Steam-Powered

Silent Night

2011-11-15T18:15:00.000-08:00

This blog is becoming more and more about the opera. This is an excellent thing, but the reasons are twofold: one, the opera is giving us more opportunities to draw during their shows (yay!) and two, I'm using this blog less and less. the second reason isn't totally a bad one though, I've never really liked the way blogger works, it just doesn't play that well with artists, but I used it begrudgingly, as no one else really fit the bill.

until tumblr.

Not that I plan on dropping this blog, but if you want to watch me update more often, definitely go here.

But back to the opera.

the MN Opera is awesome (said that already, but it is!) they're debuting a new show titled "Silent Night" about the soldiers who crossed the line during the Christmas of 1914 to share the holiday with the men who they'd been killing and being killed by just the day before. This has always been one of my favorite bits of millitary history, it's proof that the common man doesn't really desire to kill other men (or women, sorry but war's been a sausage fest until just recently really, trust me ladies, you weren't missing out.), It's the powers that be and their pissing contests that decide when and where it's people die. More importantly, left on their own, people would rather share a drink with his enemy right after he's shot your best friend than shoot back.

So how was the Opera? Best. Sets. EVER. Seriously, if you have the ability to go see this one, do it, and failing that try and find a recording of it, it's astounding. the costumes were fantastic, and the musical arrangement was epic in it's scope. If I were to nitpick (just to try and find something to say to prove it wasn't total perfection) it's that there was one story thread (in the three or four it was juggling) that wasn't resolved as tightly as it could have been. and there were one or two moments early on were the music was reaching an amazing crescendo that didn't totally meet up with the on stage action.

So two little nitpicks. how does it compare to the other operas I've seen? Still the best. Treat yourself to this one.

Opera part three

2011-10-12T00:34:00.001-07:00

Ok, first things first. Obviously this blog is on it's last leg. I need an art blog, but blogger has never filled that need very well. I've been playing with tumblr for the past month, and am in love. so in addition to my Deviantart and Furaffinity accounts, I'll be posting any of my regular junk to my tumblr.

As for the future of this one, I have no idea. there seem to be some new options I have yet to dig into, but I doubt highly they can compare to the networking tumblr's been showing me. so we'll see.

Secondly, the opera!

once again tempo invited us to the Minnesota Opera to see Cosi fan Tutte, an -excelent- show. I've posted the sketches we got to do below, but don't take my ink for it, go see it, it's well worth it.

Opera Night Pt.II

2011-04-04T20:56:00.000-07:00

This post is massively overdue, not just becasue I would have liked to post earlier, but I owed the wonderful folk at Tempo and the MN opera for once again letting us come and draw them once again.

I'm swamped. there is no other real reason for lack of posts, and my time management stinks. But the opera was awesome, the costumes were great, and the show was a ton of fun, I found myself watching as much as drawing just like last time.

Really hope we get the chance to do it again.

In the meantime, getting ready for springcon...hope to have my 2 more comic done by then, as well as some re-colored older stuff i was rather fond of... biting off more than i can chew, as usual... either way, I'm looking forward to it, that sort of mad dread is starting to settle in, and that's always good for motivation.

A Night at the Opera

2011-02-03T10:57:00.000-08:00

I notice that the time between posts is decreasing. I'm down from two years between posts to only a year, so following this formula, It'll only be six months before my next post...

Have to work on that. Anyway, at lest I've been keeping busy. Did a comic, working on 2 more, and started my webcomic (finally). More on that later, I'm sure. I've also taken on a slew of freelance commissions, nothing too serious ( and i say this not to be modest but because they don't really pay that well...grumble...) but really, the expose is what I'm after with those.

Though you can die of exposure.

Enough! the opera! the Kind folks at Tempo set up an amazing night last week, we got to see a free showing of Mary, Queen of Scots at the Minnesota Opera house, and all we had to do in return was draw it. Yeah I know, we made off like bandits, but you you don't say anything neither will I.

Either way, I've got the sum total of that nigh all posted below, It was awesome, I really hope we get a chance to do this again sometime. In the meantime though, I'll be (ha ha) -trying- to post here more often. I've got webcomic and commission sketching to show all y'all and a few new comics I'm trying to get up and in the air for springcon, so keep an eye out.

Till then, go check out the Opera...

Oh yeah, i DO have a blog...

2010-02-23T14:55:00.000-08:00

This is the reason I'm always so hesitant about blogs and online journals. It's tentative at first, there are the nervous glances and the embarrassed looks away, he formal introductions foll0owed by the honeymoon and the wild passionate whirlwind of posting for a few months. then the passion fades and the fighting starts, the blame game, the insults the forgotten passwords and we just drift apart, wonder what it was we saw in each other in the first place.

I kid, but it's not so funny from here, connectivity is the lifeblood of success and i am anemic.

I ment to post after i returned from south Dakota this summer, i spent almost a month and a half on the road from late july to the end of august drawing charicatures at county fairs, swap meets and even sturgis bike week (no joke!). but at teh end of it, i was so done with the whole ordeel i just wanted to forget about the whole thing. (bad bussines, sleeping on the streets, broken down car, and at the end of it, a dead boss...)

enough. this is and art blog (theoretically) so then art. I'm going to be at the new and improved spring con in a few months as well as nakamacon, and after that? well, one thing at a time.

oh yeah, almost forgot...

No special title for the first post of the new year

2009-01-14T19:13:00.000-08:00

Just playing this week, need to get a few things done before I start the hunt for freelance in earnest. Still scrambling to consolidate my student loans, they're starting to go after my parents for money, and that's not cool.

So just a quick post to keep myself honest, more to follow.

A ha'penny will do

2008-12-20T18:26:00.000-08:00

I love christmas. Though i do wish i'd gotten more hours these past few weeks, but what can you do? Oh well, looks like everyone gets art again this year.

Spent much of the week working on logo's and some screen printing. Getting better and better at the t-shirt thing, really cant wait to start doing multi-color shirts, that could be fun (or a disaster).

Also finished the poster for the rock show early in Jan, my roommate josh knows a guy.
here's mine:

Looks kinda crappy, tried doing it from start to finish all in photoshop. Some people are really successful doing work like that, me...not so much.

More to come.

[/rant]

New item "Winter" added to yout inventory.

2008-12-07T13:49:00.000-08:00

And just in time for December too. awesome.

Finally getting over my thanksgiving headcold/sore throat/general plague. That was loads of laughs. The car made it home alright, I'm driving my mum's truck around till it gets finished with repairs, so that's good.

Took on an album cover/ band logo job from my dad, It's just his band but it's work, and more importantly, portfolio padding. Hopefully I'll get some t-shirt screen printing out of the deal too, I'll end up doing that at cost, but once more, portfolio stuff plus experience.

It snowed all morning, looks amazing. I never get tired of watching the weather, the clouds, nature in general. Not so sure about the snow effect, looks so-so, but everything else looks more or less okay. Need more landscape practice, that's for sure.

More to come.

Clever Title

2008-11-26T20:57:00.000-08:00

Turkey day swiftly approacheth, now lets see if my ailing car will make the trip. It gets fixed if it does, if not, well... the wheels fall off. just kidding, only the front left fly off if i'm unlucky (the U-joint is busted) so well see, should be fun.

Mostly posting now, cause' I'm trying to make sure I do at least -something- (as in art stuffs) every day. right now I've discovered how cool Buckethead sounds.

Note that this isn't really my art. I was playing with OpenCanvas, SO I was just drawing from a photograph. not tracing, just staring at the thing, but still, makes it feel like more of a technical exercise than "art" but whatever, it's just practice/play.

Not sure how I feel about OCyet. It's nice, but I kinda like the way photoshop behaves a little better. I'll give a some more time though, It is a pretty sweet program.

more to come.

Of Student Loans.

2008-11-25T15:33:00.000-08:00

Ha ha.

I'm in a humorous mood this week. All last week I was panicking, my loans were coming in and I, being stupid, had not yet consolidated. I've calmed down dramatically since then, I knew it was all just shock at the time, but it still felt world-ending.

It was the notice saying I owed 1,023.56 a month for the next nine years that did it, I think.

Right now, I've gotten a deferment while i hunt down someone to consolidate, SLFC apperently does not, and the very nice lady who told me all this, also told me that their "income sensitive" payment plan would only kick it down to 700+ a month. Sorry, no deal.

It'll get paid, besides, what can they do? take away Christmas? re-possess my college degree? confiscate my apartment full of nothing? give me back the last five years? (i wish) Screw you mr. monopoly guy.

Enough. working still, want to get a few more ideas out and some screen printing done by the end of the week, have a stack of things to color. I need color practice, but flat colors, spending all my time on blending when I have at best, a very loose grasp of color theory is just dumb.

And finally ( in direct contrast to my previous statement) I took another crack at those clouds.

A bit better than the seizure I posted last time. still need something more though. I'll have to make a habit of doing these.

[/rant]

Screwing around

2008-11-17T19:40:00.000-08:00

Like the title says. I was driving home from work about a week ago, and on the bridge that connects Mendota Heights to fort Snelling, the sky opened up, and this sort of pure light filtered through the upper cloud bank, casting an almost pearl-yellow onto the tops of these deep, cold blue winter clouds that stretched across the horizon. I've never seen yellow and blue work together like that, never seen them both look so cold. I swore I'd paint it as soon as i got home, i ended up falling asleep instead, and I curse that.

I used to paint clouds a lot, or tried to anyway. It one more thing I need to get back to on a regular basis.

Below Is play. It looks nothing like that morning, and is honestly kind of silly looking, but the image is gone now, only that feeling remains.

Next time.

Side note, I've started the new job. same cash, closer and easier, all of which give me better time/energy to put towards art stuffs. fingers crossed.

Also just finished reading this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_(novel)
Some artists break your heart with paint, some with words. this is a case of the latter.

[/rant]

Yikes!

2008-11-08T15:32:00.000-08:00

Yikes indeed, three months since my last post!

screen printing has slowed down due to cold weather, lack of time, etc. Sam and I are working on some t-shirt design we hope to print soon, so don't mark that as dead just yet.

as for other projects... a brief story.

at the beginning of October, I lost my job. In the scramble to find more work (especially before my student loans kicked in) I put off EVERYTHING. I didn't print, or draw, or consider my next step. In short, I was lame. eventually, in between the frantic search, I started drawing again, but this time, actually enjoying it. just art for the sheer kick of it.
Last week I finally got another job, and thank goodness! The problem, I've found, is that between the long hours and the physical exhaustion (it's a manual labor type job) by the time I get home, I'm just dead.

Where am I going with this? Simply this: all that time spent jobless made me think a lot about what I've done with my life and where it's going. Now the job I've got just confirms my suppositions I've come up with.
a) art is all I am. I have no real-world skills other than that (the job search made this VERY clear)
b) not working on art is what depresses me. not lack of skill, or lack of job, but the simple lack of joy from creating something.
c) Waiting for that "perfect situation" in which to both make art, and build that art career is an exercise in foolishness. there will never be such a place or time, so to wait for or even try to create this is just plain stupid.
d) finally, if I am doing anything other than working on my art, working on building that career and finding those art jobs and making them work for me, is a waste of time so tragic it LITERALLY makes me feel guilty.

So. My new job does suck, It leaves me no time, no energy for myself, and with student loans to pay and bills to pay and a new car to try and finance (my old one just died yesterday) there is no space for art.

But I don't care.

Have some sketches. more to follow.

2008-07-23T13:14:00.000-07:00

So, I'd been meaning to post these for some time now, I thought it would be fun to show the progress of potting all this stuff together, but it all had to fall into place so quickly i kind of missed my chance. oh well, here it is now.

We started by getting ourselves a decent screen, didn't cost to much, and it made me happy to have a screen that i didn't get second hand from the school print shop.

The problem, however, as you can see in the picture below, is that the screen was stretched so tightly, it started warping the old crappy frame. i didn't even notice this at the time, but after i tried printing i sure did. damnit. Our next screen we're buying new, and quite possibly, aluminum. lets see that get all warped on us.
Here's a shot of our hi-tech darkroom (red-tinted light, $4.95 at the home depot) that despite the look of it, actually works perfectly. the only downside is it's so dusty, dust will settle onto the drying emulsion, so we have to prop something clean above it. oh well, it works for now.
Here is the space all cleaned up, just a poarch now...
Our magnificent exposure unit in action!
A close up. yes, it's just a theater bulb of some kind we rigged to a plank of wood. works perfectly though.
As shown here!
Finally sprung for some clamps. trying to work without them... no so productive.
exterior shot of our darkroom/exposure unit.
and all assembled! I had to build a new table that would be big enough and still fit into the porch. not too difficult, but transporting here was a bit tricky. That little hatchback of mine has a surprising amount of free space. But yes, table built, clamps set, screen shot, and ready to print.

And it all worked out ok, except for the badly warped screen, which we had to counter-warp and them print with before it warped back. it really sucked, but what are you going to do? next project is going to be something high volume, so we know we can handle that sort of thing before we start taking actual commissions. but before that, new, un-warped screen, a squeegee that's actually straight, and a real scoop coater...

[/rant]

an anti-climactic return

2008-07-20T19:29:00.000-07:00

Well here we are.

I figured it was about time I began picking things back up. I've been off-line, out of touch and more or less resting on my butt for long enough at this point, so before people start giving me up for dead I should pick up where I left off.

I am graduated! I win at collage! Mcad is done.

The comic was -almost- finished, but that i can pick up later (or sooner as the case may be. I've been spending the summer finding work and planning what the hell to do next, but most I've kind of just been chilling out. I mean, i've been doing things, but i haven't been drawing almost at all. I just don't have the heart to pick up a pen at this point, I'm half enjoying the down time half terrified.

well, until yesterday, I started sketching and enjoying it. So I'll have some of that soon.

in the meantime, the above image I did the last semester at Mcad, a self portrait (which i still have to re-collect), and the below image is something i did for fun for the webcomic i'm planning. Yes, yes, i should have started the bloody thing by now, but that's how things are, deal with it. I'm drawing stuff now so eat it.

Aside from all of this, myself and my friend Sam from my AI days are putting together a screen printing studio ( read "studio" as "porch" for now...) and have alread started drumming up business. we have just to try a big print run before we actually take anything (at least 100+) we have to make damn sure we don't promise something we can't deliver.

So the future is looking ok, this is assuming that when my $100,000-plus in student loans hit I can take it.

[/rant]

April Madness

2008-04-01T22:27:00.001-07:00

It's 12:08 according to the clock on the taskbar. I have a class tomarrow and a critique for a print I havent done, and in two days time, a comic convention i have nothing ready for. in less than a month,my senior project is due, and at this point, it's just barely halfway done.

I've been going to school for over five years, and is till have never figured out how to finish things. it's problem, a big one, and god help me, i haven't got a clue what to do about it.

I got up this morning and pissed around till evning, playing video games and fucking around on the internet. It seems like such a simple thing, strap shoes on and walk out the fucking door but for some retarded reason, it just isn't that simple for me, never has been, and i'm wondering if it ever will be.

Well, i work more than i used to, so i suppose that's encouraging, but it's not enough, i certainly don't feel like graduate material. And that's not just inadaquacy talking, i know this bull-shit half-assing it is not good enough to make a career out of, not enough to make a life out of. It'll have to change.

Enough.

So my comic is still only half done, but Ithought i'd upload what i have so far, I already have a lot of revisions to do, suggestion from teachers and other students, so it'll change bu not too drastically.

Stiching with Heartstrings

2008-02-11T21:44:00.000-08:00

I lied to my girlfriend the other night. I know she'll eventually read this so i'm sure i'm due a well-deserved ear full when she does, but thats fine, I want her to. The thing is, I like valentines day, I really do, or at least the idea of it. I told her i hated it, but I regretted it later after thinking it over. I don't hate it, or at least i didn't used to. i think maybe over the the course of spending many a year alone on said day may have embittered me more than I at first realized. Thinking back on it, I never really disliked it, even the crass commercialization bits. so hershey's sells a few more chocolate bars, big deal, it's still a good idea for a holiday. And now, i have no more reason to be embittered, so why dwell?

Certainly no good reason i can see.

On to the pictures:

here's my first shot at the new character for my eventual web comic based on my aforementioned girlfriend. the character is based on my GF, not the comic, though what an entertaining read that would be.

I hated the curtains, so i re-did them and i'm much happier with the result. the dry-brushing i did on the panel i posted last time looked so-so but the problem with dry brushing is, if you do it one, you have to use it over the entire page/comic or it looks really weird. at least if you did it the way I did, and make it more of a shading effect than a black-on-white effect.

anyway, happy with the result of the hatching, wish i could do more, but man do i need to start work on the final....

[\rant]

The beginning of the end

2008-02-08T01:11:00.001-08:00

Sorry everyone, the title of today's little post is not, in fact drama, but actually specific.

This is my last semester at Mcad, and i'm gearing up for that one last push towards my senior project. i should have started it by now, but you know how those things go, you always put it off juuuuust a little bit. well this time i'm only a week in the hole and already starting to feel that edge of "it's too late" creeping up.

and i'm not too late, i still have till graduation to get my project done, but i know my own level of procrastination, so i'm already getting scarred. i guess the real test isn't going to be whether or not i cen do the work, but whether or not i get it all done on time, the way i want to. whether i can grow the fuck up enough to stop faffing about and the do the thing.

well heres hoping.

ah yes, that's right. sketchblog. well then, sketches:

working on faces, that shit is still a bit of a bitch, especially the eyes, i always make them too big.

the below panel was practice that got too serious for its own good, then i had to finish it, same stuff as before, my webcomic-in-waiting, i really should just do this as my final since i'm so geared up to do it, but really, a new, fresh project would be better. i think. i hope.

but when the final is done i can come back to this and work on it for real instead of just screwing around with it. anyway, this panel is at the top of the page i'm working on where Tenna is introduced, the character that i have some scribbles about a few posts down. Thought it would be kinda cool to have a fight scene in this lavish mansion, and really what better place as well to intro a character that can destroy things just by touching them than in the most lavishly expensive environment imaginable?

Kay and Jonas looking towards the approaching intruder; not featured: the rest of the page, and oh yeah Tenna, the character i'm talking about. more to follow, obviously.

Actuall sketching-s?

2008-01-29T19:54:00.000-08:00

right, so my long abused and rarely used sketchbook is actually finally seeing some action. so now ya'll get to see what my sketches, and not just the polished work, actually looks like.

no, that feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach IS ACTUAL DREAD and not just gas, like you were hoping.

this is what the sketch in my sketchbook actually looks like. mostly scribbles and studies and half-ideas that later get turned into semi-decent work. i'm always super-envious of the sort of artist who's sketchbook sketches actually look like they could be something, and not just a collection of random lines all milling about each other like they all showed up on the same page, and are now not sure what to do about it.

the first two pages up there are an idea i had for a character i'm going to stick in my 1000 acre wasteland story (story based around that raccoon chick further down the page) my girlfriend Christine always makes the joke that "if it exists i can break it". she thinks she's accident prone, and i'm starting to believe her, but anyway, i thought it might be a cool idea, in a story about these fighters who can re-arrange object on the molecular level, what if one of those fighters just decided, instead of making new objects and weapons to fight with, what if i just destroy all of yours?

So i tired to sort of anthropomorphise Christines' features into that of a lizard, a uromastyx actually, based on her pet lizard tenna.

which is actually sort of... creepy actually, but note; that in this case i'm only fishing for clever character ideas, not actually imagining my girlfriend as a lizard, which is, unfortunately, the sort of thing you find from time to time on the furry fandom. craziness.

Oh yes and this:

doodles during gaming (super-nerd, draws furries and plays rpgs, feel free to run screaming any time now...) this one actually looks semi-decent, but noses are still such a pain in the butt. the face has to be one of the most difficult to draw parts of the body. get it even slightly wrong and your character looks disfigured, and even if you get it right, you still have to use it to portray mood, expression, race, gender, etc... I need more practice, but that goes without saying.

[/rant]

Inks

2008-01-20T21:36:00.000-08:00

Done! Finished the inks of that image i uploaded a few days ago. I haven't drawn over the break (like usual) so it's taking some time to get back into the swing of things. Irritating, but that's how it usually works for me, so I'm totally used to it by now.

Nothing much else going on at the moment, I've got a screen printing class on Wednesdays now, so i'll eventually have some of that work to throw up here... if you can excuse that tragic choice of metaphors, as well as a senior project class on Fridays, so i'll be posting my sketchbook work for that, once i figure out what it is i want to do for the next few months. It's a little intimidating; i'm totally ready to be done with school, and there are a few projects I'd love to do, but it scares me a little. i mean, I've had work up on th e wall before but this is it, the final of finals, the sum total of all my time in art school. Exactly the sort of situation where I'm totally going to be judge by the quality of my work, and thats more than a little terrifying.

[/rant]

First art-ing of the New year

2008-01-15T07:41:00.000-08:00

I added a few links to the sidebar on the left, friends and/or good artists, but one you should look at especially is Daily Eullogy, my house mate, and one of the sorts of fantastic artists who has the most irritating habits, of being able to draw non-stop. if i was any more envious i might have to poison him.

At any rate, he was the one of the people i was singing the praises of sketch journals to, and now he's been posting for about half a year and i'm only just beginning.

but! all is well, i am drawing again ( i hope it sticks), and have new things to upload. classes start tomorrow, so hopfully i can build a momentum up that will carry me through, but i suppose time will tell.

rough sketch ready more or less for inks. i start that tomorrow.

then with luck, i'll start work again on the comic she goes in, and then tackle all the back-logged art i've been meaning to do since forever....

Ran out of steam

2008-01-13T16:56:00.000-08:00

Still organizing my files...

This wouldn't have seen the light of day, at least not for awhile, if not for this blog; I started this as a class project, and got some good ideas and a decent script banged out before the whole thing ate itself the last month of the semester.

It was supposed to be a really straightforward class, with only one exception: the whole thing was online.

Why should this be a problem you might ask? a very good question, and thank you for asking, otherwise the answer i'm about to give wouldn't fit. See, the problem with online classwork, or really anything online, is that there's no face-to-face accountability. even though i still fail just as hard if i don't do the work, it still doesn't feel like it, and so when the the big crunch falls, the work that seems less immediate gets put aside in favor of the thing that has to be done NOW.

Meh. I'm a child of the digital age but i still have troubles fitting into it. Anyway, the project was supposed to be this cool alternate-world steampunk fantasy. Ya' know, swords versus gun, tradition versus industrialization, etc. It would have been a fun project, or that is to say it will, when i take another stab at it in the future. So here's the cover sketch 9 the finished cover seems to be strangely absent, i'll post it in the future) and the nearly-complete first page.

Sketchbook love (indifference

2008-01-12T03:03:00.001-08:00

My sketchbook and i have never been close. Among my habits, this is probably my worst, but there it is. Partially this is because i can never just sketch in the darn thing, i always feel like the quality matters, seeing as it's going to be in this book, permanently.

So these sorts of things end up in there, when it should really be sketches and junk. oh well, at least it looks decent, even if i did rip it off.

Meet the artist

2008-01-08T02:40:00.000-08:00

I have always been at odds with blogs.

I used to keep an online journal with some semi-frequency many years ago, but eventually gave it up due to my personal distaste for internet drama. It was at a point in my life as well, that I was making the sort of friends that, if i had some terrible wight upon my mind, i could talk to them, rather than spouting my damage electronically.

Understand, please, that this is my criticism towards blogs, and the idea of bloging, not the people who write them. some of my very best friends have blogs, and even the emoblogs that are nothing but emotional roller-coasters, and i respect their candidness, i just was never very good at it myself.

However, i have observed myself, and have recomended to some of my closest freinds the idea of sketchblogs, a daily journal of sketching and art aside from the various online galleries, and thought it high time to start one of my own. i promise to try and keep the emo to a minimum, as well as words in general, but i fear it may spill out, from time to time. Please accept my art as apology to any undue trauma you may experience from my use of words.