Happy Day of the Ninja!

Only the best day of the year.
http://www.dayoftheninja.com/

Blah Blah Blah

I've had very little time to update this. My website is usually better updated than this, and will be more so when I finish programming the new website. Here's some stuff that I did these last few months:

A rejected logo design for a company. They said they wanted something cartoony, and said this wasn't cartoony enough. They later chose a design (out of a number of designs) that was just some photographs photoshopped in haphazardly, and wasn't "cartoony" in any way.

Some game tiles I made for fun early October when I had some free time somehow.

Some gesture drawings from September. Maybe I'll get around to scanning more stuff sometime this month.

Stuff

Okay, I've got some form of internet again. I still need to get access to my e-mail. Last week I drove from California to Utah, moved into my apartment, and then found out the internet wasn't working. I called the people I was told to call, but haven't heard back from them for almost a week.

I made a pretty cool time-lapse video of the car trip from California, but I can't upload it yet since I broke my website in order to bring its security up a notch. I still have to reprogram some of the back-end PHP and data basing stuff for uploading to work again.

There are people

...who, while watching a movie, look at a scene that gets screen time for 2/3 of a second, perfectly visible for only half of that duration, and notice the color of the crown molding that borders the wall at the ceiling. These people are a joy to work with...

Maybe I'll get to "finish" the two-week project that I started over five weeks ago this week? Hopefully.

I hate animating grass.

I drawed some things

...and that web design job ended after less than three weeks. Why? I've been given two different excuses. Unfortunately it would also seem that issues between the company and I aren't over yet.

Another week, another drawing session, another batch of sketches. This week we got to draw some guy in a suit who was 6'10." The only thing missing was a Thompson sub-machine gun and maybe an earpiece.

Blog Post

It's been a while since my last update. Things have picked up here in California, I got a nice job at a web design firm, got some cool things at the local flea market, etc.

One thing that Utah seriously lacks is a decent flea market (or any flea market, for that matter). The only thing that comes close are the Deseret Industries buildings scattered across the state. Still, they can't hold a candle to the offerings of Denios. You can get anything at Denios, and it will almost always be decently priced. Newer stuff tends to be harder to find, but if you go often, you'll probably find it eventually. If I had been in Utah, I would never have picked up two of the latest Wacom tablets for $15 a piece. Though, I think I may have created a monster...

Yes, there are three tablets plugged into a tablet PC. Aside from the Tablet PC, all were found at Denios. The really big one only cost me $5.

California does not have TCGT11's weekly gesture drawing session, or BYU's weekly figure drawing session. Sacramento seems to have no figure drawing sessions. Which is odd, since CA is a more liberal state. Still there's the local "Pompsicle" drawing session that allows me to draw things I probably wouldn't find in Utah, such as Star Trek punk rockers. Electric guitars, phasers, and three hours of Star Trek-themed rock music playing in the background. Do you know what to make of that? I don't.

So the next portfolio deadline to get in the animation program is the 8th of August, and my last portfolio is some kind of limbo or something somewhere in Provo with all my best figure drawings at the time. I can't justify making $50 all-day trips to San Franscisco every week (), so I'll probably have to resubmit any of the figure drawings I had scanned into my computer. It's better than nothing, and my sketchbook is already better than the one I submitted. At least, I think it is. I don't remember what I had in the last one. For the animation, I could use what I submitted before, but I'm hoping I can get my current project complete enough to submit. It involves The Sandwich Shop Ninja, and looks to be coming around to 5 minutes long. I had decided to do some seriously detailed backgrounds that push Flash beyond what it's meant to do, for some reason, so those will seriously determine how long until it's done.

[Edit]

Okay, I guess I exaggerated the cost of gas. Thanks to Mapquest, I found out that it would only cost me $27.30 to make the 223-mile round trip at $4.65/gallon. Still, its expensive. And I would spend more time driving than actually drawing.

Still Alive

Sorry about the lack of updates here. I made it to California fine, got a speeding ticket on the way, got rejected on my application to BYU's animation program and told to re-apply in August as a transfer student, and have yet to hear back from a umber of places that I applied for work at... My computer is finally useful, as I was finally able to get ahold of my Windows XP disc and upgrade to that from Vista, and I did finish redesigning the website layout for The Sandwich Shop Ninja, just a few pages won't be finished until I finish the next episode.

Here are some sketches from a Tuesday drawing session in Sacramento that I managed to find. I'm supposed to be working on figure drawing as well as my sketchbook for my application, but surprisingly enough it is harder to find any figure drawing sessions during the summer in Sacramento than it is back in Provo.

Day 20: Cat Doodles

Some cat doodles (plus one weird old man) before I pack away my scanner.

Sorry, I guess I'm missing another of the thirty days. I spent the day studying, doing finals, and packing stuff in my car so that I can leave for California right after my last final on Monday. I'll have something up for tomorrow.

Day 18: More Character Designs

I tried to reproduce the results I got last night, and it would seem that I can't draw the same character twice. I'll work on it some more tomorrow after the majority of my finals are over. I also got a Staedler Calligraphy pen to try out, which is why there's a cowboy with a huge mustache.

Day 17: Character Designs

A year ago I wrote this short story in a creative writing class, and ever since I've felt an itch to get it out in some form or another. For a while I was thinking of animating it, but I think it would work better as a comic. Today I tried getting some character ideas on paper. I first tried the "Sandwich Shop Ninja" style, and that didn't really work the way I wanted it to. Then I tried a more realistic style, and liked it even though I got the arm proportions way off even when I tried correcting one of them.

Animation Final

Link

Just follow the link to see the school mascot, Cosmo, in his infinite-looping glory!

Day 16: Gesture Drawings

Scans from my last gesture drawing session of the school year.

Day 15: Future Nature

...and I didn't post yesterday. So much for the thirty-day thing. I spent the entire day working on my final for my Intro. to Animation class. I'd have uploaded it by now, if only the Mac the file is on didn't keep corrupting it when I moved it over to my flash drive. I'll have to go back tomorrow and copy it multiple times to ensure that it is copied completely. I can't stand Macs.

Day 13: Time-Lapse Photography

I walked out to the busiest street corner I could find nearby. these would have been longer if the battery for my home-made intervalometer wasn't dead. Also, whoever keeps honking their horn in the parking lot at 12:43 at night needs to be shot.

Day 12: Planet

TDP - Day 11: Scenery Revisited

I worked a bit more on the scene image I posted a few days ago.

TDP - Day 10: Forum Sketches

So I had to go see some professor talk about his book today for a class. I drew some people. Then in another class I learned about the macuahuitl and that an Aztec warrior could severe a horse's head with one. Awesome.

TDP - Day 9: More Scenery

Staying up late doing essays leaves little time to do much else.

TDP - Day 8: Waiting Ninja

What's he waiting for? He's waiting for this stupid semester to end, that's what. Man, I'm out of practice with Flash.

TDP - Day 7: Twilight Hills

TDP - Day 6: Sleeping Beasts

A pair of large creatures sleep in the sunlight on the grassy hilltops of some unknown land. It would not be unwise to wake them. However, it would be unwise to hang around after waking them, for they are known to eat people. Not just any people, just the really stupid ones that piss them off.

TDP - Day 5: Clouds

I realized that I wouldn't be able to get breakfast at the cafeteria tomorrow, since its a Sunday, and that I didn't have any cereal. So today, after the general conference sessions, I drove around looking for cheap cereal and milk. It took a while, since the first few stores were sold out of the cheap stuff that wasn't $4.50 a box.

Is the moon even visible from Provo? I haven't seen it in over a month.

TDP - Day 4: Speed Paintings

Thirty-Day Project, Day 4 - two more speed paintings, one of a forest, one of a spaceship docking station.

TDP - Day 3: Spiff Sketch

I have other deadlines that I need to work for, so here's a sketch I did to avoid falling asleep in astronomy today. I still fell asleep, and ended up smearing the penciling on the planet. Still, out of all the sketches I did during classes today, this one turned out the best.

TDP - Day 2: Cloudy Coast

It'd be nice to live in a place like this. Calm, peaceful, a nice cool breeze. I'd still have to have a job, and traffic in the bay area of California is something of nightmares.

Day 2 of the Thirty Days Project, a small 30-minute speed painting. I'll be able to put more time in these when finals are over.

[Edit] Hmm, now that I look at it on a screen that isn't my laptop's, the sky is green. Seems a little counter-productive to have a tablet PC with a generic cheap poor-colored laptop screen.

Thirty Days Project - Day 1

Since it's still technically yesterday according to Blogger's standards, I am still able to fully participate in the Thirty Days Project. Behold, a Ring-Tailed Lemur wearing boxing gloves. Also, my scanner seems to have issues suddenly.

Animation?

So I turned in my portfolio today. Or yesterday. It's tomorrow over here right now or something. Here's the animation I used for it:

If the above video doesn't work, here's a link to somewhere else that has it:
Alternate link to animation.

Whatever. I can't even view it because my computer got messed up and the only way to fix it was to install Windows Vista.

Last Week's Sketches

I haven't updated in a while. Here's some sketches. Or, here's some thumbnail images that link to sketches.

On an unrelated note, why do people keep using Internet Explorer 6.0? It is horrible at displaying transparent PNG images which makes this page look retarded. There are better browsers out there - they're even free!

Ursa Maximus and the Great White Shark

Coolest. Project. Ever.

It has proportion problems and stuff since I had to draw it around the stars, but you take what you can get.

The story:

"For centuries, the bear and the shark have been bitter enemies. They constantly argued over who could maul the most humans. The bear argued that the shark could not be the best, due to the string ensemble that warned all humans except for the slow and fat. The shark argued that the bear had been reduced to the mercy of Yellowstone vacationers as to when he gets food. One day they got so angered from their arguing that they decided that something had to be done. After many days of contemplation, they agreed to fight each other to the bitter end. And so, to this day, the bear and the shark ruthlessly fight, locked in mortal combat, for their title of glory.

In space."

Sketch Dump

Some gesture drawing stuff from last Wednesday. Including the menacing Broomray wielder.

Not much happened last week, that I can remember. I drove around, and found a place where I can buy guns and cash loans. Wonder what happens if you forget to make a payment on your loan?