Yeah, You Win!!!!...

So, I guess that means I give up...


Anyway, art...

I don't think I've ever shown you guys an of the characters from this project, so allow me to introduce to you Jared. He is to be the protagonist in a 9 act comic I would like to produc before I die (possibly even before I reach my mid life crisis where I just worry about dying). I'll give you more details later, but next to him is a picture of his bow, which is named Athena at the moment. Hopefully, I can come up with a more creative name. Look for more stuff from this project in the near future, hopefully colored. Speaking of coloring, like a dumb ass I lef both of my wacom pens (don't know what wacom is?) at home in VA, so no colored art for you until I retrieve them this weekend. Sorry.

MOOD
annoyed: (at myself for leaving my pen. I was looking right at it.)

Captivating, Like Shorty's Hips Gyrating...

What's that you say? Why that is the sound of my pen hitting paper again. I wrote about 26 bars earlier today, and I'm going back in for another round before I go to bed. I would like to have at least 64 bars straight, if not a bit longer. If I where industrious I would drive to Richmond for the next poetry slam, but we'll say how that goes.

So, something occured to me. I wanted to make sure my recent posts don't misrepresent me to my viewing public (all 3 of you). Not that anyone would care if I did, but I hate being misrepresented. So, just so you know, I love being the person that I am, and I am generally of high spirit, even if something different comes across. I just happen to try to push myself hard (not nearly hard enough IMO) so that I can unlock the potential that lay within me. I mean, what's the point of being if you're not going to be the best you you can possibly be. Anything else would be a waste. Something else occured to me just now, the points are not the point, the art is the point, so here it is.

So this started as a sketch of a nude figure on a stool. Once I had the nude done, Ithrew some clothes on her. The sketch is fairly close to the original save a few miscalculations on my part. The facial expression was not refrenced, it's just kind of what I settled on when I got bored of trying to do something interesting. The overall design isn't amazing or anything as I really didn't put much thought into it, or look at any refrences for the clothes. The two things that I feel most strongly about on the pic are the hair and the nipples. Yeah, you heard me. As far as the hair, I was thinking I wanted short and spikey, but I'm not sure if I'm happy with the outcome. As for the nipples, I did something I've never really done and went with the whole protruding nipple thing, mainly cuz I've never really done it. Maybe it's a really cold stool or something. Strangely it draws my attention to it, like I've done something wrong by acknowledging the existence of the nipple, yet at the same time I left it there because some part of me wants to believe in the existence of my character's nipples. Don't think about it, just go with it.



MOOD
astonished(at the power of the... nevermind.)

So Very Tired II...

No really, I'm really, really tired right now. I don't think I got to bed till 1:00, and I woke up at 6:45 to go walking. I want to sleep so bad right now. Musn't be weak, gotta' go to work. *Yawn*

Ken Complex...

Where the hell did he go? You know, Ken, as in Barbie's boyfriend. Whatever happened to him? Did Barbie finally dump his sorry ass? I never really liked him because he didn't really do anything. Barbie had like 15 jobs, but the only things I ever saw Ken do were drive the dream car and get hungry so that they would have to go to McDonalds. McDonalds of all places. How does he expect to keep that chisled physique of his on Big Macs and fries. Seriously, how do you think he took the break up? No more dream house, no more converatable, just out on his ass all of a sudden. You think they could have at least let him down easy. Like I-think-we-should-just-be-friends Barbie, or I'm-just-not-ready-for-a-committed-relationship-right-now Barbie, or I-need-more-time-to-work-on-me,-you-know-meet-new-people,-figure-out-what-I-want Barbie, hell even You-just-don't-do-it-for-me-anymore Barbie. Anything. Poor Ken, apparently women like that want men who do things now a days. Let us have a moment of silence to the end of on era. To the loss of the icon of the trophy husband.

A Little More Shut the Hell Up...

Yeah, it's my new theory on life, that's where I do a little less talking and a little more shut the hell up... Guess it's just as well though, cuz I say wierd stuff like that. Too much Family Guy. So, this article was kind of interesting for anyone who would be interested by the physiological changes in the brain of a father. And now, a picture.

This is War, father of Sol. Sol is the expresion of my soul in teddy bear form. This is the father of my soul as expressed in teddy bear form. I don't do much with these characters cuz I'm not exactly sure what story I want to tell, but when I figure it out, you'll see more of them. FYI, that thing that he's petting is called a war trite, but I guess you would have to have read the comic I haven't yet written to know what that is.



MOOD
indifferent: (it's my default mood)

Spiderwebs...

Hmm... apparently I'm not thinking about anything today. Too much work to do at work I suppose. Anyway the points are yadd, yadd, yadd, on with the sketch:

So, I don't draw real stuff very often, but here is a sketch I did about a month or so ago from a photo of Gwen Stefani. I was fairly pleased with how it came out considering I don't do portraits very often. Here is the refrence photo it's based on.

I guess this kind of goes well with the rest of the dot product stuff I'm doing. Yeah Me!!! I win!!!




MOOD
annoyed: (for no particular reason, of course).

Slow Thriller...

So, instead of doing any of the things I said I was going to do for myself this weekend. I did a bunch of stuff for other people. I started my weeking by helping someone move, and we all know how relaxing that is... So after a restful 6 hours of sleep it's off to my friend's house to help them load stuff onto the truck and keep the animals busy for a while ( one hyper husky.golden mix, and one spoiled ass conure). So after that it was 2 1/2 hours of driving to Norfolk, where I was rewarded by a truck and a van full of stuff to move. Okay, so honestly, not that hard at all, and I spent most of the day half asleep on the couch. After that, desk shopping, and a 2 hour drive back. That kind of killed Sat. for me. We did all gather around in the living room to watch the extended version of the dance scene from the movie "Hitch." I think "Slow Thriller" was the highlight of my weekend... genious.

Sunday wasn't too much better (but at least I got to sleep in). It began with laundry. Followed by lunch (which I can't complain about). Then I spent quite a bit of time reading through Shawn's play. Sigh, I really was only going there to handle some administrative type issues. I was even thinking of just not going at all. We spent about 2 hours on just reading alone, 3 al together. It was a little bit tiring. So from there, grocery store, gotta' pick up food to cook for the family. I then proceeded to drive me neighbor to somebody's house (I think it was his baby's mama's house, or maybe his baby's mama's mama's house, I'm not sure) to pick up the spare set of keys to his car. From there it was onto cooking dinner, which took quite some time as the grill refused to stay warm (but all turned out delicious in the end). Then, finally, I took some time to relax. Watched a couple of episodes of Family Guy, laid down for an hour, and it was back to Annapolis. End the night with a two hour drive, and my normal half-hour work out, and I think I got to bed somewhere around 3 or 4 a.m. I think I woke up around 8:30, so, as you can imagine, I am a tad tired. I wanted to go to bed closer to 10:30, but I was still feeling full from dinner, and I can't do crunches with food in my stomach. It would seem that blogging has bought me the time I needed, so it's work out and off to bed for me. sorry, no sketch tonight, just reloading. I suppose for once the point really is the point. Go figure...


MOOD
content:

So Very Tired...

I hate to do this, ranting that is, but so many things have been bothering me lately, and I just bottle them up and it makes me so frustrated. I figured I should find a better way to express that frustration than random spurts of yelling while driving. If you are someone I know, and you stumble upon this, take it as an opportunity to examine how I process the world, nothing more. I do not need advice/support/encouragement. I'm not looking to feel better, I don't think anything will make me feel better about things, I just want to say these things out loud for once (even if there's no one around to hear).

So, every morning before I leave for work, and every night before I go to bed, I have this little short work out routine that I do (about 30 minutes). It consists of pushups, dumbell curls, crunches, and things of that nature. I find that I've been pushing myself so hard doing these things that my body gets tired. tired of constantly being pushed morning and night, day after day. Plus, some of these exercises I hate doing. They really don't feel all that good. So, one day, while working out at the Y with Mark (my old workout partner, who now goes to ODU YEAH MARK!!! YOU WIN!!!), I asked why do we do these things that we hate doing. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about why do we work out. Having played both sides while at Fullsail, I prefered my life when I was up early, working out, and cooking, to when I was up late, eating out, and not exercising. I am referring to those things we do simply for vanity, not to improve our quality of life. For example, I am a firm believer that working the back is important because sifu told me the key to feeling young is having a flexible back. Why then, when I visit the gym in Richmond do I always make sure to get a full bench press routine in instead? I severly doubt that my quality of life will be significantly improved by how big around my biceps are or how much I can bench (which was somewhere around 225 last I checked. Not very impressive, but still an improvement). Ok, sure, for someone out there, it improves how they look, and thus, how they feel about themselves. However, that's not the case for me. For all my working out, I remain overwieght. While someone like Mark gets to see the fruits of his labor, I get to hope that maybe in a couple of months I'll be a little less fat, and, maybe if I'm really good, in a year or so, I'll work my way down to realatively normal, or slightly overweight. I don't know if you can imagine this, but that really kinda' screws with your self-esteem. So seriously, I ask myself, why do I continue to push myself so hard? In my mind, my goal is to improve on myself, to make myself better, but how
will I know when I've reached better? Am I going to have to have to work this hard for the rest of my life just to maintain what I envision to be normal? Why don't normal people have to work hard to be normal? What do I do when I no longer have the strength/energy/drive to push myself as hard. I guess I'll figure this stuff out when it comes. But what if I'm married at the time?

Ah, now this is something I find interesting. What if I do manage to meet this nebulous goal I have in my mind, and I am able to transform myself physically. To some degree, I feel like I will be selling myself as something I am not, because what happens if I am not able to maintain as I get older? Further, I would like to be able to think that I am an adequate person simply on the merits of who I am, but on the other hand, I would like to be considered attractive by humans. Don't get me wrong, while I am deeply moved that the family dog has pledged her undying loyalty to me, somehow I want more than a relationship based on a foundation of regular feeding, throwing the ball, and the occasional walk. Ah yes, vanity.

I mean seriosuly, what do you have to do to get someone to notice you these days. I mean, yeah, I know I could be a better person, but how much do you have to do to get at least a little recognition? So yeah, I'm talking about a particular someone. While I suppose I don't mind that we remain just friends, but I feel like I put effort into building a friendship where I am met with mere tolerance. I feel like in all the time that I've been trying to get to know the person, I haven't really gotten anywhere. Possibly it has something to do with the fact that if I don't initiate conversation, we genreally don't talk, and a little too often for my taste she will disappear without saying anything. Grrr... Ok, so I'm happy I have a confrence buddy, someone I can hangout with when I don't feel like meeting new people, but seriously, why do I feel like for all my effort I'm being met by a brick wall. For all the common interests. For all the support and encouragement. I mean seriously, three hours of driving in an unfamiliar state to pick her up from an airport. What the fuck? I'm not that boring am I? Women... confusing... brain freeze... Grrr...

So yeah, that's what I think when I think about things. Then I come to my senses. I tell myself to stop bitching, it's not like my life is actually hard. If I want to be a better person, I have to put in the work for it. If I'm not happy with myself, it's my own friggin' fault for not working hard enough to change. Further, I don't support my friends because I expect anything from them, I support them because they are good people. So yeah, I still don't know where I am able to get my motivation from, nor do I know for what I goal I am trying to achieve, but i am happy to know that I am the kind of person that can push themselves to self improvment even under such conditions, and I hope god grants me the wisdom to stop before I push too much...

So yeah, that was a lot of writing. But you forgot about the art. Remember, the points are not the point, the art is the point. That said, here is some line work I did from a sketch.

So allow me to be brief in my description. Basically, this line art is going to be used to produce a wallpaper. More .Product stuff (which has been fun thus far). I'll talk more when I finish it. I've already typed way too much as it is. good night.

MOOD
upset: (not really, really upset, just a little bit upset. Mostly just tired.)

It's How You Play The Game...

Which seems to be unfortunate for me, cuz I'm not much of a player these days. Sometimes it feels like there was a rule book handed out in class, and I was delivering a note to the principal at the time. I guess I don't really care much, as long as I am able to accomplish my goals. But still, sometimes I get tired of feeling like I'm a half step out of pace with the rest of the world, know what I mean. Anyway, the points are not the point; the art is the point.

So, this is Blue. You may remember her from the first painting I posted of her. Well, this is the first sketch of her. Not much to say really. Overall, I still like the design, although there's nothing particularly daring about. Oh well...


MOOD
content: (if not a tad disappointed)

This Time on Sketch and Reload...

Just a quick sketch I did. Not really quick actually, as I spent a lot of time working out the angle and the proportions and the expression. Time well spent I would say... I'm deffinitely learning

So, in other news, I know I said there would be no more feelings in my post, but I just spent the last half hour setting stuff up so I could do like a little mood indicator type thing. I guess no matter how hard I try to be a heartless bastard feelings keep happening. *sigh* What ever happened to all those occupations that encouraged heartlessness and general badassness, like warlord, or bandit, or town badass. If this where the medieval times as depicted in movies, I would so be there.

MOOD
indifferent: (get used to this one, I don't tend to feel many things)

Last Time on Sketch and Reload...

Heh, I guess I just like this pic. I'm looking forward to doing more of these .Product pieces. So for those who missed our last episode, .Product is that I'm calling my next series of images (not that I'm done with the Seraph series). So the theory is that .Product is a comentary on the unrealistic standards that we set for ourselves in our society. It also so happens to be a study on the female form, which also tends to be a good excuse to draw attractive women in stylish clothes... so, onward.

Making the Switch...

Just moved here from my tblog <http://seraphicartist.tblog.com/>. Tblog annoys me, maybe this place will be better. Check out the tblog site for my archives. For those who don't know me around here, here's the deal. I sketch... and then I reload, and by reload, I man talk about the sketches. Pretty simple, pretty neat. So, onward.