Oh, the shame!

It’s half way through 2011 and I’ve blogged all of twice. My head hangs in shame. As to why, I don’t really know. It’s a combination of a lot of things, I suppose. Mostly distractions in all shapes and forms.

What am I doing now that school is out for the summer? GLAD YOU ASKED. Well, for one, I’m not taking a summer school class for the first time in 4 years. It almost feels like I’ve graduated. It’s glorious.

I’m taking a week or two to recharge my art cells, gain some art inspiration, work on loads freelance stuff and cleanse my life of non-necessities. I have huge plans of gutting my room of old artwork and doodads I’ve been holding onto since…oh, you know…my whole life. Like a box of bubblegum machine quality toys that for some reason have sentimental value that I can’t quite pinpoint. It taunts me from my closet.

Here is a piece from my illustration class last semester. The assignment was to re-imagine the “Where the Wild Things Are” book cover. Yes, I know the boy wasn’t a shark but what can I say, the guidelines were loose and I’m a rebel.

Here are just a few value and color palette studies before I settled on the final piece.

Value

Color 1

Color 2

Final

Done! Fini! Completo! 완전한!

I’m blogging. I was then I wasn’t then I was again and here I am. It’s so late my eyes are arguing with each other. It’s a pretty gnarly battle, you may use your imagination.

This, my friends, is my final for my Character Design class, the source of all anxiety and exhilaration of this semester. It’s a scene from the end of the story, right after Hazel makes the decision to venture outside for the first time in years. It WILL get ripped apart in the class critique tomorrow. We will have 4 professors in the room, in addition to the students. So for now, I’m just going to enjoy the fact that it’s done before the sun came up and call it a night/unholy hour of the morning. (It may have been done sooner but somewhere around 1AM i found the energy to run circles around my living room. Your guess is as good as mine.)

Hazel

Well, it’s 1:40 am and though my eyes are falling out of my face and I may have the black lung (pop), I just had to post. Why? BECAUSE I’M HIGH ON ART. Tonight I came to the actual realization that I could totally do character design for a living. Not in the “I’m so amazing” way but in the “I love this so much I would gladly pull an all-nighter right now if it meant I could do this the whole time and get paid for it” way.

Enter: Hazel. She’s Harold’s lady friend.

She looks like a crazy old lunch lady but she’s much nicer once you get to know her.

Irma, Ethel, Dot, Val or Mertyl

Secondary character design. Round 1.

Caution, rabid dog.

So WordPress logged me out again, a sure sign it’s been too long. Also, people have been telling me I’m boring which I will SAY is because of my stagnating blog and not because of my obviously stellar personality.

Last weekend I went to visit Neighbour in SF and we had a keen time. There was much Starbucks and trashy reality TV.

We were walking through the city (from once such Starbucks visit; oh, sweet nectar of life) and the most crazed, demon possessed dog I have ever seen walked within chomping distance of my hand. Luckily, I’m quick with my cell phone camera and I took a quick snapshot:

THE CHUPACABRA!!!!!!!

I’m going to be in San Francisco again this weekend for the Harry Potter premier (on Saturday, for the matinée. I know, we’re party animals), hopefully there will be another sighting of this fabled creature.

Also, here’s a turn of Harold from my character design class.

Meet: Harold

Okay, I finally landed on a design I like. His name is Harold. I actually saw Harold, MY HAROLD, in person at the grocery store the other day which was sort of like seeing Superman walking down the street. It was all very validating. I designed a character that could possibly exist in a parallel universe a la Star Trek: The Next Generation where cartoon characters and real life people have switched places. Anyway, SUPER. EXCITED.

I’ve been going to coffee shops and picking up random wifi signals for the last three weeks because our internet is down and I was ASSURED it would be back up and running by last Friday. I mean, I have to keep up with my stories online and can I say, it’s really hard to sob in Starbucks while people are giving you the stink-eye for using up all the internet bandwidth. HE PAINSTAKINGLY BAKED YOU A CAKE FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN CARE YOU SELFISH WENCH!

Design and Flee

I’m in a character design class. It’s a weird mix between complete excitement and total terror. I’m excited because it’s forcing me to use some little-used (yet most important, considering my intended career path) art muscles. I’m terrified for the same reason.

I had a mini-breakthrough on Thursday. It is by no means the best character design ever created, it’s not even that original but it was a significant step in the right direction, which was just what I (and my poor character) needed.

The guy on the right is in line with the mood I had in mind for my character. Kind of a little, crotchety old man.

And just as a little personal thought, have you ever wanted to inherit a ton of money and just get in your car and drive? I would say “rob a bank and drive” but then it would be more like “fleeing” instead of “driving” and that kind of thing causes ulcers which would totally hamper the fun of “driving”.

In other words, do you ever just want to get away, no strings attached?