I will live each day with Passion! 私は情熱毎日住んでいる!

I am going to be serious, right now. None of this is meant to insult anyone, whoever ends up seeing this-but bring forth my frustrations in myself and in the "common" art of today. This subject may seem silly to some, may invigorate others, and hopefully will bring light to all the artists I know and love.

How many times a day do we commit to our work, do we truly reach into the deep depths of our very beings and dig around for the gut wrenching, emotional circumstances that make us who were are? How often is it that we can finish an piece of artwork and not feel both emotionally enlightened and suffocated all at once!? Where does the passion of being come from and go to within us- are we fully listening to ourselves as Creators, as Life-Givers, as Artists?

Or are we just skimming the surface:Are we placing false works before us and feeling accomplished because of our technical prowess? Sloshing out pieces that are copies or half interpretations of another's magic? Slapping around paints or words, or lyrics that are "catchy" or "popular". What Ever happened to the voice behind our hearts that claws at our throats and fingertips for release?

Where are our Muses? Where is our passion and dedication?

Perhaps I am hasty in including all artists in this. Mayhaps I am venting my own frustrations of self-searching onto you. But can you honestly look around you at the artwork you see commonly and be simply...okay with diving into a crowd of sameness? My friends have talent, we all have talent- and I love you all for your shining examples of unique-ness! I APPLAUD YOU FOR YOU.

But now I challenge you. I CHALLENGE YOU- right here and now, to commit yourself to your life, to your self given slavery, to yourself as your art possesses of you. Let yourself get carried away in its passions, as wretchedly blissful as they are.

Niavete or wisdom, take these words as you will. Yet I must vent this feeling building up inside me.

Recent Updates

Classes start today for me, even though I get the easy end of the stick. One class today, and none tomorrow, so I get an early weekend. YAY! Only, I am a weird person and have always been, and am actually disappointed I don't have classes right away. I have always enjoyed learning and discovering new things.

Next Friday I will be leaving for North Carolina until the following Saturday, so yay for vacations!.. Even though classes just started. HA. My family plans things silly.

I thought I'd share some of my favorite music with you all. I love the Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi. If you have seen any of Miyazaki-san's films you are familiar with him. I especially love The Tarara Workwoman's Song. Unfortunately, you cannot find this on youtube, but if you ever watch Princess Mononoke, it is in the iron melding rooms that it is sung. It is very short, but full of honor and pride. I also love Mononoke Hime- the theme and main song for the film Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) which is here, although this particular singer is not my favorite. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIfsbYvz6nQ


Also- Here is this. O_o. It was created for a compilation for the Autumn Society, to help get my name out there. Joe Game set this up to help the community, which is pretty awesome of him, and with only spending 5 bucks to get into a small collection to be passed out to people at the Baltimore Comic Con this year. Sweetness in a can.

Fox Spirits and Bad Scans

Just sharing some bad scans from one of my new sketch books. I am completely awful at scanning. I scanned each one of these, viewing them, and decided they were cut just how i wanted them... when somehow the finished scan is completely NOT what I intended. However, I am too lazy to rescan them, when I'm not going to use them for anything except.. this.

This is the cover of my book, with my Inari on it. I love drawing foxes, and often times my foxes have little clown arrows around their eyes, so I decide that this particular character would be my Muse, Inari (Inari is a Japanese shinto fox god/goddess).

^The pose is mimicking "Okami" but i'm not sure I got it completely right.

More Inari-s and bad scans. Working with pens this time. =O

I also have a black sense of humor. Poor snail (muahaha)

Awful scan number 4! Wandering post-apocolyptic desert family. One of my better successes at drawing cartoon-children.

At some point I'll post something that actually makes my art look good!!! And is not a crappy scan. <3

Simple talk

Not much happening these days. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I just wish I could get some form of work. Everyone I know has some type of commissioned work or etc. that they are doing, and thats awesomely exciting for them! And all I'm really doing is working on storyboards and keeping myself busy with Video games/ art tests like this one here.

This is not anything fancy, just a test of the "taper" sumi-e in Corel Painter. Had some fun with it, but couldn't get her nose correct =/. meh. tests are test =)


Ha! I wish I had the patience for traditional cross-hatching by hand, but its never been my forte. Although... practice makes... well, nobody's perfect, but it certainly makes an artist improve herself!!


Also- Recently been watching GARGOYLES series all over again. oh the goodness. OH. THE. GOODNESS. Seriously folks. Their ears even have secondary action. Woosh.

Oh Greg Weisman.

The Princess and the Frog Teaser

OOOkkaaaaay. Disney has released a teaser for its upcoming film (Not sure when about its release, but I've been pumped for this 2D film since I've heard about it).

Looks... interesting. Not enough to go by to say it 'll be good, but another 2D film reaching the market its... a gateway to possibly more. So, enjoy this 30 second teaser!

http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/princessandthefrog/

Portfolio

Talk of Great Things

I figured I should touch upon some of the wonderful films I have seen while in France, during the Annecy Film Festival.

A wonderful french film was featured, entitled Tous a L'Ouest: Un Aventure de Lucky Luke. (To the West! An Lucky Luke Adventure). It was funny and engaging, with plenty of slapstick humor and a storyline both children and adults could appreciate. Set in America during the early 1900's, it revolves truly around four brothers in crime, and their attempt to swindle and overcome the lackadaisical cowboy, Lucky Luke fastest draw in all of the U.S. I wasn't so impressed with the film, although I did enjoy it. I felt there was an exceeding amount of 3-D models used for things like cars and wagons and horses. This wouldn't have been such a problem for me if they hadn't firstly stuck out like a sore thumb in the 2-d world, and if ALSO they were different colored models that perhaps weren't synchronized with each other. I mean, come on people, its not hard to mess up the timing so everything doesnt look robotic! All in all I gave the movie a C, though I know I'll get kicked for it.

I also got to see the beautiful Nocturna, which is a film I have been simply itching to see. Unfortunately, I scheduled myself , unwittingly, to see the French version of this films and it had no subtitles. I was however, able to use my rudimentary french to understand the most of it. I also believe the clear visuals helped me to understand exactly how each character felt, and the acting was wonderful. The visionary world of Nocturna is dark and wonderful, and I was in love with it, even if the story was perhaps not the deepest out there. Honestly folks, though, I can appreciate simple storylines, and why shouldn't I? I felt much more attached to this feature than any I had seen, and I give it a B+, A-.

Though I regret not seeing it, the winner of feature film at Annecy was Die Drei Rauber. I have heard wonderful things about this film, and I intend to see it. It apparently is off of the folk tale, the three robbers. This film I have been told is hysterical for all its upbeat kooky-ness, and also a touching film at that. It centers around a young girl who is "abducted" by three robbers, who end up becoming closely like family to her, and take care of her. I believe it ends up that the four of them attempt to free orphans from the awful clutches of some terrible lady at an orphanage... That's really long winded and all I know. Anyway- Three Cheers for DIE DREI RAUBER winning the feature crystal. <3>