And here I am not. Which is to say, it's bloody obvious I sorta drifted away from LJ in the end. So if you actually want to know where to find me, I'm at:

deviantART

Fur Affinity

My online portfolio

My art blog

I just completed the Pre-Animation course at Algonquin, and I've been accepted to the Animation program this fall, so that's the next two or three years taken care of. I've decided to not continue with Xeno's Paradise for the foreseeable future, but maybe I'll eventually come back to it. For now I'm working on a comic project with a friend from school, so hopefully that'll be released by the end of the summer. We'll see.

I doubt I'll be around LJ much to speak of, other than a quick update like this. You can find me at any of the other places, though.

Well, they said they'd work us in this course. Just passed in my second Character Design assignment, and got handed my next one. It's a doozy.

Five body types, male and female of each, and front and back poses. Then two poses for male and two for female for each of the types. Then six variants on one of the poses. Finally, ten ball-and-plane heads with properly spaced eyes, and for an encore a cut-and-paste lineup of one pose for each of the male and female body types.

Grand total, 57 drawings. Due two weeks from today. Oh, and I have to have 30 of those done in a week, for mid-eval. Yaaaaay!

The plus side is, I'm starting to learn something, even if it has to be beat into me.

So I actually did something worth posting today, if only barely. It's an in-class assignment to design a robot, something I've never done before.

The method was pretty cool, draw a tonne of little 1-inch or so thumbnail sillhouettes with a marker, then pick the favourite and do a quick design based on it. You can see the original thumb in the corner.

I think he's pissed off mostly because he's got a stupid name. I'd be pissed too.

( velociwolf )

Hopefully I'll get some of what I'm working on posted by the end of the weekend (foot sketches at the moment), but in the meantime I thought I'd share this link of old Polish movie posters from the 70's and 80's. They might clash a bit with modern tastes, accustomed to Photoshop and the usual "bunch of faces" style of movie posters today, but it's interesting to see what the state of the art was in a place like that, still under Soviet control.

Reading the comments on it, it seems there were a couple of things at play, namely issues with copyright (so they couldn't use official posters) and with the opportunity to slip political messages into the art, which wasn't censored as most other communication was. Fascinating glimpse into a bit of history, really.

Here's the sheet of poses, as promised. I just submitted it for tomorrow's class, as my first successful bit of homework so far this year. It's a start.

Can't wait for class tomorrow, though. I love character design already.

( koobaloobawaaaaaa! )

Well, I've had a week of school already, and other than getting my butt kicked by drafting work (grid rooms suck), it went pretty well. Homework is relatively light so far, but it's a good chance to start building some confidence, I'll need it later on.

So what's below the cut is practice for my first Character Design assignment, which is to do a bunch of action poses of this cute little character with the big head and the teardrop body. We're supposed to stay on model, so it makes sense to do a lot of practice poses. I've got a couple more pages but they're in blue pencil that doesn't really scan, so this is what you get.

I'll post the actual page of poses once I get it done tomorrow.

( go go air guitar! )

I'm probably the only one reading this who thinks this is utterly awesome.

Someone really should tell CPI about this public health hazard. She's probably in danger.

Yes, I'm doing my homework.

Shut up.

Well, I hate to disappoint you, but the news on Xeno is...no Xeno. Not for a while, anyway.

My original plan was to work on the strip over the summer, then re-start the strip from square one at the beginning of September. In fact, I was aiming for this weekend. But plans have changed for what really should have been obvious reasons.

First of all, since I'm starting school in two days (TWO FREAKIN' DAYS!), I'm going to be pretty busy, especially getting used to the increased workload, changing my habits and so forth. That's gonna prevent a lot of work in the first few weeks in any case.

Second, and more importantly, what the heck am I going to school ''for'', anyway? To work on comics, of course! So what's the freakin' point of starting the comic ''before'' I learn all the stuff that I plan to apply to it? That's bass ackwards at best.

So because of both of those, I'm putting off re-starting Xeno's Paradise until probably the Xmas holidays sometime. I'll keep posting sketches and design stuff I do through the year on the site, but aside from that don't expect any real strips or story until that point. I'm also hoping to re-design the site, maybe steal the comments system from Umlaut House 2 or something.

Hope I'm not disappointing anyone, but the strip'll be stronger for it when it happens.

Here's some inking practice for you. I've seriously got a long way to go, ugh.

( not so much bad as meh )

Nothing really new, just getting back in the swing of art after a relatively busy week with college-related stuff. Classes start next Tuesday, so I'm starting to get geared up. Given that I'd planned to do way more than this today, it's sort of shameful that this is all I have to post.

Bought a lovely all-wood drafting table yesterday, spent the whole afternoon getting a place in the room for it. It looks great, and all for only $20. As Roomie said, the wood alone is worth more than that, so it was a steal. A pleasure to work on, too.

In any case, here's today's figure. I'm hoping to start posting much more frequently, and I hope to have some news about Xeno's Paradise in the next day or two, so stay tuned.

( dance for me, my poppet )

Rrrrrgh!!! Here I am, on the verge of totally changing the direction of my life (yet again), and I end up faced with TEMPTATION!! Bad enough I'm going to be voluntarily tossing myself back in debt for this year's school, when this gem shows up.

Seriously, I am majorly tempted to turn this one-year certificate in illustration into a one-two punch, with this as the knockout. Now the course requirements are kinda high, requiring two years study or education plus work, and a portfolio as well, but I think I can manage that, especially if I can get the backing of my current profs. If it works, the course would be very practical, and useful for getting my art career going strong.

I got a few months to think about it in any case. What I really should be doing is concentrating on the excitement of going to school in the first place.

Gad, has it been that long since I updated? Here's what I did in life drawing tonight, I think it's okay.

Classes start in less than three weeks, yikes! I go in to the college on Monday to get my loan money, get my semester pass, explore the campus, etc., which should be fun. There's a welcome event on the 28th, too. I usually don't bother with those, but when I looked at the official invitation (as opposed to the email), I realized that it includes meeting the teachers, and the Illo students can pick up their supply kits, so it's a really good idea to go. Besides, I get free lunch.

Only dark spot really is a trip to the dentist next Thursday, but that's good in a way too. I can live with it, either way.

( baby, it's been so long )

Some of you might find this little story interesting, for any number of reasons. If nothing else, it's cute.

I like the bit about how he does nice things, you just have to trick him into it.

So it looks like college is inevitable now. I've got the loan arranged, the college has accepted my application, and the class schedule was sent out yesterday online, although it took me hours to correctly decipher what building each of the room numbers were in. Yah, might have been a little clearer.

Still trying to figure out the backgrounds of most of my professors, unfortunately. My Layout Design prof seems to be this guy, which is pretty good by a quick scan of his work, I think that this is my digital photography prof, and this here looks like the guy who's gonna be teaching me Character Design. Guess that means this is who'll be running the Life Drawing class. Not bad, really. I think I can learn a lot, especially from the first and last ones.

(x-posted from my deviantART journal)

But it's a failure unless it changes.

Mysteriously, at some point, I realized my life had become entirely centred around art.

Thinking back, it always was.

You'd think someone might have mentioned it to me at some point.

Over at Xeno's Paradise, there's a new page of sketches featuring Tik-Tak! Aren't you thrilled?

New sketches up at Xeno's Paradise! Go see!

Yeah, I'd really like to see that movie again. Probably means I miss Halifax a bit, but I'm hardly in a position to see it in person right now.

More relevant, I managed to get to a new life drawing group, the one I tried out a few weeks ago. Since the life drawing course I was taking at the Ottawa School of Art finished up, I figured I really need to keep at it until school starts, at the very least. So I'm going to this one for 2 1/2 hours a week, and it's pretty nice. Much more chatty, friendly atmosphere than the course, which was a bit standoffish.

Here are the four pieces I did tonight. Some big weaknesses in all of them, but there are areas of all of them that I'm really proud of. I can honestly say I'm making progress, although it really shows how much I still need to make.

( hibibbidy jibibbidy )