, though.)

The file is very big, be prepared.

I probably won't animate her, but I think I will keep this drawing around.

more portraits scanned

I'm quickly catching up with my scanned portraits.
Tonight I also started my InDesign resume file. I followed a guide online about how to make it on a grid, but I didn't know that I had to change the properties of the letters to fit in the grid, so now everything is a mess (with a thousand different text boxes). *sigh*. But I'm awake, and the comp labs are quiet on a Saturday night, and it's nice to be out of my room.
I need a snappy name for my 365 self-portrait project. I like 'Old Lion at Bay', but that doesn't tell you anything about the project. And 365 i draw me is too direct and stupid.

Also, I lost my wallet.

I had today, I have tomorrow, and I have Monday till 6:30pm to finish a project.

my 365

I've passed 300 in my 365, and I just finished scanning up to 220. And while I'm by a scanner...
I forgot my sketchbook for once in my life. This is a collection of World Civ. doodles.
During World Civ. and Art History, I made a small kingdom (set somewhere around the Crusades, before the plague. Or was it after the plague?)

Map of said kingdom. Each X represents the center city of a region (without real borders), each dot represents a main city (they're not very visible). I couldn't decide if the thing in the top right was a crater or plateau. Its scale is modeled after England, mostly, but what was most important about the scale is how long it would take the characters to travel from one fiefdom/region to another.
And, of course, it's a class-m planet.

This is a decent caricature of my gangly teacher.

I fully do not expect this video to work, or have any decent quality, but it was one of my first animation homeworks this year (besides a slew of small flash experiments).

So, at first I thought that the teachers just didn't put a lot of work on. Then I realized just how much free time I have, and I better damn well use it.

First drawing on my tablet!

Whooohoo! Road to success!

first week down!

I'm been to a majority of my classes. And so far, I'm pretty excited for awesome.
At the end of this semester, I'll get a good handle on flash, after effects, general character animation, world, animation, and art histories (generally 20th century). And my 7th class is drawing. I think I'll learn more than last semester.

I need to make sure I eat meat every day, and make sure I don't forget citrus fruit altogether. The last thing I need is to accidentally get scurvy from forgetfulness.

Back at school, forgetting to post

It's so exciting to finally be back. It's wonderful to have to depend on myself for cooking. I can't wait to bake little tea biscuits like a little old lady.

I've found Zoo Tycoon again. I will do all the scenarios! Videogames should help me be able to finish short term and long term goals, I will play more of them.

I'm excited to start classes, but I really can't wait to do concept art for a D&D campaign (not mine). Maybe I'll even make my own.