it's one of those days that the clocks stop and nothing good comes out of my fingers. in an effort to kickstart myself so i could draw cinderblocks and rails, i did this quick kinda self-portrait. i probably don't have such a cromagnon brow, but it's funny lookin.
sigh. back to drawing stairs.
i'm sure that at the last moment of lucidity at my annihilation all my shitty drawings will be there... mocking me as that dark night tightens its drowning noose.
i'm drawing hallways at work. it could be worse. actually, the most horrifying thing about today (besides this sorry excuse for a doodle) was that i used the last of my soda funds for a tasty and cold dew. now i am quite popless.
all told, if these are the worst things that have happened to me lately, i'm a very fortunate little artist, am i not?
oh, and the source: --clickish--
i didn't so much copy this one as i gave it a good stare to begin with, then closed the window out and tried to draw the thing from memory. holy crap i just saw her left hand again and realized that it is horribly the wrong size. wow i'm awesome. i'll file this one under "want to die."
in my original plan, the bricks were going to look cooler. in fact, the whole background just let me down. i really should have tried harder. yeah, i suck.
i'm behind the times, i know. this weekend i finally put god mode on god of war to bed. the first god of war that is. it's mostly useless, but the game had been calling me names. at night, that lidless red eye stared at me. it watched me undress and mocked my doughy bellies. when i had my back turned, i swear the game was stealing my cookies. i draw the line at violating my cookie stash. sigh, if only i really did have a cookie stash. why are cookies so satisfying? is it the crunchy? the sugar injection? i don't know, but i'm working myself into a cookie frenzy.
i wonder why kratos never slipped in the puddles of blood he left everywhere he went. not very badass, i suppose. i'd love to have gotten that animation assignment though. especially since he's so top heavy. also, has anyone noticed that his blades are tethered to his wrists much like a toddler might have a balloon or even mittens hobbled? one can then perhaps understand kratos' uncontrollable and irrational rage problems. oh how the wee tikes must have tormented the poor kid for showing up to school with his mittens attached to giant chains burned into his wrists. perhaps the olympians should have had a god of counseling that could have helped the nascent diety. but then how would they sell a sequel? god of recovering rageaholics just doesn't have the same appeal. i don't suppose a group therapy minigame would hold the same excitement as repeatedly slamming some irritating horse demi-god's head in the door he had been guarding.
maybe i should shut up and start my day already.
yeah, here's the fruit of my lunch. not the fruit that i ate for lunch. in fact, i did not eat fruit for lunch. lunch was fairly dull. that is, it wasn't very interesting until some co-workers started to discuss their favorite bad horror films. my favorite part was when one fellow referred to one of the characters as tom petty. the other fellow cried, "no!" in anguish. amusements!
anyway, here's the little sketch that i started with. i doodled this quite a while ago. i can't say i'm entirely happy with how it turned out. i always lose something from doodle to what could almost be called, "painting." i suppose that could could be eliminated by what one might call "time," and perhaps even something as elusive as "practice." mind you these are all over-exaggerated air quotes. 
so i need to work on my hands, therefore, here i am, working on hands. i grabbed some stock photos of hands and did a quick sketch from that, which i then turned into cartoony hands.
there was a tornado warning last night. we were in its path at one point. i don't think it ever touched down though. at one point the warning said that it was on the tollway. it may not be funny to anyone else but me... but i think that's a rather hilarious situation... if properly cartoonified. a tornado stopping to rummage in its pockets for correct change. yeah, that's probably only funny to me.
i'm sittin on top of the world." it's a slow and ponderous song, but that's what i'm hearing right now, so that's the title of my post. i don't have to tell you... but i will, that it's been a busy couple of months. the same old story though, the time is there, but i hardly could be bothered to make good use of it. here's something i started in march of all things. finished it this morning. i would not call it "good" or even "barely tolerable." i might just call it a blight on my blurry eyeballs. as per my standard operating procedure, i didn't think about a background until much later. well that's not true. i had an idea for a background, but my awesome failure at painting made it rather infeasible. so there you have it.
a little bit sullen
another interminable day lurches and belches into commencement. can i sleep now? i'd sleep for a year or five if i could.
interestingly enough, it seems that when one looks at something, it is difficult for one to perceive that something's objective reality. what we see is a reflection of what has formed us from the womb to the very moment of observation. what we see is not what we are looking at, but rather what we understand it to be. we are always looking for interpretation, representation, significance, meaning, understanding. ultimately our sight and the associated brain mechanisms that process the visual stimuli are the product of such a protracted evolutionary process that by their very nature they are optimised for one thing and one thing only, to keep us alive. in order for the information around us to do us any good, we must identify, organise, catagorise, and pass judgment on countless pieces of information every second that our eyes are open. this function is so significant that the brain continues to preform the same functions even when we're unconscious, pulling from its vast network of neurons already primed with memories and understanding. the brain tireless runs its fingers over the cobwebs of our life, sifting, reliving, recompiling and reinforcing. when we look at something, we don't see it; we see what we think it is.
what i'm saying may seem rather dense, but that's because i don't really know anything about philosophy or anything else that would help me clarify my thoughts. I'm positive greater minds than me have bent their faculties at these questions and come up with much more articulate and thorough musings than my feeble clutches at the straws of understanding.
anyway, what i'm trying to say is that i feel sullen and oppressed by heavy thoughts this morning and that feeling came out in my drawing. so there's that. i had best be about my work already.
here's today's inspiration
I started this on the 30th. which is sometime in the past, as i understand it. it came out ok. not nearly as awesome as i was trying to make it. i tried a monochromatic underpainting, then tried glazing in some color... but it didn't quite work as i had hoped. oh well. it's ok. looking at it now, she looks like her left breast is ridiculously smaller than the right. oh yah, i'm awesome. i'll be in the car.
damn i wish i had soda monies.
lunch time sketch. the inspiration
the more i listen to the new shins album, the more i like it. i don't have much to say today other than to complain about the wicked pains shooting through my neck regions. i would blame my pillow, but really i've been suffering the abuse of pillows for many years now. i often wake with the hateful daggers of having either slept too long in one position, or settling into the perfect position to misalign my vertebrae. quite sad really. regardless, i went to the gym at dawn's wincing threshold with the intent to allow torrents of sweat to cascade from my shorn head. leaving the gym in such a condition was much too unpleasant. i hate getting into my car as a human sweat sprinkler.
and there you have it. can i get a nap now?
this is how i spent my evening.
inspired by a little squirrel we saw sunday after brunch.
yes, i brunched.
also, i need to animate more. much more.
one of my favorite films for breakfast today! looking at it, i think i should have brought the round of his cheek bones down further, especially under his right eye. also, he shouldn't be scowling so much. the menace of the line was actually stronger because of the lack of a scowl. mr. lee actually raised his eyebrows more at the end, communicating the threat of the moment from a place that didn't really need the help of a physically angry expression. also i should have made the finger more exaggerated... and the silhouette could be pushed to be better and clearer. his pucker on the "oooo" of the line doesn't look tight enough. i would push that forward more and squeeze it in more i think.
source
being that it's friday, i thought i'd do a horrible sketch. i also desperately want some cookies. i don't see that happening though. i'll have to settle for some water instead. now i get to move on to modeling road signs and wee posts. how could i ever want to put that off?
last night i was sketching some buildings. "buildings for what?" one might ask if anyone read my blog. i'm recreating a town from a video game i played as a young whelp in the frozen tundras of idaho. i'll put those up when i get home tonight. or tomorrow when i awaken from my television induced stupor.
this is moses. not that moses. i've recently joined the mudbox bandwagon, and there are treats on that bandwagon my friends. treats of great deliciousness. since this is my first foray into the delicious world of the digital sculpting, i started with a cartoony situation which is a character i was already doing for a friend (that's moses, but obviously not that moses). normally, i wouldn't put a bunch of muscle detail and stuff, but i figured, "why not? this is after all mostly practice." i'm sure i'll do a more realistic sort of anatomy study. or i might just watch television until my brain froths out my ears. right now i'm going to bed.
you'll notice that the models are "faceted" which means they're not smooth shaded. that's how i've been working, and i forget to turn on the smooth shade before i do a screen grab. it may be a good idea to model with smooth on though as i find that i get too noodley trying to grab individual vertices and push them around into pleasing topology. i don't know if that's defeating the purpose of sculpting in mudbox or if it is indeed a good idea.
if you're wondering why his body is all blocky and his faces isn't, well that's how subdivision surfaces work... i won't try to explain that here. all i'll say is that i've been noodling the face longer, so it's more finished and subsequently has been subdivided more than the body. i just started pushing around the body tonight, so i haven't gone any deeper than level0.
i intend to take him back to maya and animate him, but i still haven't decided if i'll model him nudish and put some clothes on him in maya, perhaps fiddle around with cloth (yikes), or mudbox up another version of him with clothes on. we'll see about that eventually, but for now i'll do his torso as if it were nude, and perhaps he'll have a really tight shirt on. or i may just through out all this detail for the animated version. who knows? i sure don't.
so every now and then you'll get a song that's like cocaine for your brain. i don't know if there is some sort of magical combination of melody, lyrics and other crazy tonal elements that fits your cerebral tumblers and unlocks a rush of dopamine. all i know is that occasionally i run into something that i can listen to literally over and over, and then i play it two or three more times. this is the case with several songs by the shins. there aren't many artists i can say that about. this song from their new album, "turn on me," really does me in. i lack the musical appreciation 101 credits to properly explain what it is about the song that resonates with me. it may have started the other night when i passed out on the couch (not very unusual at all). consciousness was seeping back in just as the shins took the stage on the david letterman show. that was the song that they played. it may have had something to do with the state of half-sleeping delirium or maybe it's just the greatest song i've heard in the longest time, i can't say. it is great and i think i may listen to it again.
sure, the darks are muted, but that why i experiment. overall it probably needs better contrast. originally i had thought of just doing a flat treatment with sharp shadows... i may have gotten carried away in rendering. especially considering this was during lunch.
