Blargh

My mom has been pushing me to make a portfolio. Unfortunately, it's just not as easy as putting some sketches in a leather-bound book or whatever. I have no finished pieces, I haven't taken a life drawing class (yet), and I still stink at digital art. I didn't realize until she started pushing me that I am not prepared for anything professional.

I'm definitely going back to school this summer though. Community College, of course, but still going back. I want to take Drawing 3 and Life Drawing and maybe painting. I also have some general education classes that I need to do. I'm in no rush to graduate though. It'd be nice to get into Devry or one of the Art Institutes of California or maybe an animation school, but with the financial crap and all, I just don't see that happening. My plan is to get back into school, get a job, graduate, still have that job, and hopefully do some freelance stuff. My family is full of people who have their own store, beauty shop, or some other kind of business. Though it never feels like a real job when I am selling stuff to my family.

Been trying to think of a name for my website, even though it will be a while before I make it. I don't want anything to fancy and I just don't want my name. I really want to work on the design of it though and still see if I have any remembrance of coding still left in me.

Sketch a Day - I should probably stop calling this Sketch a Day since I've been really bad at keeping up, but now I have an excuse: I ran out of paper in all four of my sketchbooks!

Anyway, I've been wanting to practice more male anatomy so I sketched up some quick poses. No references for the poses. I'm starting to get the hang of it. I just have to be watch out for when I get into phases where I draw nothing but females. I can't help it! We're so curvy and fun to draw! This sketch is a couple of days old, but we're going to date it as April 8, 2008.

( Click for picture )

I'm reentering that phase where everything I draw turns out looking like crap. Hooray.

I wanna make several character reference sheets and have been looking at examples, but what would be the most crucial things to include? Zoomed in character profiles? Weaponry (if they have it)? Palettes? I feel like if I add too much it'll be too cluttered.

This is too awesome.

I think when I get more money coming in I will make yet another website. It's been so long since I've last done that and I remember having a lot of fun with designing websites. Plus, I think it will help with motivation for art. Yup yup.

My grandfather went back to the hospital for another operation. They had to patch up a vein. It went well, thankfully.

I've been trying to draw, but I'm relapsing into that phase of nothing-coming-out-right. Oye. I hate it when I start sketching and think "I'm so going to attempt to colour this in Photoshop" and somehow the picture starts coming out rushed and ugly and inaccurate.

World of Warcrack is starting to pull me back in, but I am trying to resist temptation. That game let me escape from all the shit that's going on around me. I just need to find a new, less addictive escape.

Hopefully my art will be that escape once I start becoming more comfortable with how I draw. Every time I draw something, I erase and erase and erase. I'm just never certain about anatomy. Where the shoulder is, how high or low the collar bone should be, if the forearm is too long or too short. I have several books on drawing anatomy from realism to cartoons and I'm still confused. I don't like being confused. I feel like I'm stuck in this sort of novice stage and I want to be at the moderate level, if not the expert. It's been several years now and I feel like my style is degenerating back to a level of kindergarten crayon drawings.

Of course, the simple solution would be go back to school and try life drawing classes.

But that requires me to get up and out. /whines Who the hell goes outside?

Joking.

I just have to practice, practice, and did I mention practice?

Well, it's a whole new week! (Yay... /cry) Which means a whole week of me feeling bad because I am sitting on my ass all day. So I am going to try and do a to do list to motivate me. Even though, it will probably have me sitting on my ass still.

Art
[x] Gift for grandfather
[x] Character Reference Sheet:
Vasily
Iarkalwen
Raeenith (I've been wanting to do a character reference sheet for this character. I've used this handle a lot for WoW and have always fallen in love with the name. I just don't know how she'll look because she was always an Elf on WoW and she looked like Iarkalwen. So I suppose I should actually work on the actual character before I try to dive into a reference sheet.)
[x] Portfolio
[x] Male anatomy

Health
[x] Gym on Tuesday (Yay... /cry)
[x] Don't look at the pop in the kitchen! /covers eyes
[x] I guess start keeping track of Weight Watchers points (Yay...)

Work/School
[x] Fill out application for Office Depot
[x] Figure out if I should go back to Community College and finish that crap up or try some else...again...

Other
[x] Fill out Jury Duty form. GRR YOU CAN'T MAKE ME GO! >:O Have to do this soon otherwise I'm going to get fined for like $1,400.

This actually helps even if it seems stupid because most of these things I've forgotten about.

( Click to see the sketch )

Sketch from 03-29-08 below the fully coloured image. =)

Decided to try out Open Canvas again and I forgot how much I love it. It always gives me good results. This was just a little practice with digital colouring. Anatomy is off, I know. The highlights got lost in the Hue/Saturation modifying that I did in Photoshop and the hair is awful and chunky. lol I never knew how to do hair and rarely kept a technique for colouring it. Overall, I am feeling okay about the piece.

Edit: I keep forgetting about the eyes. I'm too lazy to fix em. lol

Okay, okay! So I cheated. This is actually an old sketch. But darnit, I spent about 3 hours making a drawing on Electric Stars only to have Opera crap out right when I was about to upload it. Though, I wasn't finished.

Anyway, this is a sketch of a Ritualist from Guild Wars.

Blah I'm fat. And it's not bloating from my once-a-month visit from the magical red monster. I really need to go on a diet. I promise this is my last soda and that was my last awesome, juicy, delicious double cheeseburger from In-N-Out. =)

I don't want to watch Grey's Anatomy or Scrubs. Don't bother putting me in front of the television for an episode of House. Whenever I hear any kind of beeping noise, I automatically assume I am back in that hospital. I will forever be careful with how I live for I do not wish to be placed in one myself.

Where to begin.

My grandfather, like I have said previously, is in the hospital due to foot (and leg I'm assuming) problems. Tuesday (I think, the whole week feels like one large day) my mother delivered the sad news that my grandfather would have to have his leg amputated. My mother was crying, I couldn't cry right then and there and I felt like a monster for it. I simply embraced her and went in my room. I don't think the fact hit me right then and there when she told me, because once I went in my room, closed what I was doing on the computer, turned off the monitor, and laid in the darkness, I cried.

We went to the hospital the day after. I didn't sleep that night. I couldn't. We went there around 8am I think. He was supposed to go into surgery at 12pm or 3pm if the noon time didn't work out. He went into surgery at 6pm.

They drugged him too much. Well, that's how I feel. He wasn't himself. I didn't like seeing him talk and talk and not be able to understand him. He didn't let me embrace him. Actually, I think in all my life I've only hugged my grandfather once. I don't think he is used to hugging/showing any emotion towards anyone who is not his offspring, and, I assume, any brother or sister or aunt, mother, father, et cetera. I'm surprised I haven't gotten used to the idea.

Thankfully they only cut below the knee. That way he can still bend his leg when he gets a prosthetic. They said he had two ulcers in his stomach as well.

The anesthesia was wearing off after the surgery. Because he is older, he reacted not so great to it. They said he was thrashing about, trying to take off the blankets that were on him, unaware of what was going on around him. I didn't see him. Neither did my sister or cousin. We left at 10pm. My mother, sister, and I slept over my grandmother's to keep her company. It took a while to sleep. I think I got a good 6 hours of sleep though.

Went back to the hospital, he's in high spirits thankfully. My mother's aunt, which I don't know what that would make her to me, came in. She got into an argument with one of the workers, but the worker had a bad attitude, so it's okay. Heh. He's leaving the hospital tomorrow to go to rehab for a couple of days. We wanted details about it. The worker was snooty as it is and she just got snootier. And I don't feel like explaining the rest. I'm so tired.

We left about an hour or so later. Grabbed some food, came home, ate, fell asleep for I don't know how long. But long enough to prevent me from sleeping tonight apparently.

Tomorrow I'm going with my mother, sister, and a family friend to lunch. The family friend is quitting her job that my mother is also an employee at so we're doing a sort of goodbye lunch I guess you can call it. They work at a place that does payroll for movies, commercials, et cetera. It'll be nice to be out away from a hospital. Though my cousin is due for her daughter soon. /sobs

I'm exhausted. I want to draw. The red monster snuck up on me and I have the worse cramps ever so actually getting to the point of getting up to get my sketch book and trying to enter that state of mind where I actually feel inspired is difficult and doesn't seem to want to happen. So my wonderful idea of the whole sketch a day is on hold for now due to the fact that I am a lazy fat ass. =D

Now, because I am so lazy, I am going to go make pixelated people do hard work in their pixelated world. In other words, The Sims 2.

It's been a long time since I've written anything here. I don't know if I can pick up the habit of posting at least everyday, but darnit, I'ma try! Here's hoping for the beginning of a sketch-a-day habit as well.

Earthlink is giving me troubles. The thing won't stay connected. I was able to get it back up, but this time I think it may have been Linksys causing the trouble (Linksys is the router that ensures that my mother and sister (when she is over here) connect to the internet through their laptops. When the internet is not up, unfortuantly, I gotta deal with the constant questioning of "is the internet up yet?!" Well, it's up, but it's half up. I keep visiting websites and getting the dreaded ERROR! page that lets me know that my internet is on its break and demands not to be disturbed, but he'll come back every now and then to let me view a webpage, just not the webpage's images. I wish we lived somewhere where Yahoo! DSL was not just out of our reach. The boundary that divides the area that they offer service to and the area which they don't is literally just by us.

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I've been spending a lot of time with my family. Between my cousin's babyshower, my grandmother's 36th birthday (wink), and Easter coming up, I'm getting sick of 'em! Joking, of course. My grandfather is unfortuantly in the hospital due to more foot problems. I don't know the details but it has something to do with blood clots (or clogs) in his bloodstream (wrong usage of terminology, I'm sure). Either way, I don't like watching him walk around on a walker. It pains me.

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I've been looking through my past entries and all I can say is wow, I was a loser! Still am, but still. I'm a never beelete them all. I don't care if they can never be replaced. It's embarassing.

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Ever since I canceled my WoW accounts and uninstalled the damn thing I've been drawing more. Took me a while to get over the whole withdrawal thing, but I am over it and happy about it. I was one of the many cases that let that damn game take over my life. I take full blame for letting myself get sucked in, of course. Either way, I have been drawing more and I have come to the full realization that I have sucked in the past and still do. So, like I said before, hopefully I will be posting a sketch a day. I don't know if I'm going to skip today (I'm already being lazy!), maybe I'll post something later. Most of them won't be fancy (hell, none of them will most likely) and they will be sketchy (duh) and not finished. It's mainly to get back into the rhythm. I stopped drawing ever since I started playing WoW. It's been several months, but I finally got my muse (and groove!) back.

Finally some art in this artless art journal of artsy art enjoyment.

Art.

( Sketch of Iarkalwen )

I AM SO ANGRY. I drew the most awesomest Oekaki I have ever Oekaki'd and what happens? Opera freezes for the first time ever! I wait it out for about ten minutes, thinking it will come back. This all happened during the uploading process. Thankfully, it was only, partially an outline of the drawing instead of it being something completed and taking forever, but still. I really liked it.

Yay, I'm back! Vacation wasn't all that great. I'm quite sick of Vegas so I was just natural in a "blah" sort of mood.

The day of our leave, I was quite sick and miserable, especially on the way back and still am.

My room has the horrible stench of barbeque. I'm not a vegetarian, so it has nothing to do with anything animal related, it's just this icky smell that won't go away.

Going to Vegas! I will be back on the 2nd!
Then I will start updating and finally get the website up!

Woot! <3 I just went icon-splurging! I figured, since I have a sponsered journal, I might as well take advantage of everything it had to offer.

Talk about lack of updates! I just got Guild Wars yesterday! That's Iarkalwen on my new icon. I can already tell this is going to be a long addiction. Especially since Krissie has it and I'm still waiting for her to get back from her vacation. I know it's going to be super fun with a guild, even if it is a guild of two! >D

Unfortuantly, I'm going to have to buy a new graphics card. Everytime I try to delete or move around stuff in my inventory, the game crashes and restarts. It's fine though, I've been wanting a new graphics card. I might as well upgrade the computer too if need be.