11 Second Club June 2012 Entry

I feel proud about myself, for I finally have made a complete 11 second animation for the website contest in a month. I didn't even need the extra day most months have! There were a lot of reasons why this animation took less time than my other animations.

I used basic shapes for the head, hands, and chest in Flash and moved them around with basic animation. You might be able to see that throughout the animation. I wanted to keep better track of how large body parts are to each other, and this was the easiest method.

I also felt more motivated to complete this animation because the audio clip is amazing. This speech from "Mad Max: Thunder-Dome," is very eccentric, and the subject matter is more appealing to my tastes.

This is perhaps the best animation I have done for this contest, and it is the only one I have managed to finish. I hope I will at least get a good rank in the voting part.

College Illustration Sketches

Here are some sketches I made for an illustration class in college. Some of these might not be that good because these sketches were assigned to us to be drawn a numerous as possible in a short amount of time. Also, I was always quite busy with numerous activities outside of classes and homework.

These particular sketches were made for an assignment of combining opposites. I got ideas of combining "cute" with "disgusting," "natural" with "man made," "serine" with "hot tempered," and even "dangerous" with "harmless." Dangerous and harmless won out in the end, but unfortunately my final art piece for the class was not that good. It might have been because I had used mediums that weren't that good and that weren't my strengths.

Nevertheless, looking back at these sketches might give me ideas. Combining a scorpion with a butterfly could prove to be a dangerous combination.Think about it, a seemingly harmless insect with beautiful wings flies over to an unsuspecting victim. This creature could gently land on some mesmerized creature and then sting it with a tail full of venom. There are plenty of odd ideas I would have never even considered that would prove to be interesting if I never went to college.

Art Progression

 I was looking at some of my older sketchbooks as I was cleaning off my art table. I was just thinking about how much I tend to progress in my drawing capabilities from time to time. I tend to think I have drawn something amazing at one point, but then I find myself drawing something better. I then tend to hate what I have drawn before.

Sometimes it is good to look back at some of the sketches you made years ago. You might have had some really weird ideas at the time, but then it might give you inspiration to do something completely different.

People ask me how I have gotten as good as I have with drawing. I always tell them it takes time and effort to get good at drawing. People who think they suck at drawing and don't try to get better truly won't get better. If you are an artist in training, don't let yourself get put down by lack of abilities. As you get older and you keep at drawing, you get better.

Clarification on the Genesis Club

I had another Art Community Meeting at the Genesis Club today. It was clarified to me that in order to become a member, you have to have a mental illness like schizophrenia, depression, or bipolar which would result in hospitalization at times and would require medication. I have autism, but I have not required neither hospitalization nor medication for it. I cannot be a member of the Genesis Club.

I was however allowed to be a volunteer for the Art Community and would be allowed to stay at least to help with the meetings and organization of the artwork from members of the club.  I might also be a valuable source of information regarding certain artistic techniques. This is actually preferable to me, because I know that I do not require the type of assistance they provide the majority of their members, but I do want to help out. This is a chance for me to put forth my talent and help others.

Regrets to be Considered Human

(This image was brought to you by yellowpages.com)

Today was nice so far. I had gone to work at the Worcester Art Museum for a few hours where it was a little chaotic with Family Fun Day. After work, a little after 3:00, I went to Wooberry Frozen Yougurt to get a little treat on this hot day. It is a frozen yougurt place that is a little expensive, but I highly recommend.

As I was walking back to my car back in the museum parking lot, I noticed a pretty, tan girl of around 18 or 20 years old, and probably with some Latin decent walking towards my direction as I walked past Boomer's Deli on Highland Street. I suddenly got an awkward feeling as I noticed that she suddenly turned around and ran in the opposite direction. My confusion didn't last long as this angry, tan man of similar decent ran past me towards the girl, grabbed her by the arm, and started leading her back to his car which was parked behind me at the end of the street between Boomers and a gas station.

This was definitely not a simple matter as I could clearly see that the girl was crying. Luckily about ten people noticed this situation including myself. Two men who worked at the nearby auto-body shop chased after the man, shouted at him to stop, took down his license plate number, and called the police. Also, as the dumb creep put the girl in the passengers seat and proceeded to get back into the driver's seat, the girl bolted out from the car towards the gas station. I congratulate the girl for getting away from this dumb, angry man. I hope the girl is okay, since the man cursed as she ran away, got back into his car, and appeared to drive after her.

I can not abide by such disgraceful behavior. As a human being with some self respect, I honestly wish this man would either figure out that he shouldn't do this dumb crap, or he can burn in Hell for all I care. Whatever relationship they have, this girl deserves far better.

I apologize for getting into this disturbing story, but I felt obligated to write it down. Hopefully next time I will have a blog post about my art and not about behavior of people that makes me regret to be considered human.

Web Comic Revision

With this month's 11 Second Animation, it has been difficult getting my web "The Legacy of Zheph Skyre" comic remade, but it is coming along I assure you. I am also thinking that I should just have the title as "Zheph Skyre." I don't think I need to make it longer than it needs to be.

Here you can see the introduction to my web comic as I started it out. It started off in black and white because I thought it would become a manga. I realized as time went on that this picture just wasn't that good. I believe I was trying to do a lot of detail in as little time as possible. I also realized the design of the city wall was a little ridiculous. It appears to be way too thin with towers and passageways that might be a little too complex for the human civilians of this supposed city to ever create. I also used a ink wash to make these shadows, but I know that watercolor of any sort was not really my strength. You can also see the mistakes I constantly made in the rest of the pages for this web comic. At times I couldn't figure out how to color the pages correctly even though I was using Photoshop. At times I couldn't figure out to ink it all correctly or draw it on the computer. I also think I might have written too much text too quickly.

Here you can see the revised edition. As you can see, it is much more simpler, but also better overall. The wall of the city appears more believable, there is less details in the trees, the shadowing and the color appears to be much better. I haven't put the text in yet, but already I can tell this will be much preferable. And if you are wondering, yes the sky was a photograph I took with my camera on my phone and then I put it through a filter in Photoshop.

Too Hot!!!

I'm sorry for not having much of a post today, but it is too hot. And yet it will be even hotter tomorrow here in the Worcester area! Heat Waves are the down point of summer. Here's some cool things going on.

Yesterday I went to the staff summer picnic at the Worcester Art Museum. That was nice and mellow.

Saturday I think I will go to Elm Park and partake in the "All You Can Eat Ice Cream" event after work if it is still this hot.

Tonight I watched the two new episodes of Futurama. It is great that this series managed to remain funny after it was brought back, unlike how Family Guy has been.

Also, these are some awesome things that will happen:

Reading Books

I personally like fantasy and science fiction when it comes to reading books. Usually I only read as I eat my breakfast which is less than how much I used to read, but there are times when I just feel like reading more from certain interesting stories. Lately it has been just fantasy that I have been reading. A while ago I have read and enjoyed reading J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings." I am one of those who did enjoy reading "The Hobbit" more. As a story it is important to be able to follow events, and I think this book was actually more successful. That is one of the reasons I am looking forward to "The Hobbit" movie coming out this winter.

I know I am really late into reading this series, but I have been reading the 2nd book of the "Harry Potter" series by J.K. Rowling. I read the 1st book a while ago and I did enjoy it. I only read this book at work when I am not able to sketch or write. It is a good series, but I find this a little too easy of a read. I am nearly halfway through the book after a little less than a few days. I know the books get longer, but I still think that this series is rather simple. I feel a little bit old reading this book especially since this book appealed to people like me when I was a teenager.

I have been really enjoying the "The Legacy of Drizzt" series by R A Salvatore. I highly recommend it to those who like to imagine amazing fight scenes, intriguing scenarios, and vivid characters. I know this book series had a few video games and comic books based on it, but I am surprised there is no television series of some sort for this book series. Obviously this book series is too long to be made into movies, but I would think that a television show like Game of Thrones would be appropriate for this series. Maybe it is too old of a series since it has been reprinted.

Books are a wonderful source for inspiration. Sometimes I just prefer reading a book containing monsters in it and just visualizing for myself how they look. Certain people prefer certain books and I applaud anyone who reads for pleasure.

Netheus New Sketch

Here's a new sketch of Netheus I drew from my Zheph Skyre series. I am very pleased with the latest changes to this design of him in this form. I have decided to simplify certain details in his armor and his wings as you can see from a previous design of him. I decided he doesn't need as much armor as I had originally intended because he is quite agile in my concept of him. As you can see, I have replaced some of these weird shoulder/head pad things with spiky hair and I believe that would work better with the wings. It is much more clear in this sketch that the blades on his arm can turn. I decided on this concept to allow him to change his fighting style during battle. The color scheme will also be different here. Netheus will mostly be composed of white with subtle parts of red for now.

Professional Email Address

My Google Email address was hacked into recently so I had to change the password. The hacker had sent an email out to my contact list where the hacker pretended to me and requested people to wire them money to help my family after being robbed in London. Obviously no one fell for this scam, but this is an outrage.

I've been thinking about it a lot, and I am going to set up another email address. This email address will be for my website portfolio and for jobs. It will cost money, but I believe it will be worth it.

Some More Sketches

Here are two more sketches for my Zheph Skyre series. I'm not going to go into too much detail about these considering they are barely finished sketches. The top picture is the combination of a wolf, a tiger, and a an antelope. I was thinking of giving this creature the opposite stripe pattern of a tiger where it is more black than orange. I think that will be interesting.

This sketch is of a character I have been redrawing over and over again for quite some time. I have decided to merely replace some of the large horns with spiky hair. I think that will work better and allow this being to move it's head around much more easily. That detail has inspired me to reconsider the same thing for another character considering they are opposites yet similar.

Chad Gowey

 (This image is from http://www.chadgowey.com/)

Chad Gowey was a high school friend of mine who was a very talented artist and actor. He was very gifted back then, and the other day when I found his post on Facebook about his website I found out he had improved his art skills. His website is awesome. His art is of a much different style than mine, but it is still amazing. I highly recommend checking his website out.

(This image is from http://www.chadgowey.com/)

Prometheus

 (This image is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_%28film%29)

This past Saturday I went to see the movie Prometheus. It was a really good science fiction movie, but I believe the trailers and the hype were a little exaggerated to how good this movie would actually be. I understood that this was a prequel to the "Alien" franchise, and that the monster aliens, xenomorphs as they are sometimes called, would make a small appearance if at all. This film was supposed to be an origin story for why there was an alien space ship on this foreign world and why killer aliens inhabit it instead of the intelligent aliens who built and flew the space ship as depicted in the first Alien movie. It had succeed on some of those parts, but it left a bunch of other questions as well. There were interesting concepts put into the movie, but there were new mysteries given to the audience.

I did really like the H. R. Giger's designs used in this movie as they have been used in the previous films. His artistic concepts are very dark and interesting. A film needs more than just visualizing beauty.

I like the acting of the main cast. Noomi Repace was a good lead, Micheal Fassbender was awesome as an android, Charlise Theron was a good antagonist, and Idris Elba made a good captain. Everyone else was just expendable. As soon as the film stated that there was a space crew in the teens, I knew that was too many people to keep track of and that most of these people would be killed off. It becomes a little difficult to feel sorry for characters that are not established very well when they die.

I have some theories to explain some of the unanswered questions generated from this movie, but maybe it would have been better to have some clarifications. Maybe Ridley Scott was stuck in a bit of a rut after taking a long hiatus from science fiction movies.

Magic the Gathering at the DCU Center

Tomorrow, June 9th 2012, there will be a Magic the Gathering event at the DCU Center in Worcester from 8:00 AM to 11:00 PM. It is being hosted by StarCityGames.com. I read online that the entrance is free, but the main tournament is $40 to enter. I have a feeling that people would be given fat packs of cards. I heard that there will be plenty of other tournaments throughout the day.

I am still unsure of whether or not to go. I have just played Magic tonight at The Whiz. I did alright, but I don't think I could go to this and do well enough. Besides, I want to work on some of my art related things, I want to relax, and I might be seeing Prometheus tomorrow. It all depends.

Portfolio Website Updates

I have made some more updates to my portfolio website. I have added the image of my two water dragons and I have added three more animation videos to my collection. Feel free to check it out.

I have also put out a new order for some more canvases with my dragons printed on them. I will have them posted for sale on Etsy as soon as I can.

Rayman Origins

(This image is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayman_Origins)

I have been playing Rayman Origins recently. For the most part, I am only familiar with Rayman through the Raving Rabbits games for the Wii. I have never played any of Rayman's previous platform games until now. I have to say, I am really enjoying the game.

The setting, characters, and plot are very strange, but entertaining nonetheless. The style is weird, but I like how creative it is. I enjoy the fact that you have to chase down the bad guys in order to gain new abilities, I enjoy the flow of the game, and I even enjoy how fast paced it can get at certain times. I have yet to actually play the multi-player mode, but I heard that it was better than "Super Mario Bros Wii" so I am looking forward to exploring that.

Mountain Laurel

It is the time of year around where I live for the mountain laurel to bloom. This bush is very prosperous in the woods around my house. It is a plant that blooms white and pink flowers for about only a week or two in the very early stages of summer. In past years, it seems to bloom all at once, but for certain years it blooms in patches. This plant gives a beautiful scenery in the area that makes for great pictures and paintings.

Art All State 2012, My Etsy Update, and Possible New Art Possibilities

(This image is from http://www.worcesterart.org/Education/allstate.html.)

This weekend, for the 25th year in a row, the Worcester Art Museum held artwork featured by Art All State. It is a student-teacher program where artwork of alumni from Junior year of high schools in Massachusetts is featured in the education wing of the museum. In celebration of this particular event, the museum has designed a mural of blue painter's tape conveyed into an interesting image. This year it is a crane lifting another crane out of shark infested waters.

The metal print of my wind dragon I have for sale on Etsy has gone up in price because I am having it framed with matting, liner, and museum glass. It will look very good in this frame, but I found out framing is expensive, so the price of the piece had to go up.

I was suggested to bring my artwork to this tattoo place called Secret Society. It is a tattoo place that displays art from local artists on their walls. I have been suggested to show my artwork to tattoo artists before, so maybe I will check this place out just for that.

11 Second Club: June 2012 sketch

I am hoping to complete this month's animation before it is due. I am certain I can do it this time because I have simplified things even further. Of course if there is enough time before the end of the month I may add more detail here and there. The sketch above is of the character from the animation. This time I am sticking to more of a cartoon than of a realistic person. The fact that the head and hands are circles while the torso is an oval will help with the animation in the end.

Here is the storyboard for the animation so far. I added some sketches from the original hand sketches as I listened to the audio. I might add some screens in the background displaying a sword fight or something if I have enough time.