Friday, August 30, 2013

Oil Painting

I was always forced to paint with acrylic in college, but my professors always told me to learn to use oil paint instead because it has better results.


This is a painting I started to paint with acrylic, but then I went back into it with oil paint. It looks more dynamic so far, but there is still some more detail I want to add to it. It is a dragon and a phoenix, though it won't have too much detail in the end.

This painting will be used for the sculpture the Genesis Art Committee is planning to make and the whole piece will be displayed at the Genesis 2013 Annual Fund Raiser. I might be going there myself if one of my pieces are chosen.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Page 105 Late and in Black and White & Anime Boston's Artists' Alley Contest

Sorry, but page 105 of Zheph Skyre had been uploaded today instead of yesterday due to my internet connection going out before I could upload it. It also isn't in color yet due to certain circumstances.

Also, I checked Anime Boston's website recently, and they have a new art contest up. This year's art contest is Magic themed, and so I have already submitted a few images for the contest! The winner will get to have an Artist's Alley Table for free and will have their work displayed. I am still working on more artwork for this contest!

Monday, August 26, 2013

Page 104 in Color

I have finished coloring page 104 of Zheph Skyre. I am hoping to at least get a little of page 105 done in color tomorrow.


On this page Zheph speaks to his assailant. The ninja reveals himself to be Jahovac, but Zheph appears to have already figured that out. Zheph tries to talk Jahovac out of continuing this fight, but Jahovac is bent on payback for his humiliating defeat. What sort of sword does Jahovac wield now?

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Page 104 in Black and White and CafePress Deathnote Design

I have uploaded page 104 of Zheph Skyre, but it is in black and white for now. I will be coloring it as quickly as possible.


It is unfortunate, but I can not use this design on my store page. I had to replace the image I drew of Ryuk with images CafePress had given me. I will use this image when I go to conventions and other places where I can sell my artwork.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Zheph Skyre Page 103 in Color

I managed to get page 103 of Zheph Skyre colored. I believe one of the reasons why I have been late with my pages is that the summer classes at WAM have been taking up my time. However, that does not mean I will have a lot more time to spend on this web comic. I will be starting an internship soon at Worcester's local television station, and I have no idea how often I will be working there.


Here on page 103, Zheph seems to have managed to make his way to the fishing sector. It would seem that the ninja that was following him is going to make things difficult for him. Apparently being shot in the leg and falling off his steam powered bike was not enough. Now he gets hit on the back of the neck, falls into the water, and then gets thrown into what looks like a crate of fish.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Attack on Titan

I really love what I have seen of the manga and the anime show "Attack on Titan." It is becoming quite the popular series, and I think I know why. On the back of the graphic novels, one of the quotes describe this series as "Japan's The Walking Dead," which I completely agree with. Like many good zombie apocalypse stories, in this series many people die, and it doesn't matter how well trained they are. However, unlike the zombie scenario, this story doesn't have reanimated corpses trying to eat people. It is far worse situation with humanoid giants with frighteningly quick regenerating powers. These giants maybe mostly dim-witted like zombies, but unlike zombies, there are various kinds of various heights. There are even some abnormal ones that move faster than the others. This series has some variety to it!


The manga maybe drawn in a very rough style, but it is still very engaging. Certain characters and titans have weird body proportions at times in the manga, though the titans are supposed to have different measurements compared to humans in order to make them much more creepy and inhuman. I do like how it is much more cleaner in the Anime series, how the episodes are ordered compared to the manga, and I also like the music choices for the Anime. All in all, I highly recommend either reading the manga series or watching the Anime!

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Page 103 in Black and White and Waterfire in Providence

I could not get page 103 of Zheph Skyre done in color in time. I apologize for that, but the creative process should go by more smoothly soon. With every step I take, I feel like I am improving.


I went to Waterfire in Providence, Rhode Island this past Saturday. Waterfire is a festival free to attend that is held in Providence each summer for every two Saturdays at a time. At Waterfire, there are bonfires lit along the river that runs through Providence.

There were some interesting sites like Spanish dancing.


People dressed like interesting statues.


And boat rides along the river alongside the bonfires.


I have to warn everyone though, Waterfire might be free to walk around at, but the food, boat rides, and certain areas that are surrounded by fence like FooFest are all charged. Most things are expensive, but that doesn't get in the way much of having a good time, especially if the weather is good, and it was.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Page 102 of Zheph Skyre Complete

Summer has been really busy for me, and so I am glad to get this particular page of Zheph Skyre done! I have had extra work on my plate, but soon that will end. The classes at WAM are coming to an end this month, so I will have less hours given to me for that job.






Here on this page we watch as Zheph is on the run from the knights, but someone is on his tail (yeah, I made that lame joke just because Zheph has a tail). Zheph is trying to figure out his best route to the castle, but with limited resources, he might be in trouble.

Meanwhile Vanessa is making her way out of the castle compound. She seems to knock out some guards on her way. How far is Vanessa willing to go to save her friend Zheph?

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Deathnote Parody Problems Again

I have received another email again claiming I need to make changes to my Deathnote parody designs in order to sell them on Cafe Press. As far as I know, it seems that I can't use my own creative design for Ruyk. That is really unfortunate because I had worked very hard on that design.


I am going to attempt to resubmit my designs again. This time, there will be images incorporated from the real series of Deathnote. I will however have this version on products I sell at conventions in the future.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Page 102 Unfinished and Art in The Park

I uploaded page 102 of Zheph Skyre, but it is still in black and white. It has been really busy lately. I will color them as soon as I can.


In the meantime, enjoy these images of other people's artwork from Elm Park in Worcester. They are part of a series of art pieces in the summer called Art in the Park.













Monday, August 5, 2013

Page 101 in Color!

I finally got page 101 of my web comic finished in color. I suppose there was just more for me to color in than usual, and I have been quite busy with work. There have been classes at the Worcester Art Museum on weekdays and the entire two months of July and August have been free.


Here we see Vannessa getting ready to save Zheph from the knights and the Scar gang. How will she fair against them? Why must she tear the sleeve off her dress? All of this will be revealed soon!

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Iron Man 3

I saw "Iron Man 3" finally last night at West Boylston Cinemas. I really liked the action sequences and the humor, but I do have a few minor nitpicks. There are some spoilers I will mention.


I was disappointed at how the Mandarin was portrayed in this movie. At first he seemed interesting and intimidating, for instance how he portrayed himself, how he spoke on camera, and what he appeared to be doing on live camera broadcasted to all of America appeared to be very well done. There was something about his character at first that struck me as interesting if not mysterious, and I was looking forward to see what he could truly do. I was hoping his rings were magical like in the comics considering that in "The Avengers" there was both science and magic, or at least he was a mastermind terrorist. I did have an uneasy suspicion that the movie was going to go a different route when they didn't show Guy Peirce's character Aldrich Killian speak to the Mandarin when they shared the screen. Unfortunately, the Mandarin that we saw on screen was merely an actor hired by Aldrich Killian in order to cover up the test super soldiers that ended up exploding as well as a means to kidnap the President of the United States and kill him. I was hoping for something more than just a war profiting business just trying to make more money through evil means, however it did provide some interesting tidbits.

Aldrich Killian as the true Mandarin seemed like an interesting concept, having a much more flamboyant character distract the public eye allowing him to get away with more. Having himself and his super soldiers have super strength, regeneration, improved skills, and expelling dangerous amounts of heat did provide Iron Man with a really tough opponent without resorting to building more robots as an attempt to copy what Tony Stark did.

I also thought Tony Stark seemed a bit more unlikeable at times within this movie. He seemed to act like an ass to people despite all that he has been through in the other movies, he seemed to be troubled with things he shouldn't really have been that troubled with, and he made some stupid decisions. It however led to some interesting ideas. Tony Stark had to rely on his mind for a while after his home gets blown up and his suit breaks down. Man, even when Jarvis goes offline it seemed to put Tony Stark in a dire situation. At the end of the movie he did seem to redeem himself.

The end was really cool though. It was awesome seeing Jarvis operate a multitude of Iron Man suits in order to fight the super soldiers. And since Tony Stark had to put on one Iron Man suit after another to face the Mandarin's destructive power, it seemed as if he was actually in very deep trouble in this fight. It did seem tragic when Pepper appeared to fall to her death, though it should have hit me that she'd come back since she was injected with the super soldier serum. It was awesome how she gave the finishing blow to the Mandarin despite Tony had already put him in his suit and set it to self destruct.