Been a while again! :x Oh well, my first round of classes at Gnomon has gone by and just from the intros and first lectures I can tell right away that I, if not already, am going to be a super clean slate to try and absorb as much as I can from this experience, and am super inspired to work my ass off! I'm soooooo glad I signed up for this. I'm sure I'll be posting my progress with these classes along the way.

Er... the VA Tekken Myspace requested some art, so here's a quick sketch just to get my drawing muscles warm (and to post finally -_-) of Devil Jin~! I <3 my gaming community, even though I'm WC now, so definitely trying to get some art to them, and try to kick the other states' Tekken whatevers booties. Haha we'll see. ;)

Some sketches

Been soooo long since I updated. I've been going through a pretty big move for me and now I'm trying to settle into a new place. I'm excited though! Things are really looking up. Been working with awesome people in Richmond on a film, the continuous project between me and a few friends on a videogame (http://wingsofapocalypse.blogspot.com/), which I'm just recently (as in yesterday) progressing on since the move, and I've enrolled in a few classes at Gnomon. I also found out I got into Society of Illustrators in NY and Spectrum 15, which is due out October 2008.

There's been some ups and a few downs, but hey, I'm still learning, drawing and painting. Ultimately and I guess pretty simply, that's what really makes me happy. Apart from sushi and a good movie. Oh I saw Paprika this past weekend - it was awesome! :D

So anyways, yeah sketches. The usual ballpoint at a coffee shop and the one of the guy with the sweet mustache is outside in LA.

New

I got a new sketchbook today. Soooo many things are going to be new now, it's crazy, so I thought I'd feel the waters out with a new sketchbook. Maybe not quite the same as the other new stuff. :/ I try.

Inspiration

Sooo.... got back from SCAD yesterday and what can I say other than it was an amazing school and a great opportunity to meet some really awesome people. I already knew Eric Canete but it was great to see him talk about something other than Ironman! (haha juuuuust kidding.) He did a thing on storytelling which about made everyone drool and fall out of their seats. He really talks so well but is modest, but I think his knowledge and love for the art made it natural for him to talk about it so easily.

Andrew Robinson was also there. I didn't know who he was at first, but I am sure glad I do now haha.. he works with the comics but also goes back to working with traditional painting sometimes. Seeing some of his techniques was like... oooooooooohhh.... He made me want to go home and paint. :/

Yuko Shimizu is the sweetest person ever. She's also a teacher at SVA and boy what lucky students haha! She lectured on small business of illustration and portfolios and all that. It was such an inciteful lecture that was just purely about illustration which I think helped with the almost pure business class I had to last semester. It's kind of mandatory to believe her because she's been so successful at it. And she worked in business for 10 years. :o

James Jean has great hair. I kept looking at his hair like wow, well I guess if you start working for Prada would be willing to do a haircut or something. Well I don't really know if he got a haircut at Prada... /shrug But anyways in the round table discussion thing the first night I was there where all the artists talked and introduced themselves, James said some really important things that made me think about my own situation. He is very very talented, but after hearing him and Yuko talk, he is so good because of really hard work.

Overall about style, one thing they stressed was to be yourself. In Yuko's slideshow she said that ultimately you cannot run from who you are, and if that reflects in your work then that is how it should be. Being a senior in college I am kind of freaking out about graduating... what am I going to do with my drawing ability, will I be able to present it in a way I'm happy with, will my style be liked by clients and especially by me? All those things. It sounds so cheesy, but you just have to be yourself. :P Maybe you'd see what I meant if you saw the lecture. Also... during Q&A Eric and James said they do one maybe 2 sketches for a client. Yuko quickly jumped in and said NOOOOO lol... I was so glad when she said that, because Sterling would kick me out if I tried that, then tried to justify it by saying James Jean said he does one sketch. o___o;;

After getting to know them they really are just normal people with awesome talents, personalities and a common intense passion for what they are doing. I hope to visit both James and Yuko in Cali and NY next time I'm around there! This trip was nothing less than exciting!

Feels good again ~

It feels like I haven't touched Painter in months, and that probably is the case. I just got my new computer and spent so long trying to get some brushes back... It's pretty daunting trying to regain the old comfortable setup. Here's a sketch in Painter I couldn't resist between working on other stuff ~

A sketch ~

Stopping points ~

Ugh I really have been working, but nothing that I can really show right now. So here's an old sketch I managed to squeeze in at some point last week!
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I wanted to talk about some things going on lately and a point that I thought about with a friend the other day. In short, I feel like my whole life I've been standing in the middle of an empty street with my arms out wide hoping for some meaning or a little paper airplane with a secret note telling me which direction to go to fall onto my lap. Why did this happen and why is it like this, those types of things, but there's been an underlying theme to it all, like a synthetic happiness (not the emo kind, the kind where something really shitty happens and you try to find the good points) that ya' know, somehow keeps "everything" afloat.
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For class we had to answer a bunch of "why" questions and that type of thing is typical of this instructor, which I believe is very very important. That was at the beginning of the semester. At that point I was saying, I do art for me, because I've done it all my life, the videogames, the coooooolness of making stuff up. While all that does play into the reasons why, it is soooo linear. I thought it defined me - you know, if you're an artist, at highschool or whatever people dubbed you the artist and what not. "Hey you know how to draw! I can't even draw a stick-figure!" That kind of stuff, lol.. did it almost everyday, it was fun, interesting, etc etc. But right now people ask me, "so what are you going to do after graduating?" and I say, "well of course I'm going to California to pursue this path. Because I went there and it made me happy and seemed really cool." --
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For a while it wasn't old. That's honestly what I was feeling. OF COURSE that's what I'm going to do, a no-brainer! But yet while talking to my friend about it, I was still unsure. I thought, well, of course it's a different side of the US, I'm going to be unsure. But there's something else: I realized that these goals and things have always been about me me meeeee.. Now I'm not saying I'm a self-centered person, at least I never thought I was (o_o?), but I think I'm thinking that I would also be happy later in the grand scheme of things if I helped others with it. Whatever IT is, I dunno', lol, but it just sounds cheesy that way. For a brief moment I think that maybe art has to be my raft to hold onto what I really want to give. And wtf if I'm passionate about my raft I'm scared to know what it's going to be holding!
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Anyways, that's a tangent; focus right now, graduating! ;D

lol

Yay excuse to post! hahaha... so this is the "bare bones" of my previous post.. I actually like it better. Oh wellz
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So ... this may not be an arena where a lot of people are familiar with, but, I am. Kinda sorta. Well I was but then I was like... ok let's do this thing called school. Anyways, it's about gaming! Woo, yes I am totally into it, I'll admit it. Ok now that that's over, I just want to say that videogaming is weird sometimes. The culture is weird sometimes. At least the really hardcore ones. I know a bunch of "girl gamers"... and quite frankly, it's a little disturbing how some are making a big production of themselves. Are they really good at the game? Or is it the hype and attention? Just before this post I literally deleted like 5 or 6 of them off of my Myspace friends list because their bulletins were so obnoxious. I might be angry though because it's a situation like pennyarcade... they make fun of games n' all, very awesomely I might add, and now they are making ... a videogame!

Ok ok, I have noticed that since the inception of more girl gamers the guys have been showering. The last tournament I went to a couple weeks ago wasn't so smelly as ones I went to years ago. Eek I just admitted I go to tournaments! Lolz, anyways... and I'm wondering about concept art for videogames. I'm going to be working on concept art, design and storyboards for a movie soon, which has nothing to do with videogames, and that is still exciting to me. I'm very hyped up about the project. So, I guess what I mean to say with this tangent is that perhaps my brain is opening up to new avenues, not JUST videogames... but sigh who knows. :)

Woo... lol keep your school spirit pants on ;)

Meh.. just updating here. Some may have already seen this as I started coloring a week or two ago. I should finish though... and eventually put up the finished original for you all to see.
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About 2/21-2/23 I get the sweet opportunity to go see Yuko Shimizu, James Jean, Andrew Robinson and Eric Canete do their thing in Atlanta, GA at SCAD with the other students. Needless to say I can't wait and maybe while being there some of their awesomeness will rub off on me or I can collect their pencil shavings into a little jar... x_x;;

So I guess I have a few things to say ~

First off, yay drawings that don't involve people, haha.. they are somewhat randomly from photos with my own touches or whatever, don't ask. :x

<3

This past weekend I saw Rambo... that Stallone guy is a beast, basically. I actually feel manly after seeing that movie, and I'm a girl! Haha.. it was really cool. Sylvester Stallone holds a special place in my heart also because for some reason I always thought he looked like my dad, but I think now that might be because when they had long hair? Or something? Maybe it's the mouth, I dunno' hahaha.. (for those that don't know I'm half white, by the way).

Also, when I was in the bathroom the other day fixing my hair, I was thinking about WOW and *what if* one day their servers all went down... for like a month?! How many lives would that change? Would there be suicides? Anxiety attacks and emotional breakdowns from those that play it so hardcore? Haha, random.

Today in class we had to show progress on our projects and I had a bunch of character designs n' small thumbs of environments to show. The class was near silent, and it seemed everyone did their own thing while people were talking about their stuff. The teacher spent a long while going over some people's stuff, like the editorial illustrations, and real world issues, etc etc. Then when he came around to mine and Feng's stuff, who do concept art mostly, he had no input creatively to our progress. No interest in the stories, subjects, characters... only, "the anatomy, the composition etc.." which, granted, is very important, but on mine I had no illustrations, as right now that's not part of my initial stages. So needless to say I was done in 46 or so seconds.

- Ordinarily this might upset me really bad, what am I doing wrong, what can I do to please him, should I just do editorial illustrations instead of concept art because I know I won't get much feedback creatively? Oh noooooooes! Then a second later I think, what the hell have I been drawing and gaming and digital painting at home so much for? No one put a gun to my head and said to do it. So I trudge on, swatting at the insecurities of being in a now random environment (though it's my senior year yes), knowing that there are better schools out there for what I want to do, teaching first hand n' all, much better than what I am doing to teach myself... So! What keeps me going? That's another conversation for another day. ~

From Class

Ballpoint pen

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So my cat Kenji is the cuuuuuutest kitty ever (all cat owners say that though, right?). His meows are dainty and his eyes are 2 very dark yellow/black marbles on a snowy white and light beige face. His fur is the softest fur you will ever touch, and his paws make you want to throw up a little because they are just so disjustingly cute. Not to mention is retarded L-shaped tail which makes him very unique.

But sometimes I just want to toss him out of my 11th story window and call it a night. Like last night for example... why? What reason is there to run back and forth throughout the apartment like he has rabies? Or meow really loud in the middle of the night for attention and in turn making me feel like crap in the morning for lack of real sleep. Arrgghh but then he looks at me with his cute eyes and I'm done for, I'm such a sucker. :/

Shhhh

Oops here's a small leak to a hot new game coming out in the future!!!

Hehe, only kidding. Me and 2 others are making a small production videogame .. small as in we're in the throws of school and this is a side project that sounded like it might be fun. There are 3 characters... this is mine *teehee* 'cause I just wanted to update with a sketch and the other 2 guys on this project will have theirs soon. Very soon. *o*

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Oh yeah and I'm visiting CA again during Spring Break.

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Back to School

Back from California... back to school daze! It's my last semester though and I'm actually pumped. Before CA I wanted to stay in school lol, but after I predict I will be ready with this last semester to prepare. The trip was amazing to say the least! I learned a lot, got a lot of advice, relaxed, drew some, gained mucho confidence in my work, and saw the possibilities in what I was kind of wanting to do. I really want to do it now haha..
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Here are some misc drawings... so I don't feel so bad just posting words mostly. And the last thing at the end, something I wrote on the plane on my way back to VA. Just a bit of honesty ~ :)

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Out 1/7-1/13 - Going to LA

Going there to do some fun stuff.. Meanwhile, here's some sketches and things to hopefully tide everyone over. The first is still in progress, but just wanted to show what's up with it... kind of taking a different approach, I think? Maybe not haha

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The others are random sketches. When I didn't have people to draw I drew the things on my drafting table, starbucks, randoms.. ; ; Enjoy

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sketchezzz

a nice break from digital

*_* gotta get back into practice with these haha..

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Team Fortress rawwrrr

they are done, yes, enjoy

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comments/critiques appreciated

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edit: well, I *thought* I did well, considering the time, thought and fun I had with it, but apparently not. oh well life goes on right? just one project out of many in the future, can't win'em all. :) no more class for this semester !! The updates might be slow... or maybe I can catch up on some coffee shop drawings over the holidays. cheers ~